After an exhaustive six-week long search, during which time it went without audited financial statements, nutritional supplements company and alleged pyramid scheme Herbalife has picked one of the three remaining options for the job. Read more »
Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors are considering charging SAC Capital as “a criminal enterprise, using a powerful legal tool employed against the mafia and drug gangs,” i.e. the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The use of RICO would give the government considerably more time to make a case against SAC, as it means prosecutors could “file charges in connection with crimes committed over the past decade, as long as any act that is part of the alleged enterprise occurred within the past five years,” whereas this July marks the deadline for bringing securities fraud charges involving July 2008 trading in Elan and Wyeth by the fund.
The best part of this story, naturally, involves Charlie Gasparino, first to report the RICO angle yesterday, despite, he says, the denials of a SAC representative, whose legs CG is currently threatening to break, via Twitter. Read more »
Jamie Dimon’s continuing employment as chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase may or may not be an interesting case study in shareholder rights and corporate governance, but the most interesting question in bank governance is really “who cares what shareholders think?” Like: a bank is a bunch of depositor and creditor money, largely backed by explicit and implicit government guarantees, topped with a thin layer of shareholder-capital icing, and run for the benefit of that layer of icing. The shareholders are in charge because that’s how it’s done in every other sort of company, and because they bear the riskiest risk, but they certainly don’t bear the most risk on a sheer notional basis. And, since their shares are an almost at-the-money option on a vast pile of assets, they tend to have a fondness for volatility that other stakeholders might find disconcerting.1
Here’s The Epicurean Dealmaker on chairmanshipery:
The CEO is supposed to be the chief employee, leading his or her organization to deliver on the agenda and objectives the Board of Directors has set. The CEO is an operating executive.
The Chairman, on the other hand, is supposed to lead the Board of Directors in setting the agenda, strategy, and objectives of the corporation, in response to its employers, the shareholders, and all the other myriad stakeholders (employees, regulators, government officials, vendors, community members, and customers) which have a say or a stake in the activity of the firm. The Chairman and other directors of the corporation are stewards. They are not supposed to get down in the weeds, day to day, operating the various parts of the business. That is the CEO’s job. But as stewards they are supposed to think about the what-ifs, the perils and opportunities that may or may not confront the firm in the future, and the problems and threats which may be festering beneath the glittering surface of excellent corporate performance.
One way of reading that is that the CEO goes to work every day to make money for the shareholders: his job is to increase net income. Read more »
Jamie Dimon Pretty Happy He Didn’t Fire Off That Resignation Letter Last Night After His Second Bottle Of Wine
By Bess Levin
He said he was going to quit if stripped of the chairman role, and god damn it, he meant it but luckily: 1. It did not come to that and 2. He got distracted watching that Harlem Shake video Lloyd sent him and fell down a rabbit’s hole of different versions on YouTube, waking up this morning with his face on the keyboard and an email that began “I believe it was John Pierpont Morgan who famously said, ‘You can all go fuck yourselves’” saved to drafts. Read more »
Here’s a math problem: what does this sentence, from John McCain, tell you?
“Apple claims to be the largest U.S. corporate taxpayer, but by sheer size and scale, it is also among America’s largest tax avoiders,” he said in Monday’s pre-hearing comments.
The answer, of course, is that Apple is among the most profitable companies in America.1 If you have a lot of profits, you can not pay taxes on a lot of them, and still pay lots of taxes on a different lot of them. There much focus on the exceptions, but for the most part I’d guess that “biggest taxpayers” and “biggest tax avoiders” are both highly correlated to “biggest profits.” Warren Buffett pays more taxes than his secretary, but at a lower rate.
The Senate, not being known for its quickness with math, is holding hearings today on the avoiding part; here you can read (pdf) the committee’s report. Apple does two main things to avoid taxes that the committee doesn’t like:
- It incorporated two of its main foreign subsidiaries, Apple Operations International (AOI) and Apple Sales International (ASI), in Ireland. Those subsidiaries are, however, managed and controlled in the U.S. by their California-based directors. The U.S. taxes corporate income based on place of incorporation; Ireland taxes corporate income based on place of management and control. So if you’re incorporated in Ireland and managed and controlled in the U.S. you pay taxes nowhere, as AOI does and ASI more or less does. This is … honestly isn’t the surprise that everyone doesn’t do this?2 I’m incorporating myself in Ireland as we speak.
- It entered a cost sharing agreement that gave ASI the economic rights to Apple intellectual property outside of America, in exchange for ASI funding a share of Apple’s California-based R&D proportional to its share of Apple’s total sales. Apple is in the business of manufacturing cheap electronic components in China, slapping expensive cool on them in California, and selling the package for $500. ASI effectively got the California cool at cost, rather than paying retail, which means that the international share (some 60%) of the profits of that cool are, for tax purposes, “earned” abroad (in a zero-tax subsidiary!) rather than in California.
That’s the main stuff; there’s some stupid stuff too.3 Apple’s response is a lot of blather that boils down to: Read more »
Apple’s Web of Tax Shelters Saved It Billions, Panel Finds (NYT)
Thanks to what lawmakers called “gimmicks” and “schemes,” Apple was able to largely sidestep taxes on tens of billions of dollars it earned outside the United States in recent years. Last year, international operations accounted for 61 percent of Apple’s total revenue. … “There is a technical term economists like to use for behavior like this,” said Edward Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a former staff director at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “Unbelievable chutzpah.”
JPMorgan investors on edge over vote on Dimon; what if they win? (Reuters)
Investors say that while Dimon, 57, may need more oversight after the bank posted $6.2 billion in losses from failed derivative trades last year, they do not want him to quit. Among big bank CEOs, Dimon ranks first for stock returns and has been praised for leading the bank through the financial crisis with no quarterly losses and a strong balance sheet. If Dimon were to leave, the bank’s shares could fall as much as 10 percent and erase about $20 billion of market value, according to Mike Mayo, a bank analyst with brokerage CLSA. JPMorgan also has no ready replacement for Dimon, Mayo wrote in a research note, adding that the two lieutenants best positioned to succeed him – Matt Zames, 42, and Mike Cavanagh, 47 – seem to be about three years short of being ready for the job.
SAC Capital Aims to Stem Withdrawal Requests (DealBook)
“I’m very comfortable and confident having my money with him,” said Ed Butowsky, managing partner of Chapwood Investments in Dallas, a firm that invests client money in SAC. “All I know is that the returns are coming in nice, and my clients are happy.”
Funds Get Active Over Director Pay (WSJ)
Current pay structures don’t give directors enough of a stake in making sure the company does well, and boards need to be more creative about tying their compensation to performance, said John Wakeman, a vice president and portfolio manager at mutual-fund giant T. Rowe Price Group Inc. “If bad people are going to be on these boards, we’ve got to stop it,” said Mr. Wakeman. “We owe it to our fund holders.”
Buffett Jets Chief Says U.S. Leads Private-Flight Rebound (Bloomberg)
The U.S. is leading a recovery in demand for private flights while Europe remains weighed down by economic weakness, the head of billionaire Warren Buffett’s jet-management company said. “The U.S. from our perspective is coming back and doing relatively well,” Jordan Hansell, chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s NetJets, said by phone yesterday from Geneva, where he is attending the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition. “Europe has remained difficult.”
Poor li’l rich kids: Posh schools scold parents who send nannies (NYP)
Wealthy New Yorkers are shunning their parental duties — choosing instead to send nannies to their children’s private schools to take part in everything from “safety patrol” to accompanying the kids on their entrance interviews. … “Now the schools are getting angry — and other parents are getting angry. They don’t want to work the school bake sale with someone’s paid employee,” Uhry said. … But one Upper East Side mom whose daughter attends The Birch Wathen Lenox School sniffed that she pays the school $40,000 a year — and can’t be bothered with such menial duties. “These schools are exorbitantly expensive, they hit you up for school fees, donations, and then they want your time?” she huffed. “I have three kids at three different schools. If I can send my nanny, I’m happy to do it.”
Former Horace Mann admissions director Dana Haddad said schools now accept nannies at admissions interviews because kids tend to perform better in front of them. “When I was a director of admissions and children would act up, I would tell parents, ‘Don’t worry, send them back with the nanny,’ ” said Haddad.
Read more »
$$$ JPMorgan, under pressure, gives polling information to investors [Reuters]
$$$ Ergen Bids $2 Billion for LightSquared Spectrum [WSJ]
$$$ Prosecutors’ subpoena of SAC’s Cohen puzzles defense lawyers [Reuters]
$$$ Financial Firms Said to Be Seeking Bloomberg Alternative [Dealbook]
$$$ Laura Fernee says her good looks are so powerful they are ruining her life – and have forced her to quit her job. [DM] Read more »
California Jeweler Who Traded A Rolex, Unmarked Envelopes Of Cash For Inside Information Re: Herbalife, Skechers In Pretty Good Spirits For Someone Who Just Plead Guilty To Felony Charges
By Bess Levin
Which may or may not have something to do with someone hitting the jackpot this weekend/having big money riding on June’s Belmont Stakes. Come on Itsmyluckyday, daddy needs a new source of income/money to cover up to $250,000 in fines! Read more »
SAC Capital May Be Forced To Admit That Its Multiple Convicted Insider Traders Insider Traded
By Matt Levine
What is the point of prosecuting a company? Sometimes they pay fines, that’s something. A criminal conviction against a company may keep that company from doing bad things in the future. As a prosecutor, you get to say “this prosecution proves that no company is too big to jail,” despite the fact that a company is the exact and literal embodiment of a thing that is too big (and too abstract) to jail. So, there’s some stuff.
The point of prosecuting a human is to punish that human for doing bad stuff and deter other humans from doing similar bad stuff in the future, and prosecuting companies doesn’t do a great job of that. Prosecuting companies tends to both over-deter and under-deter: “if I commit a crime in my corporate capacity, my company will disappear and I’ll be out of a job” doesn’t have quite the same sting as “… and I’ll go to prison,” though it does have exactly the same sting as “if someone else at this company commits a crime in his corporate capacity, my company will disappear and I’ll be out of a job.”
Is (or was) SAC Capital organized to encourage individual analysts and portfolio managers to get inside information while shielding Steve Cohen from direct knowledge of that information? Meh, I don’t know, but man do a lot of people think so.1
Was that kind of what its investors wanted? Even today you can read about how investors are voluntarily fleeing SAC, or planning to, because “[e]ven Cohen’s legendary 25 pct annual returns at some point aren’t worth the risk,” but still: what risk? “At least nine current or former SAC employees have been linked to insider trading while working at the firm, including four who have pleaded guilty to crimes, according to Bloomberg News’s tally.” I submit to you that if you don’t want to be associated with insider trading, six cases would be enough. If nine isn’t enough, ten won’t be either. It seems like at least some investors are only going to be dragged away from SAC by force.
And it seems like they will be: Read more »
Former IBM Chief Will Look Into Bloomberg Employees Looking Into Bloomberg Subscriber Data
By Jon ShazarMeet the guy who’s going to get to the bottom of the Bloomberg staff’s favorite hobby: Ex-IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano. Read more »
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Hedge Funds
Steve Cohen Considering Kicking All Investors Not Named Steve Cohen Out Of His Fund
By Bess Levin
After five years under investigation for insider trading, Steven Cohen is considering proposing a deal to prosecutors that would shut his $15 billion hedge-fund firm to outside investors, according to a person familiar with his thinking. Cohen has discussed an agreement under which his SAC Capital Advisors LP would admit wrongdoing but wouldn’t be prosecuted unless it broke the law again, said the person, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. As part of the deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, Cohen would close the Stamford, Connecticut-based firm to outside investors and make it a family office that manages his personal fortune. SAC Capital probably would also pay fine. [Bloomberg]
If you’ve seen the internet today you know that everyone wants to talk about their feelings regarding the union of Yahoo! and Tumblr, those icons of two different generations of internet orthography. Do you prefer the florid olden style of Extraneous Punctuation! or the sleek postmodern vibe of Mssng Lttrs?1 Let us know in the comments or, of course, on your Tumblr. Here’s Goldman’s note:
Management cited the “uncanny” fit between Tumblr, with its fast-growing but largely unmonetized usage, and Yahoo, with its strengths in monetization but declining engagement.
Many people would think “avaricious widely disliked company” and “well-liked nonprofit, more or less,” would not be a good fit for each other, but I guess “uncanny” doesn’t actually mean “good.”
The press release is … terrible? Unspeakable. “Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business,” begins the second paragraph. Are you encouraged? If you’re a Tumblr user? (Not really, right?2 ) If you’re a Yahoo! shareholder? I drew you a picture:
Etc., etc., there is this: Read more »
- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker -
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Sponsored Content
SoFi Answers the Call to Refinance Student Loans and Provides Unique Community Benefits
This is a guest post written by SoFi’s CEO, Mike Cagney.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk amongst leaders in Washington about how to improve the painful process of repaying student loans. At SoFi, we feel your pain and work hard to offer more flexible, more affordable options for our borrowers. One idea that’s getting a lot of attention is increasing the options for refinancing debt after graduation. The only lender currently focused on refinancing private and federal student loans is SoFi.
We recognized early on that borrowers who have made timely payments on their loans, graduated from school, and have a job should be able to refinance their student loans at a lower interest rate. This may be why, after resuming lending by invitation, the media became increasingly interested in what we are doing.
In a recent article posted on MainStreet.com SoFi General Counsel Rob Lavet had this to say about SoFi’s ReFi products: Read more »
You know what they say: You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your financial planner. Or something like that. One of the great things of being in charge of your money is choosing who (if anyone) will help you manage it. The choice isn’t always an easy one. How will you know that your planner is reputable and trustworthy?
These five red flags may be good indications of whether the financial planner sitting across from you is someone you should trust with your money. LearnVest Planning also provides an innovative 7-step program for your money where you work one-on-one with a financial planner. To see if this program is right for you, start with a free financial consultation.
1. She Isn’t Certified
“There are a lot of good planners out there who aren’t Certified Financial Panners™,” says Samantha Vient, CFP®, of LearnVest Planning Services. “However, CFPs® are required to adhere to the CFP® Board’s standards of professional conduct.We believe it’s always a good idea to work with someone who has the CFP® designation, which is issued after completing a CFP® Board-approved personal financial planning curriculum, passing a rigorous exam issued by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, meeting experience requirements and passing an ethics and background check.
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