In the traditionally male world of angel investing, Ed Reitler is used to having his voice heard. A partner in Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt LLC of New York City, he’s also the founder of the ARC Angel Fund, a New York-based investing launched in 2010. So when he says that it’s “incredibly important” to develop female angel investors because “they are crucial to ensuring the funding of a more diverse group of companies,” you’d hope his male counterparts would take notice.
After all, Reitler’s got a point. A 2006 report by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation on women and angel investing concluded that “women entrepreneurs gravitate to women angels,” and that those benefactors “look at more women’s start-up businesses than some of the more traditional [male] groups do.”
That also explains why Reiter serves as a male mentor to the Pipeline Fellowship, a group that trains women to become angel investors through education, mentoring and practice. Its young founder and CEO, Natalia Oberti Noguera, is a lady on a mission: to change the lopsided ratio of male-to-female angel investors, and get female angels involved in finding and supporting female entrepreneurs.
In a new report from the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire, author Jeffrey Sohl outlines how women represent just 12 percent of all angel investors, and women-owned ventures account for 12 percent of entrepreneurs seeking angel capital. Of these ventures, about one in four received angel investment during the first two quarters on 2011.
Low as those numbers look, they were actually higher in 2010, when 13 percent of angels were female, and women-owned ventures accounted for 21 percent of entrepreneurs seeking angel capital.
Less than two weeks after the Center for Venture Research released its findings, Oberti Noguera hosted an event in New York City on Oct. 20 to announce that Pipeline’s 2011 fellows would invest $50,000 in PhilanTech. Based in Washington, D.C., the company produces an online grants management system for foundations, nonprofits and corporations.
Combined with another $55,000 from the Pipeline Angels alumni network, that means $105,000 in fresh capital for a company that had struggled to gain investment traction — even though PhilanTech’s founder, Dahna Goldstein, was lauded by Bloomberg Businessweek as one of 2009’s most promising social entrepreneurs.
PhilanTech, launched in 2004, helps recapture a portion of the money nonprofits and foundations lose to a morass of paperwork. (Think two dozen different forms for two dozen different grant applications.)
That waste now equals $6 billion annually, or 13 perent of all grant money. But to hear Goldstein tell it, the male-dominated investment world simply didn’t get her idea — even when her sales roughly quadrupled over a one-year period.
The women of Pipeline Fellowship did, though, and funded PhilanTech with an amount that surpassed her total 2008 sales. Lesson learned? “Companies creating value should have equal access to capital, regardless of whether they are led by men or women,” Goldstein says.
Enter Oberti Noguera, 28, who is fluent in four languages and was named last year to Forbes’ Top 20 Women for Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter. While she may be a self-described feminist, she also realizes that male mentors have an important role to play in her work. To that end, half of the 10 mentors for the 2011 NYC Pipeline Fellowship are men.
With its New York-based fellows, Pipeline Fellowship selected 10 women, each of whom paid $1,000 tuition and put up $5,000 each to fund a woman-led company picked by the group as a whole. (The tuition is now $3,500.)
One of those fellows, Jessica Roazzi-Magoch, says that she’s learning “how to tie my main core beliefs into dollars and cents. Pipeline is helping me measure where that return on investment is — with both the money and the social impact.”
Roazzi-Magoch, a former retail vice president at Atlantis Health Plan, came to Pipeline with some experience in philanthropy. She co-sponsored a New York “Wine, Women and Wealth” event that helped other women learn some basic rules of finance. In the process, she helped raised $10,000 for First Step, a job training program that helps homeless women get back on their feet.
What that event taught her is that women like her aren’t alone in wanting their wealth to work for a greater good. Still, it takes effort finding a community willing to put its money where its hearts and minds are, on behalf of other women trying to make a difference.
“I have done a lot off charity in the past and given a lot of money away, but this is a chance to bring the two together,” she says. “Sometimes it’s difficult to know how to have an impact. If you put aside even a couple of dollars, you’re making an impact. But if we can get more women [involved], that will not only have an impact: That will be exciting.”
Low debt leverage and a reasonable regulatory environment
support the U.S. pipeline industry’s stable credit metrics.
Fitch believes the industry is actively reacting to shifting
supply/demand dynamics and other major long-term trends.Fitch also notes that environmental and safety costs
resulting from new federal legislation and tighter regulation
are manageable, although the extent and details of new
regulations remains uncertain. The permitting and construction
of pipelines will face growing challenges.The rapid increase of natural gas production from shale
basins will change supply dynamics and elevate pipeline
recontracting risk. In particular, Marcellus Shale production
will displace supplies from other basins and affect pipeline
capacity utilization on systems now serving the Northeast and
Mid-Atlantic regions. Several factors including increasing
demand could limit potential financial exposure. Fitch believes
it is premature to determine winners and losers.The full report ‘Natural Gas Pipelines: Hot Topics -
Long-Term Trends Affecting Pipeline Risk’ is available at
‘www.fitchratings.com.’ Fitch maintains ratings on 15 issuers in
the pipelines industry.
China’s Ministry of Railways auctioned 10 billion yuan ($1.6
billion) of seven-year bond on Wednesday at a yield of 5.59
percent, traders said.”The bond auction is a positive catalyst as it solves the
near-term needs for financing for the rail projects, and allows
the ministry to tender out contracts to the rail companies,”
said Tan Han Meng, an analyst at DMG & Partners.He also noted that Midas’ valuations look attractive at its
current share price.Midas’ peers such as CSR Corporation Ltd , which
makes railway components, are also up 6.1 percent.
Monthly job openings — unfilled, posted vacancies that employers plan to fill within 30 days — help describe demand for labor. The number has consistently hovered well below the 4.4 million openings registered in December 2007, before the 2007-2009 recession.Some 8 million Americans lost their jobs in the recession and only 1.4 million of those jobs have come back during the recovery.Hiring rose marginally in August, with businesses and government hires climbing to 4.01 million from 3.98 million a month earlier, too small a gain to bring down the U.S. unemployment rate.The rate at which workers were separated from jobs by layoffs or quits, a measure of labor turnover, was 3.1 percent in August.President Barack Obama has been counting on the economic recovery to help his re-election campaign, but an unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent and painfully slow jobs growth is putting his chances of winning a second term at risk.In a modest bright spot for workers, the Labor Department report on Wednesday showed the rate at which people quit their jobs, which can indicate workers’ confidence in their ability to find new jobs, rose to 51 percent in August from 50 percent in July.The rate of layoffs was 42 percent.The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey encompasses employment data from about 16,000 establishments across the country.
APPROVALS AND WITHDRAWALS:— Ugitour, part of French insurer AXA , Caisse des
Depots et Consignations and Sogecap, a subsidiary of French bank
Societe Generale , to acquire joint control of several
Belgian and French properties (approved Oct. 11)NEW LISTINGS:— French company Caisse des Depots et Consignations to
acquire 50 percent of a Paris real estate from a subsidiary of
French insurer Axa (notified Oct. 11/deadline Nov.
17/simplified)— French power and transport engineering group Alstom
and Bouygues subsidiaries Bouygues
Immobilier and Exprim SAS to form a joint venture (notified Oct.
11/deadline Nov. 17/simplified)— German natural gas supplier Verbundnetz Gas
Aktiengesellschaft to sell a 25.1 percent stake in VNG Austria
to CE Gas Marketing & Trading (notified Oct. 7/deadline Nov.
15/simplified)EXTENSIONS AND OTHER CHANGES:NoneFIRST-STAGE REVIEWS BY DEADLINEOCT 13— Israeli drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries
to acquire U.S. specialty drugmaker Cephalon
(notified Aug. 25/deadline extended to Oct. 13 from Sept. 29
after Teva offers commitments)OCT 14— Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners to acquire a
stake in international health club operator Virgin Active
(notified Sept. 9/deadline Oct. 14)— Private equity firms KKR and Silver Lake, and funds
controlled by Technology Crossover Ventures to acquire joint
control of Arizona-registered company Godaddy Group (notified
Sept. 9/deadline Oct. 14/simplified)OCT 18— Mitsubishi Corp to acquire a stake in Czech auto
car body maker Sungwoo Hitech from South Korea’s Sungwoo Hitech
Co Ltd (notified Sept. 13/deadline Oct.
18/simplified)OCT 20— Dutch bank AEGON’s Spanish unit to acquire a 50
percent stake in Spanish life insurer Cajaburgos Vida, part of
Banca Civica (notified Sept. 15/deadline Oct.
20/simplified)— Danish dairy coperative Arla Foods to acquire German
dairy cooperative Allgauland (notified Sept. 15/deadline Oct.
20)— A joint venture led by Gores Group LLC to acquire
clothing retailer Mexx from Liz Claiborne Inc (notified
Sept. 15/deadline Oct. 20/simplified)OCT 24— German sugar company Suedzucker to acquire a 25
percent stake in British commodities trading company ED&F Man
(notified Sept. 19/deadline Oct. 24)OCT 26— German property operator ECE and German retailer Metro
to set up a joint venture (notified Sept. 21/deadline
Oct. 26)— U.S.-based Seagate Technology to acquire Samsung
Electronic’s hard disk drive business (notified
April 19/deadline extended for the second time to Oct. 26 from
Oct. 10)— U.S. equipment maker Caterpillar to acquire
German maker of gas and diesel engine maker MWM Holding GmbH
(notified March 14/deadline extended to Oct. 26 from Sept 16
after Commission opens in-depth investigation and despite
commitments offered)OCT 28— U.S. company Dow Chemical and Japanese trading
house Mitsui to set up a Brazilian joint venture
(notified Sept. 23/deadline Oct. 28/simplified)— German conglomerate Siemens (SIEGn.DE) to acquire Dutch
engineering company NEM Holding (notified Sept. 23/deadline Oct.
28)OCT 31— Vitol Investment Holdings, a unit of oil trader Vital
, and U.S. energy company ArcLight to acquire joint
control of Luxembourg-based Petro Lux (notified Sept.
26/deadline Oct. 31/simplified)NOV 3— Belgian building materials group Etex to acquire German
peer Lafarge’s gypsum assets in Europe and South
America (notified Sept. 27/deadline Nov. 3)— U.S. healthcare company Johnson & Johnson to
acquire Swiss medical devices maker Synthes Inc
(notified Sept. 27/deadline Nov. 3)— Private equity group TPG Capital LP to acquire a
stake in Danish online brokerage Saxo Bank from Portugal’s Banco
Espirito Santo (notified Sept. 27/deadline Nov.
3/simplified)NOV 8— German fruit producer Agrana and Austrian equipment maker
RWA to combined their subsidiaries into a joint venture
(notified Sept. 30/deadline Nov. 8)NOV 10— U.S. cleaning and pest-control services company Ecolab
to acquire water treatment services company Nalco
Holding (notified Oct. 4/deadline Nov. 10)NOV 14— German industrial services company Buchen
Industrieservice to acquire German technical services company
ThyssenKrupp Xervon (notified Oct. 6/deadline Nov.
14/simplified)NOV 30— U.S. technology company Western Digital Corp to
acquire Hitachi’s hard disk drive business (notified
April 20/deadline extended for the fourth time to Nov. 30 from
Nov. 9 after Western Digital offered remedies)— U.S. conglomerate General Electric, Russian energy
producer and importer Inter Rao Ues and Russian engine maker
United Engine Corporation to set up a joint venture (notified
Sept. 30/deadline Nov 9/simplified)DEC 13— Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE) and NYSE Euronext to
merge (notified June 29/deadline extended to Dec. 13 from Aug. 4
after Commission opens in-depth probe)GUIDE TO EU MERGER PROCESSDEADLINES:The European Commission has 25 working days after a deal is
filed for a first-stage review. It may extend that by 10 working
days to 35 working days, to consider either a company’s proposed
remedies or an EU member state’s request to handle the case.Most mergers win approval but occasionally the Commission
opens a detailed second-stage investigation for up to 90
additional working days, which it may extend to 105 working
days.SIMPLIFIED:Under the simplified procedure, the Commission announces the
clearance of uncontroversial first-stage mergers without giving
any reason for its decision. Cases may be reclassified as
non-simplified — that is, ordinary first-stage reviews — until
they are approved.
The result had been anticipated after a junior party in the
coalition said it would abstain.All of the 16 other euro zone countries have already
ratified the plan to give more powers to the EFSF.The euro was last at $1.3642 on electronic
trading platform EBS, after climbing as high as $1.3684 earlier
in the New York session.
