* Company has 25 potential biddersBy Tom HalsWILMINGTON, Del., Oct 18 (Reuters) - Executives from bankrupt Solyndra LLC testified on Tuesday that a flood of cheap Chinese solar panels kept it from realizing $1.2 billion in contracts it announced in 2008.Three years after Solyndra announced those long-term contracts, its cumulative sales total a mere $330 million, company executives said in a meeting with creditors.The company filed for bankruptcy in early September and days later was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Solyndra has become an embarrassment for the Obama administration, which provided it a $535 million government loan that now seems unlikely to be repaid in full.When the company announced the long-term contracts in 2008, solar panel prices were higher and developers of solar projects were scrambling for supply. As a result, three companies committed to three-year or five-year contracts that were touted in the 2008 press release, according to Ben Bierman, the company’s vice president of operations.However, the solar panel market soon changed. China began pouring billions of dollars of subsidies into panel manufacturing, driving prices much lower. A dearth of supply soon became a global glut.At the same time, cash-strapped European countries cut incentives for installing solar power projects. As a result, none of the three companies have placed significant orders under their contracts with Solyndra this year, Bierman said.In a meeting with the Department of Justice last month, company representatives refused to discuss the contracts.That refusal prompted the government to push the bankruptcy court to replace management and the board of directors with a trustee. The court denied that request on Monday.Tuesday’s meeting with creditors was required under the bankruptcy code. Officials from the Department of Justice conducted the meeting and Solyndra executives answered questions under oath about their operations, assets and liabilities.The company’s financial adviser said Solyndra had received active interest from 25 potential buyers for all or parts of its operations. Eric Carlson, of Imperial Capital LLC, said 14 would be considered strategic buyers, the rest financial buyers.However, no party has committed to act as an initial or “stalking horse” bidder. Bids are due in mid-November.The bankruptcy case is In re Solyndra LLC, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 11-12799

* Says she will push G20 on too-big-to-fail, shadow banking* Obama, Cameron have criticised euro zone leadershipBy Noah Barkin and Alexandra HudsonBERLIN, Oct 14 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel hit back at critics of her euro zone policy on Friday, saying it was unacceptable for them to demand bolder action to combat the debt crisis while at the same time resisting steps to rein in financial markets.Merkel told a conference organised by German union IG Metall in the southern city of Karlsruhe that Group of 20 nations had failed to deliver on their promise to leave no financial product, actor or market unregulated.She said she would push at a G20 summit in France early next month for steps to get a grip on the problem of “too-big-to-fail” banks and unregulated “shadow banking” activities.In comments that appeared aimed at the United States and Britain, Merkel also criticised countries outside the 17-nation currency zone for refusing to go along with proposals for a tax on financial transactions.”It can’t be that those outside the euro zone, who have pressed us time and again to take comprehensive action on the debt crisis, are at the same time working together to resist the introduction of a financial transaction tax,” Merkel said.”I don’t think this is acceptable. We must ensure that financial market actors share in the costs of fighting the crisis. I will push for this until it happens, at least in Europe, even better worldwide.”Washington and London have resisted the tax, prompting Germany to consider pressing ahead with it in the euro zone.Both U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have pressed the euro zone to take bolder steps to fight the debt crisis, and in indirect digs at Merkel suggested that stronger leadership is needed in the single currency bloc.Cameron said earlier this week that the euro zone’s anti-crisis measures had until now been “a bit too little, a bit too late” and called for a “big bazooka” approach.NO MIRACLE SOLUTIONCountries outside the bloc are pressing to make the euro zone’s debt woes a central theme of the Nov. 3-4 G20 summit in Cannes to be hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.But Merkel said financial market regulation should be the focus of the summit, which was being prepared by G20 finance ministers in Paris on Friday.”We have yet to come up with answers to two key questions within the G20 and we will talk about these again in France in November,” she said. “First, how can we prevent the spread of less regulated financial market areas … Second how do we handle big systemic banks.”Merkel also rejected the idea that a “big bang” solution could solve Europe’s debt crisis, repeating her objections to joint euro zone bond issuance.She said the bloc’s debt and competitiveness problems had built up over many years and could not be solved in one fell swoop.”Euro bonds are not a miracle solution,” she said. “They would not help us under the current conditions.”Merkel and Sarkozy have promised to come up with a comprehensive plan for solving the two-year old crisis by the end of the month, but Germany has played down the prospects for radical new steps.

** France’s Veolia Environnement plans to sell its urban lighting unit Citelum as part of a wider plan to sell 4 billion euros ($5.5 billion) in assets between now and 2013, Les Echos reported on Friday.** Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever on Friday said it has bought 82 percent of Russian beauty cosmetics company Concern Kalina for 500 million euros ($685 million).** KT Corp , South Korea’s top fixed-line carrier and No.2 mobile operator, said on Friday that it was seeking to buy a 20 percent stake in South Africa’s Telkom for $600 million.** British online gaming firm Sportingbet said it would dispose of its Turkish operations for at least 143 million euros ($196 million) in cash as it moves to exit activities in unregulated territories.** South Korea’s Lotte Shopping Co Ltd said on Friday that it has pulled out of a bid to buy Indonesian retailer PT Matahari Putra Prima .

Ipsos research director Chris Jackson said the large number of people who were positive or undecided reflected the mood of the country.”People are just sort of angry,” he said. “They aren’t necessarily sure what they are angry about, and the protest captures that to a certain extent.”Democrats and Republicans were equally familiar with the protests, at 84 percent and 82 percent, respectively, but only 73 percent of independents were aware.But their views are sharply divided by party. Fifty-one percent of Democrats viewed the protests favorably, versus just 11 percent who saw them unfavorably. Among independents, 37 percent had a positive view, compared with 14 percent who felt negative.Just 22 percent of Republicans said they had a favorable view, compared with 44 percent who were unfavorable.According to Occupy Together, which has become an online hub for protest activity, the Occupy Wall Street movement has sparked rallies in more than 1,300 cities throughout the United States and around the world.The of 1,113 adults, including 934 registered voters, was conducted October 6-10. It surveyed 536 Democrats, 410 Republicans and 167 independents.The margin of error was 3.0 percentage points for all respondents, 3.2 points for registered voters, 4.2 points for Democrats, 4.8 points for Republicans and 7.6 points for independents.

* Wood River, Billings refineries lift demandCALGARY, Alberta, Oct 12 (Reuters) - The discount on Canadian heavy crude oil has narrowed with start-up drawing near for a $3.7 billion Illinois refinery upgrade that will boost demand for the grade, market sources said.Western Canada Select heavy blend for November delivery was quoted at $9.90 a barrel under benchmark West Texas Intermediate, compared with $10.30 and $10.60 a barrel under WTI last week.ConocoPhillips and Cenovus Energy Inc have said they expect the conversion project for their Wood River refinery to be complete in the fourth quarter, boosting demand for Canadian heavy oil by 130,000 barrels a day.One trader said another likely factor behind stronger heavy prices is the return to normal output of Exxon Mobil Corp’s Billings, Montana, refinery. The 60,000 bpd plant had been running under capacity since July 1, when a pipeline feeding the plant ruptured.Marketers have said a fire last week that damaged Consumers’ Co-operative Refineries Ltd 100,000 bpd refinery in Regina, Saskatchewan, appears to have had minimal impact on prices. A Co-op spokesman said this week the plant is producing gasoline at 50 percent its normal rate and diesel at 20 percent of capacity.Meanwhile, the premium for light synthetic crude has changed little in recent days, remaining weaker than last month’s spreads with three major processing units having started up or scheduled to do so in the coming weeks.November light synthetic was discussed at $8.85-$9.20 a barrel over WTI, compared with $8.40-$9.20 over on Friday.Royal Dutch Shell said on Wednesday it restarted a bitumen upgrading unit at its Scotford, Alberta, facility that had been off line since Sept. 28.Syncrude Canada’s coker 8-2 is expected to be back on line later this month following scheduled maintenance, and Husky Energy Inc is scheduled to ramp up output at its Lloydminster upgrader in the coming weeks.

OVERVIEW— GSC European CDO V’s class A1 and A2 notes have repaid about EUR9.99 million since our previous review in December 2009.— In the same period, the portfolio’s proportions of defaulted assets and those rated in the ‘CCC’ category have decreased.— Considering these factors, we have raised our ratings on the class A1 and A2 notes to ‘AA- (sf)’ to reflect the increased credit enhancement.— GSC European CDO V is a cash flow CLO transaction that securitizes loans to primarily speculative-grade corporate firms.Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services today raised to ‘AA- (sf)’ its credit ratings on GSC European CDO V PLC’s outstanding EUR208.16 million class A1 and A2 notes (see list below).Since we last reviewed this transaction in December 2009 (see “Transaction Update: GSC European CDO V PLC,” published Dec. 17, 2009), the class A overcollateralization test, as described in the transaction documents, has been failing. As a result, the issuer has used interest proceeds to amortize the class A1 and A2 notes. These classes of notes, which rank pari-passu, have repaid about EUR9.99 million since our previous review.On the assets side, we note that the amount of assets that we consider as defaulted has reduced to 1.73% from 5.84% of the total collateral since our last review. Furthermore, our analysis also shows that the amount of assets rated in the ‘CCC’ category (‘CCC+’, ‘CCC’, or ‘CCC-‘) has decreased to 11.06% from 15.09% since our last review.As a result of the above factors, we consider that the level of credit enhancement available to the class A1 and A2 notes is now consistent with higher ratings than previously assigned. We have therefore raised our rating on these classes of notes to ‘AA- (sf)’ from ‘A+ (sf)’.We note that the issuer currently holds EUR2.46 million of unhedged non-euro-denominated assets. The portfolio manager has confirmed that it will not enter into any currency swap for these assets. Therefore, we did not give credit to these assets in our cash flow model.None of the ratings was affected by either the largest obligor default test or the largest industry default test-two supplemental stress tests that we introduced as part of our criteria update (see “Update To Global Methodologies And Assumptions For Corporate Cash Flow And Synthetic CDOs,” published Sept. 17, 2009).BNP Paribas Securities Services (AA/Negative/A-1+) acts as account bank and custodian. Citibank N.A. (A+/Negative/A-1) and Credit Suisse International (A+/Stable/A-1) currently provide currency swaps on an aggregate of EUR20.2 million non-euro-denominated assets. We have applied our 2010 counterparty criteria and, in our view, the participants to the transaction are appropriately rated to support a ‘AA- (sf)’ rating (see “Counterparty and Supporting Obligations Methodology and Assumptions,” published on Dec. 6, 2010).GSC European CDO V is a cash flow collateralized loan obligation (CLO) transaction that securitizes loans to primarily speculative-grade corporate firms.

In this week’s Newsweek, Harry Evans writes on the inspired innovators who made Steve Jobs’s triumphs possible. By Sir Harold Evans In the pantheon of American innovators, nobody comes close to the defining legacy of Steve Jobs. It is commonly misrepresented. He was not an Edison. He was not equipped to make a breakthrough in pure technology in the sense of circuits and frequencies. That is not what makes Apple unique. His gift to humanity was an imaginative apogee of form and function. He had the vision of a seer. He took the technology as it was and imposed on it his sublime taste, which millions joyously embraced as their own in personal computers, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Fully to appreciate the crowning nature of his “insanely great” creations, one has to look back at the jagged routes to his summits of beautiful utility. The iPhone owes little to the man routinely described as the father of the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell went off on a prolonged honeymoon once he’d proved that sound waves could be converted into undulating electric current. He did nothing more after the marvelous moment on the evening of March, 10, 1876, when his young assistant, Thomas Watson, heard Bell’s voice come down the wire. “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you!” but as Watson later remarked, the Bell phone was calculated more to develop the voice and lung than to enable conversation. The eureka moment of folklore overshadows what must follow if the brain wave is to reach the bustle of the marketplace. It was left to Thomas Edison and his associate Charles Batchelor to make the Bell phone audible by inventing a carbon-button transmitter for the rival Western Union. But then the world had to wait for someone to tackle the myriad obstacles to a national long-distance system. An Ohioan who started as a railway mail clerk did that. Theodore Vail merged Western Union and Bell, pooled patents, and founded the American Telegraph and Telegraph Co., the company Jobs chose for his launch partner in 2007. And Apple’s products depend on the microchip, whose origins lie in the transistor invented in 1947 at the Bell labs founded by Vail. An American innovator whom Jobs admired, and in many ways resembled, was Edwin Land (1909–91), the willful optimist and brilliant scientist, best known for his instant self-developing Polaroid camera, though he had 533 patents. He preceded Jobs in giving to the public what they didn’t know they wanted. Both men insisted on the impossible. Both were secretive. Both drove their teams ferociously; Land’s associates were forbidden ever to utter the word “problem.” Land inspired, but it was another (and sorely neglected) innovator whose inventions made Jobs’s dreams practicable. Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890–1954), was an enabler. As a boy radio ham recovering in Yonkers from St. Vitus’s dance (chorea), he built a wooden tower to fix an antenna 125 feet above the ground so he could pick up signals on his headphones. All his life he was intoxicated by height and speed. He rode a red Indian motorcycle to his studies at Columbia University. Then, step by inspired step, he revolutionized communication. He taught the world how to amplify signals, advancing the form of radio known as amplitude modulation (AM). He had some of Jobs’s theatrical flair. On the night of Nov. 5, 1935, in the clubhouse of the Institute of Radio Engineers on 39th Street, New York, he stood on the stage, a tall, phlegmatic man with a high-domed head, and presented what he called “a little demonstration.” He turned on a radio receiver. The listeners’ ears were attuned for the crackle of static. There was none. They heard, crystal clear, a pal of Armstrong’s announcing he was speaking from W2AG in Yonkers, which was just a name for his parlor and backyard antenna. The audience suspected a trick. It was merely a prelude to the drama conceived by Armstrong: Hear water poured into a glass! Listen to the crumpling of a piece of paper! Hear the striking of a match! There followed a Mozart piano piece, then a tap on an Oriental gong with rapid dissonance in the upper registers. “The shimmering afterglow, a listener said, “hangs in the room with an uncanny lambent clarity.” It was the first public demonstration of transmission on a broadband carrier wave by the modulation of very high frequencies—frequency modulation, or FM as we know it today. All the experts had said it was impossible. David Sarnoff, head of RCA, colluded with FCC officials to block and cripple FM for years because he sold AM radios, then simply stole Armstrong’s patented FM ideas for RCA. When Armstrong sued, Sarnoff drove him to despair and near bankruptcy by dragging out litigation for years. Armstrong’s wife, Marion, urged him to give up. They had such a furious row that she left him to stay with her sister. Armstrong was alone over the weekend in their grand apartment in the River House on 52nd Street. To go to court on Monday, he put on his overcoat, with scarf and gloves, climbed outside his 13th-floor bedroom, and jumped to his death. Armstrong extended the potential of human communication to the ends of the earth and beyond the planet. Innovators build on the achievements of others; that is the commonplace of uncommon achievement. The shade of Armstrong’s genius prevails whenever we summon up a song from iTunes, but the tactile and visual appeal of the iPhone and iPod were beyond Armstrong’s vision. And the possibilities of digital transmission of any kind of message—music, words, images—were divined first not by Jobs but by a mathematician from the little town of Gaylord, Mich., one Claude Shannon (1916-2001), who liked to juggle beanbags while riding a unicycle of his invention. We mourn Steve Jobs, but we can be sure his brave questing spirit will inspire others to push beyond the eureka moment to realize the ultimate expression of the magic inherent in the physics. When it happens we might call it the Jobs Effect. Plus, read Aaron Sorkin on the surprise phone call he received from Steve Jobs.