Babcock & Brown, which manages a string of leveraged infrastructure funds, has also had to accept higher interest rates in order to stave off nervous creditors (although it was helped on July 23rd by a solid set of results from Macquarie, a bank with a similar business model).The banks themselves are also under pressure.
The move is the latest in a string of energy infrastructure acquisitions for G.E., which also picked up the well-support unit of the John Wood Group for $2.8 billion last month, as well as Wellstream Holdings, the British oil services company, for $1.3 billion in December.
The production of La Traviata is being financially supported by Valentino's foundation, the latest in a string of artistic and infrastructure endeavours to get financial aid from the private sector, and particularly the fashion industry.
The current crisis was brought to a head after Railtrack told the government it was facing at least a £2 billion ($3 billion) shortfall to upgrade infrastructure after a string of fatal crashes.
In Mr. Townsend's talk, he detailed a string of triumphs from earlier years, rehashed infrastructure problems that have remained unresolved and revisited the case for building a bridge and tunnel between the North Shore and Connecticut, a project others abandoned years ago.
After a string of attacks on Nigeria's oil infrastructure, its government plans to open talks with the newly formed militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers NDAA).
Public programs get cut, of course -- the sequester is already in place -- and as finance for those programs is cut, so too are the chances of effective legislation on a string of other vital issues: immigration reform, infrastructure renewal and even modest gun control.
If there was a link it would only be seen much later, strung together with hindsight and metaphor: the failing of trusted institutions, decay of infrastructure, the sudden plunge from riding high to submerged.
In 2007, Alan Paller, the director of the security-focused SANS Institute, told Forbes that hackers had extorted hundreds of millions from critical infrastructure companies in a string of incidents.
A Nigerian oil workers' union said that staff should be evacuated from the Niger Delta after a string of attacks on pipelines and other oil infrastructure.
