New projects: the best approach
New projects: the best approach
One reason for integrating a new project within an existing firm can be because of operational and financial synergies. Another reason could be to subsidize new projects using the cash flows of existing firms. And a third hypothesis is that promoters prefer to house lucrative projects in firms in which they have a large shareholding.
What do the results show? The authors say, “Our results suggest that a key motive behind integration is to subsidize and support the new project using the cash flows of an existing group firm. Consistent with this idea, we find that larger and more profitable business groups are more likely to integrate projects, and that the integrated projects are more likely to be from less profitable industries. Within the group, projects are more likely to be housed in larger and more profitable group firms." In other words, the idea is to subsidize the new venture, using the cash flows from a profitable existing firm. The study also finds that promoters prefer to house good projects in firms in which they have a large proportion of shares. The market usually reacts negatively to announcements of new projects, but the reaction is positive if projects are announced within firms that have high levels of promoter shareholding. That’s because, say the researchers, the market believes that such projects are likely to be profitable.
World oil demand’s shift toward faster-growing and less price-responsive products and regions
By Joyce M. Dargay, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds; and Dermot Gately, New York University
The authors point out that demand for oil is shifting to developing regions that are growing more rapidly and whose demand is less responsive to higher prices. The upshot: “In contrast to projections to 2030 of declining per capita demand for the world as a whole—by the US Department of Energy, International Energy Agency and Opec (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)—we project modest growth. Our projections for total world demand in 2030 are at least 20% higher than projections by those three institutions, using similar assumptions about income growth and oil prices, because we project rest-of-world growth that is consistent with historical patterns, in contrast to the dramatic slowdowns which they project." The extra 20 millions barrel per day consumption in the developing world that the authors envisage is, incidentally, about twice the current production of Saudi Arabia.
Illustrations by Jayachandran / Mint
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