World Markets Simplified

PHC, Inc., dba Pioneer Behavioral Health, and Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement. Upon the completion of the merger, Acadia stockholders will own approximately 77.5% of the combined company, and PHC stockholders will own approximately 22.5% of the combined company. Acadia intends to file a registration statement on Form S-4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the transaction. Effective with the approval of the merger, the corporate headquarters will be in Franklin, Tennessee, and the combined company will do business under the name Pioneer Behavioral Health. Acadia intends to apply for listing of the combined company's common stock to be issued in the merger on the NASDAQ stock market. Joey Jacobs, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Acadia, will become the Chairman and CEO of the combined company. The transaction is expected to be completed in late summer of 2011. The transaction will be a stock for stock exchange except for payments to PHC shareholders for fractional shares and $5 million of merger consideration payable to Class B holders of PHC's privately held securities. In connection with the transaction, Jefferies & Company, Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor and Arent Fox LLP acted as legal advisor to PHC. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to Acadia and Jefferies Finance LLC provided financing commitments to Acadia to support the transaction.

Russian Internet company Yandex ( NASDAQ: YNDX )shares surged to $ 61, way above its offering price of $ 25 per shares offering more than 100 % upside, but stock gradually come down as investors have booked profits and now just up 33% to $33.37. 

Yandex's $1.3 billion offering, the biggest U.S. internet listing since Google went public in 2004, comes on the heels of last week's blowout float by networking site LinkedIn amid demand reminiscent of the dot.com boom.

"The LinkedIn share price doubled on the first day of trading," said David Ferguson, an equity analyst at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. "We think the Yandex share price could potentially increase in the first couple of days after the IPO, due to the high oversubscription rate."

Tibor Bokor, at Otkritie brokerage in Moscow, predicted a jump of 25 percent in Yandex shares in the first day of trading, saying investors seeking a bigger position in the name would be ready to pay that premium.

"There is big demand for this kind of stock. It is a sector which will constantly surprise on the upside; expectations built into valuation models are currently below what the company is delivering short-term," Bokor said.

The company is selling 15.4 million new shares and shareholders are selling 36.8 million existing shares, equivalent to 16.2 percent of its enlarged equity of 321.2 million shares.

Lead managers had discussed raising guidance to $26-$27 after the book closed on Monday, a financial market source told Reuters. The price range was increased on Friday to $24-$25 from an initial $20-$22.

Market sources and sources close to the issue said the IPO had been in high demand since the order book opened, but interest spiked after the LinkedIn float.

Stellar Returns

The IPO valued Yandex at $8 billion, or around 500 times the company's worth when a group of private-equity investors led by Baring Vostok Capital Partners bought a 36 percent stake for just over $5 million in 2000.

Unlike social-networking sites like LinkedIn, Yandex's business model, driven by online advertising, has generated strong growth in earnings, which rose by 90 percent to $135 million last year.

Analysts and investors say, however, that the Yandex deal does set a demanding valuation at 18 times 2010 sales compared with Google's multiple of six.

For the company to deliver on its growth proposition it will have to defend its market share in Russian search, now at 65 percent against Google's 22 percent.

Analysts say that the search engine devised by co-founders Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich, regarded as better equipped to handle the grammatical complexities of the Russian language than Google's, will remain a vital competitive advantage.

"Yandex has a proper track record and a business model that investors understand," said Anna Lepetukhina, analyst at Troika Dialog in Moscow.

"It's the same as Google. It's a company that generates cash. And Google in Russia can't become Yandex."

Chennai, India based company Sify Technologies Limited( NASDAQ: SIFY ) has announced a partnership with Deutsche Telekom International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS), the international wholesalearm of Deutsche Telekom to provide IP and VPN services in India and Europe, Stock jumped more than 30 % to $ 5.83. Stock might b a good choice for investment.

CHENNAI, India, May 24, 2011 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sify Technologies Limited(NASDAQ Global Markets: SIFY), a leader in Enterprise Network and IT Services in India with global delivery capabilities and a pioneer in consumer internet services announced today their partnership with Deutsche Telekom International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS), the international wholesalearm of Deutsche Telekom.

This partnership will provide customers and partners with top-of-the-line IP and VPN services in India and Europe, by leveraging on each others investments in Submarine, Terrestrial Networks and local network reach as well as regional partnership to reach new growth markets in South Asian, Middle East & Africa markets.

Mr. Raju Vegesna, Chairman and Managing Director, Sify Technologies Limited said "SIFY is excited with this partnership with Deutsche Telekom ICSS, which will help customers in growth markets like India. This partnership with Deutsche Telekom ICSS is an endorsement of Sify's strength in high quality IP based Network Services. The alliance will strengthen each partner's service portfolio and market reach. SIFY- Deutsche Telekom ICSS alliance will enable SIFY to bring matured quality services to the India market and extend the same across global growth markets in South Asia, Middle East & Africa. The combination will enable seamless and quality VPN services for Indian & European carriers and enterprises as they collaborate to reach out to the international markets."

"Sify and Deutsche Telekom ICSS have entered into a win-win partnership, not just for Sify and Deutsche Telekom but for our customers. As the market changes and our customers face complex business challenges, this alliance between the top carriers of Europe and India will bring synergies that will benefit our customers jointly, said Dr. Holger Magnussen, Head of Deutsche Telekom ICSS. "It provides both the customers of Sify and Deutsche Telekom the ability to leverage on our complementary assets in Europe and India, to provide customers with unsurpassed level of service and a wider range of products more focused and aligned to customer needs.

This partnership overall, will provide more competitiveness in the market from the combined offering of our partnership, and I am excited of the opportunities and possibilities, this alliance will bring to both of us".

As announced earlier, SIFY's EIG (Europe India Gateway) submarine cable capacities are ready for activation and SIFY's exclusive partnership with GBI (Gulf Bridge International) to land their Submarine Cable System in India, is scheduled to go live in second half of 2011. This is part of a larger full fledged strategy from SIFY to interconnect the Global Growth markets and enable SIFY's ICT services globally.

About Sify Technologies

Sify is among the largest Managed Enterprise and Consumer Internet Services companies in India, offering end-to-end solutions with a comprehensive range of products delivered over a common telecom data network infrastructure reaching more than 625 cities and towns in India.

A significant part of the company's revenue is derived from Corporate Services, which include corporate connectivity, network and communications solutions, security, network management services, enterprise applications and hosting. Sify is a recognized ISO 9001:2008 certified service provider for network operations, data center operations and customer support, and for provisioning of VPNs, Internet bandwidth, VoIP solutions and integrated security solutions, and ISO / IEC 20000 - 1:2005 certified for Internet Data Center operations. Sify has also established a formidable reputation in the emerging Cloud Computing market and is today regarded as a thought leader in the domain. Sify has licenses to operate NLD (National Long Distance) and ILD (International Long Distance) services and offers VoIP back haul to long distance subscriber telephony services. The company is India's first enterprise managed services provider to launch a Security Operations Center (SOC) to deliver managed security services. A host of blue chip customers use Sify's corporate service offerings.

Sify also caters to global markets in the specialized domains of eLearning Services and Remote Infrastructure Management Services. The eLearning Services designs, develops and delivers state-of-the-art digital learning solutions for non-profit, for-profit organizations and governmental organizations in the fields of Information technology, engineering, environment, healthcare, education and finance. The Remote Infrastructure Management Services provides dependable and economical solutions around managed services, hosting and monitoring.

Sify Software was established with the cumulative experience gained over the last decade in infrastructure, Data centre and connectivity business. It aims to be a solutions company that provides applications and services to improve business efficiencies of its current clients and prospect client bases.

Consumer services include broadband home access and the ePort cyber cafe chain across more than 200 cities and towns in India. Very recently, Sify also introduced a whole host of services for the retail consumer on the Consumer cloud platform, thereby becoming among the first to do so in India. Sify.com, the popular consumer portal, has channels on news, entertainment, finance, sports, games and shopping. Samachar.com is the popular portal aimed at non-resident Indians around the globe. The site's content is available in 8 Indian languages, which include Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada and Tamil, Punjabi and Gujarati in addition to English.

For more information about Sify, visit http://www.sifycorp.com.

Deutsche Telekom is one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 128 million mobile customers, 36 million fixed-network lines and approximately 17 million broadband lines (as of March 31, 2011). The Group provides products and services for the fixed network, mobile communications, the Internet and IPTV for consumers, and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in over 50 countries and has around 244,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of EUR 62.4 billion in the 2010 financial year - more than half of it outside Germany (as of December 31, 2010).

International Carrier Sales & Solutions (ICSS), an integral part of Deutsche Telekom's International Businesses unit within the Europe organization, is the global communications enabler of the Deutsche Telekom Group and more than 700 external customers worldwide. As one of the largest carriers in the world, ICSS provides global voice communication, Internet connectivity to millions of eyeballs, and global roaming and messaging on next generation platforms, as well as smart content distribution, media exchange, and virtual carrier solutions. The international customers of ICSS experience seamless service provisioning, including global reach and the highest quality. The variety of solutions provided by ICSS is based on an expanding ultramodern infrastructure: Deutsche Telekom's international network.

For further information, see http://www.telekom-icss.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The forward-looking statements contained herein are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Sify undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements.

For a discussion of the risks associated with Sify's business, please see the discussion under the caption "Risk Factors" in the company's Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended March 31, 2010, which has been filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and is available by accessing the database maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov and Sify's other reports filed with the SEC.

Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before global cataclysm struck the planet, said he felt so terrible when his doomsday message did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions—some of it from donations made by followers—on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the Judgment Day message.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Camping revised his apocalyptic prophecy Monday, saying the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.

Follower Jeff Hopkins also spent a good deal of his own retirement savings on gas money to power his car so people would see its ominous lighted sign showcasing Camping's May 21 warning. As the appointed day drew nearer, Hopkins started making the 100-mile round trip from Long Island to New York City twice a day, spending at least $15 on gas each trip.

"I've been mocked and scoffed and cursed at and I've been through a lot with this lighted sign on top of my car," said Hopkins, 52, a former television producer who lives in Great River, NY. "I was doing what I've been instructed to do through the Bible, but now I've been stymied. It's like getting slapped in the face."

Camping, who made a special appearance before the press at the Oakland headquarters of the media empire Monday evening, apologized for not having the dates "worked out as accurately as I could have."

Through chatting with a friend over what he acknowledged was a very difficult weekend, it dawned on him that instead of the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the heavens, May 21 had instead been a "spiritual" Judgment Day, which places the entire world under Christ's judgment, he said.

The globe will be completely destroyed in five months, he said, when the apocalypse comes. But because God's judgment and salvation were completed on Saturday, there's no point in continuing to warn people about it, so his network will now just play Christian music and programs until the final end on Oct. 21.

"We've always said May 21 was the day, but we didn't understand altogether the spiritual meaning," he said. "The fact is there is only one kind of people who will ascend into heaven ... if God has saved them they're going to be caught up."

RELATED LINKS

Poll: How Do You Think the World Will End?Tips for the Apocalypse14 Spectacularly Wrong PredictionsPreachers Line Up Against May 21 Leader

It's not the first time the 89-year-old retired civil engineer has been dismissed by the Christian mainstream and has been forced to explain when his prediction didn't come to pass. Camping also prophesied the Apocalypse would come in 1994, but said later that didn't happen then because of a mathematical error.

Monday, rather than give his normal daily broadcast, Camping took questions as a part of his show, "Open Forum," which transmits his biblical interpretations via the group's radio stations, TV channels, satellite broadcasts and website.

Camping's hands shook slightly as he pinned his microphone to his lapel, and as he clutched a worn Bible he spoke in a quivery monotone about some listeners' earthly concerns after giving away possessions in expectation of the Rapture.

Family Radio would never tell anyone what they should do with their belongings, and those who had fewer would cope, Camping said.

"We're not in the business of financial advice," he said. "We're in the business of telling people there's someone who you can maybe talk to, maybe pray to, and that's God."

But he also said that he wouldn't give away all his possessions ahead of Oct 21.

"I still have to live in a house, I still have to drive a car," he said. "What would be the value of that? If it is Judgment Day why would I give it away?"

"While it may be in the near future, many signs of our times certainly indicate so, but anyone who thinks they 'know' the day and the hour is flat out wrong.”

Tim LaHaye,

Co-Author, 'Left Behind' Series

Apocalyptic thinking has always been part of American religious life and popular culture. Teachings about the end of the world vary dramatically—even within faith traditions—about how they will occur.

Still, the overwhelming majority of Christians reject the idea that the exact date or time of Jesus' return can be predicted.

Tim LaHaye, co-author of the best-selling "Left Behind" novels about the end times, recently called Camping's prediction "not only bizarre but 100 percent wrong!" He cited the Bible verse Matthew 24:36, "but about that day or hour no one knows" except God.

"While it may be in the near future, many signs of our times certainly indicate so, but anyone who thinks they 'know' the day and the hour is flat out wrong," LaHaye wrote on his website, leftbehind.com.

Signs of disappointment also were evident online, where groups that had confidently predicted the Rapture—and, in some cases, had spent money to help spread the word through advertisements—took tentative steps to re-establish Internet presences in the face of widespread mockery.

The Pennsylvania-based group eBible Fellowship still has a website with images of May 21 billboards all over the world, but its Twitter feed has changed over from the increasingly confident predictions before the date to circumspect Bible verses that seem to speak to the confusion and hurt many members likely feel.

Camping offered no clues about Family Radio's finances Monday, saying he could not estimate how much had been spent on getting out his prediction nor how much money the nonprofit had taken in as a result.

In 2009, the nonprofit reported in IRS filings that it received $18.3 million in donations, and had assets of more than $104 million, including $34 million in stocks or other publicly traded securities.

Josh Ocasion, who works the teleprompter during Camping's live broadcasts in the group's threadbare studio sandwiched between an auto shop and a palm reader's business, said he enjoyed the production work but he had never fully believed the May 21 prophecy would come true.

"I thought he would show some more human decency in admitting he made a mistake," he said. "We didn't really see that."

Are Indian investors the ultimate Lallu-Panju victims of corporate fraud? From the impunity with which promoters, government and even the courts are treating the interests of retail investors, it would appear so.

A case in point is Mahindra Satyam, the successor regime to Satyam Computer Services, which courted ignominy when its promoter B Ramalinga Raju (now in jail) announced on 7 January 2009 that he had overstated revenues to the tune of over Rs 5,900 crore by declaring fake bank balances, non-existent interest earnings and dues from debtors in audited accounts.

The fraud, quite obviously, ended up destroying the wealth of thousands of shareholders in India and abroad (the company had American Depository Receipts – ADRs – listed on the New York Stock Exchange) that accounted for 11-20 percent of the total shareholding base at various points of time.

But here's the iniquity: While the new Mahindra management has settled investor lawsuits in the US for $125 million (over Rs 565 crore at current exchange rates), Indian shareholders haven't got a paisa's worth of compensation. While investors in the US got another $25.5 million (about Rs 115 crore) from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the audit firm, for failing to do their duty, India shareholders got zilch.

The problem: India has no effective tort law under which shareholders can collectively sue company managements that seek to defraud them and obtain effective relief quickly. The US has a very strong one, and this is why Mahindra Satyam has quietly settled and dipped into the company's coffers to pay up.

But here's the second bit of unfairness that compounds the unhappy state of affairs for Indian shareholders. It is one thing to say that Indian shareholders won't be compensated, but quite another to say their remaining resources will be used to pay another set of investors in the US.

While reporting its fourth quarter earnings for 2010-11 on May 23, Mahindra Satyam reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 327 crore, largely because of the US payout.

The profits and revenues that belong to all shareholders are effectively being used to pay one small set of shareholders in the US (less than 20 percent of total shareholders) because their tort law is stronger than ours. Indian shareholders are doubly suckers in the process.

The point is this: when it was promoters who looted both sets of shareholders, it is the promoters who must compensate the losers ultimately. But the net result of Mahindra Satyam taking on the loss on its books is that all Indian shareholders are taking on the burden of compensating only US investors. They are being robbed twice over.

The Supreme Court dismissed an Indian public interest petition by Midas Touch Investor Association in 2009 that sought compensation of Rs 5,000 crore on behalf of retail investors. The Association first went to the consumer court, and then the Supreme Court, but a bench headed by the then Chief Justice, KG Balakrishnan, dismissed the petition as not maintainable.

Says a recent report in Mint newspaper: "The ability of Indian investors to take either Satyam or PwC to court is also limited because the current Companies Act doesn't have any clear provisions  regarding class action suits."

Virendra Jain, founder of Midas Touch, told Firstpost that Indian laws are not good enough: "We do have a tort law, but it is not effective. It can take 25 years to decide. How can you have effective investor protection without an effective compensation mechanism?"

It appears that Indian shareholders are second-class investors. Mahindra Satyam has not thought twice about robbing Pappu to pay Paul.

Reliance ADAG executives not only created a "web of companies" but also conspired to circumvent the DoT policy to get maximum out of the 2G scam, the Delhi High Court said while refusing them to give them bail in the case. 

ADAG Group MD Gautam Doshi, its Group President Surendra Pipara and Vice-President Hari Nair, who were named as accused in the first chargesheet by CBI, were "in league" to achieve the "end of conspiracy" in 2G spectrum scam, Justice Ajit Bharihoke said. 

"The charge sheet prima facie discloses that the three top Reliance officials facilitated commission of offence by creating a web of companies with a view to concealing the fact that Swan Telecom, which was floated with the object to achieve the end of the conspiracy, was ineligible to get UAS Licences on the date of application as on the said day, it was controlled by Relaince ADAG," Justice Bharihoke said.

"In order to achieve the end of conspiracy, Hari Nair, in league with Gautam Doshi and Surendra Pipara, falsified the records… Charge sheet reveals that they entered into a criminal conspiracy with the object to enable Reliance ADA Group Companies to get UAS Licences for 13 circles which they were not eligible to get," the court said. 

Besides the three, Reliance Communications Ltd is also an accused in the case. 

They are accused of creating shell firms like Swan Telecom, Zebra Consultancy Services, Giraffe Consultancy Private Ltd and Parrot Consultants to create a web in which no company is a holding firm and the officials are the real masters, the court said. 

The court noted that Swan Telecom was accutally funded by Reliance ADAG and it separately applied for the licence to bypass the then eligibility rule which debarred existing players to enter the fray. 

"Accused persons structured Swan Telecom in such a manner that its equity holding was shown as 90.10 percent with Tiger Traders Pvt Ltd and 9.90 percent with Reliance Telecom Ltd. The investigation into holding structures of Tiger Traders Pvt Ltd revealed that it was actually funded by the Reliance ADA Group," the court said. 

The court said that after Reliance ADAG applied for 2G licence through Swan Telecom, it got GSM spectrum in 13 circles under dual technology policy. 

This rendered Swan Telecom useless for Reliance ADAG, which withdrew its holding and transferred the shell firm to Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka, it said. 

"Accordingly, Reliance ADA Group withdrew its holding from Swan Telecom and the three accused transferred the control of Swan Telecom to co-accused Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka in order to facilitate them to cheat the Department of Telecom by getting UAS Licence in the name of Swan Telecom which was till October 18, 2007 ineligible for licence," the court noted. 

Apart from Swan Telecom and Tiger Traders, Reliance ADAG floated two more companies–Zebra Consultancy Services Pvt Ltd and Parrot Consultants Pvt Ltd. 

"The equity holding of aforesaid two companies and Tiger Traders was structured by three officials in such a manner that those companies were crossholding each other in interlocking structure (to ensure) that neither of those companies was absolute owner of any company and this practically left the control of all the three companies in the hands the petitioners," it said. 

Fitch Ratings-London-23 May 2011: Fitch Ratings has revised Belgium's rating Outlook to Negative from Stable and affirmed its Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at 'AA+'. Fitch has simultaneously affirmed Belgium's Short-term rating of 'F1+' and Country Ceiling of 'AAA'.

"The Negative Outlook reflects Fitch's concerns over the pace of structural reform in the coming years and the ability to accelerate fiscal consolidation without a resolution to the constitutional crisis," says Douglas Renwick, Director in Fitch's Sovereign group. "However, despite the ongoing political dispute, day-to-day fiscal management has remained strong, in keeping with Belgium's high-grade rating."

In Fitch's view, without political agreement over constitutional reform, it will be difficult to achieve a balanced budget at general government level as laid out in Belgium's Stability Programme. This would require budgetary surplus at lower levels of government and/or significant social security reform, either of which would likely become entangled in Belgium's linguistic-community dispute. 

Sustained debt reduction will require fiscal reform as well as fiscal discipline over the coming years, which in turn requires a new government with a fresh mandate.