The following appeared in the November issue of Business Diary Botswana:

Despite the IMF’s recent projection that Botswana’s economy will contract 10.3% this year, the lender expects a 4.1% uptick next year such that emergency funding would not be required. Back in June the country tapped a $1.5bn “budget support loan” from the African Development Bank–the largest such facility ever granted by the Bank–in order to finance part of a budget deficit then estimated at around 13.5% of GDP, and since revised to 14%. The IMF cited a renewal of demand for diamonds as a central facet of its optimistic forecast. Furthermore, it predicted, GDP growth across sub-Saharan Africa will rise to approximately 4% next year and 5% in 2011, up from 1.1% in 2009. “We think it should be possible for sub-Saharan Africa to recover quicker this time around and have a ‘V-shaped recovery,’”

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 19, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Cognizant (CTSH), UBS AG (UBS), Infosys Technologies Ltd (INFY), Repsol YPF S.A. (REP) and Eni S.p.A. (E).

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Here are highlights from Friday’s AnalystBlog:

Cognizant Buys UBS ISC

Cognizant (CTSH) recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire UBS India Service Centre Private Limited for about $75 million. Based in India, UBS ISC is a captive service provider to UBS AG (UBS) and currently employs 2,000 associates.

Headquartered in Zurich

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Cognizant (CTSH) recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire UBS India Service Centre Private Limited for about $75 million. Based in India, UBS ISC is a captive service provider to UBS AG (UBS) and currently employs 2,000 associates. Headquartered in Zurich and Basel, Switzerland, UBS AG is a global firm providing services to private, corporate and institutional clients. New Jersey-based Cognizant is a leading provider of consulting, technology and business process outsourcing (BPO) services. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2009. As part of the transaction, UBS and Cognizant have entered into a multi-year service agreement under which Cognizant will provide a range of business process outsourcing (BPO), knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), IT, and remote infrastructure management services to UBS divisions around the globe. Cognizant aims to help these divisions to reduce time-to-market, expand service delivery, and improve productivity, operational efficiency ...

Switzerland-Based Marketing Hedge Fund Marketing in Switzerland I recently came across a short whitepaper on hedge fund marketing in Switzerland. Here is a short excerpt from this article and a link to the full copy. In the last few years, alternative investments and hedge funds in particular have become part of the standard asset allocation process in the Swiss private banking business as well as for many Swiss institutional investors. This is the case even though, given legal and regulatory constraints, hedge funds may only be distributed in Switzerland by way of private placement, without any public offering. In addition, Swiss law and the practice of the supervisory authority, the Federal Banking Commission, allow for the setting up and the public distribution of collective investment schemes which take different forms and ...