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Commission publishes report on removing tax obstacles to cross-border venture capital investment
April 30, 2010--Today the European Commission published a report which outlines the double taxation problems that arise when venture capital is invested cross-border, as well as possible solutions. The report sets out the findings and recommendations of an independent group of EU tax experts, which was set up by the Commission to look at how to remove the main tax barriers to cross-border investment in venture capital. Venture capital is a vital source of growth for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, facilitating venture capital investment within the EU is crucial for good economic growth. The Commission will now consider how best to follow up on the findings in the Report, , in line with its broader agenda to eliminate double taxation in the EU.
Algirdas Šemeta, Commissioner for Taxation, Customs, Audit and Anti-Fraud, said: “Venture capital is the lifeblood for many SMEs. And, as recognised in the EU's 2020 goals, improving the business environment for SMEs is crucial if we are to build a stronger, sustainable economy. Therefore, we must make an efficient European venture capital market a reality, and this means eliminating any tax obstacles that still stand in its way."
Today’s report summarises the main findings and conclusions of the Expert Group on Removing Tax Obstacles to Cross-border Venture Capital Investments. The group was set up by the Commission in 2007, as one of a series of measures aimed at facilitating cross-border venture capital investment in the EU, to the benefit of SMEs.
There are two main problems identified in the report, and possible solutions are recommended:
Firstly, the local presence of a venture capital fund manager in the Member State into which an investment is made may be treated as a taxable presence ("permanent establishment") of the fund or of the investors in that State. This could lead to double taxation if the return on the investment is also taxed in the country or countries where the fund or investors are located. The experts propose that a venture capital fund manager should not be considered as creating a taxable presence for the fund or investors in the Member State where the investment is made. This would reduce double tax problems for cross border venture capital investment.
read the Venture Capital Tax Expert Group on Removing Tax Obstacles to Cross-Border Venture Capital Investments report
Source: Eurostat
Flash estimate - April 2010
Euro area inflation estimated at 1.5%
April 30, 2010--Euro area1 annual inflation2 is expected to be 1.5% in April 2010 according to a flash estimate issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. It was 1.4% in March3.
Computation of flash estimates
Euro area inflation is measured by the Monetary Union Index of Consumer Prices (MUICP). To compute the MUICP flash estimates, Eurostat uses early price information relating to the reference month from Member States for which data are available4 as well as early information about energy prices.
The flash estimation procedure for the MUICP combines historical information with partial information on price developments in the most recent months to give a total index for the euro area. No detailed breakdown is available. Experience has shown the procedure to be reliable (19 times exactly anticipating the inflation rate and 5 times differing by 0.1 over the last two years).
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Source: Eurostat
March 2010-Euro area unemployment rate at 10.0%-EU27 at 9.6%
April 30, 2010--The euro area1 (EA16) seasonally-adjusted2 unemployment rate3 was 10.0% in March 2010, the same as in February4. It was 9.1% in March 2009. The EU271 unemployment rate was 9.6% in March 2010, unchanged compared with February4. It was 8.5% in March 2009.
Eurostat estimates that 23.130 million men and women in the EU27, of whom 15.808 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in March 2010. Compared with February 2010, the number of persons unemployed increased by 123 000 in the EU27 and by 101 000 in the euro area. Compared with March 2009, unemployment went up by 2.546 million in the EU27 and by 1.389 million in the euro area.
These figures are published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in the Netherlands (4.1%) and Austria (4.9%), and the highest rates in Latvia (22.3%) and Spain (19.1%).
Compared with a year ago, one Member State recorded a fall in the unemployment rate and twenty-six an increase. The fall was observed in Germany (7.4% to 7.3%), and the smallest increases in Luxembourg (5.4% to 5.6%) and Malta (6.7% to 6.9%). The highest increases were registered in Latvia (14.3% to 22.3%), Estonia (7.6% to 15.5% between the fourth quarters of 2008 and 2009) and Lithuania (8.1% to 15.8% between the fourth quarters of 2008 and 2009).
Between March 2009 and March 2010, the unemployment rate for males rose from 8.9% to 10.0% in the euro area and from 8.6% to 9.8% in the EU27. The female unemployment rate increased from 9.3% to 10.1% in the euro area and from 8.5% to 9.4% in the EU27.
In March 2010, the youth unemployment rate (under-25s) was 19.9% in the euro area and 20.6% in the EU27. In March 2009 it was 19.0% and 18.9% respectively. The lowest rate was observed in the Netherlands (7.4%), and the highest rates in Latvia (44.9% in the first quarter of 2010) and Spain (41.2%).
In the USA, the unemployment rate was 9.7% in March 2010. In Japan it was 4.8% in February 2010.
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Source: Eurostat
Ten ETCs and Five ETNs Issued by Royal Bank of Scotland Launched on Xetra
April 29, 2010--Ten exchange traded commodities (ETCs) and five exchange traded notes (ETNs) issued by The Royal Bank of Scotland have been tradable throughout Europe on Xetra® since Thursday.
Seven of the ten ETCs enable investors to track the performance of commodities indices from the Rogers International Commodity Index family Enhanced (RICI Enhanced) for the first time. These seven RCI Enhanced ETCs track futures contracts in the following commodities:
Brent crude oil, WTI crude oil, natural gas, agricultural commodities, industrial metals, grains and oilseeds and a basket of 37 commodities. An optimized selection procedure incorporating a rollover effect is used to minimize possible negative impacts. The new rollover approach takes into account certain seasonal patterns and cycles associated with the individual commodities, an average futures contract trading volume of at least USD 25 million and concurrent investment in futures contracts with differing maturities.
The three remaining ETCs allow investors to participate in the performance of commodities indices from the S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index family. These three ETCs track the futures contracts on Brent crude oil, WTI crude oil and natural gas.
Four of the Royal Bank of Scotland ETNs enable investors to participate in the performance of the following equity indices from the MSCI Index family: MSCI FM (Frontier Markets) Daily Net Total Return Index, MSCI AC South East Asia Net TR USD Index, MSCI Gulf Cooperation Council ex SA Top 50 Net TR USD Index and MSCI Daily TR Net Emerging Markets USD Index. RBS also offers an ETN on the CECE Composit Index in EUR, which comprises leading Polish, Hungarian and Czech companies.
The product offering of Deutsche Börse’s ETP segment currently comprises 171 exchange traded commodities (ETCs) and 19 exchange traded notes (ETNs). The monthly trading volume of ETCs averages around €440 million.
< A HREF="http://deutsche-boerse.com/mr/binary/8278AC8525ED5744C125771400359CE3/$File/100429_RBS_ETCs_ETNs_e.pdf?OpenElement" target="_TOP">view listing
Source: Deutsche Börse
Prospects for IPOs Continuously Improving -Deutsche Börse IPO indicator shows increase in issuing activity
April 29, 2010--Deutsche Börse published the IPO indicator for Q2 2010 on Thursday. According to this indicator, sentiment concerning IPOs on the German equities market is increasingly positive. Falling volatility on equity markets combined with increasing share prices indicates heightened issuing activity. Parallel to this, market participants’ expectations concerning IPOs have continued to improve. Market participant’s perception that the difference between the issuing price and first listing price, the underpricing, recently decreased, is having a dampening effect. All in all, the environment for IPOs appears to be steadily improving.
The IPO indicator, which is published each quarter, is an important barometer for companies seeking capital that aim to go public and that are looking for the right moment to enter the capital market. The indicator is compiled from surveys of market participants and calculations by the Technical University in Munich using Deutsche Börse trading data.
“The successful first IPO quarter shows that equity capital is again available on the exchange. The indicators now available reliably show that the trend will continue in the coming months and that the issuing backlog will ease,” said Frank Gerstenschläger, member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Börse.
In Q1 2010, Deutsche Börse placed first among European listing venues with a total issue volume of US$ 2.24 billion. Studies regularly show that an IPO boosts companies' domestic and foreign sales, and encourages broader diversification and higher spending on research and development.
Source: Deutsche Börse
German funds look to emerging market debt – HSBC
April 29, 2010--German pension funds' appetite for fixed income exposure will push them towards investing in emerging market debt, according to HSBC.
“Given the funds’ risk budget, the bond share in portfolios will remain high, so in search for return we observe that pension funds will diversify into emerging market debt,” Bernd Franke, chairman of the board at HSBC Global Asset Management Germany, a subsidiary of HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt, told IPE.
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Source: IP&E
S&P warns of hit to property loans
April 29, 2010--Banks could be hit by more than €90bn ($119bn) of losses on commercial property loans in the UK, Ireland and Spain between 2009 and 2011, according to a new report from Standard & Poor’s, the rating agency.
Losses of that magnitude would account for about 10 per cent of total commercial property lending carried out in those countries over the two-year period.
S&P said that while there was some evidence of a rebound in property values, it did not expect this to trigger a big improvement in the level of bad loans
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Source: FT.com
First ETN Launched on EURO STOXX 50 Volatility Index on Xetra
April 28, 2010--Since Wednesday, a new Barclays Bank ETN bearing the product name iPath has been tradable in Deutsche Börse’s ETN segment.
ETN name: iPath VSTOXX Short-Term Futures Total Return ETN
Asset class: Volatility
ISIN: DE000BC2KTT9
Management fee: 0.89 percent
Benchmark: EURO STOXX 50 Volatility Index (VSTOXX)
The iPath VSTOXX Short-Term Futures Total Return ETN offers investors the opportunity to participate for the first time in the performance of the EURO STOXX 50 Volatility Short-Term Futures Index (VSTOXX Short-Term Futures Index). The VSTOXX Short-Term Futures Index tracks the implicit volatility of equities in the EURO STOXX 50® index based on a hypothetical portfolio. This portfolio reflects the returns on a rolling investment in two VSTOXX futures contracts which are traded on Eurex® and which have a residual maturity of one to two months.
Deutsche Börse’s ETN segment product range currently comprises 14 instruments on volatility, currency and equity indices. ETNs are exchange-traded debt securities. They track the performance of underlying reference indices outside the commodities sector and have been tradable on Xetra® since December 2009.
Source: Deutsche Börse
FSA takes tough action against poor complaint handling in banks
April 28, 2010--The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is taking tough action after finding weaknesses in five banks handling of customer complaints.
As a result of the review, five banks are undertaking major changes to the way they deal with complaints and two of the five banks have been referred to enforcement for further investigation.
The review looked at several banking groups responsible for over 70% of the complaints firms receive and report to the FSA and over 60% of those resolved by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).
It found poor standards of complaint handling within most of the banks assessed, including:
* A lack of senior management engagement and accountability for the delivery of fair complaint handling;
* Poorly designed staff incentive schemes that made branch staff reluctant to pay redress to customers, even in situations where the bank was at fault;
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Source: FSA.uk.org
CESR publishes responses to consultation on extending major shareholding notifications
April 28, 2010--CESR published today the responses received to its consultation on extending major shareholding notifications to instruments of similar economic effect to holding shares and entitlements to acquire shares.
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Source: CESR
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