plus 1, Cord Blood America Acquires Controlling Interest in One ... - PR-USA.net

Cord Blood America Acquires Controlling Interest in One ... - PR-USA.net

Posted: 28 Mar 2010 06:45 AM PDT

Cord Blood America, Inc., the umbilical cord blood stem cell preservation company focused on bringing the life saving potential of stem cells, a biological insurance policy, to families nationwide and internationally, announced today that it has acquired 51 percent of stellacure GmbH, the third largest cord blood banking service in Germany.

"Europe is quickly becoming a global force in the storage of stem cells for future medical use. We believe this acquisition is a perfect example of our business strategy to use acquisitions as part of the process to grow Cord Blood America into a major stem cell storage company globally," said Matthew Schissler, Cord Blood America co-founder and CEO.

stellacure (www.stellacure.com) is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. It began storing cord blood for families in 2006 throughout Germany, and within the past year has established sales channels in Spain and Italy. It operates in conjunction with the German Red Cross Bloodservices Baden-Wuerttemberg/Hessen, which has collected cord blood for a public bank since 1996.

"Becoming a 51% stakeholder of one of Europe's most meaningful stem cell banking companies is extremely important for us to carry out our goal of becoming the globally dominant stem cell storage company. We see acquiring a majority stake in stellacure as an important first step to further penetrate other European markets. CBAI is extremely pleased that it was chosen as stellacure's preferred partner to foster further growth of the company and equally excited to establish a long term relationship with the largest blood service unit of the German Red Cross, as we all know a respected name globally," Mr. Schissler said.

The transaction was introduced by specialist life sciences advisory firm CFP BioConnect AG, based in Frankfurt/Germany.

About Cord Blood America

Cord Blood America is the parent company of CorCell, which facilitates umbilical cord blood stem cell preservation for expectant parents and their children. Its mission is to be the most respected stem cell preservation company in the industry. Collected through a safe and non-invasive process, cord blood stem cells offer a powerful and potentially life-saving resource for treating a growing number of ailments, including cancer, leukemia, blood, and immune disorders. To find out more about Cord Blood America, Inc., visit our website at www.corcell.com. For investor information, visit www.cordblood-america.com.

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Qatar- Banks focus on retail services, once again - MENAFN

Posted: 27 Mar 2010 10:32 PM PDT

(MENAFN - The Peninsula) As the era of high banking service charges is over, thanks to cracking of the whip by Qatar Central Bank (QCB), retail services are back in focus at most of the banks here.

Some banks seem to be liberalising their consumer lending schemes for personal as well as car loans offering lower interest rates and other concessions.

And now that the service charges have been unified by the banking regulator QCB, almost every bank is claiming that it had not raised service charges during the peak of the world financial turmoil last year.

The fact, though, remains that many banks ruthlessly raised charges even for basic services in 2009 to help offset possible losses.

At some banks, the charges for issuing a loan clearance certificate, for example, had reached a whopping QR1,000, while it was common for a hapless customer to cough up QR250 for a six-month bank statement.

Industry sources estimate that there are no less than 30 basic banking services.

These services, they say, should be either free or minimal charges should be levied because they are basic and additionally, when the banks are offering low deposit margins they have no justification to make retail services a source of revenue.

Given the exorbitant rates, for some banks revenues from their retail banking services would have soared to millions of riyals until the QCB intervened cracking the whip on the greedy lot.

However, now that charges have been forced down to the bare minimum, banks seem to be vying with one another to woo customers with 'better services and products'.

The customer is now emerging 'the king'.

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