San Frans Finest

Firm continues to see an increase in opportunities for commercial real estate managers and looks to hire more staff in 2012 to accommodate growth.

New York, NY (PRWEB) May 16, 2012

Park Madison Partners, a boutique real estate finance firm, announced today that it has hired John Harding Sweeney as an Associate. In that role, he will work with Park Madison Partners’ founding partners, Nancy Lashine and Suzanne West, in providing market research and advisory services to the firm’s commercial real estate clients.

Prior to joining Park Madison Partners, Mr. Sweeney was an Investment Analyst for the Special Clients Group at JP Morgan Asset Management. Mr. Sweeney is also a Director and Co-Founder of Asset Title Services, Inc. in Crossville, TN, a real estate venture that provides loans against well-collateralized residential property.

“Commercial real estate is once again looking attractive as an alternative asset class and there is institutional capital available to do deals, but both developed and emerging managers need to be creative in their investment strategies to get funded,” said Ms. Lashine. “In working with the firm’s team of experienced professionals, John will play a key role in the development of these strategies.”

In addition to the Associate position recently filled by Mr. Sweeney, Park Madison Partners is planning to add a marketing professional to its team in New York. Ms. West said, “Park Madison Partners had a record year in 2011 with the completion of three successful fundraising deals with global partners and we are expecting increased activity in 2012, particularly among emerging managers looking to leverage their investment track records.”

About Park Madison Partners

Park Madison Partners is a New York-based real estate placement and advisory firm focused on the global real estate private equity and private funds industry. The firm was founded to offer clients capital raising and strategic consulting services with a high degree of customization, integrity and accountability. The firm provides a relationship-driven approach to structuring and marketing assignments and offers its clients access to institutional investors across North America. The firm is a member of SIPC-FINRA and is certified with the Womens Business Enterprise National Council.

For further information, please visit http://www.parkmadisonpartners.com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/5/prweb9513127.htm

BMW owners are more likely to have an extra-marital affairs, according to a recent survey.

UK-based dating website Illicit Encounters conducted a survey among its 640,000 members and announced 19.21 percent of male BMW owners have admitted of being unfaithful to their partners, reported by carsguide.com.au.

Theres an intrinsic link between success and cheating. Successful people are often risk-takers and have got to where they are by setting their standards high. However, these people are also less likely to settle for unsatisfying relationships or monotony, said Rosie Freeman-Jones, spokesperson for Illicit Encounters.

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Audi came in second with 8.79 percent, followed by Mercedes, 8.23 percent, Jaguar, 6.5 percent, and Land Rover, 4.94 percent.

The survey was under the heading of Stuff We Dont Need To Know But Will Read Anyway.

Sure, that little netbook you bought might offer admirable battery life, and it might be the perfect size for your carry-on luggage. But what if you want to play a game? Is there anything that such entry-level hardware can handle smoothly at the full 1280×720 resolution typical of many netbook form factors?

We were curious ourselves, so we tried out a number of our favorite games known for their low system requirements, both old and new, on an Acer Aspire One 522 with AMD’s C-50 APU running at 1 GHz, armed with 2 GB of RAM, and equipped with a 250 GB hard disk. You might be surprised by the performance this machine can deliver at 720p. You might also be surprised how many games it can’t handle, and well cover all of those titles on the last page of this piece. Of course, because netbooks are too small to include built-in optical drives, external storage is necessary for many of these games.

Your netbook might not be as powerful as ours when it comes to gaming. But if it sports a C-50-or-better APU and at least 2 GB of memory, you should see similar results. Stronger APUs like the E-350 should perform even better, while Intel Atoms with integrated video will perform poorly in comparison. This list is also useful for folks with older desktop hardware.

In a 1993 article in The Times, Maurice Sendak, who died Tuesday morning at the age of 83, told Sarah Lyall: “Grown-ups desperately need to feel safe, and then they project onto the kids. But what none of us seem to realize is how smart kids are. They dont like what we write for them, what we dish up for them, because its vapid, so theyll go for the hard words, theyll go for the hard concepts, theyll go for the stuff where they can learn something, not didactic things, but passionate things.”

Mr. Sendak had a fellow traveler in his legendary editor at Harper amp; Row, Ursula Nordstrom, who also bristled at the overprotection of children. The collection of her letters, “Dear Genius,” is a treat, and includes correspondence between her and Mr. Sendak. (He drew the illustration of her for the book’s cover.) “You may not be Tolstoy,” Ms. Nordstrom once wrote to Mr. Sendak after he expressed self-doubt, “but Tolstoy wasnt Sendak, either. You have a vast and beautiful genius.”

Though he didn’t publish much in recent years, Mr. Sendak did appear in the media several times, always voicing his strong opinions about various topics. Last September, he spoke to The Times’s Pamela Paul about his book “Bumble-Ardy,” and commented on several famous works for children, including his own “Where the Wild Things Are” (“Children who fight back, children who are full of excitement are the kind of children I like.”) and “Alice in Wonderland”: “It’s a terrifying book; it’s a nightmare. That to me comes as close to the world of childhood as great books do. Carroll was allowing for nightmare, murderous impulses. I don’t know why he got away from it. He told the truth about childhood, about how unsafe it was.”

In 2004, Mr. Sendak gave a searching interview to Bill Moyers, in which he discussed his family’s history, the impact of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping on his childhood and how his most famous book was supposed to be “Where the Wild Horses Are.”

“I never set out to write books for children,” he told Mr. Moyers. “I don’t have a feeling that I’m going to save children, or my life is devoted to them. I’m not Hans Christian Andersen. No one’s going to make a statue in the park with a lot of scrambling kids climbing up me. I won’t have it.”

In a much-discussed profile for The Guardian last October, Emma Brockes recorded several gems from Mr. Sendak, including this mini-rant about e-books: “I hate them. Its like making believe theres another kind of sex. There isnt another kind of sex. There isnt another kind of book! A book is a book is a book.”

But most memorable was Mr. Sendak’s hilarious two-part interview with Stephen Colbert, in which the illustrator talked about how he didnt write for children; gave Mr. Colbert permission to publish a “Wild Things” sequel starring Vin Diesel; and sniffed markers. Telling Mr. Sendak he wanted to get into the children’s book business, Mr. Colbert asked, “What’s it take for a celebrity to make a successful book?” Mr. Sendak responded: “You’ve started already by being an idiot.” In a remarkable coincidence, the childrens book Mr. Colbert described to Mr. Sendak, I Am a Pole (and So Can You!), was published on Tuesday (complete with Mr. Sendaks blurb: The sad thing is, I like it. On Tuesday, Mr. Colbert said, Maurice Sendak was strikingly honest. His art gave us a fantastical but unromanticized reminder of what childhood truly felt like. We are all honored to have been briefly invited into his world.

Part 1 of their interview is here. Part 2 is below.

NetEase (NTES) reported late Wednesday that Q1 earnings per US share were $1.14. That beat Wall Street forecasts for $1.01. In local currency, revenue was RMB2.004 billion, up 30.3% vs. a year earlier. In dollar terms, revenue was $318.2 million, up 39.1% vs. a year earlier and beating estimates for $309.81 million. Online gaming revenue shot up 31.4%. NetEase cited strong growth in its in-house games, as opposed to licensed games such as Activision Blizzards (ATVI) World of Warcraft.

NetEase shares rose 4% in late, late Wednesday trading after rising 1.6% during the regular session ahead of results.

CEO William Din said in a statement: In the second and third quarters of 2012, we plan to initiate beta
testing of several highly anticipated games in our pipeline, including
3D ARPG, Soul of Warrior, 2.5D MMORPG, Wu Hun, 3D action real-time
strategy (or DotA) game, Heroes of Three Kingdoms, and a next generation
3D action MMORPG, Dragon Sword. With respect to our licensed games, we
are pleased to have renewed our contract with Blizzard Entertainment to
continue our existing cooperation on Blizzard Entertainments World of
Warcraft in mainland China. We look forward to releasing Mists of Pandaria, the fourth expansion to World of Warcraft, in mainland China as soon as possible.

Another Chinese Internet portal, Sina (SINA), surged 11.1% after the company late Tuesday reported a lower-than-expected Q1 loss and said its close to selling ads for its popular Twitter-like Weibo site. Chinese search giant Baidu (BIDU) fell 1.3%.

***

(Posted 5/15/2012 12:55 PM ET)

China Internet portal NetEase (NTES) late Wednesday is expected to report that its sales jumped 35% in the first quarter, as its gaming division continues to drive revenue.

Revenue is seen at $309.7 million, up from $229.1 million in Q1 2011.

The company is expected to report per-share profit for its American depositary receipts of $1.01, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. That would be a 17% increase from 86 cents in the year-ago quarter.

NetEase has changed its name from NetEase.com.

The company in March renewed its exclusive license for Activision Blizzard (ATVI) games in mainland China, adding another three years. US-based Activision last week reported sales of $587 million, beating analyst forecasts by about 6%.

Internet users in China have shown waning interest in traditional online games since the rise of social media games in China, writes Tian X. Hou, an analyst with TH Capital in Beijing.

But, we believe NTES game segment can continue to be a long-term growth driver for the company, said Hou, who has a buy rating on the stock.

NetEase shares were up 1.5%, near 57.15, in early afternoon trading Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, DC–(ENEWSPF)–April 30, 2012. In a letter to all members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation, US Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and US Representative Jerry Costello (D-IL) today committed to working to protect important Illinois priorities in the upcoming House-Senate Conference Committee on the next transportation bill. They also asked the members to submit their priorities in writing in order to ensure the entire delegation is working together to protect important, job-creating Illinois transportation projects.

“As Illinois Members of the upcoming House-Senate Conference Committee on the next transportation bill, we want to protect transportation issues important to Illinois in the final Conference Report. There are significant needs for our state’s roads, bridges, transit and rail systems, and we must be serious about securing a meaningful, sustainable transportation funding plan to promote our economic future,” wrote Durbin and Costello. “The Conferees are already beginning informal discussions about the contents of the final bill. It is incumbent upon us all to work together to ensure the final transportation bill reflects Illinois’ unique place as the transportation hub of the United States.”

While asking input from other members, Durbin and Costello outlined several of their shared priorities, all of which were included in the bipartisan Senate version of the transportation bill which would maintain existing funding levels for Illinois transportation projects, improve Illinois’ transportation network and save or create an estimated 67,900 jobs in Illinois. Their priorities include protecting the following programs:

• Projects of Regional and National Significance: a new competitive grant program for projects of regional and national significance that would give states and communities the opportunity to seek additional funding for significant projects. Projects that could potentially benefit from this grant program include, among others, the I-74 Corridor in the Quad Cities, the Elgin-O’Hare Western Bypass, rail relocation in Springfield and the proposed Illiana highway.

• Amtrak / Intercity Passenger Rail: The Senate bill includes provisions to improve Amtrak on-time-performance when freight trains interfere with their operations. The bill also includes several provisions improving passenger rail, including allowing states greater access to federal funds to jumpstart operating passenger rail. This provision could help the State of Illinois jumpstart new passenger rail service to Rockford-Galena and the Quad Cities.

• Fairness in Highway Formula Funding: Highway formula funds should be distributed in a way that reflects all funds Illinois has received in previous transportation bills, including earmarked funds for important projects like the Mississippi River Bridge in Southwestern Illinois, the CREATE project and the reconstruction of Wacker Drive

• Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) program: The CMAQ program helps major cities pay for transportation projects that improve air quality and mitigate congestion. The Chicagoland region receives $80 million per year from the CMAQ program which it uses to fund projects such as new CTA stations, cleaner Metra diesel engines, and road improvements throughout the suburbs.

• Large, Aging Mass Transit Systems: The Senate bill established a State of Good Repair program to assist public transportation systems in addressing the backlog of maintenance needs for America’s aging transit systems. The United States underfunds larger, aging transit agencies by $8.9 billion per year. Specifically, transit agencies in the Chicago area are facing a 10-year capital infrastructure backlog of more than $24 billion. These transit agencies work non-stop carrying millions of people each day, and their systems are getting older and in dire need of repair.

Durbin and Costello sent letters to the following members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation: Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Representatives Judy Biggert (R-IL), Danny Davis (D-IL), Robert Dold (R-IL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Randy Hultgren (R-IL), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), Tim Johnson (R-IL), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Dan Lipinski (D-IL), Don Manzullo (R-IL), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Bobby Schilling (R-IL) Aaron Schock (R-IL), John Shimkus (R-IL) and Joe Walsh (R-IL).

[Text of letter is below and attached]

April 27, 2012

Dear Illinois Colleague:

As Illinois Members of the upcoming House-Senate Conference Committee on the next transportation bill, we want to protect transportation issues important to Illinois in the final Conference Report. There are significant needs for our state’s roads, bridges, transit and rail systems, and we must be serious about securing a meaningful, sustainable transportation funding plan to promote our economic future.

As you know, HR 4348, the House legislative vehicle used to enter into a Conference Committee with the Senate is not a comprehensive bill. It includes a clean extension of current transportation law through the end of the fiscal year and several unrelated policy provisions.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee did report a five-year transportation bill (HR 7) to the full House of Representatives in February. However, this bill drew significant opposition and many of you also opposed to the bill because of its negative impact on the transportation network in Illinois. Due to this opposition, HR 7 was ultimately pulled from consideration on the House floor.

There have been reports that the House Republicans on the Conference Committee will insist on controversial provisions from HR 7 be part of the final Conference Report even though HR 7 was never passed or even considered by the House of Representatives.

The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), Regional Transit Administration, Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, the Transportation for Illinois Coalition, Illinois Chamber of Commerce, organized labor and House leaders all strongly opposed HR 7 because it would eliminate jobs and fails to adequately maintain and rebuild the transportation systems in Illinois. HR 7 contained several provisions that would have negatively impacted Illinois, including:

• cutting Illinois’ highway funds by hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of the bill;
• eliminating dedicated gas tax revenues for mass transit and Congestion and Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) grants;
• cutting operating funding for Amtrak by 25 percent;
• eliminating dedicated funds for bicycle and pedestrian safety projects; and
• eliminating any competitive grant programs like the TIGER grant program – taking away the chance for our state and local communities to compete for regionally and nationally significant projects

In contrast, the Senate passed an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill by a vote of 74-22. While not perfect, the Senate-passed bill will maintain existing funding levels for Illinois transportation projects, improve Illinois’ transportation network and save or create an estimated 67,900 jobs in our state. Further, the Senate bill includes several provisions that are particularly helpful to our state, including:

• distributing highway formula funds in a way that reflects all funds Illinois has received in previous transportation bills, including earmarked funds for important projects like the Mississippi River Bridge in Southwestern Illinois, the CREATE project and the reconstruction of Wacker Drive
• retaining dedicated gas tax revenue for mass transit and Congestion Mitigation Air Quality grants that help reduce gridlock on our roads and improve the environment;
• increase funding for mass transit in Illinois and allow CTA and Metra to compete for funds to improve their existing systems;
• passenger rail provisions that will improve Amtrak’s on-time-performance and help Illinois jump start new service to Rockford-Galena and the Quad Cities; and
• a new competitive grant program for projects of regional and national significance that will give our state and its communities the opportunity to seek additional funds for significant projects like the I-74 bridge, the Elgin-O’Hare Western Bypass, rail relocation in Springfield, and the proposed Illiana highway, among others.

The Conference Committee is expected to hold a formal hearing when Congress reconvenes on May 8. The Conferees are already beginning informal discussions about the contents of the final bill. It is incumbent upon us all to work together to ensure the final transportation bill reflects Illinois’ unique place as the transportation hub of the United States.

As the conference committee process begins, we ask you to share your priorities for this transportation bill in writing with us as soon as possible.

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• Contact your nearest Business Enterprise Centre for free advice and support.

Games have top the smartphone download list since the app phenomenon began. Smartphones revolutionized the gaming industry — leaving Nintendos and PlayStations to gather dust.

Today its a different story. FoxNews.com took a sneak preview of some new gaming apps coming to the market soon, as well as some upgraded features adding to the playing experience.

Air Supremacy

The popular app Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy will soon get a new feature enabling multiple players to take on the skies together. The $4.99 universal app is a head-to-head combat game; using gesture control, it lets you pilot a jet through the skies, combating enemies with one-touch missile launching.

Air Supremacy will soon offer a multi-player mode where you can pit any number of iOS devices against each other.

“You can stream all of the content, video content, up to a big screen TV,” Eric Jue, Apples senior product manager for iPhone worldwide product marketing, told FoxNews.com.

Set up is easy with any iPhone, iPod or iPad. Each player must first download and launch the app, then within settings, tap to mirror the display onto the big screen through the Apple TV.

All of the players screens will then be displayed in front of them for a shared experience. Stay tuned for the upgrade!

Download Air Supremacy: iTunes
Mobilewalla score: 86 out of 100

Here’s how it works:

Infinity Blade
A new gaming app launched recently for the new iPad: Infinity Blade.

“The cool thing about this game is the unbelievable graphics,”John Danty, Apples manager of product marketing, told FoxNews.com.

Danty zoomed in on the main character showing off the amazing detail that goes into the shadows and lighting. Another noted feature of this app is the ability to control the terrain using multi-touch gestures.

The developers created a brand new gaming experiences.

Acting as a heroic sword-fighting knight in the game, you protect your home and tap along the path to find your way to the next level — along the way challenging opponents, casting spells and finding loot.

Download Infinity Blade: iTunes
Mobilewalla Score: 90 out of 100

Here’s how it works:

Spell Tower
An already popular, just-launched board game app, Spell Tower takes the crossword puzzle to the next level.It’s easy to see how this $0.99-cent app could be addictive.

Find, swipe or tap words you discover on the screen–words can connect vertically, horizontally and diagonally. There are five different modes including Tower Mode, Puzzle Mode, Extreme Puzzle Mode, Rush Mode, and Debate Mode.

Challenge yourself with or play against a friend by connecting through Bluetooth — a fun feature that would be fun on road trips with the kids.

“Casual games are great, because first of all they are fairly inexpensive, like $0.99 cents, and also easy to comprehend. People get what they are supposed to do, and you can just pick it up and play for a couple of minutes and have some fun,” Jue said.

Spell Tower was created by Zach Gage, an indie app developer from New York City, who had an idea for an app and decided to go for it.

“The app is now the number three top paid app for the iPad,” Jue said.

Download Spell Tower: iTunes
Mobilewalla Score: 86 out of 100

Lynn Tilton, founder and CEO of Patriarch Partners Joins the WBEA Conference as Keynote Speaker for the May 17th Luncheon.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) May 11, 2012

Womens Business Enterprise Alliance is pleased to announce that Lynn Tilton, founder and CEO of Patriarch Partners, will be the keynote speaker at the WBEA Annual Conference Awards Luncheon on May 17 in Houston.

“We are excited to have Ms. Tilton at our Annual Conference. Her dedication to saving American companies and Mayor Parker’s Hire Houston First have the potential to give small businesses in our area a much needed boost. Small businesses are still the backbone of economy,” Susan Repka of WBEA said.

Over the last 10 years, Tilton and Patriarch Partners have committed to debt and equity investments and provided operational and strategic expertise to more than 150 companies, saving 250,000 American jobs that would have otherwise been lost through liquidations. It is Tilton’s belief that our country’s most valuable asset is human capital and that job creation is the essential element to a true and sustainable economic recovery and prosperity.

The WBEA’s Annual conference will feature more than 1,200 attendees and corporations, such as Chevron, BP America Inc., Shell Oil Company, ExxonMobil and Bayside Publishing among many others.

This year’s Conference will include six workshops held on Wednesday, May 16, a private reception later that evening and numerous activities on Thursday, May 17 including one-on-one meetings between corporate buyer and certified WBEs, the Awards Luncheon and an all day expo with silent auction.

The Women’s Business Enterprise Alliance is committed to increasing supplier diversity and business opportunities for woman-owned businesses and corporate members through education, programs and professional networking. Women-owned businesses comprise one of the fastest growing segments in todays economy. Since the WBEAs inception in 1995, the number of WBEA Annual Conference businesses owned and operated by women has increased substantially, creating new jobs, generating unique opportunities and fostering a resurgence of the entrepreneurial spirit in the marketplace.

“In 2011 our WBEs employed over 31,000 employees and had a combined revenue of $8.3 billion, this is a significant impact to the Texas economy”, stated Repka.”We believe that 2012 will have an even greater impact as many of our WBEs are adding new jobs.” To register for The Women’s Business Enterprise Alliance, log on to http://www.wbea-texas.org/conference.

About Womens Business Enterprise Alliance:

With more than 750 certified WBEs, the WBEA membership has grown rapidly since its inception and has become one of the nations leading certifiers of women-owned businesses by way of its network of corporate sponsors, supplier diversity programs and dedicated WBEs.

As an affiliate of the Womens Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the WBEA serves as a third-party certifying organization for women-owned business enterprises (WBEs) in South Texas. Businesses that are at least 51-percent owned by a woman and meet specific criteria as outlined by WBENC standards and procedures are eligible for this certification — a designation that is not only recognized but required by most major corporations and governmental agencies as a purchasing criteria.

For additional information, contact Susan Repka at (713) 681-9232, ext. 209 or log onto: http://www.wbea-texas.org.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/5/prweb9492179.htm