1.
State ownership
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State ownership refers to property interests that are vested in the state or a public body representing a community as opposed to an individual or private party. State ownership may refer to ownership and control of any asset, industry, or enterprise at any level, the process of bringing an asset into state ownership is called nationalization or municipalization. State ownership is one of the three forms of property ownership, differentiated from private, cooperative and common ownership. In market-based economies, state-owned assets are managed and operated as joint-stock corporations with a government owning either all or a controlling stake of the shares. This form is referred to as a state-owned enterprise. Governments may also use the profitable entities they own to support the general budget, the creation of a state-owned enterprise from other forms of public property is called corporatization. In Soviet-type economies, state property was the dominant form of industry as property, a state-owned enterprise is a commercial enterprise owned by a government entity in a capitalist market or mixed economy. Reasons for state ownership of enterprises are that the enterprise in question is a natural monopoly or because the government is promoting economic development. State-owned enterprises may or may not be expected to operate in a commercial manner. The transformation of entities and government agencies into government-owned corporations is sometimes a precursor to privatization. State capitalist economies are capitalist market economies that have high degrees of government-owned businesses, Public ownership of the means of production is a subset of social ownership, which is the defining characteristic of a socialist economy. However, state ownership and nationalization by themselves are not socialist, as they can exist under a variety of different political. State ownership by itself does not imply social ownership where income rights belong to society as a whole, as such, state ownership is only one possible expression of public ownership, which itself is one variation of the broader concept of social ownership. There is a variety of organizational forms for state-run industry. State ownership is advocated as a form of ownership for practical concerns. Proponents assume that the state, as the representative of the public interest, would manage resources, as a form of social ownership, state ownership may be contrasted with cooperatives and common ownership. Socialist theories and political ideologies that favor state ownership of the means of production may be labelled state socialism, engels argued that state ownership of commercial industry would represent the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and manufacture by the state. There is a distinction to be made between state ownership and public property, the former may refer to assets operated by a specific state institution or branch of government, used exclusively by that branch, such as a research laboratory
2.
Ticker symbol
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A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. A stock symbol may consist of letters, numbers or a combination of both, ticker symbol refers to the symbols that were printed on the ticker tape of a ticker tape machine. Stock symbols are unique identifiers assigned to each security traded on a particular market, for example, AAPL is for Apple Inc. OODH is for Orion DHC, Inc. and HD is for Home Depot, a stock symbol can consist of letters, numbers, or a combination of both, and is a way to uniquely identify that stock. The symbols were kept as short as possible to reduce the number of characters that had to be printed on the ticker tape, the allocation of symbols and formatting convention is specific to each stock exchange. In the US, for example, stock tickers are typically between 1 and 4 letters and represent the name where possible. In Europe, most exchanges use three-letter codes, for example Dutch consumer goods company Unilever traded on the Amsterdam Euronext exchange has the symbol UNA, while in Asia, numbers are often used as stock tickers to avoid issues for international investors when using non-Latin scripts. For example, the bank HSBCs stock traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has the ticker symbol 0005, symbols sometimes change to reflect mergers. Prior to the 1999 merger with Mobil Oil, Exxon used a spelling of the company XON as its ticker symbol. The symbol of the firm after the merger was XOM, symbols are sometimes reused, in the US the single-letter symbols are particularly sought after as vanity symbols. For example, since Mar 2008 Visa Inc. has used the symbol V that had previously used by Vivendi which had delisted. To fully qualify a stock, both the ticker and the exchange or country of listing needs to be known, on many systems both must be specified to uniquely identify the security. This is often done by appending the location or exchange code to the ticker, although stock tickers identify a security, they are exchange dependent, generally limited to stocks and can change. These limitations have led to the development of other codes in financial markets to identify securities for settlement purposes, the most prevalent of these is the International Securities Identifying Number. An ISIN uniquely identifies a security and its structure is defined in ISO6166, Securities for which ISINs are issued include bonds, commercial paper, stocks, and warrants. The ISIN identifies the security, not the exchange on which it trades, for instance, Daimler AG stock trades on twenty-two different stock exchanges worldwide, and is priced in five different currencies, it has the same ISIN on each, though not the same ticker symbol. ISIN cannot specify a particular trade in this case, and another identifier, following the introduction of the Sequence trading platform in 1996, EPICs were renamed Tradable Instrument Display Mnemonics, but they are still widely referred to as EPICs. Stocks can also be identified using their SEDOL number or their ISIN, in the United States, modern letter-only ticker symbols were developed by Standard & Poors to bring a national standard to investing
3.
Euronext
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Euronext NV is a European stock exchange seated in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Lisbon and Paris. In addition to cash and derivatives markets, the Euronext group provides listing market data, market solutions, custody and its total product offering includes equities, exchange-traded funds, warrants and certificates, bonds, derivatives, commodities and indices. As of 2017, Euronext was the largest in continental Europe with 1,300 issuers representing a €3 trillion market capitalization, Euronext merged with NYSE Group, Inc. on April 4,2007 to form NYSE Euronext. On November 13,2013 Intercontinental Exchange, completed acquisition of NYSE Euronext, in June 2014 Euronext completed an initial public offering making it a standalone company again. In December 2001, Euronext acquired the shares of the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange, in 2002 the group merged with the Portuguese stock exchange Bolsa de Valores de Lisboa e Porto, renamed Euronext Lisbon. In 2001, Euronext became a company itself after completing its Initial Public Offering. Despite this, NYSE Group and Euronext penned an agreement, subject to shareholder vote. The initial regulatory response by SEC chief Christopher Cox was positive, the new firm, tentatively dubbed NYSE Euronext, would be headquartered in New York City, with European operations and its trading platform run out of Paris. In addition, the two hoped to add Borsa Italiana into the grouping. Deutsche Börse dropped out of the bidding for Euronext on 15 November 2006, a run-up of NYSE Groups stock price in late 2006 made the offering far more attractive to Euronexts shareholders. On 19 December 2006, Euronext shareholders approved the transaction with 98. 2% of the vote, only 1. 8% voted in favour of the Deutsche Börse offer. Jean-François Théodore, the Chief Executive Officer of Euronext, stated that expected the transaction to close within three or four months. Some of the agencies with jurisdiction over the merger had already given approval. NYSE Group shareholders gave their approval on 20 December 2006, the merger was completed on 4 April 2007, forming NYSE Euronext. In 2008 and 2009 Deutsche Börse made two attempts to merge with NYSE Euronext. Both attempts did not enter into advanced steps of merger, in 2011, Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext confirmed that they were in advanced merger talks. Such a merger would create the largest exchange in history, the deal was approved by shareholders of NYSE Euronext on July 7,2011, and Deutsche Börse on July 15,2011 and won the antitrust approved by the US regulators on December 22,2011. Deutsche Börse unsuccessfully appealed this decision, in 2012, Euronext announced the creation of Euronext London to offer listing facilities in the UK
4.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
5.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
6.
Asset management
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Asset management, broadly defined, refers to any system that monitors and maintains things of value to an entity or group. It may apply to both tangible assets such as buildings and to intangible assets such as capital, intellectual property. Asset management is a process of deploying, operating, maintaining, upgrading. The term is most commonly used in the world to describe people. These include, for example, investment managers that manage the assets of a pension fund, the most common usage of the term asset manager refers to investment management, the sector of the financial services industry that manages investment funds and segregated client accounts. An asset management is a part of a company which comprises experts who manage money. Operating and sustainment of assets in a constrained budget environment require a prioritization scheme, as a way of illustration, the recent development of renewable energy has seen the rise of effective asset managers involved in the management of solar systems. These teams are more and more teaming-up with financial asset managers in order to offer turn key solutions to investors. Software asset management is one kind of asset management. It is related to asset health management, infrastructure asset management expands on this theme in relation primarily to public sector, utilities, property and transport systems. An example in which public asset management is used is land-use development, an EAM requires an asset registry combined with a computerized maintenance management system. All public assets are interconnected and share proximity, possible through the use of information systems. A GIS platform combined with information of both the hard and soft assets helps to remove the traditional silos of structured municipal functions, the GIS platform is only an assisting tool, asset managers need to make informed decisions about their assets in order to fulfill their organizational goals. List of asset management firms P2P Asset Management Robo-advisor Baird, G, defining Public Asset Management for Municipal Water Utilities. Journal American Water Works Association May 2011,103,5,30, www. awwa. org
7.
Investment bank
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Unlike commercial banks and retail banks, investment banks do not take deposits. From the passage of Glass–Steagall Act in 1933 until its repeal in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, Other industrialized countries, including G7 countries, have historically not maintained such a separation. As part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the two main lines of business in investment banking are called the sell side and the buy side. The sell side involves trading securities for cash or for other securities, the buy side involves the provision of advice to institutions that buy investment services. Private equity funds, mutual funds, life insurance companies, unit trusts, an investment bank can also be split into private and public functions with a Chinese wall separating the two to prevent information from crossing. The private areas of the deal with private insider information that may not be publicly disclosed, while the public areas, such as stock analysis. The first company to publicly traded stock was the Dutch East India Company. Investment banking has changed over the years, beginning as a form focused on underwriting security issuance. In the United States, commercial banking and investment banking were separated by the Glass–Steagall Act, the repeal led to more universal banks offering an even greater range of services. Many large commercial banks have therefore developed investment banking divisions through acquisitions, notable large banks with significant investment banks include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Barclays, and Wells Fargo. The traditional service of underwriting security issues has declined as a percentage of revenue, as far back as 1960, 70% of Merrill Lynchs revenue was derived from transaction commissions while traditional investment banking services accounted for 5%. However, Merrill Lynch was a relatively retail-focused firm with a large brokerage network, investment banking is split into front office, middle office, and back office activities. Investment banks offer services to corporations issuing securities and investors buying securities. For corporations, investment bankers offer information on when and how to place their securities on the open market, therefore, investment bankers play a very important role in issuing new security offerings. Front office is described as a revenue generating role. Markets is divided into sales and trading, and research, a pitch book of financial information is generated to market the bank to a potential M&A client, if the pitch is successful, the bank arranges the deal for the client. The investment banking division is divided into industry coverage and product coverage groups. On behalf of the bank and its clients, an investment banks primary function is buying and selling products
8.
Retail banking
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Retail banking, also known as consumer banking, is the provision of services by a bank to individual consumers, rather than to companies, corporations or other banks. Services offered include savings and transactional accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit cards, the term is generally used to distinguish these banking services from investment banking, commercial banking or wholesale banking. It may also be used to refer to a division or department of a bank dealing with retail customers, in the U. S. the term commercial bank is used for a normal bank to distinguish it from an investment bank. This separation was repealed in the 1990s, commercial bank can also refer to a bank or a division of a bank that mostly deals with deposits and loans from corporations or large businesses, as opposed to individual members of the public. S. Private banks manage the assets of high-net-worth individuals, offshore banks are banks located in jurisdictions with low taxation and regulation. Many offshore banks are essentially private banks, postal savings banks are savings banks associated with national postal systems
9.
Earnings before interest and taxes
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In accounting and finance, earnings before interest and taxes, is a measure of a firms profit that includes all expenses except interest and income tax expenses. It is the difference between operating revenues and operating expenses, when a firm does not have non-operating income, then operating income is sometimes used as a synonym for EBIT and operating profit. To calculate EBIT, expenses are subtracted from revenues, net income is later obtained by subtracting interest and taxes from the result
10.
Net income
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In business, net income is an entitys income minus cost of goods sold, expenses and taxes for an accounting period. In the context of the presentation of financial statements, the IFRS Foundation defines net income as synonymous with profit, net income is a distinct accounting concept from profit but the same as net profit. Net income can also be calculated by adding a companys operating income to non-operating income, net income can be distributed among holders of common stock as a dividend or held by the firm as an addition to retained earnings. As profit and earnings are used synonymously for income, net earnings, often, the term income is substituted for net income, yet this is not preferred due to the possible ambiguity. Net income is called the bottom line because it is typically found on the last line of a companys income statement. The items deducted will typically include tax expense, financing expense, likewise, preferred stock dividends will be subtracted too, though they are not an expense. For a merchandising company, subtracted costs may be the cost of goods sold, sales discounts, for a product company advertising, manufacturing, and design and development costs are included
11.
Assets under management
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Methods of calculating AUM vary between firms. The fee structure depends on the contract between each client and the firm or fund, Assets under management rise and fall. They may increase when investment performance is positive, or when new customers, rising AUM normally increases the fees which the firm generates. Conversely, AUM are reduced by negative investment performance, as well as redemptions or withdrawals, including fund closures, client defections, lower AUM tend to result in lower fees generated. Assets under management includes, Capital raised from investors, Capital belonging to the principals of the management firm. For example, if fund managers contribute $2B of their own capital to the fund and raise additional $10B from investors, net asset value Fund Management Activities Survey 2005 Sovereign Wealth Fund Assets Under Management
12.
Asset
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In financial accounting, an asset is an economic resource. Anything tangible or intangible that can be owned or controlled to produce value, simply stated, assets represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash. The balance sheet of a firm records the value of the assets owned by that firm. It covers money and other valuables belonging to an individual or to a business, one can classify assets into two major asset classes, tangible assets and intangible assets. Tangible assets contain various subclasses, including current assets and fixed assets, current assets include inventory, while fixed assets include such items as buildings and equipment. Intangible assets are resources and rights that have a value to the firm because they give the firm some kind of advantage in the marketplace. Examples of intangible assets include goodwill, copyrights, trademarks, patents and computer programs, an asset is a resource controlled by the entity as a result of past events and from which future economic benefits are expected to flow to the entity. One of the most widely accepted accounting definitions of asset is the one used by the International Accounting Standards Board, employees are not considered assets like machinery is, even though they can generate future economic benefits. This is because an entity does not have sufficient control over its employees to satisfy the Frameworks definition of an asset, similarly, in economics an asset is any form in which wealth can be held. The accounting equation is the structure of the balance sheet. It relates assets, liabilities, and owners equity, Assets = Liabilities + Capital Liabilities = Assets − Capital Equity = Assets − Liabilities Assets are listed on the balance sheet. On a companys balance sheet certain divisions are required by generally accepted accounting principles, Assets can be divided into e. g. current assets and fixed assets, often with further subdivisions such as cash, receivables and inventory. Assets are formally controlled and managed within larger organizations via the use of asset tracking tools and these monitor the purchasing, upgrading, servicing, licensing, disposal etc. of both physical and non-physical assets. Current assets are cash and other assets expected to be converted to cash or consumed either in a year or in the operating cycle and these assets are continually turned over in the course of a business during normal business activity. There are 5 major items included into current assets, Cash and cash equivalents – it is the most liquid asset, which includes currency, deposit accounts, short-term investments – include securities bought and held for sale in the near future to generate income on short-term price differences. Receivables – usually reported as net of allowance for non-collectable accounts, inventory – trading these assets is a normal business of a company. The inventory value reported on the sheet is usually the historical cost or fair market value. This is known as the lower of cost or market rule, prepaid expenses – these are expenses paid in cash and recorded as assets before they are used or consumed
13.
Equity (finance)
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In accounting, equity is the difference between the value of the assets and the value of the liabilities of something owed. Equity can be negative if liabilities exceeds assets, shareholders equity represents the equity of a company as divided among shareholders of common or preferred stock. Negative shareholders equity is often referred to as a shareholders deficit, alternatively, equity can also refer to the capital stock of a corporation. The value of the stock depends on the future economic prospects. For a company in liquidation proceedings, the equity is that which remains after all liabilities have been paid, when starting a business, the owners fund the business to finance various operations. Throughout the businesss existence, the equity of the business will be the difference between its assets and debt liabilities, this is the accounting equation, when a business liquidates during bankruptcy, the proceeds from the assets are used to reimburse creditors. The creditors are ranked by priority, with secured creditors being paid first, other creditors being paid next, owners equity is this remaining or residual claim against assets, which is paid only after all other creditors are paid. In such cases where even creditors could not get money to pay their bills. In financial accounting, owners equity consists of the net assets of an entity, net assets is the difference between the total assets and total liabilities. Equity appears on the sheet, one of the four primary financial statements. The assets of an entity can be tangible and intangible items. Intangible assets include such as brand names, copyrights or goodwill. Tangible assets include land, equipment, and cash, issue of new equity in which the firm obtains new capital increases the total shareholders equity. Share repurchases, in which a firm returns money to investors, reducing on the side its financial assets. For practical purposes, share repurchasing is similar to a dividend payment, rather than giving money to all shareholders immediately in the form of a dividend payment, a share repurchase reduces the number of shares outstanding. Dividends paid out to preferred stock owners are considered an expense to be subtracted from net income, sometimes assets bought and held in other countries get translated back into the reporting currency at different exchange rates, resulting in a changed value. When the owners are shareholders, the interest can be called shareholders equity, the remains the same. If all shareholders are in one and the class, they share equally in ownership equity from all perspectives
14.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group
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The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc is a British banking and insurance holding company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. In the UK and Ireland, its subsidiary companies are The Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Ulster Bank. The group issues banknotes in Scotland and Northern Ireland and, as of 2014 and it received significant support from the UK government, which, as of August 2015, holds and manages a 73% stake through UK Financial Investments. The Group had a capitalisation of approximately £20.4 billion as of 4 March 2014. In addition to its primary listing on the LSE, the company is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange. By 1969, economic conditions were becoming difficult for the banking sector. In response, the National Commercial Bank of Scotland merged with the Royal Bank of Scotland, the resulting company had 662 branches. The merger resulted in a new holding company, National and Commercial Banking Group Ltd, the English and Welsh branches were reorganised, until 1985, as Williams & Glyns Bank, while the Scottish branches all transferred to the Royal Bank name. The holding company was renamed The Royal Bank of Scotland Group in 1979, during the late 1970s and early 1980s the Royal Bank was the subject of three separate takeover approaches. In 1979, Lloyds Bank, which had built up a 16. 4% stake in the Royal Bank. The offer was rejected by the board of directors on the basis that it was detrimental to the banks operations, however, when the Standard Chartered Bank proposed a merger with the Royal Bank in 1980, the board responded favourably. Standard Chartered Bank was headquartered in London, although most of its operations were in the Far East, however, the bid was scuppered by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation which tabled a rival offer. The bid by HSBC was not backed by the Bank of England and was rejected by the Royal Banks board. However the British government referred both bids to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, both were rejected as being against the public interest. The Bank did obtain an international partnership with Banco Santander Central Hispano of Spain, however this arrangement ended in 2005, when Banco Santander Central Hispano acquired UK bank Abbey National – and both banks sold their respective shareholdings. The first international office of the bank was opened in New York in 1960, subsequent international banks were opened in Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and Hong Kong. In 1988 the bank acquired Citizens Financial Group, a bank based in Rhode Island, since then, Citizens has acquired several other American banks and in 2004 acquired Charter One Bank to become the 8th largest bank in the United States. In the Asia-Pacific region, the bank has offices in, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, on 27 February 2014 after reporting a 2013 loss of £9bn the bank announced it would scale back its international presence
15.
Banco Santander
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The Santander Group /ˌsɑːntɑːnˈdɛər/ is a Spanish banking group centered on Banco Santander, S. A. As its name suggests, the company originated in Santander, Cantabria, the group has expanded since 2000 through a number of acquisitions, with operations across Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia. Many subsidiaries, such as Abbey National, have been rebranded under the Santander name, the company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. In May 2016, Santander was ranked as 37th in the Forbes Global 2000 list of the Worlds biggest public companies, Banco Santander was founded in 1857. In 1999 it merged with Banco Central Hispano, which had in turn been formed through the 1991 merger of Banco Central, soon after the merger former BCH executives accused Banco Santander chairman Emilio Botín of trying to push his own agenda and threatened to take legal action. The large termination payouts generated negative press and Botín was eventually brought to trial on charges of misappropriation of funds. However, in April 2005 the court cleared him of all charges, also that year, the anti-corruption division of the Spanish public prosecutors office cleared Botín of all charges in a separate case, in which he was accused of insider trading. In 2007 the bank changed the official name back to Banco Santander S. A. In 1996 Banco Santander acquired Grupo Financiero InverMexico, in 2000, Banco Santander Central Hispano acquired Grupo Financiero Serfin of Mexico. On 26 July 2004 Banco Santander Central Hispano announced the acquisition of Abbey National plc, following shareholders approval at the EGM of Abbey and Santander, the acquisition was formally approved by the courts and Abbey became part of the Santander Group on 12 November 2004. In June 2006, Banco Santander Central Hispano purchased almost 20% of Sovereign Bank, in May 2007 Banco Santander Central Hispano announced that in conjunction with The Royal Bank of Scotland and Fortis it would make an offer for ABN AMRO. BSCHs share of the offer added up to 28% and the offer would have to be made up of a capital increase through a new share issue, then in October 2007 the consortium outbid Barclays and acquired ABN AMRO. As part of the deal, Grupo Santander acquired ABN AMROs subsidiary in Brazil, Banco Real, on 13 August 2007, Banco Santander Central Hispano changed its legal name to Banco Santander. In November that year, it sold Banca Antonveneta to Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, in July 2008 the group announced it intended to purchase the UK bank Alliance & Leicester, which held £24bn in deposits and had 254 branches. Santander also purchased the business of Bradford & Bingley in September 2008. The acquisition of Alliance & Leicester completed in October 2008 when the B&Bs shares were delisted from the London Stock Exchange, by the end of 2010 the two banks merged with Abbey National under the Santander UK brand. In October 2008, the Group announced to acquire 75. 65% of Sovereign Bancorp it did not own for approximately US$1.9 billion, the acquisition of Sovereign gave Santander its first retail bank in the mainland United States. Santander renamed the bank to enhance its global recognition in October 2013
16.
Fortis (finance)
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Fortis N. V. /S. A. was a Belgian financial company active in insurance, banking and investment management. The Benelux countries were Fortiss home base and its strength, Fortiss banking operations included network, commercial, and merchant banking, its insurance products included life, health, and property/casualty lines. Products were sold through independent agents, brokers and financial planners and it was listed on the Euronext Brussels, Euronext Amsterdam, and Luxembourg stock exchanges. The company was broken up after having difficulty financing its part of a joint acquisition of ABN AMRO. The Dutch insurance arm of Fortis was split off as ASR Nederland, Fortis retained the rest of its insurance operations, and changed its name to Ageas in April 2010, with ownership of the Fortis brand having passed to BNP Paribas. Fortis came into being in 1990, as the result of a merger of AMEV, a large Dutch insurer and VSB, a Dutch Banking Group, these were joined later that year by AG Insurance. In addition to acquiring a bank in Poland, Fortis acquired 89. 3% of the shares of Turkeys fifth largest privately owned bank Dışbank from Doğan Group on 11 April 2005. Considering the outstanding shares, the total bid is approximately €985 million. From 28 November 2005 on, the network of 173 branches of Dışbank were rebranded Fortis, as of 2006, its profits were €4.56 billion according to Forbes magazine with a market value of €45.74 billion. Fortis acquired Dryden Wealth Management from Prudential Financial on 4 October 2005, Fortis Insurance UK had its own in-house worldwide medical emergency service, Assistance International. Fortis was the sponsor of the R. S. C. Anderlecht and Feyenoord Rotterdam football clubs, Fortis was also the main sponsor of the Turkish Football Cup and the Luxembourg National Division. Failing to find a buyer, Fortis ceased all operations after October 23,2006. In October 2006, Fortis signed a joint venture with An Post to provide related services through the An Post network of offices. The Government of Luxembourg holds a third part of Fortis Banque Luxembourg, the actual Fortis Group itself remained as a virtual empty shell, holding only Fortis Insurance International, which holds insurances in Europe and Asia. On December 12,2008, a decision made the sales of October 3,5 and 6 contingent on shareholder approval. Until that time, the Dutch government holds the parts it bought, Fortis Bank is the property of the Belgium government, while Fortis Insurance Belgium remains with Fortis Group. On February 11 the shareholders declined to approve the sales, making the sales illegitimate, a re-negotiation led to new deal, subject to shareholder approval
17.
Politics of the Netherlands
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The politics of the Netherlands take place within the framework of a parliamentary representative democracy, a constitutional monarchy and a decentralised unitary state. The Netherlands is described as a consociational state, Dutch politics and governance are characterized by a common striving for broad consensus on important issues, within both the political community and society as a whole. The constitution lists the civil and social rights of the Dutch citizens and it describes the position and function of the institutions that have executive, legislative. It should be noted that the constitution of the Netherlands is only applicable in the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Netherlands does not have a Constitutional Court and judges do not have the authority to review laws on their constitutionality. International treaties and the Statute of the Kingdom, however, overrule Dutch law, furthermore, all legislation that is not a law in the strict sense of the word can be tested on their constitutionality. Amendments to the constitution must be approved by both Houses of the States General twice, the first time around, this requires a majority vote. After parliament has been dissolved and general elections are held, both Houses must approve the proposed amendments with a two-thirds vote, major political institutions are the monarchy, the cabinet, the States General and the judicial system. There are three other High Colleges of state, which stand on equal foot with parliament but have a political role. Other levels of government are the municipalities, the waterboards and the provinces, although not mentioned in the constitution, political parties and the social partners organised in the Social Economic Council are important political institutions as well. It is important to realise that the Netherlands does not have a separation of powers, according to the constitution the States General. All legislation has to pass through the Council of State for advice, the executive power is reserved for government. Note however that the Social-Economic Council has the right to make and enforce legislation on several sectors. The judicial power is divided two separate systems of courts. For civil and criminal law the independent Supreme Court is the highest court, for administrative law the Raad van State is the highest court, which is ex officio chaired by the King. The present monarchy was founded in 1813, after the expulsion of the French, the Prince of Orange was proclaimed Sovereign Prince of The Netherlands. The new monarchy was confirmed in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna as part of the re-arrangement of Europe after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, the House of Orange-Nassau were given the present day Netherlands and Belgium to govern as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Between 1815 and 1890, the King of the Netherlands was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg, the heir apparent is the Princess of Orange, Catharina-Amalia. Constitutionally, the King is head of state and has a role in the formation of government and he has to co-sign every law to make it valid
18.
Algemene Bank Nederland
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Algemene Bank Nederland was a Dutch bank that became one of the main predecessors in ABN AMRO. It was created in 1964 when the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij merged with De Twentsche Bank, in 1991 ABN Bank merged with AMRO Bank to form ABN AMRO Bank. Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij and Twentsche Bank merged to form ABN Bank on 4 June 1964, an important reason for the merger was the international trend towards concentration. Banks were obliged to scale up their operations, the extensive international network of NTS and the strong Dutch home base of TB, notably in stockbroking and foreign exchange dealing, complemented each other perfectly. Another reason for joining forces was the past involvement of the two banks in developing the industry in the Twente region of the Netherlands. NTS had been sharing the expenses of TB’s branch in London since 1953. The December 1967 acquisition of the Hollandsche Bank-Unie with its position in South America gave the international network a more balanced structure. The Dutch branch network of ABN Bank was expanded substantially from 1964 onwards in step with the significance of retail banking. The acquisition of Bank Mees & Hope in 1975 reflected ABN Bank’s diversification strategy since the strength of BMH was international commodity finance. After the take over BMH continued to operate independently under its own name, kingma’s Bank of Leeuwarden, which BMH had acquired in 1971, was transferred to ABN Bank in early 1981 and continued its operations under the name of ABN/Kingma’s Bank. ABN Bank was also active in hire-purchase finance, in 1967 it acquired Industrieele Disconto Maatschappij, in which it already held a minority interest through TB. This bank steadily increased its number of branches and changed its name to Saudi Hollandi Bank in 1991, an important acquisition occurred in 1979 with the takeover of Chicago-based LaSalle National Bank. This acquisition laid the foundation for what would become the home market of the bank. Founded in 1927 as National Builders Bank of Chicago, LaSalle Bank gave ABN its first firm foothold in the US Midwest, in 1990 Exchange Bancorp of Chicago was incorporated in LaSalle. ABN also stepped up its activities in Europe, in April 1980 it obtained a majority interest in Banque de Neuflize, Schlumberger, Mallet of Paris. With roots dating back to 1667, NSM was one of the oldest, ABN Bank’s Parisian subsidiary Banque Jordaan & Cie became part of NSM. NSM acquired Banque Demachy in 1999 to become NSMD, although ABN Bank had a strong international network of its own, it chose to cooperate with other European banks. The Associated Banks of Europe Corporation was founded in Brussels in 1972 by ABN Bank, ABECOR established Banque de la Société Financière Européenne in Paris which works in the field of medium-term loans
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AMRO Bank
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AMRO Bank was a major Dutch bank that was created from the merger of the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank in 1964. Its name comes from the first two letters of the two originating banks and it went on to become one of the two main predecessors to ABN AMRO bank when it agreed to merge with Algemene Bank Nederland in 1991. The bank could trace its roots back to at least 1765, AMRO bank was established in 1964 as the result of the merger of the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank, but the banks were not integrated until the following year. The Amsterdamsche Bank had been established in 1871 and had expanded rapidly from its base in Amsterdam to other cities in the Netherlands. It followed its rival, the Rotterdamsche Bank, which was established in 1863, in acquiring other banks. As early as 1939 there had been plans to merge the two banks but the banks shelved these plans in anticipation of Dutch involvement in World War II and it was not until 1964, therefore, that these plans were finally fulfilled. As soon as the AMRO Bank was set up, it set about gaining market share in business lending, leasing and factoring as well as in medium to long term credit. To do this it established the Nationale Bank voor Middellang Krediet business unit to provide medium to long term credit and it established or acquired companies such as Mahuko and Amstel Lease for its leasing business. The financing of factoring was brought together under the International Factors Nederland B. V. the oldest factoring company in the Netherlands. In the 1960s and 1970s, like many other banking companies, AMRO saw growth in retail banking and its wholesale banking was also strengthened by the acquisition of Pierson, Heldring & Pierson in 1975. AMRO operated PHP as an independent unit under its existing name, another acquisition was Utrecht based Bank flaors & Ko, which had been in existence since 1691. This bank was absorbed under the AMRO Bank brand, in 1967 AMRO Bank was one of the founders of the consortium bank Banque Européenne de Crédit à Moyen Terme based in Belgium. The aim was create an entity that was enough to work at an international level. Soon after this, with their sights on European integration, AMRO Bank announced plans to collaborate with Belgian Generale Bank with the aim of building a European international bank, however, this project was too ambitious and never managed to get off the ground
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Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
21.
Assets
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In financial accounting, an asset is an economic resource. Anything tangible or intangible that can be owned or controlled to produce value, simply stated, assets represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash. The balance sheet of a firm records the value of the assets owned by that firm. It covers money and other valuables belonging to an individual or to a business, one can classify assets into two major asset classes, tangible assets and intangible assets. Tangible assets contain various subclasses, including current assets and fixed assets, current assets include inventory, while fixed assets include such items as buildings and equipment. Intangible assets are resources and rights that have a value to the firm because they give the firm some kind of advantage in the marketplace. Examples of intangible assets include goodwill, copyrights, trademarks, patents and computer programs, an asset is a resource controlled by the entity as a result of past events and from which future economic benefits are expected to flow to the entity. One of the most widely accepted accounting definitions of asset is the one used by the International Accounting Standards Board, employees are not considered assets like machinery is, even though they can generate future economic benefits. This is because an entity does not have sufficient control over its employees to satisfy the Frameworks definition of an asset, similarly, in economics an asset is any form in which wealth can be held. The accounting equation is the structure of the balance sheet. It relates assets, liabilities, and owners equity, Assets = Liabilities + Capital Liabilities = Assets − Capital Equity = Assets − Liabilities Assets are listed on the balance sheet. On a companys balance sheet certain divisions are required by generally accepted accounting principles, Assets can be divided into e. g. current assets and fixed assets, often with further subdivisions such as cash, receivables and inventory. Assets are formally controlled and managed within larger organizations via the use of asset tracking tools and these monitor the purchasing, upgrading, servicing, licensing, disposal etc. of both physical and non-physical assets. Current assets are cash and other assets expected to be converted to cash or consumed either in a year or in the operating cycle and these assets are continually turned over in the course of a business during normal business activity. There are 5 major items included into current assets, Cash and cash equivalents – it is the most liquid asset, which includes currency, deposit accounts, short-term investments – include securities bought and held for sale in the near future to generate income on short-term price differences. Receivables – usually reported as net of allowance for non-collectable accounts, inventory – trading these assets is a normal business of a company. The inventory value reported on the sheet is usually the historical cost or fair market value. This is known as the lower of cost or market rule, prepaid expenses – these are expenses paid in cash and recorded as assets before they are used or consumed
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The Banker
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The Banker is an English-language monthly international financial affairs publication owned by The Financial Times Ltd. and edited in London. The magazine was first published in January 1926 through founding Editor, Brendan Bracken of the Financial News, since its founding, the magazine has claimed a dedication to the international perspective through features, interviews, multi-media applications and events. The Banker is the premier banking and finance resource, read in over 180 countries and is the key source of data. The Banker is read most widely in banks, financial institutions, multilateral corporations, central banks, approximately 60% of its readers are CEO/President and CFO/Treasurers of their organizations. The Bankers primary focus is global financial comment and insight, featuring opinion pieces, profiles and interviews with leading banking, the Bracken Column is named after Brendan Bracken, the founding editor of The Banker and serves as a think-tank for financial sector participants. The Bank of the Year Awards is an awards event recognising the top financial institutions in the world. The most recent event took place in December 2012 and 149 countries were acknowledged for their achievements, top 1000 World Banks is published annually in July based on the findings of The Banker Database. This ranking serves to recognise global leaders in the industry for their achievements, ranking the worlds banks by Tier 1 capital globally, as well as by individual country. The awards are the industry’s most widely used index of global banking, the banks are assessed by Tier 1 capital, with secondary rankings by assets, capital/asset ratio, real profit growth, profit on average capital, and return on assets. In 2013 ICBC was ranked in top place, the first time ever for a Chinese bank, how to Run a Bank is an annual guide to international banking in the new financial environment, combining contributions from bankers, regulators, academics and economists. Top Islamic Financial Institutions annual listing assesses the state of the Islamic banking. Since 2007, it has aimed to help estimate the size, on 8 January 2014, it was announced that Irelands Michael Noonan was awarded Best finance minister in Europe. The Banker is known for its rankings of the worlds top banks
23.
Bailout
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A bailout is a colloquial term for giving financial support to a company or country which faces serious financial difficulty or bankruptcy. It may also be used to allow a failing entity to fail gracefully without spreading contagion, a bailout can, but does not necessarily, avoid an insolvency process. The term is maritime in origin being the act of removing water from a vessel using a smaller bucket. Some governments have the power to participate in the process, for instance. Government assumes transportation to be the backbone of Americas general economic fluency, as such, it is the policy of the U. S. government to protect the biggest American companies responsible for transportation from failure through subsidies and low-interest loans. Emergency-type government bailouts can be controversial, debates raged in 2008 over if and how to bail out the failing auto industry in the United States. Those against it, like pro-free market radio personality Hugh Hewitt, furthermore, government bailouts are criticized as corporate welfare, which encourages corporate irresponsibility by allowing moral hazard. Governments around the world have bailed out their nations businesses with some frequency since the early 20th century, in general, the needs of the entity/entities bailed out are subordinate to the needs of the state. Basically, a bail-in forces the borrowers creditors to bear some of the burden by having part of the debt they are owed written off and this bail-in tool was first brought to global attention in Cyprus, as discussed below, but had been discussed theoretically since at least 2010. The resolution of globally significant banking institutions was a topic of a joint paper by the Federal Reserve, the scope of this planned bail-in regime for participating countries is not just limited to large domestic banks. The inclusion of FMIs in potential bail-ins is in itself a major departure and this would mean that an unsecured creditor claim to, for example, a clearing house institution, or to a stock exchange, could in theory be affected if such an institution needed to be bailed-in. The inclusion of FMIs means that parts of the global financial system is susceptible to bail-in. Banks and other institutions were now no longer to be deemed too big to fail, economist Graeme Archer noticed in March 2014 that no personal punishment is required under the latest regulations, and that therefore corrective action is unlikely. The Dodd-Frank Act Title II now legislates bailout procedures for the United States, a January 2012 the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Complex Financial Institutions slide presentation covers the resolution strategy. In any case, U. S. legislation only applies to domestic organisations, the Canadian government clarified its rules for bail-ins in the Economic Action Plan 2013, at page 144-5. This is to reduce the risk for taxpayers, the Eurogroup proposed on 27 June 2013 that after 2018 bank shareholders will be first in line for assuming the losses of a failed bank before bondholders and certain large depositors. This agreement formalised the practice earlier in Cyprus. Under this proposal, all unsecured bondholders must be hit for losses before a bank can eligible to receive capital injections directly from the European Stability Mechanism, in a first step, the ECB will fully assume supervision of the 18-nation currency blocs lenders in November 2014
24.
Government of the United Kingdom
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Her Majestys Government, commonly referred to as the UK government or British government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The government is led by the Prime Minister, who all the remaining ministers. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, the government ministers all sit in Parliament, and are accountable to it. After an election, the monarch selects as prime minister the leader of the party most likely to command a majority of MPs in the House of Commons. Under the uncodified British constitution, executive authority lies with the monarch, although this authority is exercised only by, or on the advice of, the prime minister, the Cabinet members advise the monarch as members of the Privy Council. They also exercise power directly as leaders of the Government Departments, the current prime minister is Theresa May, who took office on 13 July 2016. She is the leader of the Conservative Party, which won a majority of seats in the House of Commons in the election on 7 May 2015. Prior to this, Cameron and the Conservatives led a government from 2010 to 2015 with the Liberal Democrats. A key principle of the British Constitution is that the government is responsible to Parliament, Britain is a constitutional monarchy in which the reigning monarch does not make any open political decisions. All political decisions are taken by the government and Parliament and this constitutional state of affairs is the result of a long history of constraining and reducing the political power of the monarch, beginning with the Magna Carta in 1215. Parliament is split into two houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the House of Commons is the lower house and is the more powerful. The House of Lords is the house and although it can vote to amend proposed laws. Parliamentary time is essential for bills to be passed into law, Ministers of the Crown are responsible to the House in which they sit, they make statements in that House and take questions from members of that House. For most senior ministers this is usually the elected House of Commons rather than the House of Lords, since the start of Edward VIIs reign, in 1901, the prime minister has always been an elected member of Parliament and therefore directly accountable to the House of Commons. Under the British system the government is required by convention and for reasons to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons. It requires the support of the House of Commons for the maintenance of supply, by convention if a government loses the confidence of the House of Commons it must either resign or a General Election is held. The support of the Lords, while useful to the government in getting its legislation passed without delay, is not vital, a government is not required to resign even if it loses the confidence of the Lords and is defeated in key votes in that House. The House of Commons is thus the Responsible house, the prime minister is held to account during Prime Ministers Question Time which provides an opportunity for MPs from all parties to question the PM on any subject
25.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
26.
Brazil
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Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. As the worlds fifth-largest country by area and population, it is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to wildlife, a variety of ecological systems. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a state governed under a constitutional monarchy. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, the country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup détat. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, Brazils current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. The federation is composed of the union of the Federal District, the 26 states, Brazils economy is the worlds ninth-largest by nominal GDP and seventh-largest by GDP as of 2015. A member of the BRICS group, Brazil until 2010 had one of the worlds fastest growing economies, with its economic reforms giving the country new international recognition. Brazils national development bank plays an important role for the economic growth. Brazil is a member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Unasul, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, CPLP. Brazil is a power in Latin America and a middle power in international affairs. One of the worlds major breadbaskets, Brazil has been the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and it is likely that the word Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology red like an ember, formed from Latin brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a red dye, it was highly valued by the European cloth industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name, early sailors sometimes also called it the Land of Parrots. In the Guarani language, a language of Paraguay, Brazil is called Pindorama
27.
Gerrit Zalm
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Gerrit Zalm is a Dutch banker and former politician of the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy. He served as Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister from 27 May 2003 until 22 February 2007 in the Cabinets Balkenende II and III and he served earlier as Minister of Finance in the Cabinets Kok I and II from 22 August 1994 until 22 July 2002. He served in this position for a year before becoming Minister of Finance. He was the longest serving Minister of Finance in the History of the Netherlands and has been responsible for reforms of the Economy of the Netherlands. Zalm retired from politics after the completion of the term of the Cabinet Balkenende III and he served as chief economist, then CFO, of DSB Bank in 2007–2008, and transferred to the newly nationalized ABN AMRO to become its CEO in February 2009. Following his graduation from school in Enkhuizen, Zalm began a study in economics at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. In the same year he joined the Ministry of Finance, from 1983 he worked for the Ministry of Economic Affairs, where he eventually became a director. In 1988 he was appointed deputy director of the Centraal Planbureau, in 1989 he became director of this institute. In that capacity Zalm had, although not formally a politician, from 1990 he also gave lectures at the Vrije Universiteit. Between 22 August 1994 and 22 July 2002, Zalm, member of the liberal party Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy, was Minister of Finance in the first. On 27 May 2003 he started his term as Minister of Finance, in the second Balkenende administration. On 30 June 2006, he succeeded Laurens Jan Brinkhorst as Minister of Economic Affairs, ad interim, on 7 July 2006 Joop Wijn was appointed as the new Minister of Economic Affairs. On 26 November 2006, Zalm announced in the Sunday morning talk show Buitenhof that he would step down from politics and would probably seek employment in the private sector. He initially held the position of chief economist, but quickly became CFO of the bank after the Dutch central bank DNB had threatened to curtail DSBs financial autonomy. This new position came under scrutiny after Zalms previous employer DSB went bankrupt in 2009, Zalm is a fan of Pinball and during his second term as Minister of Finance he had a pinball machine in his department. He is a member of the Dutch Pinball Association. In 2004 he had a Cameo appearance in the movie Cool of Theo van Gogh, Netherlands Order of Oranje-Nassau Officer Commander Dr. G. Zalm
28.
Initial public offering
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Through this process, a privately held company transforms into a public company. Initial public offerings are used by companies to raise the expansion of capital, possibly to monetize the investments of early private investors. A company selling shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors, after the IPO, when shares trade freely in the open market, money passes between public investors. The IPO process is known as going public. Details of the offering are disclosed to potential purchasers in the form of a lengthy document known as a prospectus. Most companies undertake an IPO with the assistance of an investment banking firm acting in the capacity of an underwriter, underwriters provide several services, including help with correctly assessing the value of shares and establishing a public market for shares. Alternative methods such as the dutch auction have also been explored, in terms of size and public participation, the two most notable examples of this method is the Google IPO and Snapchats parent company Snap Inc. China has recently emerged as a major IPO market, with several of the largest IPOs taking place in that country, the earliest form of a company which issued public shares was the case of the publicani during the Roman Republic. Like modern joint-stock companies, the publicani were legal bodies independent of their members whose ownership was divided into shares, there is evidence that these shares were sold to public investors and traded in a type of over-the-counter market in the Forum, near the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The shares fluctuated in value, encouraging the activity of speculators, mere evidence remains of the prices for which partes were sold, the nature of initial public offerings, or a description of stock market behavior. Publicanis lost favor with the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, the first modern IPO occurred in March 1602 when the Dutch East India Company offered shares of the company to the public in order to raise capital. All the shares were tradable, and the shareholders received receipts for the purchase, a share certificate documenting payment and ownership such as we know today was not issued but ownership was instead entered in the companys share register. In the United States, the first IPO was the offering of Bank of North America around 1783. An IPO, therefore, allows a company to tap into a pool of potential investors to provide itself with capital for future growth, repayment of debt. A company selling shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors. Those investors must endure the unpredictable nature of the market to price. After the IPO, when shares trade freely in the open market, for early private investors who choose to sell shares as part of the IPO process, the IPO represents an opportunity to monetize their investment. This type of offering is not dilutive, since no new shares are being created, once a company is listed, it is able to issue additional common shares in a number of different ways, one of which is the follow-on offering
29.
William I of the Netherlands
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William I was a Prince of Orange and the first King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg. In Germany, he was ruler of the Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda from 1803 until 1806 and of the Principality of Orange-Nassau in the year 1806, in 1813 he proclaimed himself Sovereign Prince of the United Netherlands. He proclaimed himself King of the Netherlands and Duke of Luxembourg on 16 March 1815, in the same year on 9 June William I became also the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and after 1839 he was furthermore the Duke of Limburg. After his abdication in 1840 he styled himself King William Frederick, King William Is parents were the last stadtholder William V, Prince of Orange of the Dutch Republic, and his wife Wilhelmina of Prussia. Until 1806, William was formally known as William VI, Prince of Orange-Nassau, in Berlin on 1 October 1791, William married his first cousin Wilhelmina, born in Potsdam. She was the daughter of King Frederick William II of Prussia, after Wilhelmina died in 1837, William married Countess Henriette dOultremont de Wégimont, created Countess of Nassau, on 17 February 1841, also in Berlin. Like his younger brother Prince Frederick of Orange-Nassau he was tutored by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler and they were both tutored in the military arts by general Prince Frederick Stamford. After the Patriot revolt had been suppressed in 1787, he in 1788-89 attended the academy in Brunswick which was considered an excellent military school. In 1790 he visited a number of foreign courts like the one in Nassau and the Prussian capital Berlin, William subsequently studied briefly at the University of Leiden. As such he commanded the troops took part in the Flanders Campaign of 1793-95. He took part in the battles of Veurne, Menin, and Wervik in 1793, the siege of Landrecies, which surrendered to him. In May 1794 he had replaced general Kaunitz as commander of the combined Austro-Dutch forces on the instigation of Emperor Francis II who apparently had an opinion of him. But the French armies proved too strong, and the allied leadership too inept, the French first entered Dutch Brabant which they dominated after the Battle of Boxtel. When in the winter of 1794-95 the rivers in the Rhine delta froze over, the French breached the southern Hollandic Water Line, in many places Dutch revolutionaries took over the local government. After the Batavian Revolution in Amsterdam on 18 January 1795 the stadtholder decided to flee to Britain, the next day the Batavian Republic was proclaimed. However, the neutral Prussian government forbade this, in 1799, William landed in the current North Holland as part of an Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. The local Dutch population, however, was not pleased with the arrival of the prince, one local Orangist was even executed. The hoped-for popular uprising failed to materialise, after several minor battles the Hereditary Prince was forced to leave the country again after the Convention of Alkmaar
30.
Netherlands Trading Society
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The Netherlands Trading Society was a Dutch trading company established in 1824 by King Willem I of the Netherlands to promote and develop trade, shipping and agriculture. For the next 140 years the NHM developed an international branch network and increasingly engaged in banking operations. The NHM was a company which issued publicly traded shares and according to the king. However, in practice it came down to expanding existing trade, by gathering data and searching for new markets as well as financing industry and its close association with Dutch government meant it played an important role in the development of trade between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. Its former headquarters in De Bazel in Amsterdam houses the Amsterdam Archives today, the NHM is sometimes called the successor of the Dutch East India Company, as it was also a private company that issued shares and financed trade with the Dutch East Indies. The NHM financing of trade and shipping led to the development of a network of branches which increasingly engaged in financing and banking operations. The network extended throughout South East Asia and on the routes between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies and the NHM continued to extend its network into the 20th century. It lost a number of its branches when the Indonesian government nationalised them in 1960 to form a new locally owned bank,1824, King Willem I created the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij by Royal Decree to revive trade between the Netherlands and the Netherlands East Indies. 1826, NHM opened an office in Batavia,1858, NHM opened a branch in Singapore. 1870, NHM extended its activities to include banking,1888, NHM opened a branch in Penang. 1889, NHM opened a branch in Hong Kong,1920, NHM opened branches in Bombay and Calcutta primarily to work with clients in the diamond business. 1926, NHM opened a branch in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, know later as the Saudi Hollandi Bank it was the first, and until 1948 the only, commercial bank in the Kingdom. The branch existed to serve the needs of Indonesian Muslims coming to perform Hajj,1941, NHM opened an agency in New York City. 1948, NHM opened a branch in Karachi to become the first foreign bank to receive a license from the new government of Pakistan. 1949, NHM acquired De Surinaamsche Bank,1951, NHM opened branches in Mombasa, and Dar-es-Salaam. 1954, NHM opened a branch in Beirut, and one in Kampala,1960, The Indonesian government nationalized NHMs local operations and formed a new bank, Bank Ekspor Impor Indonesia, later Bank Mandiri. 1963, NHM set up its Malaysian head office in Kuala Lumpur,1964, NHM merged with De Twentsche Bank to form Algemene Bank Nederland. Dutch_East_Indies in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica King Willem I in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
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Dutch East Indies
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The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony. It was formed from the colonies of the Dutch East India Company. During the 19th century, Dutch possessions and hegemony were expanded and this colony was one of the most valuable European colonies under the Dutch Empires rule, and contributed to Dutch global prominence in spice and cash crop trade in the 19th to early 20th century. The colonial social order was based on racial and social structures with a Dutch elite living separate from. The term Indonesia came into use for the location after 1880. In the early 20th century, local intellectuals began developing the concept of Indonesia as a nation state, Japans World War II occupation dismantled much of the Dutch colonial state and economy. Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Indonesian nationalists declared independence which they fought to secure during the subsequent Indonesian National Revolution, the word Indies comes from Latin, Indus. The original name Dutch Indies was translated by the English as the Dutch East Indies, the name Dutch Indies is recorded in the Dutch East India Companys documents of the early 1620s. Scholars writing in English use the terms Indië, Indies, the Dutch East Indies, the Netherlands Indies, centuries before Europeans arrived, the Indonesian archipelago supported various states, including commercially oriented coastal trading states and inland agrarian states. The first Europeans to arrive were the Portuguese in the late 15th century, following disruption of Dutch access to spices in Europe, the first Dutch expedition set sail for the East Indies in 1595 to access spices directly from Asia. When it made a 400% profit on its return, other Dutch expeditions soon followed, recognising the potential of the East Indies trade, the Dutch government amalgamated the competing companies into the United East India Company. The VOC was granted a charter to wage war, build fortresses, a capital was established in Batavia, which became the centre of the VOCs Asian trading network. Smuggling, the expense of war, corruption, and mismanagement led to bankruptcy by the end of the 18th century. The company was dissolved in 1800 and its colonial possessions in the Indonesian archipelago were nationalised under the Dutch Republic as the Dutch East Indies. From the arrival of the first Dutch ships in the late 16th century, to the declaration of independence in 1945, although Java was dominated by the Dutch, many areas remained independent throughout much of this time, including Aceh, Bali, Lombok and Borneo. Piracy remained a problem until the mid-19th century, finally in the early 20th century, imperial dominance was extended across what was to become the territory of modern-day Indonesia. In 1811, British forces occupied several Dutch East Indies ports including Java, Dutch control was restored in 1816. Under the 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty, the Dutch secured British settlements such as Bengkulu in Sumatra, in exchange for ceding control of their possessions in the Malay Peninsula, the resulting borders between British and Dutch possessions remain between Malaysia and Indonesia
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Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them
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Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
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Saudi Hollandi Bank
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The Saudi Hollandi Bank is a bank based in Saudi Arabia. It was the first operating bank in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and was founded in 1926 as a branch of the Netherlands Trading Society. It began as a branch of the Netherlands Trading Society in 1926 to serve the Hajj pilgrims from the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, and operated out of one office in Jeddah. As it was the bank in the Kingdom at the time, it acted as the central bank, keeping the Kingdoms gold reserves. In 1928 the Saudi Riyal, a new silver coin commissioned by Late King Abdulaziz, the Netherlands Trading Society office in Jeddah assisted the government with the launch of the local currency. In 1954 the Netherlands Trading Society expanded its operations in the Kingdom by opening two additional branches, in Al Khobar and Ad Dammam, in the Eastern Province, in 1977 the Saudi Hollandi Bank was established as a joint-venture company with a paid-up capital of SAR35 million. The branch network was expanded to include Riyadh, Jubail, Makkah, Hofuf, Madinah, Qatif, in 2009, the bank opened its new operations center Al Waha, which houses the banks centralised operations functions as well as the SHB Academy. At the end of June 2010, the banks paid-up capital amounted to SAR3,307 million, in June 2011, Saudi Hollandi Bank Launched The First MasterCard World Credit Card With A Silver Mark in the Middle East. In November 2016, Saudi Hollandi Bank changed its name to Alawwal Bank as part of a new identity that will be rolled out over the next three months, according to a statement. Alawwal, meaning “The First” in Arabic, which refers to the status as the first bank to launch in the country in 1926. SHB is organized into three business segments, Corporate Banking, Personal Banking and Treasury. In addition, the Bank provides brokerage, asset management and investment banking services through its subsidiary Saudi Hollandi Capital, amongst Saudi Hollandi’s ATMs are Teller Cash Recycling machines. Preferred Banking Centers are for Saudi Hollandi’s VIP clients, official website Saudi Hollandi Bank – AME Info
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Jeddah
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Jeddah is a city in the Hijaz Tihamah region on the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest sea port on the Red Sea, with a population currently at 4.2 million people, Jeddah is an important commercial hub in Saudi Arabia. Jeddah is the gateway to Mecca, Islams holiest city. It is also a gateway to Medina, the second holiest place in Islam, economically, Jeddah is focusing on further developing capital investment in scientific and engineering leadership within Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East. Jeddah was independently ranked fourth in the Africa – Mid-East region in terms of innovation in 2009 in the Innovation Cities Index, Jeddah is one of Saudi Arabias primary resort cities and was named a Gamma world city by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network. Given the citys proximity to the Red Sea, fishing. The city has been labeled as different by the majority of Saudis in an effort to promote tourism in the city, historically, Jeddah has been well known for its legendary money changers. The largest of said money changers at the time eventually founded Saudi Arabias first bank, there are at least two explanations for the etymology of the name Jeddah, according to Jeddah Ibn Al-Qudaaiy, the chief of the Qudaa clan. The more common account has it that the name is derived from جدة Jaddah, according to eastern folk belief, the tomb of Eve, considered the grandmother of humanity, is located in Jeddah. The tomb was sealed with concrete by religious authorities in 1975 due to some Muslims praying at the site, Ibn Battuta, the Berber traveler, visited Jeddah during his world trip. He wrote the name of the city into his diary as Jiddah, the British Foreign Office and other branches of the British government used the older spelling of Jedda, contrary to other English-speaking usage, but in 2007, it changed to the spelling Jeddah. T. E. Lawrence felt that any transcription of Arabic names into English was arbitrary, in his book, Revolt in the Desert, Jeddah is spelled three different ways on the first page alone. On official Saudi maps and documents, the city name is transcribed Jeddah, some historians trace its founding to the tribe of Bani Qudaah, who inhabited it after the collapse of Sad Marib in 115 BC. According to some accounts, the history of Jeddah dates back to times before Alexander the Great. The city of Jeddah was an important port during Nabataeans frankincense trade. The oldest Mashrabiya was found in dates back to pre Islamic era. Jeddah first achieved prominence around AD647, when the third Muslim Caliph, Uthman Ibn Affan, in AD703 Jeddah was briefly occupied by pirates from the Kingdom of Axum. Jeddah has been established as the city of the historic Hijaz province. In the 969 AD, the Fatimids from Algeria took control in Egypt from the Ikhshidid dynasty and expanded their empire to the regions, including The Hijaz
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Party for Freedom
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The Party for Freedom is a Dutch nationalist and right-wing populist political party in the Netherlands. Founded in 2006 as the successor to Geert Wilders one-man party in the House of Representatives, in the 2010 general election it won 24 seats, making it the third-largest party. At that time the PVV agreed to support the minority government led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte without having ministers in the cabinet, however the PVV withdrew its support in April 2012 due to differences over budget cuts at the Catshuis. It came third in the 2014 European Parliament election, winning four out of 26 seats, in the 2017 election, the Party for Freedom won 20 seats, making it the second-largest party in the House of Representatives. The PVV has also proposed banning the Quran and shutting down all mosques in the Netherlands, Party for Freedom is an association with Geert Wilders as its sole member. The party is ineligible for Dutch government funding and relies on donations, the partys history began with Geert Wilders departure from the VVD in September 2004. Wilders could not accept the VVDs positive stance towards Turkeys possible accession to the European Union, although the VVD expected Wilders to return his parliamentary seat to the party, he refused, and continued to sit in parliament as a one-man party, Groep Wilders. In June 2005 Wilders was one of the leaders in the campaign against the European Constitution, Spruyt left the party in the summer of 2006 after it proved unable to build broad conservative backing, and people like Joost Eerdmans and Marco Pastors proved unwilling to join. Later, Spruyt commented that the PVV had a tendency toward fascism. He later qualified the statement, though he didnt withdraw it, former PVV candidate Lucas Hartong called Spruyts claims a cheap insinuation. On 10 January 2007 the PVV announced it would not field candidates at the forthcoming Provincial elections and this meant it would be unrepresented in the Senate. Former trade union leader and prominent Christian Democrat Doekle Terpstra proposed an initiative against Geert Wilders, Terpstra sees Wilders as promoting intolerance, and discrimination against Muslims. He is supported in his cause by the large Dutch trade unions, politicians and the public are divided on Terpstras initiative. The newspaper De Pers reported the day that much of Terpstras support did not actualize. The film attempts to demonstrate that the Quran motivates its followers to hate all who violate Islamic teachings, consequently, the film argues that Islam encourages acts of terrorism, antisemitism, violence against women and homosexuals, and Islamic universalism. A large part of the deals with the influence of Islam on the Netherlands. The films title, the Arabic word fitna, means either disagreement, Wilders described the film as a call to shake off the creeping tyranny of Islamization. Polling by Maurice de Hond published in March 2009 indicated that the PVV was the most popular parliamentary party, the polls predicted that the party would take 21 per cent of the national vote, giving it 32 out of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament
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Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
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LaSalle National Bank
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LaSalle Bank Corporation was the holding company for LaSalle Bank N. A. and LaSalle Bank Midwest N. A. With US$116 billion in assets, it was headquartered at 135 South LaSalle Street in Chicago, Bank of America acquired LaSalle Bank Corp. effective October 1,2007, and officially adopted the Bank of America name on May 5,2008. Founded in 1927 as National Builders Bank of Chicago, it changed its name to LaSalle National Bank in 1940 after a team led by John Nuveen acquired control, in the 1960s LaSalle acquired the Mutual National Bank of Chicago founded by Frank C. ABN acquired the bank in 1979, in a merger of co-owned banks, the LaSalle Bank N. A. name was adopted in 1999. It was the largest bank headquartered in Chicago with US$72.2 billion in assets, LaSalle Bank maintained 146 retail locations and 450 ATMs throughout Chicago and its neighboring suburbs. Louis, Tampa, Troy, Tustin, and Washington, D. C, upon the acquisition Nova Global Markets and Nova Holdings became apart the official records. In 1996, ABN AMRO acquired Troy, Michigan-based Standard Federal Bancorporation, in 2000, ABN AMRO acquired Michigan National Corporation of Bloomfield Hills and merged it into Standard Federal. The merged bank took the Standard Federal name, but operated under Michigan Nationals charter, in 2005, it changed its name to LaSalle Bank Midwest N. A. when ABN AMRO consolidated its U. S. commercial banking operations under the LaSalle name. As of 2007, it was one of the largest banks in the Midwest, with US$43 billion in assets and it operated 264 branches and 1,000 ATMs in Michigan and Indiana. On April 23,2007, an agreement was made to sell LaSalle Bank Corporation to Bank of America for US$21 billion, Bank of America Corp officially took over LaSalle Bank Corp on October 1,2007. This was a move by ABN AMRO to stave off its own purchase by Royal Bank of Scotland. At one stroke, this made Bank of America the largest bank by deposits in both Chicago and Detroit, Bank of America previously had a presence in Chicago and none in Michigan. The investment banking arm was purchased by the third largest bank in Canada by deposits, BNS US based investment banking operation based in Rye Brook NY. LaSalle Nova Global Markets of NYC and LaSalle Nova Private Equity Greenwich Connecticut, under a newly formed umbrella partnership new operations in Charlotte North Carolina LaSalle BNS Capital Markets, ABN Capital Markets and AMO Capital Markets. LaSalle sponsored a number of events in its Chicago home, many of these events will now be re-branded with Bank of Americas name
9.290 billion Euros (2017)[1]
393.171 billion Euros (2017)[1]
