Thursday, December 13th, 2007
Dow Chemical announced today that it is teaming up with Kuwait Petro’s Petrochemical Industries Company (aka PIC) to market and manufacture polyethylene and polypropylene products (just fancy terms for plastic). The new joint venture will leverage PIC’s “feedstock” position and strength in the energy / hydrocarbon space.
So, what does that mean? In a nutshell: plastic comes from petroleum - and you have a clear leader in the plastics industry (Dow) and a strong petroleum player teaming up to form an $11 billion dollar business. It just makes sense, especially given the current level of oil prices.
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Read the Dow press release here
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Monday, December 3rd, 2007
Per the Wall Street Journal, French giant Vivendi is set to purchase a majority stake in Activision, Inc. which will add hits such as “Guitar Hero”, “Tony Hawk” and the “Call of Duty” series to its existing gaming portfolio. I believe this is a good move by the French company, which already owns online gaming bellwether Blizzard.
Why is this good? Vivendi already has a huge online gaming footprint with World of Warcraft. Now they are purchasing strong brands with a following which they can slowly transition to a web format. When this happens (and even prior to it) the new in game advertising model will shine. Games where ads are “natural” and don’t provoke gamer mutiny (i.e., signs and billboards on the street in Tony Hawk’s skateboarding game) will take windfall profits. They can even throw an ad platform like Google Adsense into the mix as well, which will further boost revenue. So, watch this space - if executed correctly, Vivendi can reap huge benefits from this acquisition.
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