There is an angry self-righteousness about German officials these days: it is a mixture of boastfulness about the merits of the German model, and resentment about being forced to stake hundreds of billions of euros to help others.
His characters may be forced to stake out positions that don't quite jibe with their personas, but Mr. Bunin manages to explore the serious idea of how faith is discovered, maintained or abandoned by thoughtful people today without cheapening the discussion with strident polemics.
Maurizio, a grandson of Guccio who'd ousted his relatives from the business to become CEO in 1992, had been forced to sell his stake 18 months before he died.
PAGE B1 ALSO INSIDE Big Disney Stake Sold Stocks have fallen so far that members of the Bass family of Texas have been forced to sell a stake in Disney to raise cash.
A number of Western energy companies, including BP and Royal Dutch Shell have also had troubles in Russia, and have been forced to cede their stakes in gas fields to state-owned Gazprom.
Prada, by contrast, has been forced to sell a 45percentt stake in the British shoemaker Church's, which it had acquired only four years ago.
The stock market has fallen so far that some members of the wealthy Bass family of Texas have been forced to sell a big stake in the Disney Company to raise cash.
C7 Measure of Distress The stock market has fallen so far that some members of the Bass family of Texas have been forced to sell a big stake in Disney to raise cash.
Of course, if the OFT, Ofcom or the Competition Commission had been similarly empowered, and Sky had been forced to divest its ITV stake quickly, it would have saved the company over £600m, as the shares have lost two thirds of their value since Murdoch and Darroch bought them, in a wheeze designed to frustrate a possible Virgin Media merger with ITV.
Allied Irish, effectively nationalized last year after the collapse of Ireland's real estate bubble left it ostracized by international credit markets, has been forced to divest itself of its 70 percent stake as it tries to raise capital.
