SPAC Info

Navios Maritime Acquisition Corp. (Navios Acquisition) announced that the shareholders of Navios Acquisition approved the acquisition of 13 vessels at the special meeting held today in New York. The acquired vessels, consisting of eleven product tankers and two chemical tankers, plus options to purchase two additional product tankers, cost $457.7 million.

To finance the purchase, Navios Acquisition will draw $123.4 million from existing cash. The rest, $334.3 million will be taken from debt financing.

With this approval, Navios Acquisition will reimburse the initial payment of $171.1 million made by Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. on May 19, 2010.

Besides the acquisition of vessels, the shareholders also approved amendments to Navios Acquisition’s articles of incorporation that will change the status of Navios Acquisition from a SPAC into a permanent and operating company.

Our credit history is a very important factor in determining whether we will get our loan application approved. Although we are financially capable, if we have bad credit history it will be very hard for us to get financed for a home, a car or any other things that need financing. Even if we somehow managed to get approved, it would come with a very high interest rate that would drain our paychecks.

Realizing this fact we might ask, “Is there a way to fix my credit?” In the Internet, we can find many companies offering credit repair services for people with bad credit history. One of those companies is DSI Solutions.

From the company’s website, I find DSI Solutions provides easy ways to get our credit repaired. We can register online through the company’s secure server, sign up over the phone or send the order form through mail or fax. The most interesting part, DSI Solutions offers a full money back guarantee plus an additional $50 if we see no improvement in our credit history.

Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (“Navios Holdings”) has made the initial payment for 11 of 13 tanker ships that are planned to be acquired by the Navios Holdings’ sponsored SPAC, Navious Maritime Acquisition Corp. (“Navios Acquisition”).

The initial payment of 171.7 million dollars was funded by $133 million taken from two credit facilities and $38.7 million drawn from available cash. The initial payment for two other tanker ships has not been made.

Navios Maritime Acquisition Corp. announced in April an agreement to acquire 13 tanker ships consisting of eleven product tankers and two chemical tankers for $457.7 million. Navios Acquisition will solicit shareholders’ approval of the transaction in the special meeting that will be held next week on May 25, 2010.

In case the shareholders of Navios Acquisition do not approve the transaction, the purchasing of the tanker ships will still be done by Navios Holdings that will manage the fleet.

Click here to see the press release

In a previous article, we already discussed briefly what was meant by fundamental analysis and what made it different from its counterpart, technical analysis. In this article, we dive into more detail on fundamental analysis and learn about the term “Capital Structure”, which is a measurement often used by analysts when evaluating the balance sheet of a company.

Capital structure is a composition of a company’s long-term or permanent capital, which consists of some combination of equity and debt. Equity can be further categorized as common stock, preferred stock or retained earnings. When it comes to debt, financial analysts have different opinions on what constitutes the debt component in a company’s capital structure. Some analysts only consider long-term debt, while others argue that short-term debt should also be considered to be part of the capital structure.

When analyzing a company’s capital structure, analysts use several different ratios that compare the company’s debt to total financing. The most popular ratio is debt-to-equity ratio, which is often referred to as the company’s leverage. Rating agencies such as Moodys and Standard & Poor’s use Retained Cashflow (RCF)/Net Debt ratio and Funds from Operations (FFO)/Net Debt ratio. For example, please have a look at Reuters Group (RTRSY) Capital Structure, that shows the capital structure of Reuters Group from year 2005 to 2007.

As stock investors, sometimes we need to know how a company’s capital structure changes over time. Of course, we can always search through SEC filings to find it, but there’s an easier way. We can use the new feature provided by Wikinvest, which pulls sections from annual reports and matches them up, as can be seen in NRG Energy (NRG) Capital Structure. Another example is Transocean (RIG) Capital Structure. This Wikinvest feature will save us time and effort when analyzing a company’s financial statements.

The emergence of e-commerce has enabled business owners, ranging from big corporations to the startups, to showcase and sell their products through the Internet. Dynamic website technologies such as PHP and JSP lead to the creation of shopping cart software, which makes online shopping more intuitive for online shoppers.

Besides shopping cart software, true e-commerce websites also depend heavily on electronic payment solutions. Because of the increasing number of Internet crimes such as fraud and identity theft, secure payment processing solutions are very important for protecting both business owners and consumers. These systems will ensure customers that all of their sensitive and personal information will be kept confidential and not fall into wrong hands. At the same time, business owners will feel confident that they will only receive payments from genuine customers. This, in turn, will minimize chargeback risks for them.

One of the companies providing payment and security solutions is Payvision. This international payment solutions provider offers multi-currency payment processing solutions that allow e-commerce website owners to accept payments from clients in more than 160 countries worldwide using their local currencies. To ensure confidentiality and prevent tampering, Payvision employs a secure, PCI compliant SSL connection to deliver all credit/debit card transaction information.

57th Street General Acquisition Corp. has filed the fourth amendment to Form S-1 Registration Statement on May 11, 2010. This  latest amendment may be a sign that the IPO will commence in the near future.

The filings contain several structural changes to the SPAC, with the most prominent ones are the elimination of shareholder vote and proxy solicitation. Instead, the company will announce a merger within 15 months from the date of the prospectus. Along with the merger announcement, the SPAC will also announce a tender offer to accommodate shareholders who prefer to get their money back.

Another change included in the amendment is the increase in the number of insider warrant purchase from 3 million to 3,5 million. As a result, the total purchase price also rises to $1,750,000.

About The Company

57th Street General Acquisition Corp. is a Special Purpose Acquisition Company formed on October 29, 2009 for the purpose of acquiring, through a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization, exchangeable share transaction or other similar business transaction.

The SPAC is headed by Mark D. Klein as  CEO, who also serves as a director of Great American Group, Inc.

Click here for the release

Heckmann Corporation are facing a class action lawsuit that alleges that the Joint Proxy issued by the SPAC on October 2, 20089 contained material misstatements and omitted material information. The Joint Proxy was issued by the company to solicit the approval of Heckmann’s stockholders of acquisition of China Water and Drinks, Inc for an aggregate purchase price of $625 million.

According to the Complaint, the Joint Proxy contained Heckmann’s recommendation for the shareholders to approve the transaction because China Water was an attractive acquisition target which had significant growth potential.  To support this, the company provided detailed report, pro forma and projected financial data for Heckmann and China Water.

It is alleged that the statements in the Joint Proxy were materially misleading and omitted material information regarding the value of China Water’s assets and its financial condition.

The class action was filed on May 6, 2010 by the law firm of Barroway Topaz Kessler Meltzer & Check, LLP, representing the shareholders who held shares of Heckmann Corporation as of September 15, 2008 and were eligible to vote at the Company’s special meeting held on October 30, 2008 with respect to the Company’s acquisition of China Water and Drinks, Inc. The law firm also acted on behalf of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Heckmann securities between October 2, 2008 and May 8, 2009.

If you are new to stock trading and eager to learn, there are so many resources out there to help you learn the basics. Online courses, seminars and even personal training are available. But sometimes the best way to learn is the old-fashioned way – reading a book.

The most obvious advantage of reading a book is that it’s substantially cheaper than most courses and seminars available. By reading books, concepts that are not immediately understood can be reread as many times as necessary. The question is, which trading books are the best?

Be suspicious of any book that makes unreasonable claims in its title or cover “Become a day trading pro in an hour!” or “Turn $1,000 to $1,000,000 in a month!”.  It is likely these books will not teach you the fundamental risks associated with trading. Risk management is even more important than stock picking. No point selecting winning stocks only to have all your profits wiped out because of one trade where risk management was neglected.

There is a common misunderstanding that trading is a fast paced, exciting activity very similar to gambling rather than a calculated, measured activity. Any good trading book will give calm, reasonable, practical advice on trade selection, money management, risk management and trading psychology. This restraint suggests that author knows the market and is simply explaining what he/she has learned.

On the other hand if the language is fast paced, sensational and overwrought it is an indication that the author has written the book as entertainment rather than as trading education. The author’s goal is to sell books rather than educate the reader on trading.

Pay attention also to the book’s presentation. Are there many grammar and spelling errors? Is it an e-book sold by some guy off his web site? If it is, it may not have been professionally edited. Does the author offer the book with a 100% money back guarantee for a reasonable amount of time? If it doesn’t the author is unwilling to put his/her money where his/her mouth is. After all, they are making money following their own advice aren’t they? They should be able to offer a guarantee.

When considering a trading book, it’s worth taking a few minutes to search the author’s name in the search engines and see what comes up. Are there reviews of the book written by actual readers (not just testimonials on the author’s web site)? Has the author been mentioned in any news and forums? Does he/she have any real world trading experience, or do they just write trading books?

The best trading books will treat trade selection, money management, risk management and trading psychology as equally important to becoming a successful trader.