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Best U.S. Real Estate With Self-Storage: Riskless Return

By Hui-yong Yu - Wed May 02 04:00:01 GMT 2012

Scott Muthersbaugh/Burlington Times-News/AP Photo

Buyers look into a storage unit up for auction at Ray's Self Storage facility in Burlington, North Carolina.

A Public Storage rental office is seen in the Bronx borough of New York, U.S.

A Public Storage rental office is seen in the Bronx borough of New York, U.S. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The best real estate investment in the past decade was found at the opposite end from trophy resorts and office towers, in 5-foot-by-5-foot lockers.

Self-storage companies, which rent units to small businesses and consumers under names such as Uncle Bobs Self Storage (SSS), produced the best risk-adjusted return among 10 U.S. real estate investment trust indexes in the past decade, according to the BLOOMBERG RISKLESS RETURN RANKING. They had the highest total return and the third-lowest volatility, for a risk-adjusted gain of 10.6 percent. Owners of offices, hotels and warehouses fared among the worst, hurt by price swings.

Public Storage, CubeSmart, Extra Space Storage Inc. (EXR) and Sovran Self Storage Inc. attracted investors with low debt ratios and steady cash-flow growth in a decade that saw commercial-property values soar to records along with sales of mortgage-backed bonds to finance a wave of takeovers. The debt- to-assets ratio for Public Storage, the largest in the group, is 22.5 percent, half the average 45 percent for REITs, said Michael Knott, managing director of real estate research firm Green Street Advisors Inc., making the stock less susceptible to large price swings if the economy worsens.

Public Storage (PSA) has incredibly low leverage compared to the average REIT, Knott, whose firm is based in Newport Beach, California, said in an interview. Its typically not as volatile.

The Bloomberg REIT Public/Self-Storage Index (BBREPBST) topped gauges tracking healthcare REITs and regional mall REITs, which returned a risk-adjusted 8.4 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively, in the 10 years through April. Warehouse REITs (BBREINDW), which had the highest volatility and the lowest total return during the period, joined hotels at the bottom, with a risk- adjusted gain of 0.8 percent.

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Best U.S. Real Estate With Self-Storage: Riskless Return

Compugen Ltd. Reports First Quarter 2012 Financial Results

TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Compugen Ltd.(NASDAQ: CGEN)today reported financial results for the first quarter ending March 31, 2012.

Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., President and CEO of Compugen, stated, We were very pleased to announce this past quarter the establishment of new operations in South San Francisco to develop monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against mAb targets selected from Compugens Pipeline Program. The resulting in-house combination of our novel target discovery capabilities with outstanding expertise in the generation and development of mAb therapeutics positions Compugen to become a potential world leader in mAb therapeutics, the fastest growing drug class in pharmaceuticals and a drug class which predominately addresses the therapeutic fields of immunology and oncology.

Dr. Cohen-Dayag continued, With respect to our other biologic drug class area of focus, therapeutic proteins, representing a substantial global market, we continue to make good progress. The capabilities, both within the Company and through external collaborations with leading academic centers and service providers, that were established for CGEN-15001, are now being utilized for certain of our other novel therapeutic protein candidates, which are also based on the extracellular domains of Compugen-discovered B7/CD28-like membrane molecules. Two such additional product candidates, CGEN-15021 and CGEN-15091, are approaching the development stage of CGEN-15001 with encouraging results. Moreover, we recently announced that another two product candidates, CGEN-15031 and CGEN-15051, have demonstrated initial positive results in disease animal models supporting their predicted therapeutic utility. These Pipeline Program molecules clearly highlight one of the many advantages of our unique and broadly applicable predictive capabilities - the ability to predict and select multiple novel product candidates for each therapeutic field we target. Furthermore, we continue to see strong confirmation from others of our powerful discovery capabilities and the high potential value of our initial product candidates.

Dr. Cohen-Dayag continued, In our ongoing commercialization discussions we are recognizing that to obtain the appropriate financial rewards for each of our multiple novel molecules in the broad therapeutic areas we are addressing, such as autoimmune diseases or oncology, in addition to demonstrating the potential for superiority over products in the market or under development by others, we will also require product differentiation among our own individual candidates in each such broad therapeutic area. Based on this understanding, as we continue these commercialization discussions, we are performing in depth studies to differentiate our product candidates through the investigation of their modes of action and studies to allow the selection of the specific therapeutic indications for clinical development for each candidate. This includes initiating disease animal model testing in additional areas of unmet medical need in our therapeutic fields of focus.

Martin Gerstel, Compugens Chairman of the Board, added, Today, at a time when meaningful new drug candidates are in short supply, we are very pleased to have reached the point where our powerful predictive discovery platforms are systematically yielding numerous novel product candidates with the potential to address significant unmet medical needs. The establishment of our California mAb operations under exceptional world-recognized leadership is a key milestone in the pursuit of significantly greater financial rewards from our growing inventory of novel mAb targets, as is the expanded scope of early stage development and differentiation activities now underway with respect to our multiple, very promising B7/CD28 related therapeutic protein product candidates. We are confident that these decisions and actions mark an important value inflection point in the commercial development of the Company.

No revenues were recorded for either the first quarter of 2012 or 2011. As previously stated, the Company's initial future revenues will likely result primarily from license and research fees, and initial milestones.

The net loss for the most recent quarter was $4.1 million (including a non-cash expense of $543,000 related to stock based compensation), or $0.12 per share, compared with a net loss of $1.9 million (including a non-cash expense of $379,000 related to stock based compensation), or $0.06 per share, for the corresponding quarter of 2011. The increase in net loss for the most recent quarter resulted in large part from non-cash charges to finance expense due to the re-measurement of the embedded derivatives and exchange options components under the Baize research and development funding arrangements signed in late 2010 and 2011, and to a lesser extent, from increased research and development expenses, net.

Research and development expenses, net, for the first quarter of 2012 were $2.1 million, compared with $1.6 million for the first quarter of 2011, and remained the Companys largest expense.The growth in research and development expenses, net, reflects increasing levels of activity primarily with respect to independent investigators and service providers performing evaluation studies, an increased usage of lab materials, and expenses relating to the establishment of the Company's California-based mAb operations.

As of March 31, 2012 and 2011, the Research and development funding arrangements liability in the amount of $7.4 million and $4.2 million, respectively, relates to the accounting for the Baize research and development funding arrangements signed in December 2011 and December 2010. The liability balances are primarily related to the estimated fair values of the derivative instruments resulting from the right of the investor under both arrangements to waive his right to receive potential future payments in exchange for Compugen ordinary shares. After accounting for these funding arrangements, the Company reported financial expense of $1.0 million for the first quarter of 2012, compared with financial income of $294,000 for the comparable period of 2011.

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Compugen Ltd. Reports First Quarter 2012 Financial Results

Minecraft – The Slime Episode 2 – Video

01-05-2012 10:09 Just aload of Jibberish!!!!! Like, comment and sub!!

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Minecraft - The Slime Episode 2 - Video

Minecraft – Monsters! Episode 1 – Video

01-05-2012 14:15 First Multiplayer Episode!!! For some reason episode 2 uploaded first so don't moan!!! Episode 1 With 'TheMinecraftTemplar' Check out his channel here Texture Pack As promised : Link 1 : Link 2 : Link 3: Likes, Comments and Subscribes helps ALOT! Thanks for watching!

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Minecraft - Monsters! Episode 1 - Video

‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ TVC premieres on international news channel

By JULIEN MERCED C. MATABUENA

The first two TV ads launched by the Department of Tourism consisted of memes, such as this one, that tell why it's 'more fun in the Philippines' (Screen grab courtesy of DOTPhilippines' YouTube page)

MANILA, Philippines The Department of Tourisms Its More Fun in the Philippines campaign takes off and goes international as its TV ads debut in one of the worlds premiere news cable channel, the CNN (Cable News Network), on Monday, April 30.

The announcement of its airing was made by DOT Sec. Ramon Jimenez Jr. himself on his Twitter account the same day.

Gusto nating ipakita na talagang it's more fun in the Philippines. Kaya ang ginamit nating music, ginamit nating mga images, even the pacing of the music, and the timing, it's fun, DOT Asec. Domingo Ramon Enerio III told 24 Oras in a taped interview aired on Tuesday.

The 30-second ad features photos not only of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, but also of its people and things that are uniquely Filipino. The images used were shot by regular Filipinos, depicting variations of the Its more fun in the Philippines slogan and flashed one after the other accompanied by an upbeat song in the background. Parts of it were reportedly sung by Apl.de.Ap, the Filipino-American member of the hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas.

A second ad that runs for 15 seconds was released also on Monday, featuring a clip of a tarsier perched on a tree branch with the slogan, "Staring contests. More fun in the Philippines."

Incidentally, CNN has put the Philippines on the spotlight through its Eye On series. For a whole week, from April 30 to May 4, the news channel will run special reports about various topics such as the people, culture, politics, and business.

Meanwhile, Enerio stressed that this ad campaign is everybody's campaign.

Tourism is the Filipino people's business. We want them to be part of this campaign. We want them to embrace it and call it their own, he added.

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‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ TVC premieres on international news channel