| Controversial 'Jane Austen' portrait fails to sell at auction
NEW YORK (AFP) - The painting, which depicts a young woman in a full-length white dress holding a green parasol, failed to reach its reserve price, Christie's auction house said. It had been expected to fetch between 400,000 and 800,000 dollars. The so-called Rice Portrait, described by Christie's as one of the world's most intriguing literary portraits, was believed to have been painted by British painter Ozias Humphry and is owned by Austen's direct descendants. The controversy over the portrait goes back to the 1940s, when leading Austen scholar R.W. Chapman said that the fashions in the picture dated from 1805 or later, and not from the late 1780s, when it was supposedly painted. Another debate has focused on the supplier's stamp on the reverse of the original canvas. Detractors say the merchant's mark does not fit with the period, while Christie's disputed both arguments.
Conklin: Council bids farewell to departing members
Tuesday, for the first time in 24 years, a new Madison City Council took an oath of office without an alderperson named Judy Olson. No new member at the noon swearing-in ceremony at City Hall had black or metallic polish on their pinky nails, as was routinely sported by departing Ald. Ken Golden, aka "The Bear." And no newcomer displayed the intense passion Austin King put into his well-crafted farewell remarks on behalf of the poor, "the people in our community who often get forgotten." .
KKR Confirms It Dropped Out of Group Bidding for Sainsbury
April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. dropped out of the group that's considering a bid for J Sainsbury Plc, leaving its three partners to pursue the takeover plan. KKR withdrew from the planned bid for the third-largest U.K. supermarket chain after talks with other members of the group, it said today in an e-mailed statement. CVC Capital Partners Ltd., Blackstone Group LP and Texas Pacific Group make up the rest of the group, which must decide on a bid by April 13. New York-based KKR dropped out of the group because of its involvement in a takeover offer for U.K. retailer Alliance Boots Plc, two people with knowledge of the deal said. The action won't jeopardize the planned bid, according to the people, who declined to be identified as details aren't public.
Saudi regulator qualifies 3 parties for fixed licence bids
The Saudi Arabian regulator, the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), has concluded the evaluation of all applicants wanting to bid for a fixed services licence, which were submitted in February. The qualified applicants are: the Optical Communication Company Consortium (comprising MCI International and Verizon), the Al-Mutakamilah Consortioum (led by PCCW), and the Atheeb Consortioum (led by Batelco). The applicants have already submitted bids which will be evaluated on 21 April. Print | Comment | Mail
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Morgan Stanley wins bidding for ANA hotels
Morgan Stanley has won the fiercely contested bidding to buy 13 hotels from All Nippon Airways, the Japanese airline, for Y281.3bn, in the largest property ever deal in Japan. The deal, which overshadows the sale last year of Richard Li's Pacific Century Group building in Tokyo to KK Da Vinci Advisers, Japan's largest private real estate fund, for Y200bn, highlights the recent sharp rebound of Japan's property market. The ANA sale comes on the heels of figures showing that Japanese land prices rose last year for the first time in 16 years. Morgan Stanley has been a significant investor in Japan's property market, buying assets and exiting through the capital markets. The business has been extremely lucrative for the investment bank, particularly as it was able to acquire heavily distressed assets in the past.
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