Rival Bidders Offer $98 Billion for ABN Amro (Dealbook)
The hotly anticipated counterbid for ABN Amro came through, as the group led by RBS (along with Fortis and Banco Santander) offered up $98 billion for the company, solidly above the offer made by Barclays. It’s time for a third raise now from a private equity dark horse, just to make everyone hit the roof. One difference with the RBS bid is that it wants ABN Amro to hold onto its LaSalle division in Chicago, which it sees as a nice toehold for the US market. Even though the RBS bid is higher, the company might still prefer to team up with Barclays, which would see its structure remain very much intact.
Chase Says It Will Move if City Balks (NYT)
JP Morgan Chase says that if the city of New York doesn’t give it more subsidies to build a new skyscraper in Manhattan, it will move thousands of employees to Stamford. Oh yeah, that’s real mature — just leave if you don’t get what you want. Obviously, New York is sort of sensitive right now, since everyone’s talking about how it’s not the financial capital of the world, so it doesn’t want an employer like Chase to move to Stamford. Then again, taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to shoulder these burdens (even though they are all the time). How about this. Citigroup should vacate its Long Island City building, which it can because it’s laying off so many people, and JPM should take over that. Long Island City seems like a nice compromise between Manhattan and Stamford, to us.
FDA: More animals got tainted food (Boston Globe)
The FDA has announced that the contamination of the pet food supply chain spreads beyond just pets into feed for other animals. Specifically, it says that thousands of hogs across multiple states have eaten food laced with the poisonous industrial chemical. Honestly, at first this story seemed really overblown, in part because we’re not pet people (if you are, whatever makes you happy). Also, we held out the possibility that there was some sort of statistical fluke going on. Now that the story really has legs and isn’t just about pets it’s getting more interesting. At the moment, the current operating thesis at the FDA is still that certain rogue distributors in China added the chemical to the food in the hopes of artificially boosting the food’s nitrogen content. The big news, however, may come next week, when the FDA tests things soy, corn and rice gluten, which go into a lot of industrially produced human foods — that’s yet another reason to stop eating that garbage. Lean meats, fresh veggies, fruits, nuts, beer, and wine; that’s the way to go.
Wal-Mart plans to add 400 US health clinics (Bloomberg)
We’re big fans of walk-in, nurse-staffed clinics that can perform basic medical functions at a cheap price. There’s really no reason to pay a doctor $105 so that he can say “yep, you stepped on a rusty nail, you should probably update that tetanus shot”. There’s no nurse in the world that couldn’t do the same thing. Same for things like checking for strep throat, doing a urinary tract infection test and a host of other routinized things that could be done by technicians. People always respond to this idea with the concern that Nurses won’t be able to deal with more serious things, which is totally true. That’s why they should just deal with a set number of conditions and then tell the patient to go see better trained help when that’s why they need. So it’s cool to see that Wal-Mart is pushing this concept heavily, as it’s announced that 400 of its stores will soon have these cut-rate walk-in clinics. Between this and its prescription drug pricing, the company may singlehandedly tame the runaway inflation in the healthcare space. Well, probably not, but we can hope.
Archive for April 2007
$$$Jim Cramer made $2.4 million last year, by not following his own stock tipping advice. [Talking Biz News]
$$$John Drexel: no longer with us. [Yahoo!News]
$$$Oakley’s: because it’s 1997, that’s why. [WallStrip]
- Posted in:
banking culture
Tool Time: The New York Post’s Investment Banking Poster Child Gets The Tim Sykes Treatment
By Bess LevinThere’s a piece in today’s Post entitled “Tools of the Trade” and, not to stroke Rupert Murdoch’s ego or anything but, they certainly nailed it. The mean girls over at Dealbook have already made a new entry in their slambook, though that’s not exactly surprising, given their catty nature. But the article and its subject, “Andrew,” a 24 year-old investment banker, even has mild-mannered gossip blog Gawker passing judgement. Gawker! We were planning on just rising above the whole thing, especially after Dana Vachon surmised that Andy is probably a “Citi branch manager” (we don’t do retail). But then we received a 540-word diatribe on the situation from Tim Sykes and we figured, what the hey. Finance types have been persecuted for TOO LONG. If we have to be the first people to say it, so be it. Next year, in Jerusalem.
First, a quick primer on “Andrew.”
Age: 24
Salary estimate: $190,000, including projected bonus
Suit: Hickey Freeman suit, $2,749
White shirt: “There’s a saying in the banking world that you can never have too many blue suits or white shirts. I get mine from Hickey Freeman [$149-$249] as my standby, but I also shop at Charles Tyrwhitt [$99-$200], Thomas Pink [$149-$249] and Turnbull and Asser [over $250]. I get my white shirts heavy-starched.”
Collar: “I always buy cutaway collars and French cuffs from the British stores (Tyrwhitt, Pink, Turnbull & Asser), and Barrel (button) cuffs from Hickey Freeman.”
Watch: Breitling Navitimer, $5,299
Shoes: Ferragamo loafers, $395 at Saks Fifth Avenue.
Shoe-shining: “I like to shine my own shoes.”
Red Bull: “Every two weeks I buy a 12-pack of sugar-free Red Bull. I have one before I get in the shower, and then I drink one on the way to work.” [Ed. note: as a very clever DB reader points out: HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE??]
- Posted in:
Apple
Breaking: Apple Backdating Charges, A Settlement And The ‘Apple Rule’ Put To The Test
By John Carney
The force field that seems to have protected Steve Jobs from the harsh scrutiny that the press and regulators have applied to other executives allegedly involved in stock options backdating is being put to the test today. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against two former Apple executives—former chief financial officer Fred Anderson and former general counsel Nancy Heinen. And one of them has reacted by pointing an accusatory finger at the man at the top of the Apple.
Each of the two formers have reacted very differently to the charges. Heinen has vowed to fight the backdating charges, joining the thin ranks of other corporate executives who have decided to fight the SEC rather than settle. Anderson is going the other way. The announcement of his settlement with the SEC was made right after the charges were filed. But Anderson didn’t just settle—he released a statement placing the blame for the backdating of stock options at Apple squarely on the shoulders of chief executive Steve Jobs.
The statement shreds one of Jobs strongest lines of defense—that he didn’t understand the accounting implications of changing the options grant dates. Anderson’s statement has Steve Jobs as the key actor at each of the critical points. It sounds as if the ‘Apple Rule’—the unwritten rule protecting high-profile, popular executives (but not unpopular executives or formers) that regulators, prosecutors and the press seem to follow on backdating—is about to take a pounding.
The stock is trading up on the news—perhaps under the impression that the Apple Rule will continue to protect Jobs—but the reactions from the press and online media have been swift and punishing.
ValleyWag predicts that Jobs may face charges, going so far as to announce that its editor has sold out his position.
“Disclosure. I just sold all my Apple stock, before writing this post. (The stock is soaring, but I can’t believe traders have properly digested the news.) Steve Jobs, the company’s hugely valuable chief executive, must now be squarely in the sights of securities regulators,” ValleyWag says.
Endgadget also smells blood in the waters of Cupertino, where Apple’s headquarters is located. “The tech exec superstar who’s largely gotten off clean despite Apple’s lingering backdated stock options scandal is now being publicly blamed for wrongdoings by former Apple CFO Fred Anderson,” Endgaget writes.
Perhaps the most surprising reaction comes from Business 2.0’s blog, which examines how Jobs and Anderson dealt with their backdated stock options and concludes that the difference proves that Anderson is financially much smarter than Jobs. Anderson reportedly made as much as $3.5 million on his backdated stock options—an amount he has now agreed to “disgorge” (read: fork-over) to the government—while Jobs exchanged his backdated stock options for restricted shares. Jobs trade means he missed out on a $3.6 billion gain.
Oddly enough, that financially unsound decision may be what keeps Jobs out of trouble on backdating. He can credibly claim that he did not profit from the backdated stock options since he never cashed them in. But prosecutors and regulators have already shown a willingness to bring charges in other cases where executives did not personally see profits from backdating, so this might not be enough to keep the Apple Rule intact.
SEC files charges against 2 former Apple officers over options [Associated Press in the International Herald Tribune]
Former Apple CFO settles with SEC [Reuters]
Former CFO blames Jobs for backdated options grant [San Jose Mercury News]
Ex-CFO says Jobs was warned of options dates [Market Watch]
Attorney for Fred Anderson Issues Statement Regarding Settlement of Claims with the SEC [Press Release via Business Wire]
Steve Jobs in regulators’ sights [ValleyWag]
Former Apple CFO publicly blames Jobs for stock options scandal [Endgadget]
Why Fred Anderson Is Smarter Than Steve Jobs [Business 2.0]
Earlier on DealBreaker: Backdating and Apple stories from the DealBreaker Archives.
- Posted in:
Citi
Citi reaffirms that 17,000 former co-workers are rocking and rolling, partying every day
By Keith Hahn
Gene Simmons was just spotted on the Citi fixed income floor, accompanied by blaring KISS music, courtesy of the traders. Our Citi tipper had no idea why this was happening. Anyone have the scoop?
Comment or send any info to tips@dealbreaker.com. Info like this is always welcome, and we hope to do more SpotMarket features fueled by your anecdotes. Unfortunately, the “coolest” person who ever appeared on my old floor of 277 Park was John Edwards, although he was dressed as a member of KISS, and did carry a giant sack of money out with him.
UPDATE: We’re told that Gene may be starting a hedge fund and is really into finance and like, stuff. A new reality show – “Fund of Rock?”
The other day, Keith and I were sitting around discussing life and things of that nature when the conversation turned to the physical act of love. Not the actual physical act of love—would that he I could be so lucky!—but the topic of the physical act of love. He wondered why it was so hard to find a consenting partner, while I noted that it seemed as though the sheer number treats available at the buffet had increased exponentially (Carney was disqualified from the conversation because he’s currently practicing tantra). We thought that, perhaps, this was merely a coincidence of the unfortunate/fortunate bad/good haircuts we’d recently had. Turns out, it’s actually all your doing:
Since 2000, men, mostly between ages 25 and 44, have accounted for more than three-fourths of the population increase in Lower Manhattan. As a result, according to a special census calculation, the sex ratio there increased to 126 men per 100 women in 2005, from 101 men per 100 women in 2000. In the rest of Manhattan, and in the city over all, there were only 90 men for every 100 women.
A: Unicellular organisms.
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