Injustice in the U.S. Justice System

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2010

The Pack (das Rudel)’ (1969) by Joseph Beuys on show in Düsseldorf

Aachen

architecture

“West Arch—A New Generation in Architecture” presents models, pictures and designs by young Belgian, German and Dutch architecture offices.

Ludwig Forum

für Internationale Kunst

Until Nov. 14

49-241-1807-104

www.ludwigforum.de

Berlin

art

“Yoko Ono: Das Gift” offers new site-specific contemporary artwork, consisting of sculptural, sound, film and instruction-based participatory elements.

Haunch of Venison

Until Nov. 13

49-3039-7439-63

www.haunchofvenison.com

art

“Glass, Handle With Care! Fragile Art 700-2010″ shows over 60 items from the museum’s Isalamic art collection, tracing the history of glassmaking and glass art through the last 2,000 years.

Pergamonmuseum, Antikensammlung

Until Jan. 9

49-30-2090-5577

www.smb.museum/smb

Bonn

art

“Vibración: Modern Art From Latin America” presents a European premiere of works from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, showing key works of 20th-century Latin American abstract art.

Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Until Jan. 30

49-2289-1712-00

www.bundeskunsthalle.de

Dublin

music

MGMT perform their Grammy-Award-winning psychedelic pop in a European tour in support of their latest album “Congratulations.”

Sept. 17-18, Olympia

Sept. 20-21 Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow

Sept. 23 O2 Academy, Birmingham

Sept. 24 O2 Academy, Bournemouth

Sept. 26 Apollo, Manchester

Sept. 27 O2 Academy, Leeds

© SMB, Museum für Islamische Kunst

Jug, Egypt, 11th-12th century, shown in Berlin

Sept. 29-Oct. 1 Brixton Academy, London

Oct. 1 Jamm, London

Oct. 3 AB, Brussels

Oct. 4-5 Paradiso, Amsterdam

More European dates at

www.whoismgmt.com/us/home

Düsseldorf

art

“Joseph Beuys: Parallelprozesse” showcases 300 works by the German artist, including key installations such as “Show your Wound,” “The Pack” and “Fond IV/4.”

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

Until Jan. 16

49-211-8381-117

www.kunstsammlung.de

Liverpool

art

“The 6th Liverpool Biennial” is the U.K.’s largest contemporary art show, presenting among others, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries, 40 international new projects and the John Moores Painting Prize 2010.

At various venues

Sept. 18-Nov. 28

44-151-7097-444

www.biennial.com

London

art

“Salvator Rosa (1615-73): Bandits, Wilderness and Magic” shows paintings by the Italian Baroque artist, poet and printmaker, know for his rebellious attitude and mystical motifs.

Dulwich Picture Gallery

Until Nov. 28

44-20-8693-5254

www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

art

“Poussin to Seurat: French Drawings From the National Gallery of Scotland” shows Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by French artists such as Boucher, Ingres, Corot, Pissarro and Dulac.

The Wallace Collection

Sept. 23-Jan. 3

44-20-7563-9500

www.wallacecollection.org

Manchester

art

“Recorders: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer” offers seven interactive installations by the Mexican-Canadian electronic artist, including “Pulse Room,” shown at the Mexican pavilion for the Venice Biennale in 2007.

Manchester Art Gallery

Sept. 18-Jan. 30

44-161-2358-888

www.manchestergalleries.org

Naples

art

“Carl Andre. 9 x 54 Napoli Rectangle” shows sculptural works by the American abstract artist.

Alfonso Artiaco

Until Nov. 6

39-81-4976-072

www.alfonsoartiaco.com

Paris

opera

“Eugene Onegin: By Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky” premieres Ludovic Tézier as the title character and Olga Guryakova in the role of Tatiana, backed by the Paris opera orchestra and chorus conducted by Vasily Petrenko.

Opera Bastille

Until Oct. 11

33-89-2899-090

www.operadeparis.fr

art

“Murakami Versailles” places the manga-inspired pop art sculptures of Takashi Murakami among the gardens and gilded halls of Versailles, including some works displayed for the first time.

Château de Versailles

Until Dec. 12

33-1-3083-7800

www.chateauversailles.fr

Rome

art

“Franz West: Roman Room” shows new sculptural works by the Austrian artist alongside a selection of literary, philosophical and historical texts that inspired him.

Gagosian Gallery Rome

Until Oct. 30

39-6420-8649-8

www.gagosian.com

Wuppertal

art

“Bonnard: Magician of Colors” offers 180 works, including paintings and photography by the French artist.

Von der Heydt-Museum

Until Jan. 30

49-2025-6326-26

www.bonnard-ausstellung.de

Source: WSJ research

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W12

By BRIAN COSTA

MIAMI—This was the building that was supposed to alter the state of the National League East. The indoor stadium, the air conditioning, the fish tanks, the psychedelic sculpture with the bright lights and the birds—all of it gave the Miami Marlins the confidence to spend like they never had before.

As one awestruck agent said during the winter meetings, “It’s like the Marlins have become the Mets.” Pause. “And the Mets have become the Marlins.”

Yet when the Mets walked into Marlins Ballpark for the first time Friday, the reality for them was far less bleak than most anyone predicted. A $50 million payroll cut didn’t stop them from an 18-13 start. The Marlins’ free-agent binge had so far produced a mere 16-15 record.

Logically, that doesn’t mean much, not with so many games left. But for the Mets, it means something. And it should.

The Marlins are the team that lured their best player away. They are the team undergoing a rebirth—or at least a rebranding—while the Mets are supposed to be rebuilding.

Yet it was the Mets who swept the Marlins in New York last month. It was the Mets who swept the Phillies in Philadelphia earlier this week. Entering Friday, the Mets were 13-5 against the rest of the N.L. East, the best record by any team against its own division this year (minimum five games).

Not that they’re gloating about it.

“We talked about the importance of getting out of the gate, because it meant so much to instill some hope in our fan base, because of what was being said,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “So that’s all we’ve looked at. But we know the Marlins are a good club.”

Collins knows it’s too early to take much pride in where the Mets stand in relation to the Marlins. But could anyone blame the Mets for feeling a little schadenfreude?

To recap the month of April for Miami: They lost 14 of their first 22 games. They suspended manager Ozzie Guillen for five games after his controversial comments about Fidel Castro. Former Mets reliever Heath Bell, another major free-agent signing, lost his grip on the closer’s job. And ex-Met Jose Reyes hit just .220.

“With the talent that we have here, it’s not acceptable the way we played the first month of the season,” Reyes said. “We’re happy that we’re turning it around.”

And they have been lately. Miami’s recent road trip was its best in team history. Reyes had multiple hits in four of the Marlins’ previous seven games entering Friday, bringing his average up to .230.

“I haven’t been able to be consistent this year yet, but it’s going to come,” Reyes said.

The Mets have their share of issues. Their rotation was weakened by the loss of Mike Pelfrey to a season-ending elbow injury. Injuries are mounting rapidly, with Josh Thole and Ruben Tejada joining Jason Bay on the disabled list this week. Ike Davis has yet to fully break out of his season-long slump.

But the Mets did not arrive here beleaguered. They arrived with a sense of possibility, one that few outside their clubhouse shared only two months ago.

A new ballpark and the revenues expected to come may have transformed the Marlins. But it has hardly doomed the Mets.

“The confidence is building that we’re good enough,” Collins said. “The confidence is building that, ‘Don’t get down, we can fight back when we’re down four or five runs,’ which I think in the summertime is really going to help us.”

Write to Brian Costa at brian.costa@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared May 12, 2012, on page A24 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Mets Flip the Script on the NL East.

By GILLIAN TAN

NICKY LOH for The Wall Street Journal

Anil Ahuja, head of 3i Asia Pacificl

London-listed investment manger 3i Group

PLC—with almost $20 billion in funds under management across private equity, infrastructure and debt management—is one of a handful of funds well-placed to facilitate private-sector investment alongside the Indian government.

Recent Indian elections and moves to liberalize foreign investment could pave the way for the government to start spending the $1 trillion it has pledged for infrastructure. Upgrading ports, railways and roads could help raise living standards and boost economic growth in the near term.

Aside from outdated infrastructure, common concerns expressed by potential foreign investors include widespread corruption and an uncertain legal landscape.

3i’s New Delhi-born, Singapore-based head of Asia, Anil Ahuja, spoke with Gillian Tan in Sydney about the firm’s strategy and why India’s growth is protected from future global slowdowns. The following interview has been edited.

WSJ: How does the Indian market facilitate private equity?

Mr. Ahuja: Unlike other Asian markets, the Indian capital market, which was established in 1875, provides a real option for early-stage companies to raise equity capital. Which means that private equity ends up competing with the public markets for deals and a large number of companies end up being prematurely listed when in reality they should have been private.

WSJ: How do you choose which countries to invest in?

Mr. Ahuja: Once a country gets to a certain scale and opportunity is when it starts to become interesting for us. We don’t want to be too early in certain markets in terms of evolution of the private-equity industry or the size of the opportunity. If you have the right team on the ground, you can make private equity work in just about any market.

WSJ: Can you explain 3i’s focus on Indian infrastructure?

Mr. Ahuja: There are huge opportunities. Half of the $1 trillion estimated by the Indian government over the next five years will come from the private sector, and we’re very well-positioned as the leading private-equity infrastructure player in the market. Our first fund was focused on power and transportation including roads, ports and airports. Our second fund will focus on those same two core sectors but in addition, we’ll participate in railways and social infrastructure. This includes projects like warehouses for grain storage and housing for military personnel.

Apart from us, there are half a dozen private-equity shops in India that are focused on infrastructure. It’s a market skewed heavily in favor of the person that has the capital.

WSJ: What is your take on the Indian economy?

Mr. Ahuja: The Indian economy is an interesting one when you compare it to the rest of the region. It’s one of the few countries that is a net importer, so by definition it has a much larger dominance of the domestic consumer in the economy. Given government spending in India is relatively low, it has a predominantly private-sector feel to it. I think those are key differentiators vis a vis some of the other economies in the region. That means if there’s a global slowdown, India is impacted to a smaller extent. If there is a global demand boost, India does not gain as much. We’re slightly more de-linked than the rest of the Asian economies.

WSJ: Do you think that India can be competitive on a global stage?

Mr. Ahuja: I think growth rates of 6% to 9% for the foreseeable future are perfectly legitimate. The Indian demographic is probably one of the strongest in the region with more than half the population being under 25 years old. India’s per capita GDP crossed $1,000 recently and the market is far more sophisticated than you would expect it to be for a country with that indicator of overall prosperity. Countries with GDP per capita of between $1,000 and $5,000 are extremely competitive in the global environment. More than half of the Indian economy is services-related compared to emerging economies that start with a big chunk of agriculture or resources, followed by manufacturing and have a smaller services orientation.

WSJ: What sectors are you active in from a private-equity perspective in Asia?

Mr. Ahuja: We’re focused on the themes like the consumer, health care, some elements of manufacturing as well as oil and gas and associated services. We are invested in Singapore’s Asia Capital Reinsurance Group as well as Hong Kong-based jewelry group John Hardy, Chinese mobile phone and accessory retailer D.Phone and Chinese sweetener producer Futaste.

WSJ: Will you venture to Australia soon?

Mr. Ahuja: We see Australia as a capital-raising destination for now. But interest is limited due to overall perceptions of private equity as an asset class, which have been impacted by the Cooper Review into superannuation. Australian superannuation funds are underexposed to offshore themes and given their size, they should have a much larger global allocation. Most of our funds come from Europe, Asia and North America, where investors have realized that Asia looks like a very bright spot right now, relative to the rest of the world.

Broadly, India’s already a very significant partner of Australia in the resources space. A couple of our portfolio companies—Adani Group’s listed power business and GVK Power & Infrastructure Ltd.’s unlisted power business—have substantial resource interests in the mining space in Queensland. I serve on the board of Adani Enterprises and a colleague of mine sits on the board of GVK Power. Australia, Indonesia and South Africa are the main resource-rich countries where Indian and Chinese companies will be forced to take a pretty significant position in as they seek energy security.

WSJ: What parts of Asia are you focused on?

Mr. Ahuja: We’re focused primarily on emerging Asia so India, China and Southeast Asia. We’ve been active in the region for over a decade, having started with traditional private equity via minority investing growth capital in companies. We expanded our footprint from there to include infrastructure, and started the 3i Indian Infrastructure Fund, which closed in 2008 with $1.2 billion under management. We’ve just launched the second Indian Infrastructure Fund, which will target more than $1.2 billion. We’re contemplating bringing the third leg of our business model to Asia, which is debt management. We have plans for regional private-equity funds and debt funds but those plans are not yet fully formed.WSJ: How is doing business different in Asia compared to the West?

Mr. Ahuja: The Asian way of doing business has a higher element of face and relationship compared to the Western way of doing business. You can easily plot the regional economies on that behavior scale of Asian to Western way of doing business. The best test is how does a bank behave when a covenant is breached, does it lead to taking control of the company or does it mean a phone call requesting compliance by the end of the quarter. Transparency and governance are the biggest issues in parts of Asia. This makes our job extremely challenging as we need to be confident of our data sources and have the ability to tap into the informal diligence networks which exist in all these countries.

Résumé

Education: Postgraduate diploma in business management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (India), and a bachelor of technology in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi.

Career: Before joining 3i in 2005, he was J.P. Morgan Partners Asia’s Singapore chief executive and a vice president at Citibank in Mumbai.

Extracurricular: golfing

—

Por KIRSTEN GRIND e SERENA NG

A BlackRock Inc. planeja criar uma plataforma de operações este ano que permitirá à maior administradora de ativos do mundo e outras firmas do segmento negociar títulos de dívida sem ter que passar por Wall Street.

O centro de operações eletrônicas tem o potencial de reduzir uma fonte lucrativa de receita dos bancos de investimentos, num momento em que seus negócios estão sendo pressionados pelo fraco movimento nos mercados e novas regulamentações criadas para coibir o risco depois da crise financeira.

A nova plataforma será administrada pela divisão BlackRock Solutions, sediada em Nova York, e oferecerá a 46 clientes – como fundos soberanos, seguradoras e outras administradoras de ativos – a habilidade de negociar títulos de dívida de empresas, títulos hipotecários e outros ativos, dizem executivos da empresa.

De acordo com o plano, a plataforma buscará unir compradores e vendedores dos mesmos títulos, num processo conhecido como “crossing trades”. A BlackRock Solutions cobrará uma pequena comissão pelo serviço, que será muito menor que a cobrada pelas firmas de Wall Street.

Algumas das transações vão descartar corretores de Wall Street que há muito agem como intermediários dos mercados de crédito. A administradora de ativos da BlackRock, que supervisiona US$ 3,5 trilhões, também usará a plataforma.

Os executivos da BlackRock argumentam que a plataforma é voltada a diminuir custos e preencher a brecha criada pela capacidade menor de Wall Street de fornecer liquidez ao mercado, e não é uma forma de concorrer com os bancos de investimentos.

“Isso não vai canibalizar Wall Street”, disse Richard Prager, diretor executivo da BlackRock e de operações globais, numa entrevista ao Wall Street Journal. “Se existem maneiras de os clientes economizarem, queremos propiciar isso a eles.”

O diretor-presidente da BlackRock, Laurence D. Fink, há muito é um dos maiores críticos da maneira com os bancos de Wall Street conseguem um generoso “spread”, ou diferença de preço, entre a compra e a venda de um título, e tem tentado reduzir os custos para os clientes de sua firma.

Os planos da BlackRock ressaltam as mudanças estruturais ocorrendo no “encanamento” dos mercados financeiros enquanto novas regras voltadas a coibir o risco bancário, bem como o aperto nos mercados de capital, reduzem a capacidade e os recursos de Wall Street para oferecer aos seus clientes operações no mercado.

O número de operações com títulos de dívida empresarial e hipotecária das maiores firmas, principalmente bancos de Wall Street, caiu 70% desde 2007, ano que marcou o início do aperto de crédito que precedeu a crise financeira. No mesmo período, a emissão de títulos de empresas aumentou e o total de aplicações dos investidores subiu significativamente.

Os representantes do BlackRock começaram a abordar administradores de ativos, convidando-os a participar da plataforma, e já criaram um grupo consultor de seis a oito clientes da BlackRock Solutions para desenvolver a iniciativa, provisoriamente chamada de “Aladdin Trading Network”, inspirada no sistema de administração de investimentos da firma, o Aladdin. Vários clientes no grupo consultor também já concordaram em participar da nova plataforma, segundo a empresa.

A firma também está negociando com operadores de Wall Street para fornecerem cotações à plataforma. Os bancos também podem ser convidados a realizar transações que não podem ser conduzidas diretamente entre firmas de investimentos.

A BlackRock pediu o aval da SEC, a comissão de valores imobiliários dos Estados Unidos, para lançar a plataforma. A empresa testou recentemente a nova plataforma com uma operação e espera lançar o sistema até o fim do ano. Um porta-voz da SEC não quis comentar.