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NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Auctions of Elizabeth Taylor’s collection of jewels, gowns, art and memorabilia broke records last week on their way to totaling more than $150 million worth of live and online sales, Christie’s said on Monday.
Four days of live auctions in New York and a 10-day online auction from the Hollywood film legend’s collection took in a total of $156,756,576, or more than three times expectations.
Taylor’s world-renowned collection of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, emeralds and more accounted for the vast majority of the haul, selling for a combined $137 million and becoming by far the most valuable jewelry sale ever.
Records were set for pearls, emeralds, and Indian jewels, while per-carat records were broken for a rubies, yellow, and colorless diamonds.
“My mother always acknowledged that she was merely the temporary custodian of the incredible things she owned,” said Taylor’s son Chris Wilding, who is a member of the Elizabeth Taylor Trust.
“My family is proud that our mother’s legacy as a celebrated actress, tireless AIDS activist, and accomplished businesswoman touched so many people’s lives that they wanted to have a part of it history,” he said.
Taylor’s couture gowns and apparel sale also set a record for the most valuable private collection ever sold at auction, taking in more than $5 million including commission.
The marathon sales’ statistics spoke for themselves and highlighted the worldwide interest in the Hollywood legend who rose to fame as a young star of the movie “National Velvet” and went on to claim two acting Oscars for “BUtterfield 8″ and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”
Taylor, who died in March at age 79, lived a glamorous life of numerous marriages to often wealthy and powerful men who lavished her with jewelry and other fine things.
TABULATING TAYLOR
Among the highlights of the sale: every one of the 1,778 lots offered sold; 26 items sold for more than $1 million and six sold for over $5 million; final prices soared to as many as 400 times their pre-sale estimates; bidders at the live auctions spanned 36 countries.
Since September, some 58,000 visitors viewed highlights of the collection on a world tour that stopped in Moscow, London, Dubai, Paris and Hong Kong, with nearly half that total paying $30 to see the offerings at New York’s 10-day exhibition.
The online component alone took in nearly $10 million, with more than 57,000 bids.
Even catalogs — some signed, limited edition offerings priced at more than $2,000 — were a hot item. Proceeds of a portion of the exhibition, catalog and other related events went to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.
The top price paid during the series of auctions was $11,842,500 for the historic La Peregrina, a 203-grain (equivalent to 55 carat) pear-shaped 16th-century pearl once owned by England’s Mary Tudor and later by Spanish queens Margarita and Isabel.
Taylor’s husband Richard Burton bought the pearl in 1969 at auction for $37,000, and Taylor commissioned Cartier to design a ruby-and-diamond necklace mount. The piece was estimated to sell at $2 million to $3 million.
Taylor’s famous 33-carat diamond ring, another Burton gift now renamed The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, went for $8.8 million, setting a per-carat record for a colorless diamond.
Even the star’s charm bracelets drew intense competition, with one estimated at $30,000 soaring to more than $325,000.
Similarly, the top lot of the online auction — Hiro Yamagata’s “Portrait of Elizabeth Taylor” from 1991 — sold for $108,000, against a pre-sale estimate of about $250. Other top prices paid online for ranged from $45,000 $78,000.
Among memorabilia, Taylor’s script from “National Velvet” fetched $170,500, against a $2,500 estimate.
More artwork from Taylor’s collection will also be offered in February at Christie’s in London during its auctions of old master paintings and Impressionist and modern art.
(Reporting by Chris Michaud; editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111219/film_nm/us_elizabethtaylor_auction
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MILAN (Reuters) ? Italy paid a record 6.5 percent to borrow money over six months on Friday and its longer-term funding costs soared far above levels seen as sustainable for public finances, raising the pressure on Rome’s new emergency government.
The auction yield on the six-month paper almost doubled compared to a month earlier, capping a week in which a German bond auction came close to failing and the leaders of Germany, France and Italy failed to make progress on crisis resolution measures.
Though Italy managed to raise the full planned amount of 10 billion euros, weakening demand and the highest borrowing costs since it joined the euro frightened investors, pushing Italian stocks lower and bond yields to record highs on the secondary market.
Yields on two-year BTP bonds soared to more than 8 percent in response, a euro lifetime high, despite reported purchases by the European Central Bank.
In a sign of intense market stress, it now costs more to borrow for two years than 10 on the secondary market and borrowing costs for whatever term are above the 7 percent threshold, over which Italy is likely to need outside help if they do not subside.
“The pricing is awful,” said Padhraic Garvey, rate strategist with Dutch bank ING in Amsterdam. “The object of the exercise this morning was to get the job done and they’ve done that, but that’s about the only positive thing to say.”
Investors’ attention will now turn to a bond sale of up to 8 billion euros that Italy is planning for next Tuesday.
“For the BTP auctions next week, we’ll have more of the same they’ll probably get it done at a concession,” Garvey said.
Italy’s new technocrat government, which took power last week, is at work on structural reforms to revive the stagnant economy but markets are looking for quick and effective responses from European policymakers, such as a greater involvement of the European Central Bank.
Traders said the ECB was buying Italian and Spanish bonds in an attempt to shore the market up. But given its reluctance to prop up high-debt euro zone governments, its bond-buying program has been conducted intermittently, and never powerfully enough to provide more than short-term stability.
New Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco said short-term measures to tame Italy’s budget deficit would not be enough to solve the country’s economic problems and only structural reforms will generate growth.
At an annual average rate of just 0.3 percent over the past decade, the Italian economy has grown faster than only a handful of other countries across the world. Real purchasing power has fallen 4 percent in 10 years.
BIG SPRING DEBT BILLS
Since being thrust to the fore of the euro zone crisis in July, Italy has always managed to attract sufficient demand at its auctions.
But record high yields threaten Rome’s planned gross issuance of 440 billion euros for 2012 as interest payments on the country’s 1.9 trillion euro debt pile rise.
Analysts say that, at current yield levels, the euro zone third-largest economy risks losing market access as redemptions totaling a massive 150 billion euros for the February-April period approach.
The euro, already trading around a seven-week low, inched down after Friday’s auction. European stock markets remained in negative territory for the day with the Milan stock-market the worst performer.
The six-month yield nearly doubled from an auction level of 3.5 percent a month ago.
By comparison, Spain paid 5.2 percent to sell six-month paper at a much smaller short-term auction earlier this week, after elections handed power to an austerity-committed conservative government.
Italy also sold 2 billion euros of zero-coupon CTZ bonds at a euro era record high yield of 7.8 percent, up from 4.6 percent at the previous sale.
(Reporting by London and Milan government bond desks; editing by Patrick Graham/Mike Peacock)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111125/bs_nm/us_italy_bonds_auction
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during the budget debate at the German Federal Parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Germany’s chancellor says Greece can only receive its next batch of bailout loans if all parties supporting the new government in Athens commit in writing to the conditions attached to a separate aid package. (AP Photo/dapd/ Maja Hitij)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during the budget debate at the German Federal Parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Germany’s chancellor says Greece can only receive its next batch of bailout loans if all parties supporting the new government in Athens commit in writing to the conditions attached to a separate aid package. (AP Photo/dapd/ Maja Hitij)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends the budget debate at the German Federal Parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Germany’s chancellor says Greece can only receive its next batch of bailout loans if all parties supporting the new government in Athens commit in writing to the conditions attached to a separate aid package. (AP Photo/dapd/ Maja Hitij)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves the German Federal Parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Germany’s chancellor says Greece can only receive its next batch of bailout loans if all parties supporting the new government in Athens commit in writing to the conditions attached to a separate aid package. (AP Photo/dapd/ Maja Hitij)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends the budget debate at the German Federal Parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Germany’s chancellor says Greece can only receive its next batch of bailout loans if all parties supporting the new government in Athens commit in writing to the conditions attached to a separate aid package. (AP Photo/dapd/ Maja Hitij)
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso pauses before speaking during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. The European Commission backed the introduction of jointly issued eurobonds, coupled with stricter budgetary discipline, as the best way out of a debt crisis that’s threatening the 17-country eurozone. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
BERLIN (AP) ? Germany failed to raise as much money as it hoped in its latest bond auction, in a surprising sign that Europe’s biggest economy may not be immune from a debt crisis raging across the continent
A fresh warning that France risks losing its top-notch credit rating and more verbal jousting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the EU’s top executive arm also fueled concerns that the bloc is losing the battle to contain a debt crisis that’s already seen three countries bailed out and is threatening much-bigger economies like Italy and Spain.
However, it was the unexpected news that Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and the linchpin of the bailouts, suffered one of its worst bond auctions ever that really caught the eye. The country’s Financial Agency said its latest euro6 billion ($8.1 billion) auction of 10-year bonds met with only 60 percent demand.
German officials cited a record-low yield and the extraordinarily nervous market environment for the auction’s failure, but investors took it as a warning sign that the crisis might even cause trouble to rock-solid Germany.
“If Germany can’t sell bonds, what is the rest of Europe going to do?,” asked Benjamin Reitzes, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets.
The auction result hit stocks hard, including in the U.S. and sent the euro sliding to seven-week dollar lows. By mid-afternoon it was trading 1.3 percent lower on the day at $1.3345.
It also piled the pressure on Germany’s bonds in the secondary markets, sending the yield on the country’s benchmark ten-year bonds up a hefty 0.20 percentage point to 2.08 percent, its highest level since Oct. 28.
Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, is seen as the 17-nation eurozone’s most stable pillar and its borrowing rates have been driven down in recent months by high demand from investors seeking shelter from the sprawling debt crisis.
That may partly explain why it suffered what many in the markets are describing as a “failed auction” ? investors may be beginning to think twice about whether the returns on offer are appealing.
Offering only 1.98 percent, the auction’s yield was the lowest-ever for Germany’s ten-year bond. Germany offered an interest rate of up to 3.25 percent at previous auctions of 10-year-bonds this year.
Even so, analysts called the result worrying, though the German government stressed that its refinancing was not at risk. Having sold off only euro3.9 billion, the agency retained the remainder, to be sold off another day.
“The result does not represent any refinancing squeeze for the emitter,” the agency said.
Though Germany is widely-lauded as a model for other eurozone economies, its debt burden is relatively high, by historical standards at about 81 percent of GDP, so it continually has to tap bond market investors for fresh funds. As a result, it won’t want to get in the habit of having too many failed auctions.
One advantage Germany has over practically most European economies is that it’s triple A credit rating is not at threat ? unlike France’s. Though France has seen the yield on its ten-year bond rise in recent days to around 3.65 percent, way ahead of Germany’s equivalent 2 percent, it’s still much lower than the near 7 percent rates that have provoked such turmoil in Italy of late.
On Wednesday, Fitch warned that Europe’s second biggest economy is at risk of losing its cherished top-grade if Europe’s leaders fail to stop the debt crisis from worsening because a “further intensification” would result in a much sharper economic downturn in France and the European Union. Fitch’s warning came two days after another rating agency, Moody’s, delivered a similar message.
And there were few signs Wednesday that Europe’s leaders were pointing in the same direction.
German Chancellor Merkel and the European Union’s executive arm clashed openly on the need to issue common bonds uniting the 17 euro nations ? another sign that Europe is divided in dealing with its deepening debt crisis.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the head of the European Commission promoted the introduction of jointly issued eurobonds, coupled with stricter budgetary discipline, as the best way out of the debt crisis. Eurobonds, he said, “could bring tremendous benefits.”
That’s obviously not Merkel’s view, who publicly poured cold water on the idea for the second day running ? calling the Commission’s push “troubling” and “inappropriate.”
She told lawmakers in Berlin that it was wrong to suggest that a “collectivization of the debt would allow us to overcome the currency union’s structural flaws.”
Germany has long opposed the use of eurobonds, instead calling on profligate member states to clean up their finances which would eventually enable them to borrow at lower rates again.
Proponents of eurobonds argue that they would immediately ease refinancing for weaker eurozone nations. For Germany, though, a pooling of its strength with the weaker members, would most likely to lead to higher borrowing costs.
Instead, Merkel reiterated her call for changes to the EU treaties to guarantee strict enforcement of fiscal and budgetary discipline as “a first step toward a fiscal union.”
The easiest way for Europe to counter its debt problems would be for its economies to grow, automatically lowering its debt ratios and generating more revenues. But that hope was dashed yet again as a pair of indicators showed the bloc’s economy as being in deep trouble.
The sense of an impending recession was evident in the findings of a closely watched survey from financial information company Markit. Its monthly survey showed that the eurozone contracted for the third month running in November and that the deteriorating economic picture is not just confined to debt-stressed countries such as Greece.
The survey suggests that the eurozone would contract at a quarterly rate of 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter and that the problems are increasingly spreading to Europe’s two biggest economies, Germany and France, Markit said.
Further grim news emerged with a shock announcement that eurozone industrial orders collapsed by a massive 6.4 percent in September from the previous month.
Official figures last week showed that the eurozone only narrowly avoided contracting in the third quarter, growing by only 0.2 percent during the period.
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Geir Moulson in Berlin, Raf Casert in Brussels and Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this report.
Associated Press
Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-23-EU-Germany-Financial-Crisis/id-695e476ebb6947a3802663a61c36a9c6
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