April 19, 2011

System.BadImageFormatException

I got this exception, when trying to run the faircom ctreesqlmanager tool in x64 machine.

After spending some time, found a solution from the url, http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/phoenix/thread/9a43e9a1-a744-4a1a-bb34-3604254c126b/

I used the below line (included in a bat file), to use a 32 bit dll in a 64 bit environment.

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Ldr64.exe setwow

To revert back use the below line,

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Ldr64.exe set64

April 18, 2011

Wikileaks

1.   What is Wikileaks & How Does It Operate?

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organization claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. WikiLeaks describes its founders as a mix of Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its director. The site was originally launched as a user-editable wiki, but has progressively moved towards a more traditional publication model and no longer accepts either user comments or edits. [1]
Wikileaks is an un-censorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. It combines the protection and anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the transparency and simplicity of a wiki interface.
Wikileaks looks like Wikipedia. Anybody can post comments to it. No technical knowledge is required. Whistleblowers can post documents anonymously and untraceably. Users can publicly discuss documents and analyze their credibility and veracity. Users can discuss the latest material, read and write explanatory articles on leaks along with background material and context. The political relevance of documents and their veracity can be revealed by a cast of thousands.
Wikileaks incorporates advanced cryptographic technologies to ensure anonymity and un-traceability. Those who provide leaked information may face severe risks, whether of political repercussions, legal sanctions or physical violence. Accordingly, sophisticated cryptographic and postal techniques are used to minimize the risks that anonymous sources face.
For the technically minded, Wikileaks integrates technologies including modified versions of MediaWiki, OpenSSL, FreeNet, Tor, PGP and software of our own design.
Wikileaks information is distributed across many jurisdictions, organizations and individuals. Once a document is leaked it is essentially impossible to censor.

2.    Purpose of WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks states that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations."
In January 2007, the website stated that it had over 1.2 million leaked documents that it was preparing to publish. An article in The New Yorker said:
One of the WikiLeaks activists owned a server that was being used as a node for the Tor network. Millions of secret transmissions passed through it. The activist noticed that hackers from China were using the network to gather foreign governments’ information, and began to record this traffic. Only a small fraction has ever been posted on WikiLeaks, but the initial tranche served as the site’s foundation, and Assange was able to say, "we have received over one million documents from thirteen countries."
Assange responded to the suggestion that eavesdropping on Chinese hackers played a crucial part in the early days of WikiLeaks by saying "the imputation is incorrect. The facts concern a 2006 investigation into Chinese espionage one of our contacts was involved in. Somewhere between none and handful of those documents were ever released on WikiLeaks. Non-government targets of the Chinese espionage, such as Tibetan associations were informed (by us)". The group has subsequently released a number of other significant documents which have become front-page news items, ranging from documentation of equipment expenditures and holdings in the Afghanistan war to corruption in Kenya.
The organisation's stated goal is to ensure that whistleblowers and journalists are not jailed for emailing sensitive or classified documents, as happened to Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in 2005 after publicising an email from Chinese officials about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
In an interview on The Colbert Report, Assange explained about the limit to the freedom of speech, saying, "[it is] not an ultimate freedom, however free speech is what regulates government and regulates law. That is why in the US constitution the bill of rights says that congress is to make no such law abridging the freedom of the press. It is to take the rights of the press outside the rights of the law because those rights are superior to the law because in fact they create the law. Every constitution, every bit of legislation is derived from the flow of information. Similarly every government is elected as a result of people understanding things".
The project has drawn comparisons to Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. In the United States, the leaking of some documents may be legally protected. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution guarantees anonymity, at least in the area of political discourse. Author and journalist Whitley Strieber has spoken about the benefits of the WikiLeaks project, noting that "Leaking a government document can mean jail, but jail sentences for this can be fairly short. However, there are many places where it means long incarceration or even death, such as China and parts of Africa and the Middle East."

3.   Couldn't Mass Leaking Of Documents Be Irresponsible?

  • Aren't some leaks deliberately false and misleading?
  • Couldn't leaking involve invasions of privacy?

Providing a forum for freely posting information involves the potential for abuse, but such exposure can be minimized. The simplest and most effective measure here is a worldwide community of informed users and editors who can scrutinize and discuss leaked documents.
On Wikipedia, posting of false material or other irresponsible posting or editing can be reversed by other users, and the results there have been extremely satisfying and reassuring. There is no reason to expect any different from Wikileaks. As discovered with Wikipedia, the collective wisdom of an informed community of users allows for rapid and accurate dissemination, verification and analysis.

Furthermore, as recent history shows, misleading leaks and misinformation already exist in the mainstream media, an obvious example being the lead-up to the Iraq war. Peddlers of misinformation will find themselves undone by Wikileaks, equipped as it is to scrutinize leaked documents in a way that no mainstream media outlet is capable of. A taste of what to expect is provided by this excellent unweaving of the British government's politically motivated additions to an intelligence dossier on Iraq. The dossier was cited by Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations the same month to justify the pending US invasion of Iraq.
Wikileaks' overarching goal is to provide a forum where embarrassing information can expose injustice. All our policies and practices will be formulated with this goal in mind.

4.   Does Wikileaks Support Corporate Whistleblowers?

It is increasingly obvious that corporate fraud must be effectively addressed. In the US, employees account for most revelations of fraud, followed by industry regulators, media, auditors and, finally, the SEC. Whistleblowers account for around half of all exposures of fraud.
Corporate corruption comes in many forms. The number of employees and turnover of some corporations exceeds the population and GDP of some nation states. When comparing countries, after observations of population size and GDP, it is usual to compare the system of government, the major power groupings and the civic freedoms available to their populations. Such comparisons can also be illuminating in the case of corporations.
Considering corporations as analogous to a nation state reveals the following properties:
  • The right to vote does not exist except for share holders (analogous to land owners) and even there voting power is in proportion to ownership.
  • All power issues from a central committee.
  • There is no balancing division of power. There is no fourth estate. There are no juries and innocence is not presumed.
  • Failure to submit to any order may result in instant exile.
  • There is no freedom of speech.
  • There is no right of association. Even love between men and women is forbidden without approval.
  • The economy is centrally planned.
  • There is pervasive surveillance of movement and electronic communication.
  • The society is heavily regulated, to the degree many employees are told when, where and how many times a day they can go to the toilet.
  • There is little transparency and freedom of information is unimaginable.
  • Internal opposition groups are blackbanned, surveilled and/or marginalized whenever and wherever possible.

While having a GDP and population comparable to Belgium, Denmark or New Zealand, most corporations have nothing like their quality of civic freedoms and protections. Internally, some mirror the most pernicious aspects of the 1960s Soviet system. This is even more striking when the regional civic laws the company operates under are weak (such as in West Papua or South Korea); there, the character of these corporate tyrannies is un-obscured by their surroundings.
Wikileaks endeavors to civilize corporations by exposing uncivil plans and behavior. Just like a country, a corrupt or unethical corporation is a menace to all inside and outside it.

5.   Leaks

2006–08
WikiLeaks posted its first document in December 2006, a decision to assassinate government officials signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys." In August 2007, The Guardian published a story about corruption by the family of the former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi based on information provided via WikiLeaks. In November 2007, a March 2003 copy of Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta detailing the protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was released. The document revealed that some prisoners were off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, something that the U.S. military had in the past repeatedly denied. In February 2008, WikiLeaks released allegations of illegal activities at the Cayman Islands branch of the Swiss Bank Julius Baer which led to the bank suing WikiLeaks and obtaining an injunction which temporarily shut down wikileaks.org. The site was instantly mirrored by supporters and later that month the judge overturned his previous decision citing First Amendment concerns and questions about legal jurisdiction. In March 2008, WikiLeaks published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology," and three days later received letters threatening to sue them for breach of copyright. In September 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaigns, the contents of a Yahoo account belonging to Sarah Palin (the running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain) were posted on WikiLeaks after being hacked into by members of Anonymous. In November 2008, the membership list of the far-right British National Party was posted to WikiLeaks, after briefly appearing on a blog. A year later, on October 2009, another list of BNP members was leaked.
2009
In January 2009, WikiLeaks released 86 telephone intercept recordings of Peruvian politicians and businessmen involved in the 2008 Peru oil scandal. In February, WikiLeaks released 6,780 Congressional Research Service reports followed in March, by a list of contributors to the Norm Coleman senatorial campaign and a set of documents belonging to Barclays Bank that had been ordered removed from the website of The Guardian. In July, they released a report relating to a serious nuclear accident that had occurred at the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility in 2009. Later media reports have suggested that the accident was related to the Stuxnet computer worm. In September, internal documents from Kaupthing Bank were leaked, from shortly before the collapse of Iceland's banking sector, which led to the 2008–2010 Icelandic financial crisis. The document shows that suspiciously large sums of money were loaned to various owners of the bank, and large debts written off. In October, Joint Services Protocol 440, a British document advising the security services on how to avoid documents being leaked was published by WikiLeaks. Later that month, they announced that a super-injunction was being used by the commodities company, Trafigura to gag The Guardian newspaper from reporting on a leaked internal document regarding a toxic dumping incident in the Ivory Coast. In November, they hosted copies of e-mail correspondence between climate scientists, although they were not originally leaked to WikiLeaks. They also released 570,000 intercepts of pager messages sent on the day of the 11 September attacks. During 2008 and 2009, WikiLeaks published the alleged lists of forbidden or illegal web addresses for Australia, Denmark and Thailand. These were originally created to prevent access to child pornography and terrorism, but the leaks revealed that other sites covering unrelated subjects were also listed.
2010
In March 2010, WikiLeaks released a secret 32-page U.S. Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report written in March 2008 discussing the leaking of material by WikiLeaks and how it could be deterred. In April, a classified video of the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike was released, showing two Reuters employees being fired at, after the pilots mistakenly thought the men were carrying weapons, which were in fact cameras. In the week following the release, "wikileaks" was the search term with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days as measured by Google Insights. In January 2010, WikiLeaks received the first test cable A 22-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, PFC (formerly SPC) Bradley Manning, a US embassy cable relating about IceSave, thereafter referred as "Reykjavik 13"[citation needed]. In June 2010, he was arrested after alleged chat logs were turned in to the authorities by former hacker Adrian Lamo, in whom he had confided. Manning reportedly told Lamo he had leaked the "Collateral Murder" video, in addition to a video of the Granai airstrike and around 260,000 diplomatic cables, to WikiLeaks. In July, WikiLeaks released 92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009 to The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel. The documents detail individual incidents including friendly fire and civilian casualties. At the end of July, a 1.4 GB "insurance file" was added to the Afghan War Diary page, whose decryption details would be released if WikiLeaks or Assange were harmed. About 15,000 of the 92,000 documents have not yet been released on WikiLeaks, as the group is currently reviewing the documents to remove some of the sources of the information. WikiLeaks asked the Pentagon and human-rights groups to help remove names from the documents to reduce the potential harm caused by their release, but did not receive assistance. Following the Love Parade stampede in Duisburg, Germany on 24 July 2010, a local published internal documents of the city administration regarding the planning of Love Parade. The city government reacted by acquiring a court order on 16 August forcing the removal of the documents from the site on which it was hosted. On 20 August WikiLeaks released a publication titled Loveparade 2010 Duisburg planning documents, 2007–2010, which comprised 43 internal documents regarding the Love Parade 2010. Following on from the leak of information from the Afghan War, in October 2010, around 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War were released in October. The BBC quoted The Pentagon referring to the Iraq War Logs as "the largest leak of classified documents in its history." Media coverage of the leaked documents focused on claims that the U.S. government had ignored reports of torture by the Iraqi authorities during the period after the 2003 war.


6.   Conclusion

Finally, one might argue that the Wikileaks controversy covers new ground or ground in which ALA might need new research and policy formulation:  that of an information environment in which the electronic public forum can become a battleground where the usual rules of public discourse don’t apply.  Hackers have extremely sophisticated means of enabling people to release information anonymously and also punishing companies or governments that try to suppress that information through such means as “denial of service” attacks.  In an era when government and private information from individuals and companies will be made public increasingly through unauthorized means, what should the role of libraries be toward making this information accessible to its users or denying users?  What should the policy be?

7.   References

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks
[2] http://mirror.wikileaks.info/
[3] http://mirror.wikileaks.info/
[4] http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2007/01/wikileaks_and_untraceable_docu.html
[5] http://web.archive.org/web/20080504122032/http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:About#What_is_Wikileaks.3F_How_does_Wikileaks_operate.3F

Mergers and Acquisitions

The phrase mergers and acquisitions (abbreviated as M&A) refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling and combining of different companies that can aid, finance, or help a growing company in a given industry grow rapidly without having to create another business entity [1]. Although they are often uttered in the same breath and used as though they were synonymous, the terms merger and acquisitions mean slightly different things. The below contents will elaborate it in detail.
Merger is a decision taken by two companies to combine all operations, officers, structure, and other functions of business. Mergers are meant to be mutually beneficial for the parties involved. In the case of two publicly-traded companies, a merger usually involves one company giving shareholders in the other its stock in exchange for surrendering the stock of the first company [2].
From the perspective of business structures, there is a whole host of different mergers. Here are a few types.
Distinguished by the relationship between the two companies that are merging:
·         Horizontal merger - Two companies that are in direct competition and share the same product lines and markets.
·         Vertical merger - A customer and company or a supplier and company. Think of a cone supplier merging with an ice cream maker.
·         Market-extension merger - Two companies that sell the same products in different markets.
·         Product-extension merger - Two companies selling different but related products in the same market.
·         Conglomeration - Two companies that have no common business areas.
Distinguished by how the merger is financed:
Each has certain implications for the companies involved and for investors:
·         Purchase Mergers - As the name suggests, this kind of merger occurs when one company purchases another. The purchase is made with cash or through the issue of some kind of debt instrument; the sale is taxable.
Acquiring companies often prefer this type of merger because it can provide them with a tax benefit. Acquired assets can be written-up to the actual purchase price, and the difference between the book value and the purchase price of the assets can depreciate annually, reducing taxes payable by the acquiring company. We will discuss this further in part four of this tutorial.
·         Consolidation Mergers - With this merger, a brand new company is formed and both companies are bought and combined under the new entity. The tax terms are the same as those of a purchase merger.

2.   Acquisitions

An acquisitions is the purchase of one company by another company (usually a purchase of a smaller firm by a larger firm), having either a private process or a public process. Achieving acquisitions success has proven to be very difficult as the acquisitions process is very complex, with many dimensions influencing its outcome [1].
2.1.          Types of Acquisitions [1]
·         Friendly takeovers - the companies cooperate in negotiations
·         Hostile takeovers - the takeover target is unwilling to be bought or the target's board has no prior knowledge of the offer.
·         Reverse takeovers - a smaller firm will acquire management control of a larger or longer established company and keep its name for the combined entity
·         Reverse merger - occurs when a private company that has strong prospects and is eager to raise financing buys a publicly listed shell company, usually one with no business and limited assets.

 

3.   Top 5 M&A Deals Worldwide by Value (in mil. USD) From 2000 to 2010 [2]


Rank
Year
Purchaser
Purchased
Transaction value (in mil. USD)
1
2000
Fusion: America Online Inc. (AOL)
Time Warner
164,747
2
2000
GlaxoWellcome Plc.
SmithKline Beecham Plc.
75,961
3
2004
Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.
Shell Transport & Trading Co
74,559
4
2006
AT&T Inc.
BellSouth Corporation
72,671
5
2001
Comcast Corporation
AT&T Broadband & Internet
72,041


Table 2: Top 5 M&A Deals Worldwide

4    Local Acquisitions and Mergers [7]

 

Rank
Company Name
Purchased
1
Richard Pieris & Company PLC - This is one of the largest and most successful diversified business conglomerates based in Sri Lanka.
A valuation was carried out on behalf of Richard Pieris & Co. PLC for the purpose of the acquisition of RPK Management Services (Pvt.) Ltd., the management company of Maskeliya Plantations PLC and Kegalle Plantations PLC.
2
Hayley’s MGT Knitting Mills PLC - This is the second largest knit fabric manufacturer in Sri Lanka.
Hayleys MGT Knitting Mills PLC and Hayleys ADC Textiles Limited employed NDBIB as financial advisors to rationalize its capital structure and to launch a suitable Employee Share Ownership Plan (ESOP) scheme. Two companies merged together.
3
Master Divers (Pvt) Ltd - Company has engaged in many off-shores and harbour based marine activities and maritime construction work in Thailand, Maldives, India, and Singapore and in the Port of Damam, Saudi Arabia.
MDL acquired 53.35% shareholding of Pelwatte Sugar Industries Limited (PSIL) held by the Government of Sri Lanka through a privatization. NDBIB acted as the financial advisor and the arranger of funds for MDL in the above acquisition.
4
Nations Trust Bank PLC and Mercantile Leasing Limited - Considered most customer-centric financial institutions today.
Nations Trust Bank PLC and Mercantile Leasing Limited merged together. The merger was carried out by offering NTB shares to MLL shareholders as consideration based on the share swap ratio recommended by NDBIB.
5
Eagle Insurance Company PLC - This is one of the leading life insurance companies in Sri Lanka. Eagle Insurance is a venture between Aviva International Holdings Ltd, the largest insurer in UK and National Development Bank PLC
NDB through its subsidiary Capital Development & Investment Company PLC (CDIC) acquired 58.44% of Zurich NDB Finance Lanka Ltd., the holding company of Eagle Insurance Company PLC (EICL).
NDBIB carried out a valuation of EICL and acted as the financial advisor to NDB in the above acquisition.

Table 3: Local M&A Examples

The 1990s featured the most intense period of mergers and acquisitions in U.S. economic history. This period is now recognized as the fifth merger wave in U.S. history. Merger waves are periods of unusually intense merger and acquisition activity.  There have been five such periods since the start of the twentieth century, with the previous one occurring in the 1980s. This wave featured many record-breaking mergers. When it ended in the late 1980s, many thought that there would be an extended period of time before another one began. However, after a short hiatus, an even stronger merger wave took hold, far eclipsing that of the 1980s [8].
The merger wave of the 1990s was path breaking due to the dollar value of the transactions and the unusually high number of deals (see Fig: 1, Fig: 2). While the fourth wave of the 1980s was known for both its megamergers and its colorful hostile deals, the fifth wave has featured far larger deals, as well as a good supply of hostile transactions [8].

Fig. 1: Merger and Acquisition Transaction, 1980–2000

Fig: 2: Dollar Value of U.S. Acquisitions of Foreign Companies, 1980–2000


6.     Discussion

Mergers and Acquisitions have been very common incidents since the turn of the 20th century. These are used as tools for business expansion and restructuring. Through mergers the acquiring company gets an expanded client base and the acquired company gets additional lifeline in the form of capital invested by the purchasing company. Recent mergers and acquisitions authenticate such a view [4].
There are many good reasons for growing your business through an acquisitions & merger [5]. These include:
  • Obtaining quality staff or additional skills, knowledge of your industry or sector and other business intelligence. For instance, a business with good management and process systems will be useful to a buyer who wants to improve their own. Ideally, the business you choose should have systems that complement your own and that will adapt to running a larger business.
  • Accessing funds or valuable assets for new development. Better production or distribution facilities are often less expensive to buy than to build. Look for target businesses that are only marginally profitable and have large unused capacity which can be bought at a small premium to net asset value.
  • Your business underperforming. For example, if you are struggling with regional or national growth it may well be less expensive to buy an existing business than to expand internally.
  • Accessing a wider customer base and increasing your market share. Your target business may have distribution channels and systems you can use for your own offers.
  • Diversification of the products, services and long-term prospects of your business. A target business may be able to offer you products or services which you can sell through your own distribution channels.
  • Reducing your costs and overheads through shared marketing budgets, increased purchasing power and lower costs.
  • Reducing competition. Buying up new intellectual property, products or services may be cheaper than developing these yourself.
  • Organic growth, ie the existing business plan for growth, needs to be accelerated. Businesses in the same sector or location can combine resources to reduce costs, eliminate duplicated facilities or departments and increase revenue.
It is interesting to note that a number of acquisitions and mergers are currently taking place in Sri Lanka. A couple of years back SLT (Sri Lanka Telecom) acquired Mobitel, JKH (John Keells Holdings) has acquired Asian Hotels and Phoenix and Jewel knit have merged to form a group of their own by the name of Brandix. When HNB attempted to acquire Sampath Bank, a lot of publicity was given to the fact. The acquisitions failed eventually, because of stiff resistance from the target.
In many cases, companies resort to mergers or acquisitions because they believe that it is the easiest and fastest way to growth. Even though this view is acceptable to a certain extent, many acquisitions do not produce the expected results. This is because there are problems of post-acquisitions integration and failure to achieve the results projected. Vanik had bad experiences in integrating some of its acquisitions. On a global scale the merger between AOL and Time Warner Group proved to be a flop.
Acquisitions and mergers are also forms of fulfilling managerial egos as they lead to the creation of large corporate empires. One wonders whether the building of such empires serve any purpose to the shareholder, if shareholder value is not enhanced, as a result of these changes.
The impact of an acquisitions or merger is ultimately borne by the shareholders. The concern that the shareholders of JKH are likely to share today would be as to what the projected earnings of Asian Hotels for the next quarter will be, and its influence on the earnings of JKH. If an acquisitions increases the earnings of the company and also boosts confidence, it would be reflected by the PE (Price: Earnings) ratios.
This would result in a positive impact on the share price, which in turn will tend to rise. Shareholders will also be concerned about the funding of an acquisition. If it is in the form of debt capital it could lead to an increase in the financial risk. On the other hand, issue of new shares or a rights issue can also fund an acquisition. A new issue will dilute the shareholding whereas a rights issue will not. However if an increase in market value is not significant, both can result in a decline in the price per share.
From the shareholders' point of view, an acquisition would be successful only if the management team of the acquirer is able to integrate the organizations successfully and achieve the benefits of synergy.
No acquisitions can be successful without the support of the employees. HNB's attempt to take over Sampath Bank failed because of opposition from the employees. On the other hand, the employees of Mobitel were keen about the takeover by SLT since they expected better growth opportunities under the new parent. The acquirer will have to win the employees to its side since their support is essential in order to understand the business as well as to implement new strategies. Any redundancies, which arise, should be dealt with quickly, and payments should be generous, if funds permit, since this will boost the morale of the retained employees.
It is important to understand the drawbacks of mergers and acquisitions to understand public or regulatory interest. These changes could result in a monopoly or a near monopoly situation, which could be detrimental to the interests of consumers. Large firms might get the opportunity to adopt anti-competitive practices, which may prevent the development of new as well as existing competitors in the market.
A merger or an acquisition goes against public interest if it is in a position to control and dominate the market for goods or services. In such situations, the Fair Trading Commission is empowered to investigate a merger. For example in Europe, EU regulators prevented GE's proposed merger to Honeywell, because they feared it would create the world's largest manufacturer of aircraft engines.
There are also situations where acquisitions and mergers are opposed on grounds of nationalism. When Nestle attempted to acquire Rowntree in the UK, a newspaper published the headline: " Help! The Swiss are Coming For Our Smartees". Acquisitions and mergers are a must as they can help to ensure that firms enjoy economies of scale as well as minimize unnecessary competition. Mergers such as Brandix can help to build strong Sri Lankan firms, which can be competitive internationally.
With the development of the open economy the Sri Lankan mindset may change, and there will be more openness towards acquisitions and mergers in the future. There may be a situations arising where foreign organizations might acquire local companies. An interesting deal to look out for would be the privatization of the People's Bank [6].

7.     Conclusion

One size doesn't fit all. Many companies find that the best way to get ahead is to expand ownership boundaries through mergers and acquisitions. For others, separating the public ownership of a subsidiary or business segment offers more advantages. At least in theory, mergers create synergies and economies of scale, expanding operations and cutting costs. Investors can take comfort in the idea that a merger will deliver enhanced market power.
M&A comes in all shapes and sizes, and investors need to consider the complex issues involved in M&A. The most beneficial form of equity structure involves a complete analysis of the costs and benefits associated with the deals.

8.     References

[1]     Mergers and acquisitions. [Online]. Viewed 2011 March 2.
Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mergers_and_acquisitions
[2]     Mergers. [Online]. Viewed 2011 March 2.  
Available: http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Mergers
[3]     Mergers and Acquisitions: [Online]. Viewed 2011 March 2.
Available: http://www.investopedia.com/university/mergers/mergers1.asp
[4]     Recent Mergers and Acquisitions: [Online]. Viewed 2011 March 2.  
Available: http://www.economywatch.com/mergers-acquisitions/international/recent.html
[5]     Benefits of a merger or acquisition: [Online]. Viewed 2011 March 2.
Available: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1074409301&type=RESOURCES
[6]     Mergers and acquisitions: the way forward? [Online]. Viewed 2011 March 2.
[7]     Local M&A examples, [Online]. Viewed 2011 March 3.
[8]     Mergers and Acquisitions: An Overview By Patrick A. Gaughan, Ph.D. , College of Business, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Economatrix Research Associates, Inc. (0471414379.pdf) Viewed 2011 March 3.                                    

Infragistics Error - "Could Not Access Network Location %SystemDrive%\inetpub\wwwroot\"

To work around this error, a registry key needs to be modified. Please note that Infragistics strongly recommends you back up your registry before making any changes.

1) Type "regedit" in the Run From Start Menu dialog box to open the "Registry Editor".
2) Find the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp\PathWWWRoot
3) Change the value of this registry key from "%SystemDrive%\inetpub\wwwroot" or " \inetpub\wwwroot\" to "C:\inetpub\wwwroot". If your default website in IIS is instead stored in a different location, set the value of this registry key to that path instead.


If you are installing NetAdvantage 2006 Volume 3 for CLR 2.0 on a 64-bit version of Windows Vista, you will need to repeat steps 2 and 3 with the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\InetStp\PathWWWRoot

Enable IIS 6.0 Compatibility1) Open "Control Panel" and ensure "Control Panel Home" is the current view.
2) Click the "Uninstall a program" link from the Programs menu item.
3) Select "Turn Windows features on or off" from the Tasks menu.
4) Expand the "Internet Information Services" node, followed by the "Web Management Tools" node.
5) Check the "IIS 6 Management Compatibility" node. Ensure the nodes under this are checked as well.

If you are using 64 bit machine please do the following as well.
1) Type "regedit" in the Run From Start Menu dialog box to open the "Registry Editor".
2) Find the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\InetStp\PathWWWRoot
3) Change the value of this registry key from "%SystemDrive%\inetpub\wwwroot" or " \inetpub\wwwroot\" to "C:\inetpub\wwwroot". If your default website in IIS is instead stored in a different location, set the value of this registry key to that path instead.