With Dell (DELL) conceding defeat to Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) in the bidding war for 3Par (PAR), the Street has returned to the business of trying to find the company something else to buy.
The Street’s suggested shopping list:
Compellent (CML) is up 99 cents, or 6.6%, to $16.
CommVault (CVLT) is up $1.11, or [...]
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He “picked her up in a Maserati and she said well maybe I can get used to this.” Let’s make this happen.
Subject: Meeting Request: Reality Television Potential
Entertainment Executives,
My name is Jon [redacted]. First off I enjoy your company’s work which is why I’m writing to you. I’m from North Carolina and “moved” to the city a couple weeks ago and started working at a media company in NYC last Monday. I say “moved” because currently I am going from couch to couch from NYC to Hoboken until I find a place. The girl that I’m staying with is the focus of this email. Her name is Bobbie and she’s 25 years old. What I’ve seen her do in the last month is so amazing it’s something that has to be shared. She has managed to play 4 different men, one being an NFL star, and live the most unreal life anyone could live while still being low profile. I met her at my last job when I worked in Charlotte, NC and she’s cool as hell so we’re still really good friends. Only friends. But just seeing the craziness in her life is something that anyone would love to see and I know you would feel the same way. This is NOT a joke. Please continue reading.
[...]
Then there’s a 34 year old Asian American VP at Goldman Sachs. This is not her type of guy at all. She loves a big black man who’s in shape and has a little thug in him. That’s all she’s ever dated. So why is this guy in the picture? Because he has spent over $50,000 dollars on her in the last 2 months. When she first got here she went to a bar by herself a few times and got hit on by a few people when she went but wouldn’t really give them the time of day. One night this guy comes up to her and she was just like fine, and for some reason said yes when he asked her out on a date. When he came to pick her up he picked her up in a Maserati and she said well maybe I can get used to this. They went to dinner at that restaurant in the city that’s high in the air and that floor rotates so you can see all of NYC while you eat. He bought 2 $650 bottles of Champagne during dinner. She has still been “talking” to him but has no attraction to him. He has taken her on shopping sprees and whenever she mentions wanting something he usually has it for her the next day. Louis purses, a $6,000 dollar limited edition Coach purse, 2 pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes, the iPhone, Blackberry Torch and Evo and pay for her lines on 2 of them. She has gotten much more than that but there is a picture attached showing a few of the things I mentioned. The crazy thing is that the only thing they’ve ever done is kiss. Never past that. She has him on a string and only sees him when she feels like it. And she has other guys to worry about. When I started drafting this email I was at her apartment and she left with this guy to get a massage and go shopping in the city. Attached are a couple of pictures of her getting into his car. She came back with over $1,000 worth of clothes and shoes. I actually like this guy a lot. I had drinks with him the other night because maybe he can help my company in some way because he’s very smart and and knows all things digital. He’s meeting with our business development team next week.
The Craziest Reality TV Pitch You’ll Hear This Week [Gawker]
Article courtesy of Dealbreaker
Back in July, BusinessWeek ran an article asking its audience, “Krugman or Paulson: Who You Gonna Bet On?” Krugman’s outlook on the economy was way too dark, the article suggested, forecasting a third depression, whereas Paulson’s was more evenhanded, noting that “we’re in the middle of a sustained recovery in the U.S.” and “the risk of a double dip is less than 10 percent.” The author stopped short of saying it, but, oh, Krugman knew what he was driving at. That the economist was a bearded fruit, Paulson, a “market wizard.” Today, deciding that sufficient time had passed to prove that you shoulda bet on the BF, Krugman sat down to his computer and banged out the closest approximation to an “in yo face!” that the Times will allow.
“Krugman or Paulson: Who You Gonna Bet On?” Sorry, can’t resist. That was the title of this Business Week article a few months ago. The tone made it pretty clear that if you had any sense, you’d ignore the bearded academic and go with the market wizard. So, how’s it going? I’m sure that if Paulson had proved right, there would be a followup article mocking yours truly. Wanna bet that there won’t be a piece saying that maybe professors know something that traders don’t?
*Big Swinging Academic.
Article courtesy of Dealbreaker
As a Japanese equity and equity warrants sales broker for Merrill Lynch in London, Mark Jeffries usually skipped the group drinking binges where co-workers would regularly booze themselves into incoherence. “I didn’t like at the end of the day getting absolutely drunk. It just wasn’t my way,” said Jeffries. When the bottom fell out of the Japanese market, his job vaporized in the mass layoffs that followed. Jeffries went on to a career in British television and now is a communications consultant in New York, giving keynote speeches around the world. His book, “The Art of Business Seduction,” is a how-to with tips on building emotional bonds with people for business and career success. “I was definitely naive as a stock broker,” Jeffries said. “Getting drunk was the point. That was the emotional connection. I missed that. And so I missed creating a really strong emotional connection.” [FINS via DI]
Article courtesy of Dealbreaker
2 Zombies To Tolerate For A While (NYT)
Andrew Ross Sorkin: “Representative Barney Frank was furious. The Massachusetts Democrat had been watching a morning news program that had me on, and soon afterward he was calling my cellphone to fume about that morning’s discussion. The topic? Why it has taken the government so long to address the fate of the zombie mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His response was counterintuitive — and as unsatisfying as it may sound, he’s right. ‘There is no urgency,’ he told me. ”
Geithner: No Going Back for Fannie and Freddie (Reuters)
“We will not support returning Fannie and Freddie to the role they played before conservatorship, where they took market share from private competitors while enjoying the perception of government support,” Geithner said. “We will not support a return to the system where private gains are subsidized by taxpayer losses.”
Jain May Be Lost in Translation as Deutsche Bank Seeks Chief (Bloomberg)
After earning a Master of Finance degree in 1985, he started out as an analyst at Kidder Peabody & Co., before moving to Merrill Lynch three years later. These days Jain, trim and greying, projects the poise and confidence of a seasoned investment banker, and his speech, direct and precise, still carries a faint Indian accent. A cricket player and golfer, colleagues say he’s competitive in both work and sport, and relishes opportunities to prove his doubters wrong. He held a stake in the Mumbai Indians, a cricket team, until selling it last year. Failing to offer Jain the top job risks driving out the “best candidate” and disappointing analysts and investors, said Peter Thorne, a London-based analyst at Helvea Ltd. “If the German powers-that-be can’t see he’s the best man for the job, that’d be a sad day for Deutsche Bank and the German finance industry as a whole,” Thorne said. “I couldn’t conceive of anyone who wouldn’t want Jain to be CEO.”
Barclays Settles US Charges (WSJ)
The bank agreed to pay $298 million to settle charges by U.S. and New York prosecutors that the U.K. bank altered financial records for more than a decade to hide hundreds of millions of dollars in payments flowing into the U.S. from Cuba, Libya, Iran and other sanctioned countries.
Mindich’s Eton Park Leads Hedge Funds Joining Paulson Gold Bet (Bloomberg)
Eton Park bought 6.58 million shares of SPDR Gold Shares in the second quarter, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The investment was valued at $800.3 million as of June 30, making it the hedge fund’s biggest holding.
JetBlue attendant Steven Slater parties hard (NYP)
The JetBlue flight attendant who cursed out a planeload of passengers before he slid down the chute enjoyed bottles of Budweiser and shouted, “Fly United!”
Carl Levin Hit In Face With Pie In Big Rapids (Detroit News)
In a statement, Levin said he wasn’t hurt in the pie-throwing incident and welcomes civil discourse with constituents.
SEC is zeroing in on Lehman’s top execs (NYP)
The SEC in recent weeks has been calling in former Lehman officials for a fresh round of interviews to discuss the period leading up to the historic collapse of the 158-year-old investment bank on Sept. 15, 2008. Investigators are coordinating sit-downs with former Lehman staffers and are setting up meetings between now and mid-September, said one source close to the Lehman probe.
SAC Capital Added to BP, Exxon Mobil Holdings in Second Quarter (Bloomberg)
The fund added 2.3 million shares of Exxon Mobil, more than doubling its stake to 3.64 million shares valued at $207.9 million and bought 2.93 million BP American depositary receipts, lifting its holding to about 2.94 million shares worth $84.4 million as of June 30.
Harvard Sells Off Its Investments In Israel (ML)
“This is pure economics and I don’t think it was because of the Arab boycott,” Dr. Gil Feiler, founder of Info-Prod Research (Middle East) Ltd and director of the Middle East Business and Economic Research Institute at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya told The Media Line. “They didn’t eliminate their investments in Israeli stocks,” he claimed. “They still have tens of millions of dollars invested, and if you are going to boycott Israel you sell all your stocks.”
Article courtesy of Dealbreaker
President Obama and the business community have been at odds for months. But in July the chairman and cofounder of the Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest private-equity firms, amped up the rhetoric. Stephen Schwarzman—the leading John McCain supporter in a firm that, in 2008, gave more money to Obama—was addressing board members of a nonprofit organization when he let loose. “It’s a war,” Schwarzman said of the struggle with the administration over increasing taxes on private-equity firms. “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” [Newsweek]
Article courtesy of Dealbreaker
Following a string of recent acquisitions, IBM has announced that it will purchase the marketing automation software maker Unica for about $480 million — at a price of $21 a share.
In the past few months, IBM has gobbled up the the real-time data compression firm Storwize, network compliance specialist BigFix, business software maker Sterling Commerce, and the web analytics firm Coremetrics. The company has said that it will spend $20 billion on acquisitions through 2015.
The Unica buy will strengthen IBM”s existing portfolio of software meant to “help companies automate, manage, and accelerate core business processes across marketing, demand generation, sales, order processing and fulfillment” — which includes the aforementioned Sterling Commerce and Coremetrics purchases. It will allow IBM to better help businesses predict and analyze customer tastes, and focus their marketing efforts.
The Waltham, Mass.-based Unica has more than 1,500 customers worldwide — including Best Buy, eBay, ING, and Monster. Its 500 employees will move to IBM’s Software Solutions Group, and its software will bolster IBM’s Business Analytics and Optimization Consulting organization — which IBM describes as “a team of 5,000 consultants and a network of analytics solution centers” that’s backed by $11 billion in acquisition investments made over the past five years.
Tags: automation, marketing, software
Companies: BigFix, Coremetrics, IBM, Sterling Commerce, Storwize, Unica
Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More
News Corp. (NWSA) CEO Rupert Murdoch plans to start a new national digital newspaper to be distributed as paid content for tablet computers and mobile phones, the L.A. Times reports.
The Times note that the new publication would target a more general interest readership than the business-centric Wall Street Journal, focusing [...]
Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily
Provade, a San Mateo startup that makes workforce and spend management software, has closed a $2.86 million fifth round of funding. Provade sells its web-based software, which is built on Oracle’s enterprise platform, to medium- and large-sized businesses. Asset Management Company led the round, and Altos Ventures and Harbor Pacific Capital participated as well. Provade has raised more than $23 million to date.
PRESS RELEASE
Silicon Valley-based Provade, Inc., a leading provider of Vendor Management System (VMS) technology for workforce spend management, announced the closure of a new round of venture funding today. This announcement follows several important developments for the company, including exponential revenue growth, strategic investments and growing market confidence.
Provade announced the $3 million funding, led by Asset Management Company, and also including Altos Ventures and new investor Harbor Pacific Capital, to solidify its product leadership position and expand its sales and marketing initiatives.
“We have been an investor from the company’s beginning and continue to see Provade as a sound investment,” said Han Kim, General Partner, Altos Ventures. “We are impressed with how the management team has performed in building the business during a difficult economic time.”
Provade’s results and reputation as a leading VMS provider reinforces investors’ interest in Provade. With the funding round closed yesterday, the total venture investment in the company now exceeds $23 million.
“We are quite pleased with the rapid progress of Provade in the marketplace and developments with key strategic partners,” said Skip Fleshman, General Partner, Asset Management Company. “This next round of funding should significantly enable Provade’s expansion as a leading VMS provider.”
Provade’s SaaS revenues and deployments have increased over 200 percent since 2008 on a year-over-year basis, according to Provade President and CEO Edward Jackson. “We are increasing the size and frequency of deployments with new customers and program expansions into additional spend categories and geographies,” Jackson said. “As the only enterprise-class VMS in the market, we deliver global capabilities, complete integrations, and world-class analytics for nearly 50 companies.”
“Provade is gaining traction in the market,” said Jason Ezratty, Managing Partner at Brightfield Strategies, an independent contingent workforce management consultancy. “Their flexible VMS feature set and partnership with Oracle make Provade a compelling option for enabling complex contingent labor programs.”
Companies: Altos Ventures, Asset Management Company, Harbor Pacific Capital, Oracle, Provade
Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More
Spanfeller Media Group, the startup founded by former Forbes.com chief executive Jim Spanfeller, confirmed today that it has raised $2 million in funding.
Spanfeller spent eight years at Forbes. He received credit for the site’s impressive traffic growth growt, but he was also criticized for sacrificing quality in his quest for pageviews. Spanfeller’s new company, based in New York, plans to create a number of websites on different topics, starting with a food website. More details about the site are supposed to come next month, followed by more launches in 2011.
The funding was first reported as in-progress by AllThingsDigital in June, but today was the official confirmation Spanfeller finished raising the money. The round was led by SoftBank Capital NY. Greenhill SAVP, RRE Ventures, and Lerer Media Ventures also contributed. The last two firms are also investors in Business Insider, another popular website that’s not afraid to get a bit shameless to boost pageviews.
Companies: Greenhill SAVP, Lerer Media Ventures, RRE Ventures, Softbank Capital, Spanfeller Media Group
People: Jim Spanfeller
Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More