Matt Taibbi on Mitt Romney in Rolling Stone magazine.
He’s a not a fan of the Republican party nominee:
read more »
30 August 2012
“A self-righteously anal, thin-lipped, Whitest Kids U Know penny pincher who’d be honored to tell Oliver Twist there’s no more soup left”
20 August 2012
Calpers may boycott dual-class IPOs that leave minority shareholders in control
From efinancialnews.com via Nasdaq:
“One of the world’s largest investors is threatening to boycott any stock market listing that allows minority shareholders to control a majority of the votes through multi-tier share structures and will oppose those that already exist…
…The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the US’s largest pension fund with $237 billion in assets under management, is drawing up new corporate governance criteria under which it will campaign to remove dual class, classified or plurality voting structures and not invest in initial public offerings which use them.”
read more »
14 August 2012
“This year’s most important venture capital deal”?
2 August 2012
Four trends reshaping the legal industry – graphic
Globalisation, alternative legal service providers, virtual law firms, legal process outsourcing – good graphic from the Wall Street Journal:
The new lawyer graphic – WSJ Law blog
23 July 2012
“There is little sympathy for those who do not make their full contribution”: Exchequer Secretary speech on tax avoidance, and consultation announced
David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, this morning used a speech at Policy Exchange to announce a consultation on:
“proposals to crack down further on those that seek to push abusive tax avoidance schemes and make it easier for taxpayers to identify such schemes when they are on the end of a hard sell by a dodgy promoter”.
On what avoidance is
The Exchequer gave the following examples:
read more »
19 July 2012
Modern American financial history
A great graphic from Credit Season, via Business Insider. (Click on graphic to enlarge.)
17 July 2012
US lawyers contemplate the unthinkable: smaller offices
From the WSJ Law Blog:
“…firms looking to maximize the use of space in their pricey digs are doing things that in past decades would have been unthinkable. As in:
- Shrinking lawyer offices
- Giving all lawyers the same-sized office (gasp) regardless of seniority
- Moving some offices away from the windows and into the building core (where secretaries and file cabinets used to sit).”
See also: “There are now far more capable lawyers and law firms than there is work for them to do”
17 July 2012
Sky News: US regulators scathing about FSA and BBA’s efforts on Libor
From Sky News:
“By Mark Kleinman, City Editor
US regulators have criticised the British response to the escalating international Libor-rigging scandal, labelling it another example of a “made-in-London” financial crisis.
read more »
17 July 2012
SEC report on incorporating IFRS into the financial reporting system for US issuers
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s 13 July 2012 ”Work Plan for the Consideration of Incorporating International Financial Reporting Standards into the Financial Reporting System for U.S. Issuers” is here.
The Financial Reporting Council’s response expresses its disappointment at the SEC’s decision:
read more »
16 July 2012
Hedge funds getting early access to analysts’ changes of mind, says NYT
Not news, but a good explainer from the New York Times:
“They are supposed to be among Wall Street’s most closely guarded secrets: changes in research analysts’ views, up or down, of a company’s prospects. But some of the nation’s biggest brokerage firms appear to be giving a handful of top hedge funds an early peek at these sentiments — allowing them to trade on the information before other investors get the word.
read more »
3 July 2012
Man United files for IPO as an “emerging growth company”
The preliminary F-1 Registration Statement is here for the IPO of “Manchester United Ltd.” on the New York Stock Exchange.
Remarkably, the club qualifies as an “emerging growth company” under the US Jumpstart our Business Startups Act of 2012. From the F-1:
read more »
15 June 2012
Guilty! Former head of McKinsey and Goldman Sachs director convicted of insider trading
Rajat Gupta, former head of McKinsey and a past Goldman Sachs and Proctor & Gamble director, has this afternoon been found guilty of insider trading by a New York court.
This is the highest profile insider trading conviction for many years. As we observed in this post in October 2011, Mr Gupta is, or was, a high priest of the elite of finance capitalism.
Mr Gupta was found guilty on three counts of securities fraud and one conspiracy charge relating to the passing of tips to Raj Rajaratnam, former head of the Galleon hedge fund and who in October 2011 received an 11 year jail sentence for insider trading.
Mr Gupta will be sentenced in October 2012.
23 May 2012
Round-up of the various Facebook IPO shambles
Facebook’s IPO is turning into a legal and PR disaster. Here is a round-up of what’s gone wrong so far:
read more »
21 May 2012
Trial of former McKinsey head, Goldman Sachs director on insider trading charges starts today
Rajat Gupta ran McKinsey for a decade and was then a board director at Goldman Sachs and Proctor & Gamble. Now this examplar of the financial elite is on trial for insider trading, accused of passing price sensitive information from board meetings of Goldmans and P&G to former hedge funder Raj Rajaratnam.
read more »
16 May 2012
Disrupting the law firm model: Online legal services supplier files for $120 million IPO
LegalZoom, “the leading online destination for small business and consumer legal services”, has filed its S-1 Registration Statement for an IPO that is expected to raise around $120 million.
The online business disintermediates the lawyer-client relationship, selling access to a variety of personalised legal documents to individuals and small businesses. $120 million will give LegalZoom the capital to expand its services and to move into new geographies, including the UK – so the IPO represents the zeitgeist both of US tech businesses coming to the public markets, and the delivery of law through alternative business structures.
read more »
15 May 2012
Failures of common sense cause three board directors to leave US companies
The CFO of Francesca’s Holding Corp. has been removed after using Facebook and Twitter to disclose potentially price sensitive information. Apparently he thought he was being amusing.
The CEO of Best Buy left just before it emerged that the company had been investigating his “intense” relationship with a junior employee. Now the cover-up has caused the Chairman to go as well. (The Daily Mail gets to the heart of the matter in its inimitable style.)
And the CEO of Yahoo left after a hedge fund pointed out that his CV claimed he had a degree he hadn’t got.
14 May 2012
Yahoo CEO exits after padded CV furore
The CEO of Yahoo has left the company with immediate effect, after a hedge fund found material inaccuracies in his CV. He hardly gets a mention in the press release announcing his departure.
10 May 2012
Martin Currie Investment Management fined record £8.6 million by the FSA and SEC for failure to manage a conflict of interest
The fund manager Martin Currie Investment Management has today announced that its directors and shareholders have invested a further £25 million into the company, following the record fine – also announced today – of £3.5 million imposed on Martin Currie by the Financial Services Authority.
read more »
9 May 2012
The Lehman of the legal profession: the FT on Dewey
John Gapper of the Financial Times on how the end of Dewey symbolises the changes coming for large law firms:
“Like Lehman, Dewey was a second-tier institution that over-borrowed and overextended itself in a push to become one of its industry’s global elite…
…In austere times, with greater cost pressures, law firms cannot borrow money and make rash promises to force their way into the top tier. Those beneath the UK’s “magic circle” and firms such as Cravath and Davis Polk in the US will have to be more like utilities. They will be lower-margin businesses doing higher volumes of ordinary work, perhaps owned by outsiders.”
For more Dewey, see here.
8 May 2012
The collapse of Dewey: Former partner says he is owed $61 million
Even the New Y0rk Times seems to have difficulty understanding how he got to that figure.
More end of Dewey news here.
6 May 2012
Padded CV? Hedge fund wants Yahoo CEO out
Oh dear…he said (and repeatedly filed at the SEC) that he has a degree in “accounting and computer science” – very useful if you want to run Yahoo. However, a hedge fund agitating for change and board seats at Yahoo has found out that it is actually only an accounting degree. Less useful. The fund is calling for the CEO, Scott Thompson, to be fired by Monday 7 May.
UPDATE 8 May 2012: Mr Thompson has now apologised for the disruption caused by disclosure of his incorrect CV, if not for the incorrect CV itself.
UPDATE 14 May 2012: He has now left Yahoo.
1 May 2012
Dewey & LeBoeuf: the end
The New York Times reports that Dewey & LeBoeuf is now encouraging its partners to leave. The NYT report includes this vignette from 2011 as Dewey’s problems mounted:
“Cash was already running low; partners were already owed tens of millions of dollars in back pay. The firm had fallen so behind on collecting unpaid legal bills that management sent out an e-mail offering partners free iPads and iPhones if their clients paid them on time.”
More Dewey news here.
27 April 2012
Dewey & LeBoeuf: it gets worse
New York Prosecutors Examining Former Dewey Chairman - New York Times.
Manhattan DA Investigates Former Dewey & LeBoeuf Chairman – Wall Street Journal.
26 April 2012
“There are now far more capable lawyers and law firms than there is work for them to do”
A vastly pessimistic interview with a historian of law firms in the New York Times.
23 April 2012
“Two years ago we invested $250,000 in Instagram…the investment will be worth $78,000,000 when the Faceboook acquisition closes”
Some people are never happy: “Despite Instagram’s awesome performance and our monstrous return, a number of articles have come out criticizing us for not making even more money on our investment.” Tech VC firm Andreessen Horowitz on how they made 316 times their investment in Instagram, and why they didn’t make more, here.
23 April 2012
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Walmart in Mexico
The New York Times has a remarkable investigative piece on Walmart and alleged widespread breaches of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in its Mexican operations here.
read more »
20 April 2012
Dewey considers merger-and-bankruptcy plan, says Wall Street Journal
“Among potential partners for the merger-and-bankruptcy plan being floated, Dewey has made overtures to New York-based Shearman & Sterling LLP; Greenberg Traurig LLP, which has roots in Miami; and Pittsburgh-based Reed Smith LP, these people said.
A Greenberg Traurig spokeswoman said: “We have a great deal of respect for Dewey LeBoeuf and their quality lawyers. It would be inappropriate for us to comment on market rumors.” At Shearman & Sterling, a spokesman said the firm “isn’t in discussions with Dewey & LeBoeuf concerning a merger.”"
Wall Street Journal report. And followed by a similar report in the New York Times.
19 April 2012
Zuckerberg didn’t tell Facebook board that he was going to buy Instagram until day of deal
The Wall Street Journal reports that Mark Zuckerberg only told his board about Facebook’s biggest ever acquisition on the morning of the day the deal was announced. “The board, according to one person familiar with the matter, “Was told, not consulted.”"
As we note here, he would be able to act in the same way after Facebook’s IPO, given his majority voting control.
See also: Super-voting stock in publicly-traded US technology companies and Leading proxy advisor surprised that Mark Zuckerberg controls Facebook
18 April 2012
Dewey: speculation that partner departures mean loan covenants may be breached
“An accelerating wave of partner defections from the New York law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf is now threatening to violate the firm’s loan agreements with its banks.” – New York Times
18 April 2012
Citigroup shareholders vote down executive pay plan
A landmark moment in US corporate governance as Citigroup shareholders use their Dodd-Frank Act right to “say on pay” and vote against Citi’s executive compensation plan; see this comprehensive report by Reuters. The proxy advisory firms had advised a vote against the plan.
16 April 2012
Former head of McKinsey and Goldman Sachs director faces more insider dealer charges
More allegations against Rajat Gupta about his dealings with Raj Rajaratnam. The trial starts on 21 May.
16 April 2012
The JOBS Act: Relaxation of rules for IPOs and private placings, and encouraging crowdfunding
The US JOBS Act (Jumpstart our Business Startups Act) has been signed into law. See this summary by Shearman & Sterling.
The SEC’s JOBS Act guidance is here.
10 April 2012
February 2011: Series A round raises $7 million. April 2012: Sold for $1billion
One of the most successful VC investments in history
3 April 2012
The JOBS Act: Helping start-ups and crowdfunding, or jeopardising investor protections?
US “Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act” about to be signed into law
28 March 2012
The decline in smaller company IPOs: US public financial markets are just too big to support late-stage growth companies
“Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch just won’t get out of bed in the morning for less than a $300 million offering”
25 March 2012
The worst flotation ever? BATS Global Markets pulls its own float, on its own exchange, after trading in its shares has already started
Calamitous IPO failed IPO for the BATS exchange
21 March 2012
UK legal market deregulation runs up against the New York State Bar
NY State Bar’s ethics committee: NY lawyers can’t practice law in the state if they are part of a UK alternative business structure law firm
