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Posts Tagged ‘Europe’

A judge granted the request of the Mexican consortium Vitro, the largest glass producer in the country to start a bankruptcy process to negotiate debt restructuring with foreign creditors for a thousand 500 million dollars, the company reported today .

“The Fourth District Court in civil matters and work in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, consented to the application of insolvency prior to the restructuring plan submitted by Vitro,” the company said in a statement sent to the Mexican Stock Exchange.  At the end of the third quarter of this year, Vitro had gross borrowings per thousand 706 million dollars, of which 90% is denominated in dollars, yet 86% are contracted at fixed rates.  According to various media, now seeks to restructure debt Vitro by a thousand $ 515 million to foreign creditors and a thousand other $ 900 million and its subsidiaries.

He added that this measure can go directly to the conciliation stage and that soon be given the stage of having credit and then vote on the agreement” proposed.  Sanchez said the restructuring plan submitted by Vitro debt helps the company move ahead as soon as possible and opens a more expeditious than some funds intended for minority whose interests differ from the majority. He indicated that the process will help the company to raise the value of the investment of greater value to the new debt and give the company more viable. The company, founded in 1909, is the leading manufacturer of glass products for industrial, domestic construction and Mexico and has facilities and distribution centers in 10 countries in America and Europe, and exports to 50 nations.

“There are more risks in the euro zone than outside.”  It is the words of the Polish central bank governor, Marek Belka, earlier this month, voicing personal thoughts leaders across Central and Eastern Europe.  Many of those who think longly and hard about the promise to join the euro they make when they enter the European Union. They certainly will oversee the fate of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain (PIIGS) with vibration.

Now the crisis makes them less competitive and with a large debt. But the cheap drugs for the disease, devaluation of currencies, rather than an option on the euro. “The consensus has been pushed to the end of this decade,” said Martin Blum, an economist Ithuba Capital, a fund specializing Austrian border in the region.  Czech Republic and Poland, countries with well-known eurosceptic politicians, not too want to join the euro zone altogether.

Both are fine outside of the euro in the crisis of 2009, partly thanks to the decline in their currencies sharply, which helps them remain competitive.  Poland did not even have a recession, an achievement that is almost unique in Europe, even though government spending has to do with it.  Estonia, which hopes to join the euro in January, economic shrinkage by 17% last year after cutting government spending and refused to devalue its currency, Kroon.

Major European stock markets ended with widespread losses by raising concerns about Europe’s debt after Moody’s downgraded the status of Ireland in five steps. The markets reacted gloomily to the decision of Moody’s, which warned that further cuts could occur if Dublin was not able to stabilize the situation, besides that put the rating under review for possible downgrade Greece.

At the conclusion of the trading day in Europe, the Milan MIB Index posted the biggest drop and closed with a negative 1.46 percent, followed by Madrid’s Ibex-35 was left with a low of 1.12 percent. In currency trading, the European Central Bank (ECB) fixed the official rate of the euro against the dollar at 1.3260, an increase of 0.0022 units (0.02 percent) from its listing last Thursday of 1.3238 dollars per unit.

Following the closure of the trading day on Friday in the major stock exchanges in Europe:

Stock Index Close (Previous / Current) Percent Variation

London FTSE-100 5,881.12 / 5,871.75 -9.37 -0.16%

Paris CAC-40 3,888.36 / 3,867.35 -21.01 -0.54%

Frankfurt DAX 7,024.40 / 6,982.45 -41.95 -0.60%

Zurich SMI 6,566.17 / 6,538.16 -28.01 -0.43%

Madrid Ibex-35 10,010.30 / 9,898.10 -112.20 -1.12%

Milan MIB Index 20,366.60 / 20,069.20 -297.44 -1.46%

Lisbon PSI-20 7,833.63 / 7,786.42 -47.21 -0.60%

Enforcing basic levels of security seems to be something small European businesses have mastered, especially those that use the Internet as the main medium to conduct their business.  Spyware and viruses are the first terms that come to mind when someone asks for talks about Internet security but the fact of the matter is that there are many more threats that can compromise the valuable data small businesses in Europe rely on.

The recent security survey conducted by Symantec Corp. has revealed some interesting information about the level of security European small businesses put in place and how their data may become compromised by e-mail spam tactics known as phishing.

Spammers and fraudsters seem to be moving away from high tech tools such as viruses or spyware and have begun to focus on methods that require less work (as far as technology) and are more cunning in order to get valuable information from small business owners and use it against them.  E-mail phishing is nothing more than an e-mail that appears to be official and has a set of instructions that will ultimately lead to a data leak.

In order to detect phishing scams one needs to take a hard look at the e-mail address that was used to send the message, the language that is being used and the links such e-mail has.  As a European small business owner you should never assume that an e-mail is legitimate only because it appears to come from an established business.  Copying the images and appearance of a site and applying that “theme” to an e-mail is not hard to do, if a small business owner assumes that an evil message is legitimate just because it looks like the website of a trusted financial institution or business partner to risk being taken is very high.

Phishing e-mails will often contain hyperlinks that will take the reader from the message to a website, paying attention to the URL of the page where you are being redirected can help you identify potential scam.  The Symantec Corp. has revealed that small business owners may not be as vulnerable to viruses as they are to phishing scams, especially when to phishing e-mail targets an employee in charge of the accounts payable or receivable (known as minnowing) or when targets the small business owner and people working in important positions (also known as whaling)

In order to combat such problem it is recommended that European small businesses train their staff in order to make them fully aware of the threats and security breaches that can be caused by a simple phishing e-mail and how to recognize a fraudulent message when it arrives at their inbox.