Forex Investment

May 25, 2007 — Michael Ovitz is turning to the music industry for his second act.

According to several music industry sources, One Equity Partners, the private equity arm of J.P. Morgan, was planning to appoint Ovitz chairman of EMI’s board, had its bid for the London-based home to David Bowie and Liz Phair been successful.

And though One Equity isn’t expected to try to top Terra Firma’s 265 pence per share offer for EMI, these sources said there are a number of other private equity firms still debating whether or not to jump into the EMI fray that lack management and could conceivably enlist Ovitz for their teams.

Though Ovitz had been working with One Equity for months, he never signed a contract and is free to hook up with another team bidding for EMI, sources said.

Calls to Ovitz’s office were referred to his attorney, James Ellis, who declined to comment.

Part of the reason for the interest in Ovitz - who served as a consultant to EMI during and after his tenure at Creative Artists Agency - stems from a business plan for EMI that he mapped out and that was well received when One Equity shopped it to music, Internet and wireless executives.

“His plan proved out to a point where we thought it could be successful,” said one source who saw the plan.

Ovitz’s plan, according to sources who saw it, was to essentially build out EMI’s talent management capabilities and convert the company from a traditional record label with analog distribution to a digital marketing and promotions outfit. EMI has already treaded lightly down a similar path through innovative deals with Robbie Williams and Korn that give the label a cut of those artists’ touring, merchandising and music sales.

“A critical component of his plan called for a massive restructuring of EMI’s artist and repertoire department,” said a second source.

Taking a cue from the Asian market, where consumer adoption of wireless entertainment far outpaces its domestic use, sources said Ovitz’s model also placed a heavy bet on mobile telephony.

After founding CAA and rising to the apex of power in Hollywood, Ovitz’s career derailed upon linking up and famously clashing with former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Since his high-profile $140 million divorce from the Mouse House more than a decade ago, Ovitz has moved into the spotlight, mostly for negative reasons such as his failed attempt to recreate CAA with the Artists Management Group.

Music was an early focus of Ovitz’s CAA, with a department focused on the sector as early as 1979. Ovitz has repped or brokered deals for such artists as Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Prince and the Smashing Pumpkins.

It was Ovitz and Allen Grubman who brokered the landmark 1980s deal between Madonna and Time Warner for a record contract, book and movie deal.

- With Zachery Kouwe

peter.lauria@nypost.com

AMSTERDAM (Thomson Financial) - The business confidence indicator for the industrial sector improved slightly in April to plus 7.0 from plus 6.9 in March, according to seasonally adjusted figures from the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS).

The bureau saw increased confidence among businesses in order books, with the sub-indicator for orders increasing by almost 4 pct to 112.3, its highest level in 15 years.

Sub-indicators for expected production and inventories, on the other hand, were slightly lower than in March.

The CBS also said that Dutch businesses viewed their position in competition at the national and European level as improved, while foreign competition outside the EU stayed the same.

tfn.amsterdam@thomson.com

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Young British tennis players are to undergo gruelling ‘boot camp-style’ physical training in a bid to end the summer ritual of home-grown talent flopping spectacularly at Wimbledon.

Teenagers who are being groomed as tomorrow’s champions will even spend time at the Royal Marines’ Commando Training Centre in Devon to toughen them up. British competitors have just produced their worst showing at Wimbledon for 17 years, with some accused of being unfit, overweight and mentally unready.

The fact that only Tim Henman and Katie O’Brien made it beyond the first round triggered a huge debate about players’ lack of hunger and professionalism. The usually mild-mannered Henman condemned the sport for condoning ‘years of mediocrity’ and funding contestants who did not deserve backing, and called for a fresh start based on a ‘more ruthless’ approach with younger players.

Roger Draper, chief executive of the Lawn Tennis Association, told The Observer he is so frustrated by years of perpetual underachievement by players he regards as over-indulged and complacent that, in future, teenage prospects will face 6am starts, long gym sessions, and dietary supervision and far more training. ‘We have got to have more of a boot camp mentality, a boot camp regime. There’s been too much comfort for some players and not enough discomfort. We have got to make it as uncomfortable as possible. People shouldn’t be afraid of hard work,’ said Draper, a former rugby league player who is taking dramatic steps to transform tennis.

‘Instead of players rocking up, having a gentle workout, not doing any hard work in the gym or on the practice court, … then having a nice lunch and going home, they will have a much more intensive, demanding regime. They’ll have to train for four hours a day, then do weights in the gym, show the right discipline and work ethic, and make sacrifices, like giving up friendships and having their education disrupted - to give up the opportunity to be normal teenagers - if they want to realise their dream of becoming the world number one.’

Draper said he was exasperated because although Britain had talented players, too many seemed not to have the desire and hunger needed to compete at the top level. While Andy Murray and Tim Henman have become top-ranked stars who win tournaments by putting in the hard work over the 10 years and 10,000 hours experts say are needed to fulfil potential, others do not.

Draper last week discussed with the LTA’s newly created ’strength and conditioning’ team the idea of taking young players down to the Marines’ base in Devon. ‘It sounds macho but that’s the sort of environment you have to test your athletes in,’ said Draper. ‘The fitter you are the more likely you are to be mentally sharp, too, and also to be able to overcome adversity - and tennis is full of adversity. It’s a very gladiatorial sport. Players are taller, fitter and stronger than ever before and we have to match that. Guys like Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are like boxers with tennis rackets in their hands.’

As England’s rugby coach in the late Nineties, Clive Woodward began taking his squad for three-day training sessions to the Marines’ base at Lympstone, where, among tests of stamina, character and teamwork, they confronted the assault course used by the armed forces’ most renowned fighters. In 2003 England won the Rugby World Cup.

Draper has taken advice from Woodward and Bill Sweetenham, the tough Australian coach who has used unforgiving methods to turn many of Britain’s leading swimmers into world-class performers. Punishing physical regimes are the norm in sports where Britain is a world leader, such as rowing and cycling.

Brad Gilbert, the American brought in to coach Murray on a reputed 500,000-a-year salary as one of Draper’s first moves after taking over the LTA last year, believes that endless hours in the gym breed a mental toughness lacking in the British game.

The LTA is likely to stop funding some of the current crop of players who last week performed so lamentably at Wimbledon and concentrate instead on younger talent. It has recently held two training camps at the new National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, south-west London, at which players as young as six have undergone tests of agility and fitness as well as technique. Murray’s mother Judy, the LTA’s talent and performance manager in Scotland, helped analyse exhaustive data gathered at the sessions which was used to decide who deserved a place in the LTA’s development programme.

John McEnroe, the three-time Wimbledon champion turned BBC commentator, said the LTA was right to focus on emerging youngsters rather than adult players. ‘I don’t think you should concentrate on the 20-year-olds now, if it came to a choice of supporting them or working on the next generation coming through - 12, 13 and 14-year-olds,’ he said.

The LTA needed to improve its procedures for identifying talented prospects when they were still at primary school. ‘You need better coaches for children, coaches who can spot people at the age of seven or eight, and then those who can spot talent at the age of 14, 15, because it’s then that you can separate the men from the boys, as it were,’ McEnroe added.

THE flow of Iraqis fleeing sectarian violence in their homeland has risen to more than four million - the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since the creation of Israel in 1948.

Latest figures from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees show that 4.2 million Iraqis - 13% of the population - have been displaced since the US-led invasion of 2003, and that number is still rising rapidly as the sectarian strife intensifies.

The flood of refugees dwarfs the million Iraqis displaced in the 1990s as a result of the first Gulf War and the severe sanctions that the US and others imposed on the country for more than a decade after that.

“It’s going on unabated. The magnitude of the crisis is staggering,” UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis warned.

In addition to the 2.2 million who have fled across Iraq’s borders, a further two million have been driven from their homes but remain within the country, increasingly living in “impoverished shanty towns”, Pagonis said.

The burden of those who have left their homeland has fallen most heavily on neighbouring Syria, which for once is becoming the object of worldwide sympathy. A total of 1.4 million Iraqis have now sought refuge in the country, and UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen said: “We have conservative figures that go from 30,000 to 50,000 going into Syria every month.” Just over half of the 88,447 Iraqis who registered as refugees in Syria since the beginning of this year were in need of special assistance, including “many” torture victims.

While some Syrian politicians welcome the Iraqi refugees as brothers and sisters, others argue that the new arrivals, who have already increased the country’s population by 7%, are becoming an intolerable economic and social burden.

The Syrian deputy prime minister, Abdullah al-Dardari, who has responsibility for economic affairs, claims that power consumption is increasing at such a rate that a new power station costing $1bn (500m) needs to be built every year.

Emad Shoaibi, head of the Data and Strategic Studies Centre in Syria, said: “Iraqis have brought with them crimes that Syria has never encountered before, like kidnapping and blackmail, rape and prostitution.”

He believes that the refugees have created a gap between supply and demand in basic needs, leading to a threefold increase in rents. “A poor Iraqi is richer than an average Syrian,” he said. “Iraqis can pay more for basic needs, which leads to increased prices for the Syrians.”

Syria also fears that al-Qaeda terrorists are hiding among the waves of Iraqi refugees in order to use Syria as a base.

Meanwhile, in Jordan, sheltering some 750,000 Iraqis who have fled there is costing the government $1bn a year, according to the head of the country’s information centre, Bishr Khassawneh. As a result, Jordan has adopted a hardline stance.

Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at Human Rights Watch, said: “Jordan has all but stopped the entry of Iraqi nationals at its land border and is turning away many, if not most, of the Iraqis attempting to arrive by plane.

“Since November 2006, refugees and other travellers have reported that Jordan was turning away at the border single Iraqi men and boys between the ages of 17 and 35. Most disturbingly, border guards are asking Iraqis about their religious identity and rejecting those who are or appear to be Shia.”

Egypt, host to as many as 150,000 Iraqis, has also closed its doors to Iraqi refugees, while Saudi Arabia is building a $7bn hi-tech barrier on its border with Iraq to keep Iraqis out, and Kuwait is categorically rejecting Iraqi asylum-seekers.

“It’s scandalous that countries are refusing entry to people who are desperately trying to escape from violence and persecution,” Frelick said.

Yet EU governments have reacted coolly to proposals for them to take Iraqi refugees from Jordan under a UN resettlement plan. At a meeting in Luxembourg, EU ministers argued that it was cheaper to keep the refugees in the region. “With the money it takes to resettle one person in Europe, we could help at least 10 people in the region,” said German interior minister Wolfgang Schauble, who chaired the meeting.

Sweden takes in more than half of all Iraqi asylum-seekers to Europe. In 2006 it approved 80% of asylum applications from 9,065 Iraqis. Greece and Denmark have the toughest policies, while Cyprus and Slovakia are almost as welcoming as Sweden.

The most recent Home Office figures show Britain rejected 1,675 out of 1,835 asylum requests from Iraq in 2005. But sources say the UK is talking to the UNHCR about how it might accept “a certain number”.

The US accepted only 206 Iraqi refugees in 2006. But the administration has promised to take between 7,000 and 20,000 depending on funding from Congress.

In addition to Iraqis who have fled abroad, a further two million have been driven out of their homes into internal exile, many into impoverished shanty towns.

But Pagonis said the UN is receiving “disturbing reports” that more than half of Iraq’s 18 governorates are preventing displaced people from entering their territories, either by stopping them at checkpoints or by refusing to register them for food aid and other basic services.

According to an American Congressional Research Services Report the biggest wave of refugees occurred after the American-led invasion of Iraq. The numbers dipped between 2003 and 2005, although there was a “secondary displacement” of Arabs by Kurds returning to the north. The refugee flow increased substantially again after the terrorist bombing of the Shia al-Askari mosque in Samarra last year.

More recently, escalating sectarian clashes have driven the numbers up once more. Seventy per cent of those fleeing are from Baghdad, the report says.

Nevertheless, the West is still hoping that, unlike Vietnam, when hundreds of thousands fled from communism after the American retreat, Iraq will stabilise sufficiently for most Iraqis to go back.

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Updated from 1:50 p.m. EST

Europe’s stocks were stronger Thursday with many broad indices showing gains of 1% or more.

London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.3% to 6282, and Frankfurt’s Xetra DAX was up 0.9% at 6851. In Paris, the CAC 40 advanced 1% to 5662, while Milan’s MIB 30 gained 0.7% to 42,421.

Estonia’s OMX Tallinn Index was higher by 1.4%. Elsewhere in the Baltic region, Lithuania’s NSEL 30 climbed 1.2% to 507.77, and Latvia’s OMX Riga Index tacked on 0.2% to 695.80.

As for Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.8% to 17,519, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 1.6% to 20,430. Mainland China’s equities were mixed, and South Korea’s market was significantly stronger.

India’s BSE Sensex was ahead by 1.3% to 14,267, and Singapore’s Straits Times Index was up 1.4% to 3,168.