News USA Markets

Organizations from South and East Asia (10) and Central America and the Caribbean (9) accounted for the majority of acquisitions made in the United States in the second half of 2013. Organizations based in China (51) and South and East Asia (36) were the top acquirers in H2D deals in the second half of 2013.

“H2D transactions are beginning to rise,”

said

Barnes. “We are seeing a trend towards organizations in high growth markets acquiring companies in developed markets in order to diversify their portfolios, with the United States remaining attractive

to investors due to the perceived stability of the North American market and predictable growth within the region.”

High-Growth-to-High- Growth (H2H) Deals Continue to Drop

In the second half of 2013, there were 108 total H2H deals, down from 120 in the first half of 2013. The Commonwealth of Independent States was the most popular regional target, registering 19 inbound deals, according to the KPMG study. Russia was the leading emerging market acquirer with 28 deals.

Greenpeace Reveals How Companies are Building the Green Internet

Greenpeace, the leading non - governmental environmental organisation, has revealed its top and lowest ranked companies in

terms of their use of renewable energy for providing some of worlds most popular online services.

outperformed the S&P 500 and the broader stock markets.

Financial sponsors continued to take advantage of the open IPO window and actively pursued public listings for their portfolio companies, backing 75 percent of the first quarter IPOs, a significant increase over the same time period last year when only 50 percent of the first quarter IPOs were backed by financial sponsors. However, an IPO is often only the first stage of an exit process, and these financial sponsors were selling shareholders in only 14 percent of sponsor backed IPOs, raising $2.7 billion in proceeds from investors. The quarter saw 2 spin- off IPOs that raised $579 million.

The open IPO window and

strong equity market helped set the stage for the highest quarterly filings since the second quarter of 2011, with 108 companies publicly filing for an IPO. IPOs are taking less time in the public domain to complete, due in part to the confidential filing provisions of the JOBS Act, and of the 108 first quarter IPO filings, 30 IPOs had already priced by quarter end.

The JOBS Act, designed to spur IPO activity in the U.S., celebrates its second birthday in April 2014 with many

of the provisions

being adopted by issuers. Eighty-two percent of filers in the first quarter met the definition of an emerging growth company as defined by the JOBS Act, and over 87 percent of these issuers utilized the confidential filing provisions.

The organisations report, Clicking Clean: How Companies are Building the Green Internet, questions how the companies that are storing all of the data that enable popular social media, music, video, email and ecommerce services are getting all of their energy. The organisation ranked companies in one of three distinct classes;

• Stuck in dirty energy past: Efficiency only, using mostly dirty energy, have taken few or no steps to switch to renewables

• Middle of the Road: Taking steps toward a greener internet, but not leading the way

• Green Internet

Innovators: Committed to 100% renewable energy. Their leadership is helping to make our lives, online and offline, greener.

Greenpeace’s top three rated companies and “Green Internet Innovators” are Apple, Facebook, and Google.

According to the report, “Apple’s aggressive pursuit

of its commitment to power the iCloud with 100% renewable energy has given the company the inside track among the IT sector’s leaders in building a green Internet. Apple has made good on its pledge by building the largest privately owned solar farms at its North Carolina data center, working with its utility in Nevada to power its upcoming data center there with solar and geothermal energy, and purchasing wind energy for its Oregon and California data centers. Apple’s commitment to renewable energy has helped set a new bar for the industry, illustrating in very concrete terms that a 100% renewable internet is within its reach, and providing several models of intervention for

other

companies that want to build a sustainable Internet.”

Among the organisation’s “Middle of the Road” companies was IBM;

“IBM is focusing on services delivered by cloud computing, announcing a $1.2 billion investment in expanding its global cloud business and data center fleet. IBM has had a solid track record of reducing its emissions over the past decade, but as it continues to scale its investments in cloud-related infrastructure, IBM needs to identify how it will secure a renewable electricity supply, and use its influence to demand clean energy and boost its direct renewable energy purchasing in the US.”

‘Stuck in the energy past’, however, are the likes of Amazon, Dupont Fabros, and Digital Reality.

“Amazon Web Services (AWS), owned by Amazon. com,

has grown since

its launch in 2006 into one of the largest digital ecosystems of the online world. With an impressive array of services and the ability to quickly scale based on demand, AWS now serves many of the most well-known online brands, including Netflix, Pinterest, Spotify, and Vine. Unfortunately, AWS has dropped further and further behind its competitors in building an internet that runs on renewable sources of energy, estimated at only 15%, and is the least transparent of any company we evaluated.”

Greenpeace expresses that “Major brands are taking meaningful steps to steer their infrastructure investments toward cleaner energy, but the sector as a whole remains focused on rapid growth. Most companies still are myopic to the critical nature of their energy choices, focusing only on maximizing efficiency. The replacement of dirty sources of electricity with clean renewable sources is still the crucial missing link in the sector’s sustainability efforts.”

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