Wednesday, March 2, 2011

DealBook: Yahoo Holds Talks to Shed Stake in Japan Joint Venture

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES

M & A PPL to Buy E.ON's British Power Grid for $5.6 Billion

INVESTMENT BANKING Debt Market Rebounds From the Crisis, and So Does Risk

PRIVATE EQUITY Hands Looks at Clean Energy

HEDGE FUNDS With Prop Desks Gone, Funds Hit It Rich

OFFERINGS A.I.G. to Speed Up Sale of MetLife Shares

VENTURE CAPITAL Greylock Expands Fund to $1 Billion

LEGAL/REGULATORY The Rise and Fall of Rajat Gupta

Top Story

Yahoo in Talks to Shed Stake in Japan Joint Venture Yahoo is in talks to shed its 35 percent stake in its Yahoo Japan joint venture, possibly handing over control to its partner, Softbank, people briefed on the matter told DealBook on Tuesday.

Any deal between Yahoo and Softbank is unlikely to be a straightforward sale of the stake and could instead take the form of a spinoff of some kind, these people said.

The talks are taking place as Yahoo struggles to determine its future.

For the latest updates, go to dealbook.nytimes.com »
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DEAL NOTES

Fictionalizing the Financial Crisis, Again Edward Burns is set to play an unemployed former Bear Stearns employee in a new comedy pilot by the creator of "Entourage," Doug Ellin, Deadline.com reports.

Dodd, Ex-Senator, Named Chief of Motion Picture Association The former Democratic senator of Connecticut will become the movie association's top lobbyist and will be charged with reviving the group's waning influence.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS »

PPL to Buy E.ON's British Power Grid for $5.6 Billion Through the deal, its second with E.ON in a year, PPL will run the biggest network of electricity delivery companies in Britain.

Tata Increases Stake in Riversdale Disrupting Rio Bid India's Tata Steel has raised its stake in Australia's Riversdale Mining, making it harder for miner Rio Tinto to seal its $3.9 billion bid for the Mozambique-focused coal miner.

Inmet Reluctant to Join Bidding War Inmet Mining is likely to shy away from a bidding war with Equinox Minerals over Lundin, disappointing investors in the mid-tier copper producer who were banking on an even richer payday.

Taiwan Bidders Set for Confrontation Over A.I.G. Deal Shareholders of Ruentex Development and Pou Chen, two of the firms in a consortium buying the American insurer's Taiwan unit, approved the $2.16 billion bid on Wednesday, setting the scene for what is expected to be a tough battle with regulators.

Coke Buys Rest of Honest Tea The Coca-Cola Company announced on Monday that it would buy the rest of Honest Tea, an organic-beverage maker. Coke first purchased a stake in the company three years ago. Read more ?

INVESTMENT BANKING »

Debt Market Rebounds From the Crisis, and So Does Risk Banks are again turning to a type of debt common before the financial crisis, called cov-lite, and it's raising some alarms again.

Bankers Line Up to Meet Elizabeth Warren The Harvard professor setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau met with nearly 50 executives from more than 30 banks in January alone.

Renzo Gadola, Ex-UBS Banker, Said to Have Been Informant The arrest of a senior private banker at Credit Suisse, Christos Bagios, happened because an indicted UBS banker, Renzo Gadola, told authorities of his involvement, according to court papers.

More Transparency From Big Banks? Pressure from regulators has meant big banks are now beginning to disclose certain litigation losses with an eye to avoiding stricter future rules. Goldman Sachs, for example, said it expected to lose $3.4 billion more than originally expected over litigation, in part because of investor lawsuits.

Standard Chartered Profit Up 52 Percent, but Costs Weigh The Asia-focused bank met earnings expectations, reporting a 52 percent rise in second-half net profit amid strong growth in emerging markets.

E.U. Bank Stress Tests Will Be Tougher A pending health check to restore credibility in European banks will be far tougher than last year's flawed test and governments need to be ready to prop up lenders who don't pass, a top regulator said.

HSBC Halts U.S. Foreclosures Over Paperwork Errors HSBC is suspending foreclosures in the United States after a government review of the lender's procedures revealed problems with the way it handled some home repossessions.

For the latest updates, go to dealbook.nytimes.com »
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PRIVATE EQUITY »

Hands Looks at Clean Energy Guy Hands's Terra Firma Capital Partners may invest as much as 500 million euros ($692 million) in clean energy this year as low interest rates and rising oil prices make the industry more attractive.

Carlyle's Rubenstein Predicts Social Media Activism

Carlyle's Rubenstein Predicts Social Media Activism As Mideast revolutionaries embrace Facebook and Twitter, David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group wonders whether shareholders activists will soon take their fights online, too.

Blackstone Pays Up for Top Lawyer The compensation package underscores how private equity firms are paying big dollars to lure legal and other financial professionals.

Rising Risks in Asian Buyout Industry The risk of bad deals is rising as competition heats up in Asia's booming private equity markets, Vinit Bhatia of industry consultants Bain said at the Reuters summit Wednesday.

Temasek Puts More in Pakistan Bank Singapore's state-owned investment company, the biggest shareholder of NIB Bank of Pakistan, bought more shares in the lender as Temasek increases holdings in Asia.

HEDGE FUNDS »

With Prop Desks Gone, Funds Hit It Rich The world's ten largest hedge funds together raised $28 billion for their clients in the last six months of 2010. The aggregate of their profits is $2 billion larger than that of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Barclays and HSBC, despite the vast discrepancy in the numbers of people employed by hedge funds compared to those employed by investment banks.

One of the reasons for the good performance of hedge funds in the past six months may be the closure of prop trading desks in the major banks, The Financial Times says.

JPMorgan Hedge Fund to Close Asian Business Highbridge Capital Management, the hedge-fund firm owned by JPMorgan Chase, is liquidating its $1.4 billion Asia Opportunities Fund after manager Carl Huttenlocher resigned, two people told Bloomberg.

Crimson Cubs Leave Harvard's Endowment Fund Behind Since leaving the world's richest school, investment firms run by former endowment managers at Harvard University, referred to as Crimson Cubs, have climbed into the top ranks of hedge funds and private equity. Altogether such firms oversee more than $43 billion, exceeding Harvard's own $27.6 billion fund.

I.P.O./OFFERINGS »
A.I.G. to Speed Up Sale of MetLife Shares

A.I.G. to Speed Up Sale of MetLife Shares A.I.G. plans to sell off its stock holdings in MetLife ahead of schedule, as part of its plan to repay its $182 billion taxpayer-financed bailout.

Carrefour Approves Spin-Off Plans The board of the world's second-biggest retailer approved a plan to spin off 25 percent of its property unit and all of its discount chain Dia in a bid to revive its share price and return equity to shareholders.

Thai Energy Firm Plans 2012 I.P.O. Star Petroleum, a joint venture of Chevron and Thailand's top energy company, PTT, said Wednesday it expected to list its shares in the first quarter of 2012.

VENTURE CAPITAL »
Greylock Expands Fund to $1 Billion

Greylock Expands Fund to $1 Billion The venture capital firm is looking to increase investments in late-stage start-ups like Groupon and Facebook.

Facebook to Buy Group Messaging Service Beluga Facebook on Tuesday acquired Beluga, a group messaging start-up for mobile phones. It is another in a series of small start-ups Facebook has purchased over the past year to help expand its platform, specifically focusing on mobile services.

Andreessen Horowitz Adds New Partner Andreessen Horowitz has added Scott Weiss, an early employee of Hotmail and co-founded the messaging security company IronPort, as a partner.

The fund's co-founder, Ben Horowitz, also shed some light on the firm's philosophies. For example: "At Andreessen Horowitz, if you are late to a meeting with an entrepreneur, the fine is $10 per minute."

Start-Up's Take Over Bank Office Space in San Francisco The city's office market is rebounding after record space cuts by banks, buoyed by technology companies including Twitter and Salesforce.com that may lease as much as 7 million square feet this year.

LEGAL/REGULATORY »

The Rise and Fall of Rajat Gupta As a leader at McKinsey, the management consultancy, Rajat Gupta was considered a success story. Yet he retired from that role in 2007, and since then has been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of abusing his role on on the boards of Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble.

Madoff Trustee Sues Tremont for $2.1 Billion The trustee seeking money for victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme has sued Tremont Group Holdings for $2.1 billion, saying it missed warning signs the business could be a fraud.

Optimism and Caution In Bernanke Testimony The Fed chief cautioned in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee that a sustained rise in oil prices could be a threat to growth.

Life Insurer Avoids Payouts With Suicide Claim Jane Pierce spent nine years struggling alongside her husband, Todd, as he fought cancer in his sinus cavity. The treatments were working. Then, in July 2009, Todd died in a fiery car crash. He was 46. That was the beginning of a whole new battle for Jane Pierce, this time with Todd's life insurance company, MetLife, Bloomberg Markets Magazine reports.

A state medical examiner and a sheriff in Rosebud County, Montana, concluded that Pierce's death was an accident. Yet MetLife has refused to pay the $224,000 that Mrs. Pierce was eligible for, telling her on Dec. 8, 2009, that her husband had killed himself. Their policy didn't cover suicide.

Regulators Try to Keep Up With Market Developments Wild market swings from lightning-fast, high-volume trading, as well as a trend toward private stock offerings, have American financial regulators scrambling to keep up, officials said Tuesday.

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