Matt Levine writes: Uber can raise all the money it needs,⁷ from all the investors it wants, as often as it wants. And it doesn’t have to file audited financials with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or subject itself to stock exchange governance guidelines or flash crashes, or deal with short sellers or activist investors or nuns or really any investors it doesn’t want. Companies that go public give up a lot, and don’t really get anything. So why do it?

The answer, of course, is pretty simple. The people investing now — like the ones who invested in June, or last year, or earlier — will want to be able to cash out. They could in theory cash out by selling to each other; certainly there are private companies that allow trading among their private shareholders,⁸ though Uber apprently does not.  But even leaving aside the administrative headaches, selling to each other has a certain zero-sum feeling: For everyone in the limited universe of pre-IPO investors who makes money by selling at a higher valuation, another is out-of-pocket paying that higher valuation.

No, the way to cash out is in an IPO. An IPO brings in new money, which can take shares off pre-IPO investors’ hands at a higher valuation, making all of those pre-IPO shareholders richer.

Isaih Thompson writes for Pro Pubica:   The oil boom underway in North Dakota has delivered jobs to local economies and helped bring the United States to the brink of being a net energy exporter for the first time in generations.

But moving that oil to the few refineries with the capacity to process it is presenting a new danger to towns and cities nationwide — a danger many appear only dimly aware of and are ill-equipped to handle.  Dangers of Transporting Crude Oil

Israel and Cyprus have launched a new push for EU funds to build a pipeline that could bring about 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of their natural gas to Europe annually, and ease the continent’s energy security anxieties.  But Palestinians are warning that without a broader resolution of regional disputes, the pipeline risks becoming a source of conflict.

The Cyprus-centred project could be the world’s longest pipeline if built, stretching up to 1,530km, and passing through depths of up to 3,000m.

Israel, Greece and Cyprus expect a formal meeting with Sefkovic to discuss ways of actualising the project, on the fringes of an EU energy ministers’ summit on 9 December.

“The three countries involved intend to raise this issue [on the 9th] as it involves funding from the commission,” an EU diplomat said. Israel, as a non-EU member, will depend on its partner countries’ powers of persuasion.

With energy diversification and security both rising up Europe’s political agenda, “it looks like the stars have aligned in one position now and that might be good for our timing,” Guy Feldman, an advisor to Shalom told the Guardian.

But the Palestinian Authority cautioned the EU against signing any contract until territorial gas disputes with neighbouring countries such as Lebanon were resolved.

“The objective of energy security starts with a clear cut boundary of all the gas fields,” said the PA’s energy minister, Omar Kettaneh. “Otherwise instead of being a source of security the pipeline will be a source of conflict.”
Advertisement

In 2010, the US Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that the Levant Basin, could hold more than 3,455bcm of gas, which is comparable to Iraq’s reserves.

But until now, political instability has hindered its exploitation, with Israeli and Cypriot claims to overlapping gas fields contested by Lebanon and Turkey, respectively.

In 2012, Israel, Cyprus and Greece signed a deal to promote exports of their gas to the EU through an eastern Mediterranean corridor.

The planned offshore pipeline, which diplomats say could transport between 8-15bcm of natural gas annually, has already been selected for “project of common interest” status by the EU. This potentially gives it access to a €5.85bn fund, and preferential treatment from multilateral banks.

A commission timeline estimates that the pipeline could begin pumping gas by 2020, four years after the Leviathan field, which contains around 450bcm of gas comes online.  As well as Leviathan, the already operating Tamar field has proven reserves of 283bcm. Israel also has several smaller gas fields and is searching for more exploitable reserves. The country wants to export up to 60% of the gas it produces.

But Kettaneh said that such words rang hollow in Gaza, which has been prevented from exploiting its own natural gas resources as a result of Israel’s blockade, and internal political divisions.

Germany’s leading companies will need to have at least 30 percent women on their supervisory boards from 2016, according to a new directive being adopted by the government, Chancellor Anglela Merkel announced.

The leaders of Germany’s Social Democrats and Merkel’s conservative bloc agreed on the measure at a late-night meeting Tuesday. A bill will be put to Cabinet on Dec. 11.

Currently, women hold just 22 percent of non-executive positions on the boards of companies listed in Germany’s benchmark DAX 30 index, according to Economy Ministry  figures. They hold just six percent of management board posts.

The new plan will affect 100 listed companies starting 2016. Companies that fail to recruit enough women to non-executive boardroom posts will be barred from giving vacant seats to men.

Introducing a women’s quota was one of the center-left Social Democrats’ demands for entering into a coalition with Merkel’s conservatives.

Germany has lagged far behind other European countries in terms of female representation in the boardroom. Norway, Spain, Iceland and France already have similar quota requirements.