Last month, we noted that a group of UBS employees who “worked in operations and were responsible for securities movements and payments” had been escorted out of the building and told not to come back “pending an internal review into their conduct.” Now we’ve been informed they were recently told not to come back, period. If you’re a current employee or about to join the firm and are unclear on the rules, know this: it turns out UBS does in fact frown upon skimming some off the top for yourselves.

“The employees were transferring securities that UBS held to personal accounts and then just selling them in their personal account. Not sure how the bank didn’t know, but apparently it went on for a few years.

We were told last week that the employees in question were asked to resign and given severance packages. UBS declined to comment, other than to confirm that the people are “no longer with the bank.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

If you watched the HBO version of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book last week, what kind of tears did you shed while watching?

Tears of joy because you loved it so much? Or the kind that slipped down Moe Tkacik’s face “because it was just that unbelievably bad”?

[Paris Review via HNM]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

HUGE. NEWS. Next year, our annual retreat to the desert won’t be one, but TWO WEEKENDS of fake hippies, music, and parties as Coachella 2012 will be held over two consecutive weekends: Weekend 1 scheduled for April 13-15, 2012, and Weekend 2 scheduled for April 20-22, 2012.

Why, you ask? From the official Coachella website: Read the full story

The Globe & Mail’s Paul Waldie and Body Erman posted a video this morning asking if Research in Motion’s (RIMM) co-CEO Mike Lazaridis should go. (A video preceded, I would note, by an add for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer!)

The question, as framed in the video, is whether the top “nerd,” Lazaridis, must go because he’s not “putting out the product.”

Lazaridis shares the CEO role with Jim Balsillie, regarded more as the marketing/financial person. One question was whether Balsillie has been distracted by his attempts to purchase hockey teams. Balsillie’s sometimes obscure language on company conference calls was contrasted with the smooth style of Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs.

Some of the guests on the video asked whether the problem is not so much either gentleman but rather the co-CEO structure itself, and whether the two CEOs still get along, as there have been rumors of a cooling in their relationship.

And then, too, it could just be more of the Street’s short-term obsession and its recent fixation on regime change.

RIM shares today are down 83 cents, or 2%, at $42.77.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

via guestofaguest.com: Now that summer has officially arrived you’re going to have plenty of days of fun in the sun. But you can’t forget to guard your skin from harmful rays no matter how much you want that golden glow, so here’s a mini guide to protecting yourself against the sun in style this summer. MORE>>

Article courtesy of %source%

Engadget’s Terrence O’Brien this morning speculates that a new version of Research in Motion’s (RIMM) “PlayBook” tablet computer with 4G wireless links could be on the way for the summer, as expected, based on Google search results for the phrase “Sprint PlayBook.”

Such as search comes up with links with provocative titles such as “Sprint | Introducing the BlackBerry 4G Playbook Tablet,” although said links actually lead to nondescript pages.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

And you thought LinkedIn (LNKD) was fantastically overpriced?

The Financial Times’s April Dembosky yesterday wrote that Facebook investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel thinks LinkedIn’s underwriters, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and JP Morgan drastically underpriced the company’s IPO two weeks ago, which seems plainly evident given the stock price today is at $85.80, 91% above the $45 IPO price the banks set.

That means LinkedIn left a lot of money on the table for the rich clients of the banks to scoop up in the after-market.

Thiel predicts Facebook, and others, when and if they go public, will drive a much harder bargain to prevent the Street from such terrible under-valuation of their shares.

Granted, there’s a complaint here — no one likes to leave money on the table — but who’s to say the shares are worth what they trade for today — about 20 times this year’s likely revenue?

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

According to Absolute Return, despite not cracking the Top 5 places for hedge fund hiring (NYC, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Stamford/Greenwich/Westport), “hiring patterns indicate that Minnesota is the new up-and-comer hedge fund state, with a fistful of firms actively luring strong senior talent.” [AR]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Something that apparently constitutes a ‘trophy pad’ to some people.

Over the holiday weekend, the Post ran an article about New York men who use their “luxury apartments to attract the ladies,” in which several dudes were interviewed about their abodes’ abilities to get them laid. One of them was well-known comedian Jim Norton, who was obviously fucking with the paper when he said stuff like:

“Women see windows — and skirts come off. This one businesswoman, she came over, and she said she was ‘not like the other girls,’ ” he recalls of the guest, who announced that she did not sleep with men on the first date. “Well, fast-forward an hour after seeing the apartment, and not only was she like the other girls, she was worse. They like the view…I remember another woman . . . I knew she was impressed with the place and decided to sleep with me. I gave a horrible [sexual] performance. She walked around the apartment a couple of times before she left — almost reminding herself that this is why she just put herself through that.”

Then there was “financier” John, who clearly took this seriously and while flexing in front of the mirror, told the reporter:

“In New York, when you say porn, more people are likely to think you mean real estate,” says John, a multimillionaire financier who asked that his real name not be used. “Every two-bit banker at Goldman Sachs can buy you an expensive dinner or have a $175,000 Ferrari, but how many can have the $10 million trophy pad?”

Putting the call on speaker so he could use both hands to get in some Shake Weight time, John went on:

John frequently lets his friends borrow his 5,000-square-foot Upper East Side apartment so they can bring home the ladies while he’s away on business. After letting a London hedge-funder borrow his flat for a few days, the financier reported that his friend was able to score every night with three women (though not at the same time). “He told me: ‘They were excited when they got to the door — and when they saw the view, it was a done deal.’ ”

[NYP]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Piper Jaffray semiconductor analyst Gus Richard returns this morning with a contention he’s made over the last several weeks, namely that Intel (INTC) is scouting for foundry business to fill its fabs.

Over the last few months we have been hearing comments from industry contacts that Intel is talking to OEMs about a foundry relationship. We have heard Intel is looking for ASIC designers and other support staff for this effort. More recently, we understand Intel has approached Motorola. Currently, we believe Motorola has been working with Toshiba as an ASIC/foundry vendor for cell phone components. We believe the direct-to-OEM foundry model makes sense. Likely target customers would include EMC (EMC), Cisco [Systems (CSCO)], Juniper [Networks (JNPR)], Sony (SNE), Motorola [Mobility (MMI)], Apple (AAPL), Nokia (NOK), and other large customers of leading edge logic. Intel has clearly articulated they are interested in working with companies that want to use x86 architecture. The company is not interested in enabling its fabless competitors or ARM [Holdings (ARMH)].

Interestingly, there’s something of a standoff forming: Intel doesn’t have a history designing ultra-low-power chips, which is what’s needed for mobile. Its design methodology for system-on-a-chip (SOC) is “archaic,” Richard observes.

But Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), and other foundries, don’t have the expertise of Intel in getting to the next level in process technology. Richard asks, “will Intel learn how to design its way out of a PC or will the foundries overcome the process complexity?”

Intel shares this morning are up 29 cent, or 1.3%, at $22.50.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily