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BISMARCK -- The new president of the State Board of Higher Education said she is very concerned about a fall visit by a national university accreditation group following up on a complaint about the governance of the North Dakota University System.
The Chicago-based Higher Learning Commission will be in North Dakota this fall to evaluate the University System and state board?s relationship with the 11 colleges the board oversees and the commission accredits.
?We have to take this very seriously and as a board we will be able to get through this, but we have some work to do,? Board President Kirsten Diederich said. ?It is a governing issue, so it is our issue to work with.?
The state board will be working with the commission to determine the dates of the visit.
Diederich announced the commission?s visit during a state board meeting Wednesday in Bismarck, where she announced her goals for the board as the new president.
One goal will be to have a self-evaluation of the board and training to address the issues that the board faced the past year, including the complaint filed in April by former Valley City State University President Ellen Chaffee.
In her letter, Chaffee identified issues that ?do raise questions about the institutions? and the compliance with the Higher Learning Commission?s Criteria for Accreditation, pointing out a lack of communication between institution presidents and the board as well as the leadership of former Chancellor Hamid Shirvani.
The state board received a letter from Higher Learning Commission President Sylvia Manning in May, and soon replied back with details on how the state board was working to deal with the allegations in the complaint.
In a phone conversation with acting Chancellor Larry Skogen earlier this week, and in a letter the state board received Monday, Manning said the response from the state board and system office did not adequately address the issues raised in the commission?s May letter. As a result, they will be doing an advisory visit to the system office this fall.
Skogen told the board Wednesday he couldn?t overestimate the importance of the visit because it is highly unusual for the Higher Learning Commission to visit a system office since it accredits only individual universities.
The commission accredits more than 1,000 colleges and universities in 19 states, including North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. Institutions must meet criteria such as upholding integrity and recognizing diversity to merit accreditation.
Skogen and Diederich said the visit will be good for the state board and University System.
?It?ll give the board an opportunity to say we will make some changes,? Diederich said.
Manning is requiring the University System to gather information about its governance structure for the fall visit.
Tags: north dakota,?higher education,?news,?updates
Source: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/269674/
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Waiting for a train to arrive will no longer be boring as Railways is equipping India?s busiest station with free Wi-Fi connectivity, a first in the country, to ensure value-added amenity for passengers.
New Delhi railway station, which handles about 300 trains and five lakh passengers a day, will be the first Wi-Fi enabled station in the country to have such a modern facility like major international airports.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/yEUcqlATvjY/130730235642.htm
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By Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Swetha Gopinath and Ernest Scheyder
BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hedge fund manager William Ackman unveiled his biggest bet ever on Wednesday, announcing a $2.2 billion play on Air Products & Chemicals Inc., but shed no light on how the billionaire trader kept the position secret for the past two months.
The activist investor's Pershing Square Capital Management owns 9.8 percent of the industrial gas maker, making it the company's biggest shareholder. Pershing Square might have bought more if Air Products had not adopted a "poison pill" defense to prevent a takeover when some on Wall Street began speculating it might be in Ackman's sights.
Speculation mounted earlier this month that Ackman, who tends to make only a few concentrated bets at a time, was laying the groundwork for something big when he set out to raise as much as $1 billion to invest in a company he declined to name.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ackman said on Wednesday that he began buying the stock in early June and believes it to be "undervalued" and an "attractive investment." He did not finish buying shares until Tuesday.
Much of the buying was through seven holding companies Pershing Square incorporated in Delaware. Most of the entities were incorporated in early June, but one was formed on May 23 and the final one was incorporated on July 2.
Over the years, Ackman has used similar entities to accumulate shares in target companies, such as for a big stake bought in Fortune Brands in 2010.
Air Products, whose rivals include Praxair Inc
The "poison pill" plan gives existing shareholders the right to buy new shares at a discount if a person or group were to acquire 10 percent of the company without board approval.
One big mystery is how Ackman managed to keep the investment under wraps as he was building his very large stake.
Investors are required by federal securities law to disclose when they acquire 5 percent or more in a publicly traded U.S. company. But hedge fund managers, in particular those pursuing activist strategies, have become skilled over the years at finding ways around the regulatory requirement.
They can delay the disclosure process by requesting "confidential treatment" from the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid having to disclose stakes under the argument that doing so might interfere with a business strategy.
Pershing Square has made use of this practice and filed an updated quarterly holding list in April for the quarter ended December 13, 2012, revealing that it had a 5.9 million share stake in Mondelez International.
Securities law experts said it is likely that Ackman may have deployed a similar strategy for building a large stake in Air Products.
For Ackman, the Air Products announcement comes at a critical time, as he rides a $1 billion short bet against Herbalife. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Pershing Square has incurred at least a $300 million loss on its bearish bet on the nutritional drink and supplement company.
CNBC reported on Wednesday that investor George Soros, a sometime tennis partner of Ackman's, took a large long position in Herbalife. Carl Icahn, a long-time rival of Ackman, also holds a large long position in Herbalife, which Ackman says is a pyramid scheme.
With APD shares now trading at $108.93 on Wednesday, up nearly 16 percent over the last month, Ackman might be able to show his investors gains for the month and boost his year-to-date performance. Other winners in the portfolio include Procter & Gamble, Canadian Pacific Railway and Howard Hughes Corp.
What Ackman may like about Air Products is that the company has few competitors and its industrial gas business has lucrative long-term contracts. However, in recent months it has been hit by high exposure to sluggish growth in Europe and analysts say it should divest its non-core gas businesses.
Those businesses account for roughly 20 percent of sales, including a chemicals unit and one that caters to computer chip makers.
Ackman's stake comes two years after Air Products unsuccessfully tried to buy smaller rival Airgas Inc in a $5.9 billion hostile bid. Ironically, Airgas successfully used a own "poison pill" defense to ward off Air Products.
(Additional reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore, Sam Forgione in New York; Editing by Matthew Goldstein, Matt Driskill and Dan Grebler)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ackman-buys-9-8-percent-stake-air-products-115529665.html
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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - July 29, 2013) - Lu'an Capital & Energy Investment Inc. (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a subscription agreement (the "Subscription Agreement") with Sona Resources Corp. ("Sona"), pursuant to which the Company has purchased, on a private placement basis (the "Transaction"), 3,665,000 units (the "Units") at an offering price of $0.30 per Unit, for gross proceeds of $1,099,500. Each Unit consists of one common share of Sona (a "Common Share") and one-half of one warrant (a "Warrant"), with each whole Warrant entitling the holder to purchase, for a period of 24 months following the closing date, one additional Common Share of Sona at a price of $0.50 for the first 12 months and $0.60 thereafter.
Pursuant to the Transaction, the Company acquired 3,665,000 Common Shares of Sona (the "Purchased Shares") representing approximately 13.3% of Sona's issued and outstanding share capital. The Company previously owned 500,000 Common Shares of Sona. Subsequent to the closing of the Transaction, the Company owns 4,165,000 Common Shares of Sona, which represents approximately 15.1% of Sona's issued and outstanding share capital. The Company now also owns 1,832,500 Warrants, which, if the Warrants were fully exercised, together with the Company's current shareholdings of Sona, would represent approximately 20.4% of Sona's issued and outstanding share capital on a diluted basis. The Transaction closed on July 25, 2013.
Pursuant to the Subscription Agreement, the Company will have the right to nominate one individual (a "Nominee") to serve on Sona's board of directors (the "Board"), if the Board comprises eleven or fewer directors. If the Board comprises twelve or more directors, the Company will have the right to nominate one additional Nominee.
As a condition of the Subscription Agreement, the Company and Sona have also entered into a voting agreement (the "Voting Agreement") with respect to any current and future Common Shares owned or controlled by the Company (the "Company's Shares"). Pursuant to the Voting Agreement, Sona will determine how to vote, or act or proceed on each and every of the matters referred to in any notice of shareholders meeting held by Sona (such determination being a "Decision"). Sona will deliver a written notice to the Company of the Decision and the Company will vote the Offeror's Shares in accordance with the Decision. The Voting Agreement will automatically terminate six years after the Subscription date.
The Purchased Shares were acquired for investment purposes. Depending on market conditions and other factors, the Company may from time to time acquire additional securities of Sona or dispose of securities of Sona in the open market, by private agreement or otherwise.
A copy of the requisite early warning report will be filed on the SEDAR profile for Sona Resources Corp. at www.sedar.com.
Source: http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=1815601&sourceType=3
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Do you ever get frustrated when trying to open a beer bottle? You can do it on the side of a table, but that typically hurts your hand (a lot). You can open it with a lighter, but that's so college. You could use a regular bottle opener, but that's so boring.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-one-handed-bottle-opener-sure-is-handy-954328530
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