Word: valee
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...companies offer a more stunning testimonial to the benefits of privatization--and fortuitous timing--than the formerly state-owned Brazilian mining firm Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. In the 55 years following its founding in 1942, Vale, as it is now known, grew into a comfortably large domestic player. Since being unshackled from Brazil's state bureaucracy in 1997, Vale has soared into the ranks of global-commodities powerhouses, with net income rising from $680 million in 2002 to $9.2 billion in the first nine months of 2007, placing it as one of the top-three diversified mining...
Already the world's largest producer of iron ore and one of the largest producers of nickel, Vale is also a growing force in copper, manganese, bauxite, precious metals, aluminum, coal, steel and energy. Its stock price has more than doubled in the past year, to nearly $33, and the company's market value is about $160 billion, 16 times what it was in 1997. Douglas B. Silver, an industry veteran and CEO of Colorado-based International Royalty Corp., calls Vale "the most effective giant mining company in the world," not just for its size but also for its skill...
Roger Agnelli, a 48-year-old investment banker, became CEO in 2001. He inherited a company whose historic strength lay deep in the Amazon, in the massive iron-ore deposits of Carajas. Iron ore then accounted for 75% of Vale's revenues, and Agnelli's first move was to consolidate domestically, by selling off peripheral holdings in paper and forestry (Agnelli's family business) and using the proceeds to swallow eight rival firms. This gave the company new reserves and more sway over prices to the domestic steel industry, just before the commodities boom really kicked off in 2003 with...
...Vale's biggest deal came in October 2006 with its $18 billion purchase--in cash--of Inco, a Canadian firm with nickel assets across North America and as far away as the French territorial island of New Caledonia in the Pacific. The acquisition came just before nickel prices nearly tripled. Inco now accounts for about 40% of Vale's revenues, and gained the company important technology and highly skilled personnel. "It was a major step for us," says Tito Martins, executive director for corporate affairs and energy at Vale. More recently, Vale has made a play for Swiss miner Xstrata...
Although it has long been the domain of male fighters, Vale Tudo is increasingly attracting young women with a background in martial arts from all over the world. "Brazilian women are the best in the world today," said Daniel Otero, who is 24 and one of the world's foremost Vale Tudo fighters. Otero and others involved with the sport here believe that both Brazilian men and women have an advantage because they are often experts in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is the art of grappling on the ground developed by world-renowned fighter Helio Gracie, and popularized...