Opening Bell: 3.31.15

Cohen’s Point72 Starts Technology Venture Capital Unit (Bloomberg)
The business, Honeycomb Ventures, will invest mainly in growth equity opportunities and is led by Point72 money manager David Fiszel, 42, the firm wrote in a memo to employees, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News. Honeycomb will invest in global media, technology and telecommunication companies, including those that focus on cloud computing, payments and security technology and e-commerce.

Venture Money Floods Into Indian Startups (WSJ)
The rush of interest has boosted the value of many fledgling tech firms—some say to frothy levels—with Indian e-commerce company Flipkart Internet Pvt. now worth $11 billion, more than Dropbox in the U.S., following a December investment of $700 million from U.S. investment firm Tiger Global Management and Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund GIC. Snapdeal.com is valued at $2 billion; Web-based taxi-booking service Ola—dubbed India’s Uber—is valued at $1 billion. None have turned a profit.

Bitcoin Secret Agents Were Pirates Themselves (BloombergView/Matt Levine)
There is no playbook for blackmailing a secretive criminal mastermind using unencrypted online messages in which you pretend to be a French maid. No one, not even Carl Mark Force IV, does that every day.

A Local Bank in Amish Country Flourishes Amid Dearth of Small Lenders (WSJ)
William O’Brien, chief loan officer at the Bank of Bird-in-Hand, closed so many loans in the bank’s first year of business that locals call him “Gelt Chappie,” or “money man” in Pennsylvania German. Based in a rural village in the heart of Amish country, Bank of Bird-in-Hand is the only new bank to open in the U.S. since 2010, when the Dodd-Frank law was passed and enacted. An average of more than 100 new banks a year opened in the three decades before Dodd-Frank.

Woman Stabbed Boyfriend In Groin For Eating All Her Salsa: Police (HP)
Jefferson's boyfriend, Ronnie D. Bucker, 61, told police that he and the accused were arguing about the salsa consumption when she allegedly stabbed him with the pen. The suspect then walked over to the TV and threatened to knock it on the floor, according to Ohio.com. When Buckner grabbed the TV, Jefferson allegedly walked to the kitchen to grab a knife and used it to cut him in the stomach.

BlackRock avoids embarrassing takeover (FT)
BlackRock has avoided being forced to make an embarrassing takeover offer for an Australian engineering company after accidentally buying too much stock...A series of BlackRock entities bought 8.6m shares in Monadelphous, pushing the share price up 25 per cent, on March 20, the day the Perth-based company was demoted from the S&P/ASX 100 index of blue-chip stocks under a quarterly rebalancing. In a filing to the Australian Securities Exchange, BlackRock admitted it had no intention of buying more than 20 per cent of the company. BlackRock laid the blame with unnamed third-party index providers that compile the benchmarks underlying some of its dividend income funds. It claimed these providers had seriously underweighted Monadelphous for two years, meaning BlackRock had to buy a lot more stock when this error was corrected.

Fed’s Fischer Says Regulators Must Keep Watch on Shadow Banking (Bloomberg)
“Non-bank firms and activities can pose the same key vulnerabilities as banks, including high leverage, excessive maturity transformation, and complexity, all of which can lead to financial instability,” Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said in the text of remarks prepared for delivery at a financial markets conference in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

It's Too Expensive to Live in Dubai, So People Deal With the Gridlock Commute (Bloomberg)
Colliers International, a U.S.-based property broker, estimates that about half of Dubai’s population, excluding the lowest earners such as construction workers and maids, earns 9,000 dirhams to 15,000 dirhams ($2,450-$4,083) a month. Based on the U.S. ratio that rent or mortgage payments shouldn’t exceed 30 percent of household income, housing costs should range from 32,500 dirhams to 54,000 dirhams a year. The few areas where studio and one-bedroom apartments fall into that range for renters.

Blackstone’s Latest Fund Raises $14.5 Billion in Institutional Capital (WSJ)
Blackstone’s real-estate business lately has been generating more profits than any other group at the firm. The head of the group, Jonathan Gray, is widely viewed as a likely successor to Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman...The fund also plans to raise $1.3 billion from retail investors, increasing its total capital to $15.8 billion.

Pimco drops out of top-10 asset management brands in Europe (FT)
The US bond manager was voted only the 12th most popular fund management brand in Europe and was one of only two companies to slip out of a top-10 ranking based on the views of more than 1,000 fund selectors, an important group of investment experts that vet and promote funds to the wider market.

Barclays will not renew £40m-a-year Premier League sponsorship (DailyMail)
The bank agreed a £120m three-year deal in 2012 for the present rights - an increase of almost 50 per cent on their previous £82m contract. But with Sky and BT Sport paying a record £5.1billion for TV rights from the start of the 2016 season, Barclays fear the cost of the next sponsorship will also rise considerably.

Papa Dimitri's Classic Pizza A Front For Pot Business: Cops (HP)
On Friday, authorities arrested Ryan Dimitri Brooks Sr., 27, the owner of Papa Dimitri's Classic Pizza and Ice Cream; his mother, Rosalyn Mary Brooks, 61; grandmother Joyce Elaine Merkley, 82, and a woman he lived with, Lena Shalay Kirk, 24...Authorities began investigating Papa Dimitri's Pizza last August after getting a tip that the restaurant was rarely open and didn't seem to do a lot of business, KARE TV reports. According to the criminal complaint obtained by the station, Papa Dimitri's employees complained about a lack of heat despite the presence of pizza ovens. The workers also chose to eat at a nearby burger restaurant rather than the pizzeria. Yelp reviews weren't very positive either. One customer griped, "I've defrosted better pizza on my engine block. A cracker thin crust with greasy cheese. Overpriced and slow as heck."