Are You Suffering With Joint Discomfort?

Are You Suffering With Joint Discomfort?

If you’re suffering from joint discomfort you’ve probably tried a variety of supplements. Tedious gels, pills, powders, and creams. But how well do they really work?

It seems like every year joint companies tout the next big thing. Revolutionary… ground breaking… shocking. But it seems like the only change is bigger pills and more talk.

That’s why it’s so exciting to see real evolution in the joint market. Two new ingredients in particular have been causing shockwaves in the joint market. UC-II® and patented Aprèsflex.

UC-II® is a new form of denatured type II collagen. Interest in collagen use began 20 years ago when researchers discovered positive results with un-denatured collagen. More recently researchers discovered that denatured collagen is more concentrated and thus more powerful. A recent Harvard University study showed that people with rheumatoid arthritis who took undenatured type II collagen experienced significant relief. UC-II is a patented, highly concentrated type II version of collagen.

Aprèsflex is a highly concentrated form of boswellia serrata, a rare tropical plant. Boswellia serrata has been shown to ’switch off’ the pro-inflammatory cytokines and mediators that often lead to joint discomfort.

These highly concentrated ingredients are found in the new proprietary formula: "Beneflex".

Beneflex is a powerful alternative to more traditional joint products. The entire compound fits into a single, tiny capsule taken once-daily. No more horse pills. Tedious gels, powders, drinks, or creams.

And Beneflex can provide relief from joint discomfort in just 7 days…

Suggested benefits include:

•    Fast relief from joint discomfort
•    No glucosamine or chondroitin
•    New patented ingredients
•    Safe and drug-free
•    Gluten free!
•    Shell-fish free!

To boost the effectiveness of the UC-II® and Aprèsflex, the nutritional researchers included two additional ingredients: Hyaluronic Acid and Turmeric. Hyaluronic Acid is found in healthy joints; it forms protective structures around the cells in joints. Turmeric is used in Asian cooking and provides additional joint relief by lowering histamine levels and increasing production of a natural cortisone that helps with joint discomfort.

Beneflex is made in US Laboratories and is carried in GNC stores nationwide. And while Beneflex is a new product, it’s already a national sponsor of the Arthritis Foundation.

If you have joint discomfort and other products have failed to help you in the past, try Beneflex. Due to popular request, the manufacturer has made samples available online to qualifying customers. You can also find Beneflex in GNC stores nationwide.

Yahoo shifts Europe tax base to Ireland from Switzerland

- Yahoo! Inc is shifting its main European tax base to Ireland from Switzerland, a Reuters examination of company statements and accounts shows, as pressure mounts on the Alpine nation to abolish some corporate tax incentives.

The internet search group said the shift reflected a streamlining of its European operations and was not motivated by a desire to cut its tax bill, one of the higher in the U.S. tech sector.

"Yahoo pays all taxes required and complies with tax laws in all countries where we operate. We take our tax obligations seriously," Yahoo spokeswoman Caroline Macleod-Smith said.

However, tax experts said it was likely the changes that Switzerland is expected to make to its tax rules, following European Union pressure, had some influence over the decision, and that other companies could follow Yahoo's lead.

"Obviously tax reasons are part of the reasons they are going out of Switzerland," said Frank Marty, head of tax policy at lobby group Economie Suisse.

"The tax regimes we have are very successful (in attracting companies) but there is pressure that Switzerland abolishes the current regimes ... The risks are substantial," he added.

Currently, Switzerland offers tax rates to companies which make their profits outside Switzerland that are less than half the rates imposed on companies that operate locally.

EU rules require countries not to discriminate between domestic and foreign firms in taxation and Brussels has told Switzerland that if it wants to enjoy unfettered access to the bloc's market, it needs to scrap this practice.

Switzerland is discussing harmonizing corporate tax rates at a lower level than its current domestic rate of around 21 percent but Marius Brulhart, professor of economics at the University of Lausanne, said the country may not be able to go as low as Ireland's 12.5 percent rate.

Barry O'Leary, chief executive of IDA Ireland, which is responsible for attracting inward investment into Ireland, said he was talking to "a handful" of other companies about possible relocations from Switzerland to Ireland.

"If two or three of them decided to relocate that starts a trend," he said.

All companies have a duty to investors not to pay any more tax than they need to but in recent years, revelations that companies such as Google and Apple use complex structures to shift profits into tax havens have prompted public anger and spurred the Group of 20 leading economies to launch a drive to tackle profit shifting.

DUBLIN BOUND

In recent months, Google has published statements on its website and emailed customers to say the terms and conditions for European customers are changing.

Since November companies which advertise on Yahoo! websites have entered contracts with Yahoo! EMEA Ltd, an Irish-registered business.

From late March, private users of premium mail and other services will be doing business with the Irish company.

Previously, customers in France, Germany, Italy and other countries contracted directly with local Yahoo subsidiaries and paid fees to them.

The national units passed the revenues directly to a Swiss affiliate, Yahoo! Sàrl, based in Rolle, in the Swiss Canton of Vaud, and Yahoo! Sàrl paid them commissions for securing clients, accounts for the units show.

The commissions were set at a level which were just about enough to cover the national units' costs and generated little profit that European authorities could tax.

U.S. internet companies have been especially effective at cutting their overseas tax bills because weaknesses in European tax rules means it can be hard for tax authorities there to claim taxing rights on online sales revenues.

Between 2009 and 2012, Google had a non-U.S. average income tax rate of 2.9 percent while eBay Inc.'s bill over the period was 3.1 percent, according to a Reuters analysis of company filings.

But Yahoo, which has struggled to grow revenues and profit in recent years amid strong competition from Google, has one of the higher tax rates in the sector.

Between 2009 and 2012, its overseas income tax rate averaged 27 percent.

It's not clear why Yahoo has a higher tax rate but tax advisers say the bigger a company's profits, the greater the opportunities for tax optimization. The company declined to answer questions about its tax arrangements. Google and eBay said they comply with all tax rules.

Yahoo's new structure echoes that employed by Google, whose European customers pay money direct to Google Ireland Limited.

This company sends most of its more than 12 billion euros a year in revenues to an affiliate in Bermuda where there is no corporate income tax. The arrangement allows Google to pay effective tax rates far below even the headline Irish tax rate.

Yahoo, which generates most of its revenue from advertising on its websites, said in a statement that the changes in its arrangements were intended to "streamline our operations further".

Yahoo said it planned to shut its Rolle office by July. Spokespeople in France and Italy said there would be no changes in the mainly sales and marketing functions conducted in those offices.

DUBLIN OFFICE

Spokeswoman Macleod-Smith said the current Senior Vice President for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Dawn Airey, will continue to be based in London.

Yahoo opened a Dublin office in 2003 to provide customer support and technical and other support for other Yahoo units. In March last year, it announced it was hiring 200 new customer and internal support roles but did not announce the new financial structure whereby all sales revenues would be diverted directly to Dublin.

O'Leary declined to name the companies he was trying to lure to Ireland but other highly mobile technology companies whose main European tax base is in Switzerland include travel group Expedia Inc., auction site eBay Inc., Videogames publisher Electronic Arts, domain name manager Verisign Inc. and software groups Salesforce.com Inc, CA Inc, Citrix Systems Inc. and Autodesk Inc.

Electronic Arts said it had no plans to shift its international headquarters from Switzerland. The other companies declined to comments or did not respond to requests for comment. A sales agreement published on Salesforce.com's website shows that its Swiss unit continues to be the counterparty for European sales.

Noble Corp, owner of the world's third-largest offshore drilling rig fleet, announced a move from Switzerland to Britain last year, citing Britain's tax regime which had recently been changed so that overseas profits were largely made exempt from tax.

Lorraine Griffin, tax partner at accountants Deloitte in Dublin, said the G20 effort to tackle corporate tax avoidance could also help to make Dublin more attractive for companies, even though Ireland itself has been branded a tax haven by U.S. and European politicians.

Documents published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the body leading the G20 tax avoidance drive, have said that in future companies should be forced to report profits and revenues where the economic activity which generates the profit takes place.

SAC Capital's Martoma found guilty of insider trading

 - Mathew Martoma, a former portfolio manager at billionaire Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund, was found guilty on Thursday of engaging in what prosecutors called the most lucrative insider trading scheme in U.S. history.

A federal jury in New York found Martoma guilty on all three of the conspiracy and securities fraud charges that he faced, over a scheme that allowed SAC Capital to make profits and avoid losses of $275 million.

The verdict was the eighth insider trading conviction of a current or former employee at SAC Capital, a $14 billion hedge fund that has long been in the cross-hairs of the FBI and Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan.

Martoma gave no apparent reaction as the verdict was read. His wife, Rosemary, sat up in her seat in court as the verdict was read, with tears going down her face. They exited the court holding hands.

As news photographers snapped pictures, Martoma walked stone-faced out of the courthouse and into a waiting SUV with his wife and defense team. They did not speak to reporters.

"We are very disappointed and we plan to appeal," Richard Strassberg, Martoma's lawyer, said through a spokesman.

U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe did not immediately set a sentencing date. Martoma, 39, could face a maximum 45 years in prison, although the highest sentence to date in an insider trading case is 12 years.

The verdict came after a different jury in the same courthouse in December convicted Michael Steinberg, a portfolio manager at SAC Capital, on five conspiracy and securities fraud counts for his role in a separate insider trading scheme.

SAC Capital last year agreed to pay $1.8 billion in criminal and civil settlements and plead guilty to fraud charges stemming from insider trading by its employees.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is meanwhile seeking to bar Cohen from the financial services industry for failing to supervise Martoma and Steinberg.

The conviction continued an unbroken winning streak at trial for U.S. Attorney Bharara, who has secured guilty pleas or verdicts against 79 individuals since October 2009 as part of a broad crackdown by his office on insider trading on Wall Street.

"This unbroken string of wins for the government in insider trading cases will have huge impact," said Thomas Gorman, a defense lawyer at law firm Dorsey & Whitney. "It's getting widely circulated, so it does have a chilling effect of those in the trading business considering insider trading."

"GRAIN OF SAND"

Martoma, who worked in SAC's CR Intrinsic Investors division, was accused of seeking out confidential information from doctors involved in a clinical trial of an Alzheimer's drug being developed by Elan Corp Plc and Wyeth, now owned by Pfizer Inc.

Based on a tip Martoma received a doctor about negative trial results for the drug, SAC Capital in July 2008 began selling its $700 million position in Elan and Wyeth before the data was made public later that month, prosecutors said.

"Martoma bought the answer sheet before the exam - more than once - netting a quarter billion dollars in profits and losses avoided for SAC, as well as a $9 million bonus for him," Bharara said in a statement.

Martoma chose to go to trial rather than cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of Cohen. Such cooperation often results in leniency at sentencing.

"The time to cooperate is not after you've been found guilty it's before you go to trial," said C. Evan Stewart, a partner at Cohen & Gresser.

During almost five weeks of trial, prosecutors said that most of the trading took place in accounts controlled by Cohen. They also said that Martoma had a 20-minute phone call with Cohen after receiving information about the negative results.

While Cohen has not been criminally charged, Sidney Gilman, the doctor who tipped Martoma, said at trial than an FBI agent on approaching him the first time had called Martoma a "grain of sand" in what was an investigation of Cohen.

Strassberg, Martoma's lawyer, said during the trial that prosecutors erred in bringing the case "in their haste to make a case against someone who is not even in this courtroom: Mathew Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen.

A representative for SAC Capital declined to comment after the verdict.

TWO DOCTORS

At trial, prosecutors presented testimony of Gilman and another doctor, Joel Ross, who said they provided confidential information to Martoma during paid consultations through firms that connect investors with experts.

Gilman, then a professor at University of Michigan who chaired the drug's safety monitoring committee, had spoken with Martoma during more than 40 paid consultations arranged through expert networking firm Gerson Lehrman Group, earning more than $70,000 in the process, prosecutors said.

Gilman testified that after he was picked to present the drug trial's final results at a Chicago conference, he called Martoma on July 17, 2008, and told him the details.

Martoma two days later came to Michigan and met with him at the doctor's office and reviewed draft slides for the presentation, Gilman said.

Gilman, though, said he did not initially remember the 2008 office meeting when investigators questioned him about it. He only recalled some details as recently as two weeks before he took the stand, adding there were "still remains some holes in my memory.

Both doctors testified pursuant to non-prosecution agreements, a fact the defense sought to use to call into question their credibility. Both doctors had denied giving Martoma confidential information when first confronted by the

FBI.

Martoma's lawyers also sought to provide alternative explanations for the stock sales and contended there was no meaningful difference between the final results and a preview of them described in a June 17, 2008, news release by Elan.

The case is U.S. v. Martoma, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 12-cr-00973.

Emotional Jay Leno bids star-studded farewell to 'Tonight Show'

- Comedian Jay Leno said an emotional goodbye to the "Tonight Show" on Thursday with a star-studded farewell led by actor Billy Crystal, after hosting the NBC late night program for more than 20 years and handing the reins over to Jimmy Fallon.

Leno, 63, who took over one of U.S. broadcast television's marquee programs in 1992 from Johnny Carson, came out to a standing ovation from the audience of friends and family, shaking hands with many as he did in each show.

"I don't like goodbyes; NBC does," Leno quipped when opening his monologue, poking fun at the network that orchestrated his departure from the show in 2009 only to reinstall him back as host less than a year later.

His final monologue was peppered with then-and-now reflections on the changes since his tenure at "Tonight" began.

"When I started hosting, Justin Bieber wasn't even born yet. That's why we call those the good ol' days," Leno said, poking fun at the troubled Canadian teen pop star.

The silver-haired host ended the show on an emotional note, saying, "This has been the greatest 22 years of my life," as he rested his hand on his chin with tears welling in his eyes.

"It really is time for me to go and hand it off to the next guy," the comedian added.

Leno's departure and Fallon's hire marks NBC's second attempt to transition the "Tonight Show" into a program appealing to the 18-34 year old demographic coveted by advertisers while still maintaining its top spot in the ratings.

Fallon, 39, will be taking the "Tonight Show" back to its New York roots for the first time since 1972, when NBC moved the show with Carson to Burbank, California. Fallon will begin his new hosting duties on February 17 on the network owned by Comcast Corp.

STAR-STUDDED FAREWELL

Leno ended his long-running late night tenure with one of the guests from his first "Tonight Show" on May 25, 1992, actor-comedian Crystal, who praised Leno for giving a comic's levity to current events and "making us sleep better at night."

Crystal led a comic rendition of "So Long, Farewell" from "The Sound of Music" that included guest appearances from Oprah Winfrey, Jack Black, Carol Burnett, Sheryl Crow, Jim Parsons, NBA basketball player Chris Paul and Kim Kardashian. Country music star Garth Brooks was the musical guest, performing two songs including his hit, "Friends in Low Places"

Leno also received pre-recorded farewells from celebrities such as actors Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Charlie Sheen, sports broadcaster Bob Costas and his successor Jimmy Fallon. Even President Barack Obama, who in 2009 became the first sitting president to appear on a late night talk show when he joined Leno on "Tonight," delivered a pre-recorded goodbye.

The "Tonight Show" first aired on NBC in 1954 from New York with host Steve Allen. Jack Paar hosted the show from 1957 until Carson took over in 1962, and held his reign for 30 years, before departing in 1992.

Leno led the "Tonight Show" to the top of the late night ratings in 1995 and has held off competitors David Letterman's "Late Show" on CBS and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live." The show only lost its grip atop the ratings when Conan O'Brien took over the show for nine months in 2009-2010.

Over Leno's 22 years, he has been joined on the couch by celebrities, politicians, athletes and pop culture figures. Notable guests include Tom Cruise, Betty White, Hugh Grant, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, first lady Michelle Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger and most recently, Miley Cyrus.

Leno's stint at "Tonight" has not been without controversy. NBC picked Leno over Letterman, then the host of NBC's "Late Night" talk show, to replace Carson in 1992, resulting in a very public, bitter feud.

Letterman left the network for its competitor CBS, and launched his own talk show in the same timeslot as "Tonight," going head-to-head with Leno and initially beating him in the ratings.

NBC appointed O'Brien in 2004 to be Leno's successor when he left the show in 2008 to host his own primetime program on the network.

But in 2009, after O'Brien's short helm at "Tonight" and Leno's primetime show suffered from poor ratings, NBC attempted to push "Tonight Show" into a later timeslot behind Leno's show, forcing O'Brien to end his contract with NBC, and Leno to return to "Tonight" less than a year later.

Opel reaches job guarantee deal with 3 German factories

 - General Motors Co's (GM.N) unit Opel said it had signed a collective labor agreement with employees at its German factories in Ruesselsheim, Kaiserslautern and Eisenach, in an accord that includes a job protection guarantee until 2018.

The deal is a sign of smoother relations between management and the Opel workforce, who have in the past clashed over how to return the money-losing European unit to profitability by 2015.

"For the company and its employees this is an important step toward securing our future," Ulrich Schumacher, Opel's head of personnel who joined in May last year, said in a statement.

Around 7,150 employees work at the three factories.

As part of the deal, which was signed on Thursday, Opel's management pledged to give the Ruesselsheim factory an additional model to build, to continue making the Corsa and Adam models in Eisenach, and to continue building components in Kaiserslautern.

The factory in Bochum is set to stop producing cars at the end of 2014.

Earlier this week, General Motors Co's new chief executive, Mary Barra, urged Opel's workers to accelerate the European brand's turnaround and said the global auto maker was committed to supporting its loss-making European unit.

Fixing Europe, where Opel CEOs have come and gone in rapid succession and where GM has lost some $18 billion over the last 12 years, is at the top of Barra's to-do list.

General Motors has described 2014 as a "transition year" in Europe, where Opel will introduce a redesigned Corsa subcompact late in the year. A redesigned Astra compact is expected to follow in early 2015, along with new families of gasoline and diesel engines, helping to drive GM's European operations back to break-even.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was first to report that Opel and its management had signed a deal.

China's January official PMI slips to six-month low

- China's factory growth eased to an expected six-month low in January, hurt by weaker local and foreign demand, a survey showed, a soft start for the year that heightens worries of an economic slowdown.

The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) edged down to 50.5 in January from December's 51, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Saturday, in line with market expectations.

The change reinforces concerns that China's economy is stuttering and could drag on financial markets on Monday as global investors, already nervous about capital flight in emerging markets, find another reason to sell riskier assets.

Emerging market stocks and currencies were sold off in the past week as investors cut financial bets in developing nations, in anticipation that the United States will continue to move to less easy monetary policy. Super-easy U.S. policy had spurred a flow of cash into emerging markets in recent years.

Saturday's PMI showed China's factories saw fewer export orders and slacker growth in new orders last month. A sub-index for new orders fell to a six-month low of 50.9, and export orders slipped to 49.3, also a six-month low and below the 50-point threshold separating growth from contraction in PMIs.

An employment sub-index fell to an 11-month low of 48.2.

Analysts had cautioned before Saturday's release that the ongoing Lunar New Year holiday, which began on January 31, probably dragged on factory output in January as manufacturers shut shop for China's biggest annual holiday.

But seasonal factors aside, most analysts noted that China's economy was fighting headwinds that would only grow in coming months as the country hunkers down for sweeping reforms.

A Reuters visit to China's southern manufacturing heartlands in January had showed factories smarting from lackluster demand. Discouraged, many had packed up earlier than usual for the holidays.

"We expect China's first-quarter economic growth to show a certain degree of a slowdown," ANZ economists Liu Ligang and Zhou Hao said in a note. "China should lower its annual economic growth target to 7 percent."

BASICALLY STABLE

The official PMI echoes a separate private survey published by HSBC this month that also showed factory growth in the world's second-biggest economy retreated to a six-month trough in January.

It is widely understood among investors that the days of stellar, double-digit economic growth in China are over as it tries to embrace slower but better-quality growth to protect its environment and cut reliance on investment.

But any signs of moderating growth in China still jolt financial markets as some investors struggle to adjust expectations, while others worry Beijing may mismanage a slowdown and allow growth to fall off more sharply instead.

China's economy narrowly missed expectations for growth to hit a 14-year low last year by expanding 7.7 percent, just a notch above the government's 7.5 percent target.

Most analysts polled by Reuters in January believed China can sustain its 2014 economic growth broadly in line with last year's 7.5 percent target.

Despite investors' jitters, Chinese experts are confident Beijing will raise government spending to support the economy if it looks like it is on the verge of a slump.

They say a stable economy that holds down the jobless rate is the most important precursor to China's ambitious reforms, a factor some mentioned on Saturday.

"Since the PMI stayed above the 50-point level, it shows the basic trend of stable economic growth will not change," said Zhang Liqun, an economist at the Development Research Centre, which helps compile the PMI.

For companies, a rocky road ahead in emerging markets

- International companies are taking steps to mitigate the effects of the turmoil in emerging markets, including hedging foreign currency exposure more aggressively, reducing some investment plans, cutting costs, and raising prices frequently.

While executives are not hitting the panic button just yet, and many say the risks they face are hardly unique, they are still aggressively tackling costs and making sure that revenue keeps up with inflationary pressures. And many warn that if China suffers a credit crisis as some fear, then things could get a whole lot worse.

From Africa to Asia to Latin America, policymakers are scrambling to prop up theircurrencies and prevent a sudden exodus of foreign capital by jacking up interest rates and taking other steps - all this just as many emerging economies were already starting to slow sharply after a decade-long boom.

The sudden onslaught of market volatility in Turkey, Argentina, South Africa and Brazil, along with worries about an abrupt slowdown in China, means companies are now bracing for deeper reversals in demand for their products in emerging economies. And this is happening at a time when their U.S. dollar or euro revenues from many of these countries are also taking a hit because of plunging emerging market currencies.

Automakers Ford Motor Co. (F.N) and Fiat SpA (FIA.MI), home appliance manufacturer Whirlpool Corp (WHR.N) and liquor giant Diageo (DGE.L) all cited weakness and a more sober outlook in once-roaring emerging markets in earnings reports this week.

Still, for many executives, especially those with decades of experience in the developing world, wild currency swings and economic ups and downs are a fact of life that they must deftly navigate.

"We have had quite a bit of currency changes, particularly in the very weak emerging markets. But let's put it in context," Jeff Fettig, Whirlpool's chairman and chief executive said. "We've been in the Brazilian market for over 60 years and we've managed hyper inflationary periods, busts, booms, and we've never had a loss-making year in Brazil."

Fettig said the appliance maker was not overly concerned that the downturn in emerging markets would significantly affect the company financially, since the most troubled economies account for less than 3 percent of overall revenue. The company has taken steps in countries where currency devaluations had occurred to recoup dollar-based raw materials costs.

Economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch described the turmoil of the past week as "a perfect storm of idiosyncratic risks" within emerging markets - citing credit risks in China, political crises in Turkey, Ukraine and Thailand, and the currency devaluation in Argentina.

While all these events have further dimmed an already bearish outlook for many emerging economies, a full-fledged crisis does not look likely.

"We do not view the current wobble as the start of an EM-wide crisis," Alberto Ades, co-head of Global Economics Research at BofA Merrill Lynch wrote in a note on Thursday.

TAKING NO CHANCES

Companies with operations in emerging economies are nonetheless dusting off contingency plans, with strategies varying country by country.

"We are taking a wait-and-see attitude in terms of decisive action," said the treasurer of a multi-billion dollar advertising company that books about half its revenue outside the United States. The executive, who asked for anonymity because the company has not yet disclosed fourth-quarter results, said his traders are not actively hedging now for currency volatility but could begin doing so at any minute.

For others, like Swedish apparel retailer Hennes & Mauritz (HMb.ST), hedging is a permanent strategy in emerging markets.

"We always live with a bit of currency risk," said H&M Chief Executive Officer Karl-Johan Persson. "We will keep the hedging strategy that we have. We think it works well for us."

While it is impossible to predict exactly where and when economic or market turmoil might arise, most companies constantly monitor the political, economic and financial developments in the countries where they operate.

"Everybody right now is focusing on India, South Africa and Turkey, but the issues there are not new. They just haven't been on the front page," said another corporate treasurer who asked not to be identified.

Even the mightiest of global companies can run into trouble in emerging markets. Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), the world's largest retailer, has struggled in hard-to-crack markets like India, Brazil and China. On Friday, it cut its outlook to account for the closure of 50 underperforming stores in the Brazilian and Chinese markets.

While voicing concerns about the year ahead in developing economies, executives from motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson Inc (HOG.N), heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N) and Philips (PHG.AS) all stressed their long-term commitment to those markets.

"Overall, we like emerging markets. What worries me are the currency fluctuations and the unrest in some of the countries," said Frans van Houten, chief executive of Philips, the Dutch healthcare, lighting and consumer appliances company. "I'm cautiously optimistic for the longer term economic development."

Diageo, the world's biggest distilled drinks company, has also seen its sales growth slow in emerging markets in the last six months, especially in China. But the company, which gets about 42 percent of its sales in emerging markets, is betting big that the growing middle class in developing nations will be a driver of growth for years to come.

"You will have economic growth in the emerging markets, even when there are shocks and ups and downs," Diageo CEO Ivan Menezes told reporters on Thursday. He said the company is streamlining operations and seeking to become more agile in some of the more volatile markets.

The volatility is also an opportunity for deep-pocketed players looking to up the ante in emerging markets.

"As far as emerging markets go in real estate, there are some fantastic opportunities all of a sudden because of the flight of capital out ... and the tighter money in those countries," Blackstone Group LP's (BX.N) President Tony James said on a conference call with reporters.

"We're suddenly able to buy real estate properties in fast-growing markets at less than physical replacement cost."

THE WILD CARD: CHINA

For some newcomers and smaller players, though, the challenge in emerging markets may not be worth the headache.

British private equity group 3i (III.L) said on Thursday it had scrapped plans to raise a new Brazilian fund and that it would not make any new investments there because of changing macroeconomic conditions.

"Brazil remains a really interesting market but conditions have changed over the past 12 months, there is much greater market and political uncertainty and that has also been reflected in currency volatility," the firm's finance director, Julia Wilson, told reporters on a conference call.

Like China, India and other high-profile emerging markets, Brazil was one of the world's economic success stories of the past decade, chalking up lofty growth rates while also lifting more than 30 million people out of poverty. But Brazil has slowed sharply since 2010 under President Dilma Rousseff, whose heavy-handed economic policies have scared off some investors.

The real wild card for emerging markets seems to be China, where signs of strains in the banking system have stirred concerns about the sustainability of Chinese growth.

"China has now become the second-largest economy in the world with a GDP that is more than half that of the U.S. and since 2008 has functioned as the engine of global growth," said Robbert Van Batenburg, director of market strategy at Newedge USA LLC in New York.

"If this escalates into a credit crisis that causes Chinese economic growth to come to an abrupt stop, it will impact almost every nook and cranny of the global economy."