Fed to Name Recipients of $3.3 Trillion in Aid During Crisis (Bloomberg)
The Fed intends to post the data on its website at midday in Washington to comply with a provision in July’s Dodd-Frank law overhauling financial regulation. The information spans six loan programs as well as currency swaps with other central banks, purchases of mortgage-backed securities and the rescues of Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc.

BofA Falls On WikiLeaks Fears (WSJ)
The bank has been trying to determine for more than a year whether any documents were leaked from inside the bank, said people familiar with the situation. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange asserted in an October 2009 Computerworld magazine interview that he had the 5GB computer hard drive of a Bank of America executive. “We have no evidence that supports this assertion,” a bank spokesman said Tuesday. “We are unaware of any new claims by WikiLeaks that pertain specifically to Bank of America.”

Deutsche Bank Says ‘Mistrust’ Of Spain’s Banks Is ‘Unjustified’ (Bloomberg)
Investors’ mistrust of Spain is unjustified and problems in the banking industry are “manageable,” Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann said, as Europe’s debt crisis intensified. The fundamental economic data “in no way justifies the apparent mistrust that exists in the case of Spain, though not only there,” Ackermann, who also heads the Institute of International Finance, a global industry group with more than 400 members, said yesterday in response to a request by Bloomberg News. “Spain can deal with its problems by itself.”

US States Face More Financial Stress, Says Official Report (AP)
Legislatures around the country may have to make more spending cuts over the next couple of years because of dwindling help from the federal government and a slow recovery in tax revenue, according to a new report. States will spend about $43 billion in economic stimulus funds during the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. After that, they’ll probably have to get by with less federal funding.

UK Feels ‘Vindicated’ For Refusing Euro (CNBC)
The UK did not join the euro because that would have meant giving up decision over interest rates and removing exchange rate flexibility, George Osborne said in an interview late Tuesday. “And, you know, I feel that our view has been vindicated by recent events, and I’m very pleased the UK’s not part of the euro,” he said. “But ‘I told you so’ is not much of an economic policy when you’re confronted with the challenges that we face today,” Osborne added.

Co-Pilot Moved Seat, Set Jetliner Plummeting (CNN)
The co-pilot of an Air India Express 737 sent the jetliner into a terrifying 7,000-foot plunge in May when he accidentally hit the control column while adjusting his seat, investigators report. According to the report from India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the co-pilot panicked and was unable to execute the proper procedures as the jetliner dropped from 37,000 feet at a 26-degree angle. The plane and its 113 passengers were saved when the pilot, who’d gone on a bathroom break, used an emergency code to get into the locked cockpit, jumped back into his seat and grabbed the controls to bring the plummeting plane out of its dive. The aircraft would have broken apart if the descent had continued, the aviation agency report said.

U.S. Money Funds Exposed to European Banks (WSJ)
Among the major U.S. funds, Fidelity Cash Reserves, the largest retail money fund, held $4.2 billion, or 3.5% of its assets, in certificates of deposit issued by Spanish bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, or BBVA, and Italian banks UniCredit SpA and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA as of Oct. 31. Schwab Cash Reserves, the third-largest fund, had $1.5 billion in securities from Banco Santander SA, BBVA, UniCredit and Intesa. Western Asset Money Market Fund, owned by asset manager Legg Mason Inc., the ninth-largest fund, holds $848 million in Banco Santander, BBVA and Intesa.

Women accused of hiding merchandise in body fat (Orlando Sentinel)
Two women are arrested for shoplifting and police say they used their bodies to conceal the goods. Edmond police authorities say it was at the Edmond TJ Maxx that loss prevention officers found the duo stuffing items under their belly fat and breasts. They say they took four pair of boots, three pair of jeans, a wallet and gloves; $2,600 worth of store merchandise. Ailene Brown, 28, and 37-year-old Shmeco Thomas were arrested for shoplifting and are facing felony charges. Officer James Hamm said, “These two were actually concealing them in areas of their body where excess skin was, under their chest area and armpits.”

State Street to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Low Rates Squeeze Revenue (Bloomberg)
The measures, which will pare State Street’s workforce by 5 percent, are part of an effort to save as much as $625 million a year by the end of 2014, the Boston-based company said yesterday. State Street said it will book restructuring expenses of up to $450 million before taxes over four years.

Madoff Trustee Goes After ‘Net Winners’ (WSJ)
he trustee seeking money for victims of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme filed more than 100 lawsuits Tuesday seeking what he says were fictitious profits earned by some of Mr. Madoff’s investors. Irving Picard has a legal deadline of Dec. 11, two years from the bankruptcy filing of Benard L. Madoff Investment Securities, to launch such so-called clawback lawsuits. Up to now, Mr. Picard has mostly targeted “feeder funds” that funneled money to Mr. Madoff’s firm, other financial institutions and people with connections to Mr. Madoff and his operation. But many of the suits filed Tuesday were aimed at people Mr. Picard has termed “net winners.” He does not allege that they had reason to know of the Ponzi scheme; rather, he says, they withdrew more money than they invested and should return the profits to reduce the losses of others.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Yammer, which develops and distributes an enterprise-focused social network similar to Facebook, announced today it has raised an additional $25 million in funding to help expand globally and triple its engineering team.

Yammer recently revamped its business micro-blogging software to behave more like a Facebook for enterprise users and has seen a lot of success as a result. It’s now one of the flagship collaboration programs that help large businesses and companies that have employees strewn across the country communicate more effectively. The company has around 1.5 million corporate users, and around 80 percent of the largest companies in the world on the Fortune 500 list have deployed the service. More than 100,000 companies total use the service in 136 countries.

The enterprise network provider has seen such explosive growth that it’s even making traditional collaboration software powerhouses sweat a bit. Salesforce originally provided its customers with a micro-blogging service called Chatter and charged everyone else $15 a month to use it. But the company did an about-face and is now offering the service for free to compete with Yammer. Kevin Spain, a partner with Emergence Capital and an investor in both Yammer and Salesforce, earlier called on Salesforce to unleash its micro-blogging service for free in order to successfully compete.

“The fact that Salesforce has to copy Yammer even though it has 2,000 sales reps is like Goliath dropping his sword and armor and chasing after David with a sling-shot,” said David Sacks, CEO of Yammer. “This funding will make sure they don’t catch up to us.”

With Yammer, it’s free to join, and the company makes money off subscription models for premium services and off IT servicing, Spain said. A number of Yammer’s features are held behind one of two pay walls — a “silver” model that costs businesses $3 per user per month, and a “gold” model that costs them $5 per user per month. But because the service is free to use initially, it’s able to spread virally as employees begin using it on their own within companies. That means Yammer has virtually no marketing budget — it grows organically, much like Facebook and other social networks have.

The San Francisco, Calif.-based company has raised $40 million to date. The most recent round was led by U.S. Venture Partners. Yammer’s existing investors, Emergence Capital, Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund, also participated. U.S. Venture Partners Principal Mamood Hamid will join Yammer’s board of directors as part of the deal.

Yammer launched in 2008 and very quickly hit the 1 million user mark in July. The company is led by David Sacks, PayPal’s former chief operating officer. David Stewart, former senior director of product at social networking game company Playdom, and Mark Woolway, a former managing director at Clarium Capital, are also joining Yammer as executives as of today.

Tags: collaboration, enterprise social network, social network

Companies: salesforce, Yammer

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

“It is quite likely that Portugal” will be next in line for a financial assistance, Roubini said today in Prague at a conference of chief executive officers sponsored by ING Groep NV. “The big elephant in the room is not Portugal but, of course, it’s Spain. There is not enough official money to bailout Spain if trouble occurs.” [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Vacation home rental matchmaker HomeAway just received a reported $25 million investment from Google Ventures, as corporate venture arms increasingly look for ways to invest in high-revenue, pre-IPO companies.

The New York Times first broke the story. Neither Google Ventures nor HomeAway could be reached for confirmation of the monetary amount of the deal.

Though the amount of the investment was not disclosed, TechCrunch quoted an unnamed source today as saying Google’s year-old venture arm had plunked down as much as $25 million at a $1.4 billion valuation.

However much the actual investment was, the deal is yet one more chapter in a closely watched controversy over just how active super angels and corporates have been this year.

Austin, Texas-based HomeAway offers a site for homeowners to list their properties for potential travelers to rent while on vacation or long-term business.

The company makes money by charging homeowners to feature their properties and via various advertising and sponsorship deals. Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that HomeAway was bringing in around $200 million in revenue, with about $70 million in profit.

The vacation home rental company conducted a major buying spree to become one of the dominant players in the space. This included snatching up more than a dozen similar vacation rental websites including HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es in Spain; and AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil.

It also bought out U.S. competitor VacationRentals.com in 2007 and VRBO a year later. The company has been a go-getter from the start, money-wise: Thus far, it has raised $470 million in five years and is rumored to be eyeing a 2011 IPO.

Two years ago, the U.S. vacation rental marketplace alone was valued at more than $24 billion, according to a research study by Illuminas, an international research consultancy that did the research on behalf of HomeAway.

The company said today it will use the money to revamp its website and push more aggressively into the Asian and Australian markets.

HomeAway said Google Venture’s relative youth made it a good fit for a company trying to shift its focus from business building to brandmaking.

“Google is a product and engineering-centric company that is growing up and becoming more of a business,” founder and chief executive Brian Sharples told the New York Times. “HomeAway came from more of a business, deal-making culture and now we’re trying to move the company to more of an engineering and product culture.”

Tags: vacation rentals, Venture Capital

Companies: Google Ventures, HomeAway

People: brian sharples

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Salesforce.com missed an opportunity when it marketed its collaboration application Chatter, opening the door for collaboration startups like Yammer, a social network for enterprise users, to come in and take over the collaboration sector, said Kevin Spain, a partner with Emergence Capital Partners.

Chatter was marketed more as an add-on to Salesforce’s customer relationship management platform, rather than a new innovation to help its customers with business collaboration, he said. That made it difficult to attract new users and help the service grow into something that could generate a lot of revenue for Salesforce.

“The way you get the most value out of a platform like Chatter or Yammer is in making them as pervasive as you possibly can,” he said. “Salesforce has made it hard for people who are not Salesforce customers to get on the platform, use it, get value out of it.”

Meanwhile, Yammer recently revamped its business micro-blogging software to behave more like a Facebook for enterprise users and has seen a lot of success as a result. With Yammer, it’s free to join, and the company makes money off subscription models for premium services and off IT servicing, Spain said.

Chatter is only available to people who already use Salesforce’s CRM software. That makes it hard to justify introducing the business collaboration service into a work environment that hasn’t had any time to try it out — whereas Yammer users can try it out before they invest in the software’s premium services.

“Because of the way Salesforce approaches the Chatter business model, it’s hard to justify,” he said. “Until you make it easy, and in my opinion free, to get access to it you’re never going to maximize your value.”

Salesforce, one of the largest CRM software providers, was one of Emergence Capital’s first investments. Emergence also invested in Yammer, which launched two years ago. Yammer has already attracted around 80,000 users, and about 80 percent of the largest companies in the world on the Fortune 500 list use the social enterprise network.

Tags: Chatter, collaboration, collaboration software, CRM, enterprise, micro-blogging, social business software, social network, social software

Companies: Emergence Capital Partners, salesforce, Yammer

People: Kevin Spain

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Spain’s largest online sales club, Privalia Venta, is taking sharp aim at a booming Latin America. The company announced today that it has received a $95 million infusion of  financing from Index Ventures and General Atlantic.

Privalia, which already holds majority market share in Italy, Mexico, Brazil and Spain, says it intends to use the funding to tackle new markets after its sales jumped 158 percent over the first half of 2010.

The latest round of fund-raising far outpaces Privalia’s initial four rounds of funding, which had netted the company only $21 million over the last four years. The credit crunch and increasingly savvy fahionistas have given a boost to the site — as international shoppers turn to web retailers as a way to find the latest styles at the lowest prices.

Targeting the rapidly growing markets of Brazil, which ecommerce tracker eBit projects has 18 million online shoppers at the end of 2009, and Mexico, where Privalia saw sales leap 300 percent year-over-year, is a smart move for the 5-million member club.

Privalia said the money would now help it lock down its market leadership in Latin America, while simultaneously allowing it to grow through mergers and acquisition in the region. Founders Lucas Carné and José-Manuel Villanueva have long said they would be looking abroad when the group eventually expanded — presumably in Argentina and Colombia — and this considerable chunk of funding should certainly lend them the international cachet to do so.

Venture capital firms General Atlantic and Index Ventures joined current shareholders Highland Partners, Nauta Capital and Caixa Capital in backing the Barcelona-based fashion brand club.

Photo via Chris Willis

Tags: deal, entrepreneur corner, Europe, funding, latin america, online sales, spain

Companies: caixa capital, General Atlantic, highland partners, Index Ventures, Nauta Capital, privalia venta

People: jose-manuel villanueva, lucas carne

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More

AIG, US Agree On Terms Of Exit Plan (WSJ)
As part of the plan, the U.S. Treasury Department would convert $49.1 billion of preferred shares it holds in AIG into common shares and increase the government’s ownership stake in the company to 92.1% from 79.8% currently. The conversion, which could take place by early 2011 if AIG can meet certain conditions by then, would position the government to sell off its stake in AIG over time through a series of share sales in the open market. Before the conversion of Treasury’s shares can occur, AIG will have to repay a $20 billion secured credit facility from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in full. AIG said it plans to use proceeds from major asset sales and the upcoming initial public offering of its pan-Asian life insurance unit to pay down its taxpayer debt and terminate the credit facility well before it is scheduled to expire in 2013.

Touree Says SEC Can’t Sue Him Overseas For CDO Deal (Bloomberg)
The defense for His Fabulousness rests.

Democrats Finding Many Big Donors Cutting Support (NYT)
Democratic donors like George Soros and his fellow billionaire Peter B. Lewis, who each gave more than $20 million to Democratic-oriented groups in the 2004 election, appear to be holding back so far. “Mr. Soros believes that he can be most effective by funding groups that promote progressive policy outcomes in areas such as health care, the environment and foreign policy,” said an adviser, Michael Vachon. “So he has opted to fund those activities.” The attention of Mr. Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance, also appears to be elsewhere this year. Jennifer Frutchy, who advises Mr. Lewis on his philanthropy, said he was focused at the moment on building progressive infrastructure and marijuana reform. “That’s just where his head is right now,” Ms. Frutchy said.

France Blocks EU Hedge Fund Rules (Reuters)
France’s refusal to back a scheme to give foreign funds a licence to do business across all of the EU’s 27 states will scupper any chances of a deal between ministers on a new regime for the industry.

UBS May Resume Dividends in 2013-14, Depending on Swiss Rules (BW)
“The dividend commencement date is a little uncertain,” Cryan told investors at a conference in London today. “Sometime in the period of Basel III introduction we’ll be able to resume our returns to shareholders in the form of a dividend or even share buyback. I’d be expecting by 2013-14 to be in a position where we’re comfortably on track” to meet requirements “unless something extraordinary comes out on Monday.”

Spain loses AAA status, stands firm on austerity (Reuters)
Moody’s become the third and last rating agency to cut Spain out of the highest AAA category which has helped it finance its debt relatively cheaply. The one-notch cut had been expected and the agency said it hoped not to have to cut again soon, bolstering Spanish debt markets. But the agency also said a poor growth outlook meant Madrid would have to take further steps to meet its deficit targets in years to come.

Teesside Man Dies After Drowning In Pint Of Vodka (BBC)
In a statement read out by deputy Teesside coroner Tony Eastwood, he said: “Richard drank a pint of vodka in four seconds or so. “I did try to take the glass off him, but he turned his back on me, pushed me away, and drank it all.”

Asian central banks act to stem rises (FT)
“Just look at how many central banks intervened,” said Maurice Pomery of Strategic Alpha. “If central banks adopt a policy to buy their neighbours’ bonds to keep them less competitive, all hell could break loose.”

Infighting Besets Financial Overhaul Council (WSJ)
T. Geith v. She-Bair.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Here’s a list of cleantech news we’re reading today:

China has become the top country for cleantech investment, outstripping the U.S., according to a report from Ernst & Young. China’s renewable energy investment dollars outdoes the U.S. nearly two to one, Green Chip Stocks reports, and installed wind power capcity in the U.S. has dropped to its lowest in three years. Germany, India, the U.K., Portugal and Spain also topped the list. Read the full report here.

Large-scale solar plant builder BrightSource could go public within three years, GigaOm reports, citing a report from Next Up research. (The report isn’t available online.) The story notes that an IPO would still be a few years off, thanks to the reluctance of venture capitalists to invest in solar — one example being Solyndra’s axed public offering plans. But BrightSource seems to be headed in the IPO direction: it recently won a federal loan guarantee and raised $439 million in its last round of financing.

GM, Itochu charge up battery startup Sakti3 with $4.2 million, with GM reportedly proffering $3.2 million of that total. Sakti3 is working on a smaller, cheaper lithium-ion battery that could extend the range of electric vehicles currently on the market. A GM spokeswoman says it’s years away from commercialization, but the technology could eventually wind up in GM’s trucks and cars.

Come launch time in December, the Nissan Leaf will have an edge over the Chevrolet Volt thanks to sweeter state rebate policies – states like California and Tennessee are giving Leaf buyers additional incentives, but shutting out the Volt. We’ve reported before that the Volt got the short shrift from the state of California, which wouldn’t extend single drivers of the Volt access to the HOV lane (though that perk was granted to Prius owners), and also won’t give it the $5,000 rebate it’s giving the Nissan Leaf, since the Volt will have tailpipe emissions (the gas tank kicks in after the electric battery’s 40-mile range runs out), whereas the Leaf is all-electric.

Fire and ice: SunPower and Ice Energy will team up to build a pilot energy storage project, reportedly for Target. The system will use SunPower’s rooftop solar panels to generate power. When the sun wanes, Ice Energy’s ice-based storage system will take over, using power stored from the day to cool the building and cutting peak-time energy costs.

Audi may have blundered in naming its electric cars e-Tron – the French word, étron, essentially means “dung,” says Green Car Reports. If that’s the case, then it’s even more unfortunate that e-Tron is slated to present at the Paris Motor Show next month.

Tags: battery, china, e-Tron, electric cars, electric vehicles, Leaf, lithium-ion batteries, solar energy, Volt

Companies: Audi, BrightSource, Chevrolet, Ernst & Young, GM, Ice Energy, Itochu, Next Up, Nissan, Sakti3, Solyndra, SunPower, Target

Article courtesy of VentureBeat

Anyone can pass the so called stressful test (and 84 banks did) but you know what takes real skill and should be publicly applauded? Failing what’s currently being described as a nice little spa getaway upstate.

“I see nothing stressful about this test. It’s like sending the banks away for a weekend of R&R,” said Stephen Pope, chief global equity strategist at Cantor.

The winners hail from Germany (Hypo Real Estate), Greece (ATE Bank) and Spain, which took home home a whopping five medals (Unnim, Diada, Espiga, Banca Civica, and Cajasur). Congrats to all.

Bank Of Spain: 4 Cajas Groups Need EUR1.835 Bln From FROB [WSJ]
Seven Banks Fail Europe’s Stress Test [Reuters]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Bank Profits Depend on Debt-Writedown `Abomination’ (Bloomberg)
In the first quarter, the four biggest U.S. lenders — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup and Wells Fargo & Co. — produced combined profit of $13.5 billion, the most since the second quarter of 2007. That figure probably fell by 28 percent in the second quarter, based on a Bloomberg survey of analysts’ estimates. The banks are scheduled to announce results over the next two weeks, led by JPMorgan on July 15. The second-quarter results may include gains taken under a U.S. accounting rule known as Statement 159, adopted by the Financial Accounting Standards Board in 2007, which allows banks to book profits when the value of their bonds falls from par. The rule expanded the daily marking of banks’ trading assets to their liabilities, under the theory that a profit would be realized if the debt were bought back at a discount. In practice, it’s an accounting “abomination” because fluctuations in the value of the debt don’t change the amount the banks owe, said Chris Kotowski, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York.

Octopus Outshines Investment Banks as Spain Wins (CNBC)
Paul the Octopus proved correct once more as Spain indeed won the World Cup against the Netherlands, as he predicted. Paul, who now has his own Facebook page, was flawless in his picks, contrasting sharply with predictions made by banks ahead of the tournament.

Money Managers Express Cautious Optimism (WSJ)
“The majority of people certainly understand that for the foreseeable future we’re going to be in a subpar environment,” said Marc Harris, co-head of global research at RBC Capital Markets. That translates into what is being seen in the stock market, he said. “At the first sign of economic numbers being a little disappointing, it’s really taken the market down by a significant degree.”U.S. markets will improve in the year ahead, 66% of respondents indicated. Just 19% indicated they expect U.S. markets will move lower. Still, 57% indicated they believe that the risks associated with stocks in general is higher this year than last.

Republican Senator Sees Wall Street Bill Passing (Reuters)
“It’s a question of when,” Republican Senator Judd Gregg said on CNBC. Democrats need to secure 60 votes in the Senate in order to clear a procedural hurdle. So far, they can count on 57 votes for the bill, which would create new rules for the financial services industry and shine light on the over-the-counter derivatives market.

Russian Oligarchs Mull Succession (Bloomberg)
For Alexander Lebedev, hardly a week goes by without a call from a crooked security-services agent or cop angling for a chunk of his $3.4 billion fortune. It’s not a lifestyle he wishes for his son, Evgeny. “Business in our country is like wrestling with bears,” Lebedev said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek for its July 12 issue. “I’m not sure you’d want to pass that on to your son — would you?”

Diversifying A Portfolio With Timber (NYT)
Jeremy Grantham, co-founder and chief investment strategist at GMO, the asset manager based in Boston, calls timber “a perfect investment” for someone with a time horizon of, say, 20 years or more. “Timber is safer than stocks but not quite as safe as Treasury inflation-protected bonds,” he said. “And as long as the sun shines and the rain rains, trees grow.” Timber also acts as an inflation hedge. “If you look at commodities, you find a pattern that all of them, except timber, had a declining real price up until 10 years ago,” Mr. Grantham said. “But standing timber has a long-term record of modestly rising prices.”

BP Mulls Selling Off Billions In Assets (WSJ)
The company is in talks with U.S. independent oil and gas producer Apache Corp. on a deal worth as much as $10 billion that could include stakes in BP’s vast Alaska operations, according to people familiar with the matter.

Playboy Says Hefner Proposes To Take Company Private (Bloomberg)
Playboy said Hefner, who founded the company in 1953, is concerned about the company’s brand and Playboy magazine’s editorial direction and isn’t interested in a merger or sale to a third party. Playboy has combined units and slashed jobs to cope with a circulation plunge caused by Internet competition.

Blackstone To Manage BofA Fund (WSJ)
Blackstone is set to take over management of Bank of America Corp.’s Asian real-estate fund, a person familiar with the situation said. Merrill Lynch & Co. raised $2.65 billion before it was bought by Bank of America Corp. in January 2009 and invested all of it in Asian property deals. This is BofA ML’s only property fund in Asia. The Charlotte, N.C., lender will keep its one-third stake in the portfolio of assets called the Asia Opportunities Fund.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker