Shares of disk drive maker Seagate Technology (STX) are down 14 cents, or 0.8%, at $17.50, perhaps because the company was named as a potential buyer in the story this morning by The Wall Street Journal’s Jung Ah-Lee about Samsung (SSNLF.PK) being interested in selling its disk-drive business.

Ah-Lee writes that Samsung is looking to get rid of the division fro $1.5 billion, but might unload it for “under $1 billion,” citing an anonymous source. The source tells Ah-Lee “a potential buyer for the business is hard-disk maker Seagate.”

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) is exploring the sale of its unit that sells phones and other telecom equipment to corporations.

The division could be worth more than $1.5 billion, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The company has reportedly hired advisors to determine the best course of action for the unit, which has about $1.5 billion in annual revenues. The Journal reports that a public offering is also possible.

Possible buyers could include Microsoft (MSFT), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson (ERIC), in addition to private-equity firms.

Apart from telephones the business sells switches and other equipment. It also sells hardware and software for call centers. The business is profitable, but represents a small portion of Alcatel’s revenue and doesn’t mesh with many of its other core businesses, according to the Journal.

Alcatel has seen its fortunes improve in recent months as forecasts have improved. Shares are up 86% this year.

Shares of Alcatel are down 1.2% at $5.99 in early trading.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising.

The agency is considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move is part of a larger review by the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether to ease decades-old constraints on how companies can issue new shares to the public. The new funding techniques, known as “crowd funding,” could usher in a new era of capital abundance for Silicon Valley’s startups.

The technique has spread from artists looking to fund their creative works to entrepreneurs trying to bootstrap companies without giving up control to venture capitalists. Typically, a company might raise $100,000 from an internet site where users could sign up to buy $100 worth of shares.

Crowd funding could be a cheap source of cash, competing with angel investors who specialize in giving seed rounds to start-ups. Since the amounts of money are small, the downside risk isn’t too bad for investors. But the trick will be in protecting the public from scammers who have no intention of following through on promises.

Crowd funding could also be appealing to larger companies that are popular with consumers. Those companies wouldn’t have to go through all of the onerous legal disclosures required under securities laws. Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, said in a letter to a law maker on Wednesday that the agency has been discussing crowd funding with small businesses and state regulators. A petition allowing crowd funding up to $100,000 has been backed by 150 organizations and individuals.

In 1992, the SEC allowed small companies to issue shares valued as much as $1 million to ordinary investors without full disclosure of financial information and other legal limits. That effort was abandoned in 1999 because of fraud concerns.

[image credit: Small Business Trends]

Tags: crowd funding, SEC

Companies: Securities and Exchange Commssion

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising.

The agency is considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move is part of a larger review by the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether to ease decades-old constraints on how companies can issue new shares to the public. The new funding techniques, known as “crowd funding,” could usher in a new era of capital abundance for Silicon Valley’s startups.

The technique has spread from artists looking to fund their creative works to entrepreneurs trying to bootstrap companies without giving up control to venture capitalists. Typically, a company might raise $100,000 from an internet site where users could sign up to buy $100 worth of shares.

Crowd funding could be a cheap source of cash, competing with angel investors who specialize in giving seed rounds to start-ups. Since the amounts of money are small, the downside risk isn’t too bad for investors. But the trick will be in protecting the public from scammers who have no intention of following through on promises.

Crowd funding could also be appealing to larger companies that are popular with consumers. Those companies wouldn’t have to go through all of the onerous legal disclosures required under securities laws. Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, said in a letter to a law maker on Wednesday that the agency has been discussing crowd funding with small businesses and state regulators. A petition allowing crowd funding up to $100,000 has been backed by 150 organizations and individuals.

In 1992, the SEC allowed small companies to issue shares valued as much as $1 million to ordinary investors without full disclosure of financial information and other legal limits. That effort was abandoned in 1999 because of fraud concerns.

[image credit: Small Business Trends]

Tags: crowd funding, SEC

Companies: Securities and Exchange Commssion

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising.

The agency is considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move is part of a larger review by the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether to ease decades-old constraints on how companies can issue new shares to the public. The new funding techniques, known as “crowd funding,” could usher in a new era of capital abundance for Silicon Valley’s startups.

The technique has spread from artists looking to fund their creative works to entrepreneurs trying to bootstrap companies without giving up control to venture capitalists. Typically, a company might raise $100,000 from an internet site where users could sign up to buy $100 worth of shares.

Crowd funding could be a cheap source of cash, competing with angel investors who specialize in giving seed rounds to start-ups. Since the amounts of money are small, the downside risk isn’t too bad for investors. But the trick will be in protecting the public from scammers who have no intention of following through on promises.

Crowd funding could also be appealing to larger companies that are popular with consumers. Those companies wouldn’t have to go through all of the onerous legal disclosures required under securities laws. Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, said in a letter to a law maker on Wednesday that the agency has been discussing crowd funding with small businesses and state regulators. A petition allowing crowd funding up to $100,000 has been backed by 150 organizations and individuals.

In 1992, the SEC allowed small companies to issue shares valued as much as $1 million to ordinary investors without full disclosure of financial information and other legal limits. That effort was abandoned in 1999 because of fraud concerns.

[image credit: Small Business Trends]

Tags: crowd funding, SEC

Companies: Securities and Exchange Commssion

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising.

The agency is considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move is part of a larger review by the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether to ease decades-old constraints on how companies can issue new shares to the public. The new funding techniques, known as “crowd funding,” could usher in a new era of capital abundance for Silicon Valley’s startups.

The technique has spread from artists looking to fund their creative works to entrepreneurs trying to bootstrap companies without giving up control to venture capitalists. Typically, a company might raise $100,000 from an internet site where users could sign up to buy $100 worth of shares.

Crowd funding could be a cheap source of cash, competing with angel investors who specialize in giving seed rounds to start-ups. Since the amounts of money are small, the downside risk isn’t too bad for investors. But the trick will be in protecting the public from scammers who have no intention of following through on promises.

Crowd funding could also be appealing to larger companies that are popular with consumers. Those companies wouldn’t have to go through all of the onerous legal disclosures required under securities laws. Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, said in a letter to a law maker on Wednesday that the agency has been discussing crowd funding with small businesses and state regulators. A petition allowing crowd funding up to $100,000 has been backed by 150 organizations and individuals.

In 1992, the SEC allowed small companies to issue shares valued as much as $1 million to ordinary investors without full disclosure of financial information and other legal limits. That effort was abandoned in 1999 because of fraud concerns.

[image credit: Small Business Trends]

Tags: crowd funding, SEC

Companies: Securities and Exchange Commssion

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Shares of camera sensor maker OmniVision Technologies (OVTI) are down $3.27, or 9%, at $32.93 this morning after an interview over the weekend with Sony (SNE) CEO Sir Howard Stringer led some to believe Sony may have pushed OmniVision out of the running to supply the sensor for Apple’s (AAPL) next iPhone.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg at Carnegie Hall on Friday, Stringer reportedly told Mossberg, “It always puzzles me, Why would I make Apple the best camera?” reflecting on the competition between the two. Though WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro notes it’s not clear which devices Sony is specifically alluding to, the implication would seem to be the iPhone 5.

However, this morning, Raymond James analyst Hans Mosesmann comes to the defense of OmniVision, on whose shares he maintains an Outperform rating. He notes that this speculation about Sony taking OmniVision’s business has been going on for some time now — in fact, Mosesmann has defended the company against such worries as recently as February.

His take is that Apple can rely on OmniVision in cases where Sony may be supply-constrained given the disaster in Japan:

Our view since the beginning of the year is that Apple will split the CMOS sensor business in 2011 between Sony and OmniVision. The Sony commentary from Friday, if we assume accuracy of the CEO statement and/or the reporting of such, would suggest that at dual source arrangement was a brilliant move for Apple. The Sony CEO commentary finally lets the genie out of the bottle and actually places OmniVision in a more favorable light net/net in our opinion.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Shares of Netflix (NFLX) are up $5.64, or 2.6%, at $235.65, adding to gains in the pre-market, following an announcement of a new multi-year deal with Paramount, and following Saturday’s story from The Wall Street Journal that the company is also near a deal with Miramax.

Netflix this morning said it reached a deal with Viacom’s (VIA) Paramount Pictures to add “hundreds” of movie titles for viewing by Netflix’s Canadian customers of its streaming video options. The deal runs for five years and adds over 350 new movies, the company said. More important, perhaps, Netflix said the deal gives its represents “the exclusive subscription television rights to all first-run films” from Paramount for the Canadian market.

The deal follows a story in Saturday’s Journal by Lauren Schuker and Ethan Smith that said independent film gaint Miramax is finalizing a five-year deal worth more than $100 million to stream 700 titles from its catalog via Netflix, citing anonymous sources. The deal would be part of efforts by Miramax’s acquirers to earn back the $660 million they spent buying the company from Disney (DIS) last year.

Titles in the Miramax library include “Kill Bill,” “No Country For Old Men,” the “Scream” and “Scary Movie” series, and “Good Will Hunting,” the authors note. Miramax is reportedly also talking with Google (GOOG) and Facebook about possible distribution, the authors write.

It seems the content pendulum can swing back and forth for Netflix: Last Friday’s trade was mostly about the threat that Starz LL would take away some titles from Netflix.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Typically in families where their are children of the same sex, one of two dynamics exists. In scenario one, big brother (or sister) is the star, excelling at everything he or she does, making it impossible for the younger sibling to live up to the highly set bar. In scenario two, the younger sibling outpaces the older, making the first born feel like a fuck up for not having the same successes as junior. In the Rajaratnam family, the former was the case. Whereas Raj was married with a bunch of kids, little bro Rengan struggled to meet women, noting that it felt like “they’ve all gone away or someone snatched them up.” Whereas Raj ran a multi-billion dollar hedge fund, Rengan had a dinky little shop with assets under management barely hitting 200 million, seeded by his bro. And whereas Raj (allegedly) had some of the best insider trading skills on the Street, Rengan embarrassed himself trying to beat the press on hot tips.

The younger brother of Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam called him in a panic in March 2008 after The Wall Street Journal published an article about a secret wireless venture the hedge-fund manager allegedly knew about from a confidential source at a company involved in the deal. In the call, which was caught on a federal wiretap and played Thursday at Raj Rajaratnam’s insider-trading trial in Manhattan, Rengan Rajaratnam appears to be frustrated that his ability to make trades ahead of the deal would be hampered now that it was public.

“Oh dude, we’re f—” Rengan Rajaratnam said, according to the tape played for jurors. “It just hit The Wall Street Journal.”

“What’s that?” Raj Rajaratnam asked.

“The Clearwire stuff,” his brother said.

Not saying living for so many years in Raj’s shadow finally caused Rengan to snap and rat him out, but not not saying it, either.

Galleon Jurors Hear Panicked Call From Rajaratnam Brother [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Shares of Amazon.com (AMZN) have broken down this afternoon on no apparent news, dropping $3.23, or almost 2%, to $162.28 amid an almost 1% rise in the Nasdaq Composite. Most large-cap tech is trading higher this afternoon.

The drop began around 12:30 pm, Eastern time, after Amazon had briefly recovered from early losses to mark a slight gain for the session.

There was no obvious news for the drop. A Wall Street Journal article by Miguel Bustillo and Stu Woo this morning, however, said some retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), are pushing for the government to force Amazon to collect sales tax.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily