Opening Bell: 08.26.13
Amgen Strikes $10.4 Billion Deal For Onyx (WSJ)
The all-cash takeover values Onyx at $125 a share. The price Amgen is paying is below what investors expected in the days after the possible deal surfaced in late June. Amgen had approached Onyx with an offer of $120 a share for the company, whose primary attraction is a blood-cancer drug called Kyprolis.
Goldman Puts Four On Leave After Glitch (FT)
Goldman Sachs has put four senior technology specialists on leave after an embarrassing trading glitch that is likely to cost the bank tens of millions of dollars...Goldman last week accidentally sent thousands of orders for options contracts to exchanges operated by NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX and the CBOE, after a systems upgrade that went awry. The faulty orders roiled options markets in the opening 17 minutes of the day’s trading and sparked reviews of the transactions.
Jail Becomes Home for Husband Stuck With Lifetime Alimony (Bloomberg)
Ari Schochet has grown so accustomed to being sent to jail for missing alimony payments that he goes into a routine. Before his family-court hearing, Schochet, 41, sticks on a nicotine patch to cope with jailhouse smoking bans, sends an “Ari Off the Grid” e-mail to friends and family, and scrawls key phone numbers in permanent ink on his forearm. The former Citadel Investment Group Inc. portfolio manager, who once earned $1 million a year, has been jailed for missing court-ordered payments at least eight times in the past two years as he coped with the end of his 17-year marriage. The reason he ran afoul of the law was simple. He was out of work for most of that time, a victim of a weak economy, and he ran through his savings trying to pay his wife alimony and child support that totaled almost $100,000 a year...Schochet and ex-spouses in similar changed circumstances say New Jersey’s law unfairly imposes lifetime alimony on them. If they fail to make payments, like the $78,000 a year Schochet owes his ex-wife in alimony, they can be jailed for contempt of court regardless of whether they have a job or resources.
Platinum Card and Text Alert, via Pawnshop (Dealbook)
Linda Ballard, 61, uses the word “love” to describe her banking relationship, lauding the ease of cashing her bimonthly paycheck, the convenience of text alerts about her balance and the features on the platinum card that she was upgraded to in July. But she is not getting all this from a bank. She is getting this array of services from a pawnshop — part of an industry that has long had a reputation of taking advantage of vulnerable customers handing over prized possessions in exchange for cash. As banks zero in on more affluent customers who promise twice the revenue of their lower-income counterparts, close branches in poor areas and remain stingy with credit, pawnshops are revamping their image and stepping into the void to offer financial services.
Indictments Expected in Alleged Trading Code Theft (WSJ)
The top prosecutor in Manhattan is seeking to indict three men for allegedly stealing valuable computer source code from an automated trading firm, according to people familiar with the matter. A criminal complaint filed by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in New York and seen by The Wall Street Journal alleges that Glen Cressman and Jason Vuu, who worked as traders at Flow Traders US LLC in New York, emailed themselves lines of code that contained secret algorithms at the heart of the firm's high-frequency trading strategy.
Muriel Siebert, Who Broke Wall Street Gender Barrier, Dies At 80 (Bloomberg)
In paying $445,000 for one of the NYSE’s 1,366 memberships on Dec. 28, 1967, “Mickie” Siebert broke up the all-male bastion of the Big Board, which until then had permitted women on the trading floor only as clerks and pages to fill shortages during World War II and the Korean War. The lack of enthusiasm for welcoming a female colleague was evident, Siebert said, in her search for the two sponsors she needed under membership rules. After several rejections, she got James O’Brien, a partner at Salomon Brothers & Hutzler, and Kenneth Ward, a partner at Hayden Stone & Co., to back her. Much of the opposition was couched as kindness. “There was all manner of concern for my delicate ears -- with several articles postulating that a woman couldn’t handle the rough language of Wall Street -- and many comments about the absence of a ladies’ room on the Stock Exchange floor,” Siebert recalled in her 2002 memoir, “Changing the Rules: Adventures of a Wall Street Maverick,” written with Aimee Lee Ball. “Not since I was a baby had so many people been so interested in my bathroom habits,” she wrote.
Chicago Settles $100,000 Parking Ticket Case (DNAIC)
Jennifer Fitzgerald's parking ticket nightmare is over. The City of Chicago recently agreed to drop more than $100,000 in parking ticket fines on a car registered in Fitzgerald's name that racked up a record 678 tickets, said Law Department spokesman Roderick Drew. The agreement to reduce the final parking ticket bill to $4,470 was signed just more than a week ago. Robin Omahana, the attorney representing Fitzgerald, said his client is happy with the resolution. "She's very grateful it's all over," Omahana said. "She's pleased we got the city down to just 4 percent of their total claim." Fitzgerald rose to the top spot on Chicago's parking ticket scofflaw list after her ex-boyfriend, Brandon Preveau, abandoned a car registered in her name in an O'Hare Airport parking lot in 2009.
Bankers Brace For Fed Wind-Down (WSJ)
Dennis Lockhart, president of the Atlanta Fed, said in an interview in Jackson Hole, "I'm not making a really resounding endorsement of this, but I could certainly be comfortable with a first step" next month that could be quite modest in size. But he also cautioned that an October start is also possible.
Goldman ‘rapist’ hid in car in bid to avoid cops after alleged party attack (NYP)
Married banker Jason Lee, 37, allegedly sneaked into his parked Range Rover — which has tinted windows — to hide from police after the woman told them he’d raped her, the sources said.
Hedge Fund Gold Bets Reach Six-Month High After Rally (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds and other speculators raised bets on higher gold prices to the most in six months as signs of slowing U.S. growth drove bullion above $1,400 an ounce for the first time since June.
Microsoft Board In Needle-in-Haystack Hunt For CEO (Bloomberg)
Microsoft's next chief executive officer will need the expertise and strategic vision that can help the biggest software maker confront a broad range of threats that Steve Ballmer, for all his expertise as a salesman, was never able to repel.
Hamptons Scene: Tudor Jones Rocks With Kravis, Kravitz (Bloomberg)
Paul Tudor Jones pulled up Saturday night to the Creeks, Ron Perelman’s estate in East Hampton, squeezed into the back seat of a car with Glenn Dubin and their Nordic blonde wives in white slinky dresses. “It feels like college,” said Clear Channel executive John Sykes at the wheel. “I picked them up from the airport and we drove straight here.” Soon the friends had spilled out onto Perelman’s patio overlooking Georgica Pond. Questlove was at the turntable. Ellen DeGeneres, Angelica Huston, Joshua Bell, Daryl Hannah, Kyle MacLachlan, Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi and Don Johnson were milling around. And Dubin, of Highbridge Management Capital LLC, was talking about going back to college -- yesterday he dropped off his daughter at Harvard. “This is amazing,” said Jones, chief investment officer of Tudor Investment Corp., on his first time at Apollo in the Hamptons, a benefit dinner and concert for the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Prince forgets to bring cash to restaurant (NYP)
Prince went to Michael White’s Soho restaurant Costata Friday night, but couldn’t pay the bill because he forgot cash. Spies said his Purpleness, who performed at City Winery Thursday night to a full house, rolled in with “an afro and a pimp cane.” But while his guest had pasta, scallops, veggies and fries, Prince didn’t eat. “He simply drank royal blushes,” a spy said. He handed the check to his security guard, who then called the restaurant manager over, saying somehow Prince’s management forgot to give them cash. Sources said the guard left his number and said he would be in touch the next day to pay up. No word yet if that happened.