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Being a working mother is one of the hardest things a woman has to do: to choose how to divide her  time between work commitments and spending enough time with the kids can be heart-breaking – no one wants to miss those special ‘first step’ moments, nor do they want to have a stagnant career. These 5 successful mothers have all found a balance that works for them and have spoken on how they make things work best for them. Some make sure they set some special time to spend with the kids such as a day out each week, while others fit their work around their kid’s timetable.

Denise Richards

Denise switches her phone off and spends the whole day with her kids:  “I recently started turning my phone off once a week and just spend that day with my kids with no outside distractions. I actually didn’t realise how much I used my phone until I turned it off! It’s a fantastic change I made and being present with my girls is the best gift I could give them … I think my daughters have taught me one of my biggest lessons in that I need to really enjoy the moment. Before I had my girls, I was always focused on the future and what was next without really soaking in what was going on around me now. It’s a wonderful thing for me to get back to.”

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker finds balance by spending plenty of time at home between jobs: “We’ve had two occasions recently where both Matthew and I were working and it was so hard on the kids,” she shares. On the other hand, there are big chunks of time when we’re home a lot more than conventionally working parents. So you hope to make up for it. We love closing the door and having the only people in the house be our three children and us. It’s such a good feeling to know that we’re competent and capable and that it’s private.”

Michelle Williams

Michelle likes to work around her daughter’s school timetable: “Matilda is always with me. It’s a balance and a struggle and it’s something I’m asking more questions about. My goal is to work in the summer and give her the continuity of a school year. It’s a balance thing. There will be a period of time when it’s hanging in favour of my work and there will be another more meaningful period of time when the balance is hanging with my daughter Learning to live with that imbalance is difficult. And probably very difficult for her.”

Katie Holmes

Katie doesn’t separate her work and home-life: she brings her daughter Suri to the set because she likes that she is surrounded by talented people: “Because you have to. As an actress who is also a mother, you don’t have the luxury of drama. Being around this business, my daughter is exposed to people with incredible talent, people who are the best at what they do. People I only dreamed of getting to work with as a little girl.”

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer says that you have to put family before work: “I think you have to know what is most important to you. And I think you have to realise that as much as you put into work Replica Watches, you have to put into your relationship and your children – but more so. That is how you balance it. For me, my family is the most important thing and everything else comes after that. It is hard to do everything, but you just have to. You have to make that effort. I have put so much time into my career in the past, so much time trying to get ahead and all that. But you have to do as much and then more for your home life too.”

By Takahiko Hyuga

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — BNP Paribas SA, France’s biggest bank, added two members to its Japan equities team, including former Citigroup Inc. Managing Director Toshiyuki Johno.

The bank today hired Johno, 46, as a commodity industry analyst, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. It recruited Benjamin Rameau, 30, for equity sales, from Deutsche Bank AG on Feb. 17. Yukiko Kishino, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman at BNP Paribas, confirmed the memo’s contents and declined to comment further.

Kyoya Okazawa, BNP Paribas’ head of global equities and commodity derivatives in Japan, has added 30 staff since joining the bank from Credit Suisse Group AG in March last year, Kishino said. The Paris-based bank is hiring even as foreign firms cut about 2,000 jobs in the country in the 18 months to Dec. 31, according to recruitment firm Executive Search Partners Co.

Johno, former managing director at Citigroup Global Markets Japan Inc. Replica Watches, will cover trading companies and iron and steel makers, the memo said.

BNP Paribas began boosting its Japanese equity operations in April 2010, when it hired about 20 people from KBC Groep NV’s Tokyo-based unit. Since June of that year, 200 overseas brokerages, hedge funds and buyout firms reduced their Japan staff to 22,000 as of Dec. 31 from 24,000, according to Executive Search, the country’s biggest recruitment company focusing on investment banks.

–Editors: James Gunsalus, Russell Ward

To contact the reporter on this story: Takahiko Hyuga in Tokyo at thyuga@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chitra Somayaji at csomayaji@bloomberg.net

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By Steve Raphael and Margaret Cronin Fisk

(Updates with state official’s comment in 11th paragraph.)

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) — A Michigan judge permanently barred a review team studying Detroit’s finances from holding closed- door sessions, handing a legal victory to city employees.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, appointed the 10-member group in December after a preliminary study by the state treasurer found the city was in “probable financial stress.” The financial review team is considering whether Michigan’s largest city needs an emergency manager.

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette last week issued a temporary restraining order barring closed-door sessions after a union official claimed they violated Michigan’s open-meetings law. Collette made the order permanent at a hearing today.

The first foundation “of this society is that we have an open government,” Collette said today. “To meet in private is to meet in private.”

Robert Davis, an official with a union that represents city employees, sued Snyder, the treasurer and the review team, saying the group is required under Michigan law to hold meetings open to the public.

“This is a big victory for democracy,” Davis, who is staff representative of the American Federation of State Herve leger, County & Municipal Employees, said in an interview after the hearing.

Emergency Manager

If the panel declares a financial emergency, the governor may appoint a manager with sweeping powers to fire people, sell assets, void union contracts and assume authority over the mayor and city council.

The Detroit finance study group isn’t a public body as defined under Michigan’s Open Meetings Act and isn’t governed by that law, Michelle Brya, an attorney for the state, told the judge at today’s hearing.

“The review team only makes recommendations,” she said. “The governor has options” on implementing the findings, she said, adding that no reports had been made by the review team.

“How do people know that if everything is private?” Collette asked.

Michigan’s Treasury Department and the Snyder administration are reviewing today’s ruling and consulting with the state attorney general “to determine appropriate next steps that will help ensure the fiscal and academic health and wellbeing of our communities and schools,” Terry Stanton, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said in an e-mail. “The financial review team’s work will continue in accordance with the Open Meetings Act.”

Highland Park

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and unions representing most city employees have reached tentative accords on concessions aimed at avoiding a state takeover. The agreements are pending ratification by union membership.

The mayor and the firefighters union continue to negotiate over concessions. Bing and Snyder have said they want to avoid an emergency manager.

Davis also sued over a separate review team, appointed to study the finances of the schools of Highland Park, which neighbors Detroit.

Collette today said in court that the review team considering Highland Park public schools also violated the open- meetings law, and he voided all of that team’s actions, which led to the appointment of an emergency manager.

Stanton said the state doesn’t believe Collette’s order erasing the review team’s actions would affect Snyder’s appointment last month of an emergency manager for Highland Park’s schools.

‘Only Basis’

“That’s not what the law is,” Andrew Paterson, Davis’s lawyer, said in an interview. The team’s recommendation “was the only basis the governor used to appoint an emergency manager,” he said. By erasing the Highland Park review team’s actions, this removed the governor’s right to appoint an emergency manager, Paterson said.

“The Highland Park School District is in a severe fiscal crisis that only will further jeopardize the district’s students and families and get worse without continued state support and assistance,” Stanton said. “The district has already needed two advances in state aid to avoid payless paydays, and the Michigan Department of Education expects yet another request for additional hardship funding.”

The case is Davis v. City of Detroit Financial Review Team, 12-112-CZ, Circuit Court, Ingham County, Michigan (Mason).

–With assistance from Chris Christoff in Lansing, Michigan. Editors: Stephen Farr, David Glovin

To contact the reporters on this story: Steve Raphael in Detroit at sraphael5@bloomberg.net; Margaret Cronin Fisk in Detroit at mcfisk@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net

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QUEENSLAND premier Anna Bligh said a Labor candidate expelled over a series of homophobic rants deliberately set out to embarrass the party.

Ms Bligh said she’s furious that Peter Watson, 19, was ever endorsed as Labor’s candidate for the rural seat of Southern Downs.

She said the party will strengthen its screening procedures for candidates.

Mr Watson was forced to resign as a candidate yesterday and was expelled from the Labor Party today, after admitting to making homophobic comments online four or five years ago.

He’s also been linked to rants about neo-nazis.

"I’m certainly very, very angry about this man’s endorsement in the first place Replica Watches," Ms Bligh said in Mackay today.

"This man was very determined to get into the Australian Labor Party, hiding his views and then to make them known to embarrass the party."

Asked if the man was part of a deliberate conspiracy to embarrass Labor, she said: "I can only take from this man’s comments and his comments indicate that he was infiltrating what he called the enemy.

"This guy is not a run of the mill – this is an extremist.

"This man has extremist views, they have no place in the Australian Labor Party."

She said the party was looking to tighten up the screening process for candidates. The party is yet to say who will now run for Labor in the seat.

The Liberal National Party said a simple internet search would have revealed Mr Watson’s views.

"What checking did they do when anybody could go out there, blind Freddy could actually find this particular information which was out there for all to see," the LNP’s Lawrence Springborg told ABC radio.

"And Labor were actually denying it as late as last night."

Labor’s state secretary Anthony Chisholm initially said Mr Watson had flatly denied writing the posts.

But Mr Chisholm later said Mr Watson had admitted to penning the offensive material and had been expelled from the party today.

Mr Watson went on ABC radio to explain his views, expressed online four or five years ago, when he was 14 or 15.

He continued to agree that homosexuality and paedophilia were linked.

In posts under the name Peter Watson, homosexuals were labelled "degenerates" who should be wiped out, The Courier Mail reported.

"Homosexuality and paedophilia go hand in hand with each other. To deal with one you must deal with the other in order to wipe them from society," the post said.

The Labor party said such views had no place in the party and it was working to find an alternative candidate.

Meanwhile, Labor tried to use the scandal to attack LNP leader Campbell Newman for not dumping his Cairns candidate Gavin King for once suggesting drunk women were partly responsible if they were sexually assaulted.

Ms Bligh said Labor had acted against Mr Watson’s extremist views and Mr Newman must follow suit with Mr King.

"Mr Newman continues to stand next to Gavin King, someone who holds frankly revolting and extremist views about women."

By Aydan Eksin and Selcuk Gokoluk

(Updates with Treasury comments in third paragraph)

Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) — The Turkish Treasury sold a total net 3.71 billion liras ($2 billion) of 14-month bonds at an average annual yield of 10.94 percent in an auction and earlier non-competitive sale today.

The Treasury in Ankara also sold a total net 867.8 million liras of six-year floating rate notes at an average price of 96.12 liras in a separate auction and non-competitive sale, the central bank said. The total sale was 4.58 billion, ahead of a repayment of 4 billion liras of debt to investors tomorrow.

“Probably foreign demand increased at these auctions (today),” Taskin Temiz, deputy director general for public finance at the Treasury said at a Euromoney conference in Vienna today.

Bids from banks were 6.93 billion liras for the March 20, 2013 debt and 4.04 billion liras for the January 24, 2018 floating rate notes in the auctions. Earlier non-competitive sales were a net 2.04 billion liras in the 2013 paper, including state institutions’ 360 million liras purchases, and 250 million liras in the 2018 notes.

“The total sale was more than the Treasury’s debt redemption,” Erkin Isik, a fixed-income strategist at Turk Ekonomi Bankasi AS, said in e-mailed comments. “The Treasury meets its monthly borrowing target even if the market rollover rate stays at 67 percent in next week’s auctions.”

The Treasury will hold a total of six auctions this month to borrow 14.4 billion liras in domestic debt, according to a borrowing program published on Dec. 30. The Treasury will repay 17.8 billion liras of domestic debt this month, the highest monthly repayment in a year.

Yields on two-year benchmark debt rose 14 basis points, or 0.14 percentage points, to 10.86 percent Replica Watches, a Turk Ekonomi Bankasi index of the securities showed, in their first advance in five days.

–With assistance from Zoltan Simon in Budapest. Editor: Steve Bryant

To contact the reporters on this story: Aydan Eksin in Istanbul at aeksin@bloomberg.net; Selcuk Gokoluk in Istanbul at sgokoluk@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net

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By Simone Meier

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) — German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said he is “quite optimistic” that Greece will be able to avoid a default.

“We don’t expect a default in Greece Replica Watches,” he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, today. “We will and we can avoid a default of Greece.”

Schaeuble also said that he’s “quite optimistic” that Greece will be able to lower its state debt by 2020. “It’s possible and it can be achieved Replica Watches,” he said. “Greece has not only to commit itself, it has to deliver. We must not give the wrong incentives.”

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Simone Meier at smeier@bloomberg.net

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By Simone Meier and Elena Logutenkova

(See {DAVOS <GO>} for more on the World Economic Forum annual meeting.)

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — Switzerland may reach an agreement with the U.S. about undeclared bank accounts within months, Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said.

“We’re hoping that we’ll reach an agreement with the U.S. within the next couple of months Replica Watches,” Widmer-Schlumpf said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, where she had a meeting with the U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The fact that Wegelin & Co., a 270-year-old Swiss private bank, was forced to sell itself to Raiffeisen Group because of the U.S. tax investigation highlights the need to find a solution, she said.

Switzerland and the U.S. have been holding talks for a year to resolve a U.S. probe into offshore tax evasion that includes 11 Swiss banks. The investigation includes Wegelin, which yesterday agreed to a sale after three of its bankers were charged this month with conspiring to help American clients hide more than $1.2 billion from U.S. tax authorities.

Widmer-Schlumpf declined to comment on a report in Tages- Anzeiger today which said Wegelin received a letter from the U.S. Justice Department about 10 days ago asking the bank to disclose data on its American clients or face charges. The newspaper didn’t say where it got the information. Joerg Denzler, a spokesman for Wegelin Replica watches, declined to comment on the article.

‘Threats of Punishment’

“I cannot say that other banks are in a similar situation,” Widmer-Schlumpf said when asked whether more Swiss banks may follow Wegelin’s path. “What I know is that various banks have been confronted with threats of punishment from the U.S. We need to continue to try everything to reach a solution.”

Geithner promised to personally monitor the talks with Switzerland, Widmer-Schlumpf said in an interview with Swiss television SF, posted on the station’s website today.

Widmer-Schlumpf told SF she had a “very good, open” discussion with Geithner and thinks he got the message that Switzerland wants to find a solution as quickly as possible.

–With assistance from Jana Randow in Davos, Switzerland. Editor: John Fraher, Paul Jarvis

To contact the reporters on this story: Simone Meier in Zurich at smeier@bloomberg.net; Elena Logutenkova in Zurich at elogutenkova@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.net

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By Tim Culpan

(Updates with operating margin in fifth paragraph.)

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) — HTC Corp., Asia’s second-largest smartphone maker, posted its first quarterly profit decline in two years as competing models from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. damped demand for its handsets.

Fourth-quarter net income dropped 26 percent to NT$11 billion ($364 million) from NT$14.8 billion a year earlier, the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company said in a statement today. The average of 11 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg in the past four weeks was for profit of NT$11.6 billion.

Analysts predict sales and shipments will fall further this quarter after the company cut its outlook for revenue in the last three months of 2011. Sales of HTC handsets, including the Sensation, Wildfire and Rhyme, slowed in the fourth quarter as customers opted for Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy models, and the weaker global economy hurt overall demand.

“Severe competition at the high end from Apple and Samsung forced their sales lower during the quarter,” said Peter Liao, a Taipei-based analyst at Nomura Holdings Plc. which has a “neutral” rating on the stock. “The key is when they can find their competitive edge, which may not happen until the second quarter at the earliest.”

Fourth-quarter revenue fell 2.5 percent from a year earlier to NT$101.4 billion Baroque oil paintings, missing the NT$103.3 billion average of 11 analyst estimates. Operating margin, which tracks the percentage of sales less operating costs, dropped to 12.8 percent, according to Bloomberg calculations, the lowest in at least three years.

Shipments, Sales

Shipments dropped to 10 million units and will decline to 8.5 million this quarter, according to the median of five analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg News. HTC sold 13.2 million units in the third quarter and didn’t provide shipment data or estimates for the current or prior quarter.

Sales will fall to NT$85.9 billion in the current three- month period, according to the average of eight estimates.

Chief Financial Officer Winston Yung didn’t immediately answer phone calls today.

HTC, which became the largest smartphone seller in the U.S. in the third quarter Music oil paintings, on Oct. 31 forecast that fourth-quarter sales would rise as much as 30 percent from a year earlier. It then cut its outlook on Nov. 23, saying revenue would be little changed.

HTC fell 0.7 percent to close at NT$482 in Taipei trading before the announcement. The shares declined 42 percent last year and have fallen 61 percent from their April 28 record as analysts cut their ratings on the stock, citing stiffer competition.

HTC may unveil handsets featuring high-speed, fourth- generation wireless chips next month, boosting the shares, Alvin Kwock, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst in Hong Kong, wrote in a Jan. 3 report.

The brokerage is one of nine tracked by Bloomberg that have the equivalent of a buy rating on the stock. Seven recommend selling the shares and 20 suggest holding.

–Editors: Lena Lee, Garry Smith

To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net.

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Wear to Work

Picture: Terrence Howard 2012 People’s Choice Awards – Arrivals held at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live Los Angeles Sweaters, California ….

By Adam Haigh and Rajhkumar K Shaaw

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) — Essar Group wants Vodafone Group Plc to refund the $883 million that it withheld to pay Indian authorities as a tax when the U.K. phone operator bought a 22 percent stake in Vodafone Essar Ltd. Culotte, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Two of Essar’s Mauritius-based units will apply for the refund within months, the newspaper reported. Essar Communications Ltd. and Essar Com Ltd. sold their 22 percent stake in Vodafone Essar to the British company for $3.32 billion, as part of a larger deal in which Vodafone bought Essar’s total 33 percent stake in Vodafone Essar Knits and Tees, the Journal said. The company is now called Vodafone India Ltd.

India’s Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Vodafone doesn’t have to pay the government $2.2 billion in taxes for its 2007 purchase of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.’s India operations.

Manish Kedia, a Mumbai-based spokesman for the Essar Group, declined to comment.

–Editor: Will Hadfield

To contact the reporters on this story: Adam Haigh in London at ahaigh1@bloomberg.net; Rajhkumar K Shaaw in Mumbai at rshaaw@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Rummer at arummer@bloomberg.net; John Chacko at jchacko@bloomberg.net

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