Hedge Fund’s Tehran Trip Shows the World’s Ready for Iran Bonds (Bloomberg)
“The bond market appetite for everything Iranian will be pretty high,” Humes, founder of hedge fund Greylock Capital Management, said in a telephone interview from New York. He estimated it may take government officials a while before they’re ready, perhaps a year or so, “but they’re going to start tapping international markets.”
Investors Flee Russia as Morgan Stanley Sees Long Market Chill (Bloomberg)
A worsening outlook for the price of crude, the country’s biggest export, and international sanctions that are pushing Russia toward its first recession since 2009 have prompted money managers at Franklin Templeton Investments and BNP Paribas SA to retrench. With the world’s largest energy exporter so dependent on oil, which along with natural gas accounts for half its budget revenue, Morgan Stanley predicts “a long winter” absent any other growth drivers.
UBS to report 25 percent jump in second quarter net profit: SonntagsZeitung (Reuters)
Swiss bank UBS will report a year-on-year increase of about 25 percent in quarterly net profit on Tuesday, with around 1.5 billion francs of earnings in the second quarter, newspaper SonntagsZeitung said on Sunday, citing an anonymous source...The newspaper said the quarterly earnings, which would be much higher than most analysts' estimates, would bring net profit for the first half of 2015 to about 3.5 billion Swiss francs ($3.64 billion), a 50 percent increase from the first half of 2014.
For Ransom, Bitcoin Replaces the Bag of Bills (Dealbook)
These days, there’s a new preferred method for hostage takers: the virtual currency Bitcoin. In a modern day version of a mob shakedown, hackers around the world have seized files on millions of computers, taken down public websites and even, in a few cases, threatened physical harm. The victims — who have ranged from ordinary computer users to financial firms and police departments — are told that their only way out is through a Bitcoin payment that is sometimes more than $20,000. One set of attackers, believed to be based in Russia and Ukraine, collected about $16.5 million in Bitcoins in a little over a month, primarily from victims in the United States, according to the security firm Sophos.
Urine-Proof Paint Returns Fire On Peeing Perps (HP)
San Francisco is peeing back at public urinators by painting its walls with UV-coated, urine-repellent paint, local TV station KPIX reports. The paint is so hydrophobic that it keeps the wall clean and sprays urine right back at offenders. “We are piloting it to see if we can discourage people from peeing at many of our hot spots,” Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru told SFGate. “Nobody wants to smell urine. We are trying different things to try to make San Francisco smell nice and look beautiful.”
Ex-Deutsche Bank Chief Anshu Jain Cleared of Misleading Regulators Over Libor Rigging (WSJ)
German regulators told former Deutsche Bank AG co-Chief Executive Anshu Jain this month that they no longer suspected he purposely misled German central-bank officials in a private 2012 query about market manipulation, according to a confidential letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Speculation begins over Twitter’s next CEO (NYP)
Our soothsayers believe the CEO position will ultimately go to Dorsey, who stepped in to replace Dick Costolo, or be handed to ad guy Bain, with Dorsey possibly stepping back as executive chairman. On the Money hears the wild card is David Rosenblatt, a board member who could also want the job. He’s a former CEO of DoubleClick, which was sold to Google.
Rubenstein Says Private Equity’s Fees, Investors Have Changed (Bloomberg)
Rubenstein, 65, said the “great revolution” coming to the industry will be the ability to add non-accredited investors, or those with a net worth lower than $1 million or those earning less than $200,000 a year. Regulations of fund structures should change to allow such people to put some of their retirement savings in private equity vehicles, said Rubenstein.
American Apparel on the brink of bankruptcy (NYP)
Investors are bracing for the worst when the Los Angeles-based company releases quarterly earnings, expected in the next couple of weeks. “My expectation is that the quarter will be horrible,” said Michael Bigger, who owns about 100 shares after slashing his stake earlier this year.
Half-naked 'Spartans' attract attention of Beijing police (Yahoo)
About 40 mostly blond and brown-haired men wearing bronze shorts, arm and leg guards and capes styled after the attire of people in the ancient Greek city of Sparta marched in Beijing's central business district and an upscale shopping area Wednesday. Bearing plastic tubs of salads, the bare-chested men attracted crowds of onlookers and posed for photos with women that circulated widely on social media. Police were less amused. They dispersed the parade at the Sanlitun shopping area, and photos in state media showed police on top of two of the Spartans who apparently had been wrestled to the ground.
