The Maven: The Hidden Beauty of Acquisitions

There is a key to the seamless merging of so many newly acquired parts, Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle(ORCL), pontificates in this morning's Telegraph, while on a yacht with a basketball court and with his involvement in the America's Cup yachting regatta starting up. That key is to remain ruthlessly focused.

While getting to that issue of narrow, brutal, tunnel-thin focus, Ellison does take the time to note that shareholders aren't asked to foot the bills for his hobbies and luxuries. Getting back to what Ellison calls an "innovative" acquisition strategy (others call it a more traditional tack of buying up everything that is not nailed down the moment natural growth appears to be slowing), he said his American Idol is General Electric(GE).

"They take risks, they make decisions, they're incredibly disciplined and focused." No word whether Jack Welch, one-time king of soft-white light, ever managed his moving parts while risking motion sickness. But recent news from Oracle has been decent. Oracle, which reported good fourth-quarter sales growth, has spent more than $20 billion on acquisitions in the past year-plus, so the key numbers should come down the road.

Break 'Em Up

Speaking of companies led by a force of personality that gobbled up most everything that moved, Citigroup(C) got big play in this weekend's Barron's.

Specifically, despite the focused efforts of former leader Sandy Weill, who has never been known, as Ellison is, for such non-business distractions such as sailing racing yachts into hurricanes with famously disastrous results, the company is unwieldy, the stock dead in the (figurative) water compared with other financial stocks.

Weill's efforts to cut and paste a colossus together have not worked, the current leaders of the company are under intense pressure to reverse course, and a good case can be made that sold for parts, the company is worth more than it is now. Meanwhile, Barron's touches upon how, at least within the U.S., Citigroup is trying to shrink its ambitions, to concentrate on its financial service business, meaning retail banking, credit cards and consumer and commercial lending. Just like Larry said from far away on his yacht with visions of the America's Cup dancing in his head: focus is key. And if that doesn't work, maybe a fire sale.

China: The Big Dog

2006 is the year of the dog, but the question for investors this weekend is whether investing in China would mean dogs with fleas. Opportunities, in the big, hopeful sense of the concept, seemed to be the collective focus of this weekend's writing. It's no secret why: Bank of China, the country's second biggest lender, is a-comin' public soon.

The New York Times Magazine told us that the Chinese are buying cars at an incredibly thick-set pace. Sales were up over 54% in the first three months of 2006, there are now 20 million passenger cars on the road and, Ted Conover reports, car culture and all its attachments has hit China and their cheap imports will soon hit our shores.

But before you think Detroit meets dim sum, Slate has another big-picture look at China's future -- specifically, it has to do with big pictures. If Detroit was the center of America's old industry, Hollywood may be the center of its new industry, and Tim Wu covers China's attempts to develop its own Hollywood. The strategy is "half-succeeding," Wu reports, but to fully imitate America success, China is giving its investors the essential chance of losing their socks on margin, the Associated Press reports this morning.

The rules, announced over the weekend and to take effect August 1. The AP reports that margin financing will be limited to certain size and age brokerage houses, and a Chinese analyst is quoted as saying that this and other reforms will help stabilize what it is still amazing that China has: markets. And if it doesn't, of course, margin calls make good plot twists.