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...Shenzhen - the former has tripled in value in just the last 18 months - has triggered a stampede of companies in China to offer their shares to a public that has a ravenous appetite for them. Astonishingly, according to a forecast just out from Price Waterhouse Coopers, a global consulting firm, the two main equity markets in China will raise $52 billion in capital this year in initial public offerings (IPOS), more than double the amount forecast at the start of the year. That makes it likely that China will raise more money in IPOs in 2007 than every other major...
...traditional lines, which need to be shut down for any changeover or addition. Several key suppliers are based in the plant, rather than in a nearby supplier park. Jörg Baumheuer says that makes for easy communication when problems arise. He's a manager at the French auto-parts firm Faurecia, which assembles cockpits and seats for BMW in Leipzig and some other plants. The advantage for Faurecia is that it doesn't need to truck in finished parts; it simply assembles them on the spot. That cuts inventories and improves speed and reliability; the firm needs just 20 minutes...
...critics say its product-line expansion hasn't solved all its growth challenges or given it much protection from the increasingly competitive luxury segment. Helmut Becker, an auto consultant and formerly BMW's chief economist, says the idea behind the failed Rover deal--to turn the firm into a two-brand company, one for the mass market and one a premium brand--was a smart one, since it would have enabled BMW to spread the huge cost of new-car development over a far bigger group. "BMW's main weakness is that life is getting ever narrower in the premium...
Reithofer pooh-poohs the pessimists. "Size and success have got nothing to do with one another," he says. BMW's rapid sales expansion in the past few years provides some economies of scale, he says. He points out that the firm is also pooling its resources with other manufacturers, developing engines for the Mini together with Peugeot and hybrid-engine components together with Mercedes. Looking around the world, he makes a sharp distinction. Toyota, the world's biggest and most profitable car company, "is strongly process driven," he says. BMW, by contrast, "is more product driven--and I wouldn...
Nine and a half million people worldwide were millionaires in 2006, an 8.3% increase over 2005, according to the annual World Wealth Report, put out by Merrill Lynch and consulting firm Capgemini...