$$$ Deals: The Fords in India’s Future
In our M&A Roundup for the week ended March 30, there’s still a pulse if one looks at certain markets — not just Indian firm Tata Motors buying Jaguar and Land Rover, but also in a credit-card deal and a blank-check acquisition. [CFO.com]
$$$ DON’T FORGET…
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Bellevue, Wash.
That?s the best town to launch a business, according to Fortune Small Business. The magazine ranked U.S. towns and cities for its top 100 best spots to “Live and Launch.” Winners combined a nourishing business environment along with alluring leisure offerings. Good for you. Good for recruiting.
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This May, the University of Texas Press will publish a book by Robert Auerbach, called “Deception and Abuse at the Fed: Henry B. Gonzalez Battles Alan Greenspan’s Bank.” In it, Auerbach questions the legitimacy of Greenspan’s Ph.D. thesis from NYU, implying that the paper was “obtained in a few months with little more rigor than a matchbook-cover art degree,” and that were you or I ever privy to reading the thing, it would be plainly evident that Greenspan was blowing the half the degree-granting faculty. Luckily for Greenspan, that’ll probably never happen, because, according to Auerbach, New York University is in cahoots with the former fed chairman to keep Auerbach/other interested parties from every laying eyes on that puppy (Auerbach says NYU’s provost, David McLaughlin, claims that dissertations from the 1970s were not placed in the library, and therefore unavailable, which Auerbach doesn’t buy FOR A SECOND).
The I Live Inspired founders are still at Harpo. (Read the original post and the last update). Their new security-guard pal told them today isn’t looking good for a meeting because of the show’s schedule. But he encouraged them to come back tomorrow. So they’ll be back on the scene early in the morning.
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A useful economic spark? (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)
Whether or not the protesters and boycotters manage to disrupt the Olympic Games in Beijing, one thing is for sure: The city has already received an enormous economic boost in anticipation. China’s government has invested $40 billion, and private companies have invested more. But are the Olympics [...]…
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Susan Krakower sits, stands, perches, then paces the length of her windowless office. A crease deepens down the center of her forehead. In two hours “Fast Money” airs, and something’s not right. The show she created isn’t moving fast enough in its second segment, and that’s a problem. “I want the trades - get right to it!” she explains. Tonight she’s trying something new. It’s a quick interlude she dreamed up the previous morning after watching her 7-year-old son’s favorite TV programs, Nickelodeon’s “iCarly” and “Drake and Josh,” which rely on graphics to move the narrative….
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By Priya Nigam The sun has not been shining too brightly on Dalal Street recently. Monday witnessed a sharp downturn in shares, with broad-based selling. Heavyweights, like …
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(March 31, 2008 01:39 PM, by Bryan Caplan) If you think that James Hamilton is just a brilliant quant, think again: He’s also a sensitive humanist. Here’s a……
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Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s “blueprint” for revamping the financial regulatory system is already coming under fire from powerful agency heads. As early as Friday, even before the details of the plan were widely-known, the plan was lambasted by John Reich, the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which oversees the savings and loan industry. Immediately after Paulson’s speech this morning, Commodity Futures Trading Commission big shot Bart Chilton r…
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(March 31, 2008 12:57 PM, by Bryan Caplan) A lot of folks are outraged that Jamie-Lynn Spears is pregnant. I fail to see the problem. Jamie-Lynn is clearly……
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I love every aspect of this quaint tale about Canadian hedge fund manager Matthew MacIsaac (MM Asset Management) facing cocaine charges (he was arrested at the end of a six-week investigation known as Project White Rabbit, at a club called the Comfort Zone; the damning bit of a evidence from a “rival” manager that MacIsaac is building a new house with his and her sinks in the master bath) but here’s what I love most: the fact that MacIsaac apparently attempted to “explain” the $600 in his pocket to the police offers on the raid by saying, “I’m a hedge fund manager.” A little bit because (and I could be wrong) I’m pretty sure it’s not illegal to have cash in your pocket, so it sounds like MM folded like a cheap suit even Thain* wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, and a lot a bit because in my mind, it’s the new default excuse everyone can use, for any situation with even the hint of consequence. Just imagine yourself to be one of your favorite hedge fund managers, and respond as they would — as in the examples below.
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Consumer prices in New Europe continue to grow up. Like Baltic states where for all three countries inflation is above 10 %. The highest rate is in Latvia with 16,5% followed by Estonia (11,5%) and Lithuania (10,9%). EU newcomers Bulgaria and Romania don’t skew with 12,2% respectively 8%.Also other economies of Central Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) are well above targets. Central banks will be forced again to tighten monetary policy in coming month….
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Identifying persistent returns can be done with the naked eye. But identifying persistent alpha? That’s a different ball game according one researcher….
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We’re going to have a lot to say about the costs of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure. Before that, however, it’s worth noting that there is little to admire about our current financial regulatory structure. Largely a product of the financial crises of the past, the structure was unwieldy, arguably created a bureaucratic structure at odds with the constitutional framework of our Republic and tended to serve the interest of the very financial institutions it sought to regulate at the expense of individual investors and the broader public. The array of regulatory bodies we live with were largely “captured” by the securities and banking industry, although “capture” is probably the wrong term because it implies that they were independent at some point. Many were built to serve the interests of Wall Street, so no capture was necessary.
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By Vipin Agnihotri The India Street is back again with some interesting information for their readers. This time around, we are going to give you the list of highest paid CEOs of India. Take a look. M…
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Update: (9:57 a.m.) Entrepreneurs Rob Foster and Chris Deutsch made it into the lobby of security at Oprah’s Harpo headquarters. After standing outside the building since 5:15 a.m. chatting up the mostly female ticket-holders for today’s show and Oprah’s security team, they got a lucky break. Read the o…
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Female bankers in London are taking pole-dancing exercise classes. This would be “scandalous” if suburban housewives across the country, who’ve been taking these classes as well as “cardio strip tease” et al. at their local gyms for at least the past five years, hadn’t beaten them to the punch. At this point, everyone knows how to swing ’round one of these things and it’s no longer going to give you a leg up at work. Now, what would be interesting, and probably a more marketable skill? If some of these ladies (and/or gentlemen) would have the brass to attend the pole-smoking classes from the same instructor later that evening. Who knows? These services could come in handy at some I-banks unable to meet margin calls.
The economy does not show the effects of U.S. weakness.…
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There’s an outrageous article in Crain’s today about executive perks. Apparently senior management at some banks get to fly on the corporate jet. Others have their country club tabs picked up by the company. A few—VERNON JORDAN, LAZARD LTD, SHAME HIM IN THE STREETS—even get their apartments paid for, at up to $24,000 a month. Crazy, isn’t it? No, it’s not crazy. What’s crazy is that everyone—author, shareholder activists, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon– still fails to get it. If I agree to run one of these things, I want to plied with gifts at every turn. This job is really hard and I’m very sensitive and the suggestion that I’m not worth tons of freebies plays on the deep insecurity I attempt to mask with a self-righteous attitude and shameless bravado. That makes me unhappy and you know what happens when I’m not happy—I destroy billions in shareholder capital (I might do that anyway, but without the gifts the threat is more imminent).
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Original Post: (8:48 a.m.) On March 24th, two entrepreneurs left Hope, Ill., on foot en route to Chicago and the doorstep of Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. Their mission: an unscheduled seven-minute meeting today with the media diva to pitch their company, I Live Inspired, which delivers inspirational text messages to subscribers’ cellphones.
Their dream world is to sign Ms. Winfrey onto their network. At minimum, they want some publicity. (More on why I’m obliging in a moment.)
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