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Friday, October 31, 2014
Car gets T Boned by a Pick up while being chased by Police
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Investment Bank: We're Drug Free And Proud Of It
In the midst of a nasty custody battle, Jefferies chairman and chief executive officer voluntarily took drug tests along with senior bankers. “Sometimes truth does come in a jar,” they said.
Getty Images/iStockphoto Bradford Shearer
The investment bank Jefferies and Co. is drug free and wants you to know all about it.
In a memo posted to the company's website Friday by the bank's chief executive Richard Handler and chairman Brian Friedman, the two said that they and several other executives voluntarily took drug tests to combat accusations by a banker's wife that her husband and colleagues were serial drug abusers.
Handler and Friedman said in the memo that they, along with Jefferies global head of investment banking Ben Lorello and three other investment bankers mentioned in court papers took drug tests. "They were deeply offended by the allegations and were eager to have the opportunity to set the record straight," Handler and Friedman said in the memo. Then the other managing directors in the healthcare group took tests even though they had not been accused of drug use. "They chose to do this to show solidarity with their partners and also prove that suggestions of rampant drug use are pure fabrication."
The drug accusations stem from a custody battle involving Sage Kelly, who ran Jefferies health care banking team. In court papers, Kelly's wife Christina di Mauro accused him of using mushrooms around their children and one of his friends leaving cocaine out around their daughter. Kelly said in court documents the two had used drugs at a social event but denied the details of Christina's salacious accusations. She also accused him of soliciting prostitutes on a trip to Las Vegas. Kelly is currently on leave from Jefferies.
"This past week has been beyond painful for us, as a child-custody case has led to groundless questions about the integrity of our firm," Handler and Friedman said.
"The two of us can of course attest that all tests came back drug-free," Handler and Friedman said about the voluntary drug tests. "To be frank, we are embarrassed that we even have to discuss these matters, but this should put to rest the heart of the allegations about our firm. Sometimes truth does come in a jar."
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Colin Ferguson (convict) LIRR Massacre
Colin Ferguson (born January 14, 1958) was convicted of murdering six people and injuring nineteen others on the Long Island Rail Road in Garden City, New Yo…
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Thursday, October 30, 2014
Yorba Linda, CA Accident Lawyer/Attorney Marc Grimaldi – Car, Truck, Motorcycle, 18 Wheeler, Boat, Auto
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The Co-Creator Of Android Has Left Google
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Andy Rubin has left Google. Rubin oversaw Android before shifting to oversee robotics at Google.
Bobby Yip / Reuters / Reuters
Andy Rubin, the co-founder of Android before it was acquired by Google in 2005, has left Google, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal .
Rubin joined Google as part of the company's acquisition. But the move is not particularly surprising, as Rubin took a step back from Android to work in Google's robotics division, leading Google's quick-rising star Sundar Pichai to take over the division.
Pichai, well-liked at Google's Mountain View headquarters, took over the division in March last year. It was the first sign of the consolidation of Google's products under Pichai, who previously ran Google's Chrome projects. Most-recently, the company elevated Pichai to be head of the company's entire product division.
Rubin is leaving to start an incubator for startups focused on hardware, according to the Journal.
"I want to wish Andy all the best with what's next," Google CEO Larry Page said in a statement. "With Android he created something truly remarkable—with a billion plus happy users. Thank you."
A representative from Google had not responded to request for comment at the time of publication.
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Coming Soon: Starbucks Delivery, And "Starbucks For Life" Cards
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says the scramble for one of 13 special for-life cards has “the potential to be quite a frenzy.”
Starbucks chief executive and chairman Howard Schultz announced today that the chain would roll out food and beverage delivery in "select markets in 2015."
Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks.
David Ryder / Reuters
"Imagine the ability to create a standing order of Starbucks delivered hot to your desk daily. That's our version of e-commerce on steroids," he said on an earnings call.
That's not the only goodie for Starbucks addicts: the company also said " 13 lucky cardholders in North America will win Starbucks for life."
media.giphy.com / Via Warner Bros.
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Legal Costs Wipe $600 Million From Citigroup Earnings
The company disclosed that the adjustment to earnings was due to “rapidly-evolving” investigations, including “very recent” communications with regulators.
A man walks past a Citibank branch in lower Manhattan, New York in this file photo from October 16, 2012.
Carlo Allegri / Reuters
Citigroup is putting aside $600 million more legal costs than it originally said in the third quarter and has to adjust its reported profits from $3.4 billion to $2.8 billion, the company said in a statement. The adjustment comes more than two weeks after it reported its earnings and almost a month after the second quarter ended.
The bank said the increase "resulted from rapidly-evolving regulatory inquiries and investigations, including very recent communications with certain regulatory agencies related to previously disclosed-matters."
This means that Citi is anticipating having to pay a penalty or settlement with regulators soon. The company reported $951 million in legal expenses before the adjustment. It has been weighed down by a scandal in its large Mexican unit, Banamex, which was the victim of a $400 million fraud perpetrated by the oil-services company Oceanografia. Several Banamex employees have been fired by Citi.
Citigroup also disclosed that Banamex's security unit defrauded the bank out of $15 million and worked for non-bank clients without permission. Citi is one of several large banks that are in talks with U.K. regulators to settle claims that it manipulated foreign exchange markets, the Financial Times reported in September.
JPMorgan Chase also reported higher legal expenses in the third quarter and its chief financial officer Marianne Lake said it was "in large part" related to investigations over foreign exchange trading. On a call with reporters, Lake said that "things are further progressed in this quarter as opposed to the last." When asked by an analyst if Citi's higher legal costs were related to foreign exchange, Gerspach said "we typically don't comment on reserving actions unless it's related to a specific settlement that we're announcing."
In another filing, the bank said that regulators in the U.S., U.K., and Switzerland — including the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice — "are conducting investigations or making inquiries regarding Citigroup's foreign exchange business." Citi said its fully cooperating with the investigations.
The bank's stock was hit by the restatement news, down 2.7%.
Citi recently reached a $7 billion settlement with the Justice Department over its sale of mortgage backed securities before the financial crisis.
The company has suffered before from poor financial reporting and controls. The Federal Reserve in March rejected its bid to increase its dividend and buybacks. It also failed to get permission for buybacks and dividends in 2012.
The bank's chief financial officer John Gerspach said that "legal costs will likely remain elevated and episodic in nature," in a call with analysts to discuss its earnings in the third quarter.
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Billings, MT Accident Lawyer/Attorney Marc Grimaldi – Car, Truck, Motorcycle, 18 Wheeler, Boat, Auto
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Tim Cook Says He's Gay And Apple Fanboys Tweet The Same Samsung Joke
Apple fanboys are less original than….Samsung? *GASP*
Tim Cook wrote in Businessweek "I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me."
Stephen Lam / Reuters
mrkwanten/flickr
Samsung Tomorrow/Flickr
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Twitter Joins The Scramble For Holiday Season Retail Ads
The social network says it is best equipped to get users to buy certain products this holiday season.
With just a few days left before the start of America's holiday shopping frenzy, Internet companies are scrambling to convince retailers that they are the go-to place to reach shoppers.
Twitter, as part of that push, is out with a blog post today that shows the correlation between conversations on the social network and actual purchases. The company put out a graphic showing changes in the volume of Twitter conversations about buying TVs and laptops closely correlating to actual sales volumes during November and December last year. It also shared results from a 2,100-person survey conducted by DB5 in August that showed more than half of Twitter users learned about products on the social network and went on to purchase them.
"When we think about our users, there's a lot that kind of differentiates the mindset from when they're on other platforms," J.J. Hirschle, Twitter's director of retail, said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. Because it's "live and public and conversational, it fuels a kind of passion for discovery on the platform. This notion of it being actually in the moment lends to us being more connected not only outside of the store, but inside the store as well."
The fourth quarter for retailers, which includes November through the end of January, is incredibly important, and can make up more than one-third of a company's annual revenue. Thus, advertising is significant, and companies from Facebook to Google jostle for attention during the season. Twitter, as a relatively nascent public company, has quite a bit of incentive to shine in the next few months.
A number of retailers have already launched Twitter campaigns tied to the holidays, aiming to work within these findings. Best Buy, for example, has been asking users what gadgets they want this holiday season with the #HintingSeason hashtag, a play on "hunting season." (Ha ha.)
This holiday season will also give retailers many more tools to target Twitter users, as well as use of the long-awaited "Buy" button. Kate Spade just launched a campaign around its new collaboration with Anna Kendrick, and while Hirschle didn't offer specifics on how Kate Spade is aiming to reach customers, he noted the company could theoretically target Anna Kendrick followers, people who follow other fashion designers, people who describe themselves fashionistas in their Twitter profiles, and more.
Beyond that, Twitter can use data from retailers and a variety of partners to target people identified as being interested, or especially active, in certain categories. "From a product standpoint," he said, "we are light years ahead of where we were even four months ago."
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Russian Official Says Apple CEO Should Be Banned From Russia After Saying He Is Gay
“What could he bring us? The Ebola virus, AIDS, gonorrhea?”
Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters
Russia should give Apple CEO Tim Cook a lifetime entry ban for announcing that he identifies as gay, a prominent Russian anti-LGBT lawmaker has said.
"What could he bring us? The Ebola virus, AIDS, gonorrhea? They all have unseemly ties over there," St. Petersburg city council member Vitaly Milonov told the FlashNord website on Thursday. "Ban him for life."
Apple is very popular among Russian politicians, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, but holds just 8% of the smartphone market in the country, according to Bloomberg, owing largely to the iPhone's high cost. Now Apple may see ramifications from Cook's decision to publicly say he identifies as gay in an essay for Bloomberg Businessweek . The country's government has used LGBT rights as a wedge issue to underline its backlash against what it sees as Western liberal hegemony. Milonov, an MP in St. Petersburg whose local "gay propaganda" ban became the basis for the controversial federal law passed last year, is an iPhone and iPad owner but recently declared that an iPhone 6 his "European homophobe friends" gave him was too vulnerable to U.S. spying for Russian officials to use.
Elena Mizulina, the author of the federal ban, said in July that iPhones were a key tool for pedophiles to film child pornography, but has herself been photographed using an iPad. Kremlin propaganda chief Dmitry Kiselyov, who once called for burning the hearts of gay people who die in car crashes "as unfit for life," has a pink iPhone.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook: "I’m Proud To Be Gay"
The CEO of Apple said he identifies as gay in an article Thursday for Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Apple CEO Tim Cook in Beijing on Oct. 23.
China Daily / Reuters
Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that he identifies as gay in a personal essay for Bloomberg BusinessWeek published Thursday.
"While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven't publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me," Cook wrote.
He said that, over the years, he told many people about his sexual orientation. "Plenty of colleagues at Apple know I'm gay, and it doesn't seem to make a difference in the way they treat me," he wrote, adding that he was "lucky" to work at a company that is accepting of him.
Cook has fiercely guarded his privacy even as he runs one of the world's most recognized companies. But, he wrote, he felt that desire for privacy was holding him back "from doing something more important."
"Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day," Cook wrote, adding that it gave him the confidence "to rise above adversity and bigotry."
"It's also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you're the CEO of Apple," he said.
Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said the announcement "will save countless lives." The group called it a "courageous step forward.
"In doing so, he committed himself to using the influence that comes with heading of one of the world's largest corporations to fight for the rights and equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people across America," HRC said.
Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services, tweeted he was "proud of my friend and colleague!"
Cook advocates for LGBT rights, and recently criticized his home state, Alabama, for being "still too slow on equality." He specifically pointed to an Alabama law that allows employers to fire workers based on sexual orientation.
Earlier this year, a CNBC anchor mistakenly said on air that Cook was "open" about being gay – a comment that was met with silence by fellow panelists.
In the BusinessWeek piece, he mentioned "many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies."
"So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy," he wrote.
Hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson called it a "seminal moment when the CEO of the most valuable company on the planet...comes out. And not just by quietly acknowledging it, but with a full-throated roar, saying it's helped him in his career."
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U.S. Economy Grows At 3.5% Annual Rate In The Third Quarter
This puts to rest any worries that the economy was slipping back into recession after shrinking earlier this year, but worries about growth in the rest of the world remain.
The world economy may be slowing down, but the U.S. is growing steadily.
In the third quarter of this year, the U.S. economy expanded at a 3.5% annual rate, the Commerce Department said today. That's after a 4.6% annual expansion in the second quarter and a 2.1% contraction in the first quarter that had some people worried the U.S. economy's post-recession growth had slid to a halt. Economists were expecting a 3% annual growth rate for the quarter.
The strong number is in stark contrast to the rest of the developed world. In Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe, the government has cut its own projections of economic growth for the rest of 2014 and for 2015 to 1.2% and 1.3% respectively.
The U.S. growth number is not an outlier to other domestic economic data. The economy created 248,000 news jobs in September and the unemployment rate dipped to 5.9%. In the last three months, there has been an average of 224,000 new jobs created, which helped give the Federal Reserve confidence yesterday to announce the end of its massive bond buying program — known as quantitative easing — that it started in September, 2012.
The growth number was also consistent with more recent data showing the economy improving and the job market healing. Initial claims for unemployment benefits were 287,000, a slight increase from the week before. However, the four-week moving average, which is jumps around less than any one week's number, was 281,000, the lowest since May, 2001 according to Bloomberg. The Labor Department also said that four-week moving average for the number of insured unemployed people of 2.38 million was the lowest since January, 2001.
According to data collected by Bloomberg, the second and third quarters of this year have seen the fastest economic growth for any consecutive quarters since 2003.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Obama Administration Takes Another Shot At Regulating For-Profit Colleges
A previous attempt to crack down on the industry was thrown out by the courts. This time, the government backed away from a part of the rules that was likely to attract more legal attention.
Paul Armstrong/Paul Armstrong
The Obama administration has released a final version of regulations targeting for-profit colleges that is significantly weaker than the initial rules proposed earlier this year, caving to complaints from industry lobbyists. The regulations could still shut down 1,400 programs at for-profit colleges, which collectively enroll about 840,000 students.
The administration has made reining in the for-profit college industry a key component of its education agenda. For-profit college companies, like Apollo, which owns the University of Phoenix and DeVry, receive billions of dollars of taxpayer money each year in the form of federal financial aid, drawing as much as 90% of their revenue from the federal government. Many of the biggest for-profits are mired in lawsuits from organizations like the Justice Department, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and dozens of state attorneys general, which allege a raft of violations, from misleading enrollment claims to predatory lending schemes.
For-profit college students make up just 11% of the total higher education population, but take out a disproportionate percentage of federal loans, defaulting on them at high rates. Their earnings after graduating from programs targeted by the employment regulations, such as medical assisting and cosmetology, are relatively low, and students sometimes pay up to four times as much for their educations as they would have done at a community college.
The for-profit college industry says its students' high debt levels are simply proof that it largely enrolls poor and minority students, who are more likely to need to borrow to finance their education.
The administration's "gainful employment" regulations cut off access to federal funding for career training programs — the vast majority of them at for-profit colleges — where students graduate with high levels of student debt in comparison to their earnings. But a second performance metric which would have penalized programs with high loan default rates was dropped in the final version after being included in the preliminary regulations released in March.
Five hundred programs that would have failed the draft rules are now expected to pass, Education Department officials said.
The administration likely dropped that second metric to give the regulations stronger legal footing. In the past, attempts to regulate the for-profit college industry fell prey to industry lobbyists, who successfully sued to strike down a 2011 version of the gainful employment rule. In that case, a judge ruled that one of the regulations' two metrics, the rate at which students repaid their loans, was invalid because it was set arbitrarily.
That sent the administration back to the drawing board. It replaced the loan repayment rate with a similar measure, called the "program cohort default rate" — the same measure that it dropped in its final version, eventually sticking with just one measurement of programs' success, the ratio of student debt to earnings.
Though weakened from its initial proposal, the rules are still significantly tougher than the 2011 version, which would have shuttered only 200 programs.
But the regulations are likely to still face heavy criticism from both sides: those who think they are far too weak to effectively regulate the industry, and the for-profit colleges, whose main lobby group, the Association of Private Colleges and Universities, has already released a statement condemning the rules.
"The gainful employment regulation is nothing more than a bad-faith attempt to cut off access to education for millions of students who have been historically underserved by higher education," said Steve Gunderson, APSCU's president.
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James Cameron Calls Facebook's $2 Billion Virtual Reality Headset "A Yawn"
The maker of Avatar says he finds virtual reality goggles too limiting when shooting for his virtual-reality heavy films. He made the comments at the WSJD conference.
Via wsj.com
James Cameron, the maker of Avatar, is apparently not a believer in the Oculus Rift, at least for filmmakers.
The virtual reality headset maker that Facebook bought for $2 billion is something that Mark Zuckerberg called "a long-term bet on the future of computing" on the company's most recent earnings call. He said that in total the company has shipped more than 100,000 Oculus Rift developer kits.
"There is a lot of excitement around something that is to me is a yawn," Cameron said on stage at the Wall Street Journal's WSJD Live conference. "I'm moving and navigating through that world, I don't use goggles because I find that too limiting. And also my intention is to make shots so I have to be able to have my head free to look around and not have my head movements describing the shots."
Cameron is known for creating movies that are heavy on special effects, with Avatar being the best example of a blockbuster that was primarily built around computer-generated imagery. "We call it virtual production but there's no real difference. We're in a kind of synthetic reality that surrounds us, the actor's characters are taken in real time to their environment," he said.
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What Exactly Does McDonald's Want Us To Stop Hating?
The fast food giant is coming out with a new marketing campaign telling consumers that “Lovin’ Beats Hatin’”. But what exactly could that mean?
Haters gonna hate.
Via BuzzFeed.com
McDonald's wants the world to know love conquers all—especially hate. That's the message of their impending marketing campaign, set to roll out ahead of the Super Bowl. The campaign, reported by the WSJ on Tuesday, is called, "Lovin' Beats Hatin'", apparently in reference to hurtful internet comments and bullying.
But underneath it all, McDonald's is probably hoping that not only could young people stop hating on each other online, but perhaps they could also quit hating on its struggling brand In Real Life.
In many ways, McDonald's is just following the age-old practice of sticking to what you know. The fast food giant is intimately familiar with the power of outrage online, especially recently. HBO's John Oliver, just took a painful swipe at a recent social media campaign aimed at getting customers to ask the company questions about its food, a message that descended into Twitter mockery about as swiftly as you'd expect. And plenty of investors have started hating on the company's stock, after McDonald's delivered a sixth consecutive quarterly earnings miss, including a 30% profit decline.
On the company's conference call to discuss the earnings results, CEO Don Thompson vowed to make marketing and advertising a "priority" in the months to come, and now, with "Lovin' Beats Hatin'" we're getting to see a nugget of what he was talking about. A McDonald's spokeswoman assured BuzzFeed News that this will not replace the company's signature "I'm Lovin' It" slogan.
We might also see a quick pushback. As Consumerist put it, McDonald's is hoping its new slogan will appeal to the inherent good in the people, who it "mistakenly" thinks won't see the campaign as a chance for more mockery.
Another theory? What if McDonald's is actually in on the joke, subverting internet culture by daring people to hate their "no haters" approach? Consider that Under Armour ad featuring Gisele beating up thought bubbles full of internet comments from her internet haters. Or look no further than Jimmy Kimmel, who has built up a running gag of celebrities doing melodramatic readings of the horrible things people tweet about them.
But what, besides tapping the trusty Millennials Will Love This division of their respective advertising agencies, could McDonald's and Under Armour possibly have in common? And perhaps more importantly, what does internet hating have to do with Big Macs and whatever else McDonald's is selling these days? Doesn't the world's biggest food chain have bigger fish filets to fry?
Indeed they do, according to analysts and fast food industry watchers.
"We're looking at six to seven quarters of underperformance," said RJ Hottovy, an analyst with Morningstar covering McDonald's. "Certainly they've had some marketing missteps in the last few years—emphasizing the wrong products and not getting much traction with their own budget." That advertising budget, by the way, is nearly $1 billion.
"They need to bring food quality to the forefront, and that's going to take time because a lot of people have a perception of them having poor food quality," Hottovy added. "They're trying a number things at this point. Millennials is probably where they're going, it's been an area of weakness for them and this might be a way to kind of reconnect with that consumer base. The food quality issue is the biggest one. They haven't really had a standout product since the McCafé a few years ago."
Or, put another way, McDonald's has not had a star new product since 2008, and that product was coffee.
Over at the consumer watchdog group Corporate Accountability International, press officer Kara Kaufman thinks McDonald's may be trying to use its new campaign as a way to take the focus off food transparency, as well as other recent missteps, including an ill-fated attempt to make Ronald McDonald's clown outfit look cool in the eyes of millennials. Much internet hating followed.
"Lovin' Beats Hatin'" then, could be seen as "another of McDonald's' efforts to try and position itself as the victim," Kaufman said. "In many ways, it is a victim, but it's a victim of its own bad choices. We see this in its decision to market to kids, as well as its decision to continue to provide unhealthy food. It's positioning itself as a brand that's increasingly tone-deaf with millennials, parents, and the health food industry. Whether it's the new Ronald McDonald with cargo pants or its transparency campaign, there's a lot of PR failures, and it does nothing to address the underlying problem: it is a junk food brand."
When reached for comment, a McDonald's spokeswoman told BuzzFeed news that there had been "misreporting" on the campaign in earlier articles.
"We're always working with our partners on great new creative," the spokeswoman said. "It's highly speculative and premature to talk about Super Bowl ads and future campaigns for next year."
Does that mean the company could still change their minds? Perhaps love will not conquer hate after all.
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The Richest Man In China And The Most Powerful Man In Hollywood Went To A Lakers Game
This is how business gets done in Hollywood.
Jack Ma, seated between the two guys in suits, is the newly-crowned richest man in China, worth an estimated $26.5 billion after his conglomerate Alibaba went public in September in the largest IPO ever.
ROBYN BECK/AFP / Getty Images
The guy in the tie next to Ma is Ari Emanuel, the co-CEO of talent agency William Morris Endeavor. Emanuel is widely considered to be the most powerful and feared man in Hollywood, repping everyone from Oprah to Ben Affleck.
Emanuel provided the inspiration for Jeremy Piven's "Ari Gold" character on HBO's Entourage. Seated with him and Ma are WME co-CEO Patrick Whitesell and the actor Jet Li.
ROBYN BECK/AFP / Getty Images
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SodaStream U.S. Sales Down 41%, Closing Controversial West Bank Plant
The company says it’s a “purely commercial” decision that’s part of its overall restructuring plans. The decision comes as its U.S. business tanks, with revenues down 41% in the most recent quarter.
SodaStream
In the face of disappointing results and a shift in its business model to match the mood of more health conscious customers, SodaStream will shut down its controversial plant in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, the company said today.
A company spokesperson told Bloomberg News it would move its West Bank operations to Northern Israel by "late 2015." The spokesperson told Bloomberg the decision by "purely commercial." The company said in a presentation that it would relocate the Mishor Adumim facility and one in Alon Tavor in Northern Israel. It will consolidate its manufacturing in its plant in the Negev, in Southern Israel. Relocation costs are expected to be $9 million.
The Mishor Adumim plant had been at the center of a campaign to boycott the company. Its celebrity spokesperson Scarlett Johansson even split from the UK charity group Oxfam after the group criticized SodaStream for maintaining a plant within an Israeli settlement. The company has made extensive efforts to defend the plant against international criticism.
"We invite true humanitarians to join us in our relentless effort to build a bridge between Israelis and Palestinians," the company says on its website. The site also says SodaStream employes 1,300 people, including 950 Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, and that the plant provides "sustenance to about 5,000 Palestinians that depend upon employment in the facility."
SodaStream
Beyond protests against its settlement activities, the company's business prospects have turned south and it admitted as much when it released its earnings for the third quarter along with a new "growth plan" today. SodaSteam's U.S. business took a hit as Macy's decided to no longer carry it's products (an anonymous source told the Washington Free Beacon the decision was not linked to the boycott efforts).
The company said it "outgrew our internal capacity and expanded our product range resulting in operational complexity and erosion of our profit margins" and that, in the U..S, its user growth had "dramatically slowed" even though current users still use the products frequently.
Outside the US, growth has also slowed. In the third quarter, revenue from the Americas was $29.5 million, down from $49.8 million last year, a 41% drop. Overall, its soda marker starter kits, which get customers started down the road of buying new flavors and carbon dioxide refills, saw a precipitous drop, with 818,000 sold in the third quarter compared to 1.2 million in the third quarter of last year, a 32% drop.
The company's stock continued its slide, trading down over 2% to $21.40 in early afternoon trading. The stock has fallen more than 50% this year. In June, 2013, its shares were trading at over $70.
The company has to deal with a broad turn away from sugary drinks in the US, what it describes as a "landslide shift towards health and wellness." This will mean a new marketing campaign, "Water Made Exciting" all part of an effor to "reinforce the important benefits of using SodaStream and revive our brand heat." The company also said it had to bring in new executives and overhaul its procurement infrastructure and "consolidate operational structure for simplicity and efficiency and reduce headcount where appropriate." It is also planning to introduce new bottles that look less like its "detergent" bottles today.
Overall, the company's revenue was $125.9 million for the third quarter, down from $144.6 million last year, while profit dropped to $9.5 million from $16.4 million. A few weeks ago, the company projected $125 million in revenue in the quarter and operating income of $8.5 million. "As we previously announced, our third quarter performance was pressured by challenging selling conditions for soda makers and flavors primarily in the U.S.," the company's chief executive Daniel Birnbaum said in a statement.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Cash-Rich Asian Companies Are Looking To Pour Money Into Hollywood
The trend began in 2012 with Wanda Group’s purchase of theater chain AMC and has heated up in recent months as Softbank and Alibaba look to put their billions of dollars in IPO money to work.
LUNAMARINA/LUNAMARINA
"We worry about people with deep pockets but shallow minds, so movies are the best way to change Chinese young people's behavior," said Jack Ma, the chief executive of China's e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group, which in September raised $25 billion in the largest initial public offering ever.
"I want to come here looking for partners," Ma added in an interview yesterday at the Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive conference, referring to Hollywood, where sources said his team is taking meetings with the major film studios with the aim of striking some deals.
Separately, about 2,000 miles away in Knoxville, Tennessee, the largest movie theater chain in the U.S., Regal Entertainment Group, surprised investors by announcing that it would pursue "strategic alternatives." In the parlance of Wall Street, that means it is for sale.
The last major U.S. cinema chain put up for sale, AMC Entertainment, was sold to China's Dalian Wanda Group for $2.6 billion in 2012.
Taken together, Ma's comments and the Regal move underscore a trend that began with the Wanda deal in 2012: Cash-rich Asian companies are looking to invest in Hollywood. Their interest is born from a confluence of factors — ranging from the growth of both the middle class and the movie industry in Asia, specifically China; the continued decline of box office attendance in the U.S.; and the collapsing of release windows and the shift to mobile and on-demand viewing, among others.
China currently ranks as the world's second-largest movie market behind the U.S. But while American box office attendance is declining, China is experiencing rapid growth, with screens and revenue expected to approach if not surpass the U.S. in the next decade.
In September, Guo Guangchang, the billionaire chairman of China's Fosun Group, agreed to invest what reports claim is in excess of $100 million in former Warner Bros executive Jeff Robinov's new production house Studio 8. A month later, Japan's Softbank, which owns about one-third of Alibaba and raised about $4.6 billion in that company's IPO, struck a deal to invest $250 million in Legendary Pictures, which has helped finance or produce such films as Godzilla, 300, and the Dark Knight franchise. Prior to its Legendary deal, Softbank was rumored to be close to buying Dreamworks Animation for $3.4 billion. Other, earlier deals have also been struck between Asian companies and studios like Disney, Fox, and The Weinstein Company, among others.
"We expect these companies to be selectively active, with more interest on the content side," said James March, an entertainment analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co. who covers Regal, of the potential for more Asian companies to invest in Hollywood. Marsh said he expects to see more joint ventures, co-financing and co-distribution deals rather than outright acquisitions.
Another Hollywood executive who requested anonymity put it more bluntly, saying, "They all will eventually be in Hollywood. The pendulum is swinging hard back to content and there's only one place in the world to get the best of it."
For Asian tech companies like Softbank and Alibaba, the interest in Hollywood is about access to content for their platforms — Softbank owns 70% of Sprint and wants to stream video as well as music to its smartphone customers; Ma called Alibaba the "biggest entertainment company in the world" because people spend so much time on his e-commerce site even when they aren't shopping. As a result, the company is focused on getting as much product as possible onto its sites and improving the customer experience, with movies and video seen as a key to those efforts.
Ma in June established Alibaba Pictures by acquiring majority control of ChinaVision Media Group for $804 million. Last week, the New York Post reported that he was interested in buying the 37% stake in Lionsgate held by its chairman for $1.6 billion. If those two deals sound like a lot of money, consider that Alibaba's stock price is a shade under $100 per share and it is now worth roughly $243.3 billion.
"We invest a lot in the states, we are going to invest more," Ma said during his WSJDLive keynote interview Monday.
As for Regal, consensus opinion among sources BuzzFeed News spoke to for this piece is that the cinema chain, whose 574 theaters and more than 7,000 screens rank it as the world's largest exhibitor, is looking to leverage both the high interest among cash-rich foreign companies and the strong box office projections for the next two years to sell at the top of the market.
While cinemas operators are part of the Hollywood ecosystem, they aren't core members of the club like the big studios. They operate as an important link in the chain that runs from filmmaking talent to popcorn-munching viewers, but not the central one. For China's Wanda, getting into the cinema business has more appeal, as it's already a major film distributor at home.
"We are not sure any other U.S. publicly traded exhibitor is willing or able to do a deal, at least without having to sell-off some of the overlapping theaters," wrote MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman in a report Tuesday. "Our next choice would be either an international theater chain or international fund looking to increase its U.S. investment exposure."
As the second-largest movie theater chain in the U.S., AMC likely would face regulatory issues in acquiring Regal on its own, particularly because they compete head-to-head in many markets. But Fishman and other analysts speculated that AMC and Carmike Cinemas, another publicly-traded chain, could team up and split Regal's theaters between the two of them, thus giving China's Wanda more screens in the U.S.
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WhatsApp, Facebook's $19 Billion Acquisition, Lost $232 Million In Six Months
To be fair, it takes time to grow a company, even one with 500 million users. WhatsApp lost about $138 million in 2013.
Albert Gea / Reuters
It takes money to make money — and that is definitely still the case with WhatsApp, a messaging company that Facebook bought for $19 billion earlier this year.
The company posted a loss of about $138 million in 2013, according to financial documents Facebook released today as part of its third-quarter earnings. It brought in about $10.2 million in revenue.
SEC
Its numbers for the first half of 2014 also show increasing losses, with the company losing $232 million.
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Facebook's Business Meets Wall Street's Expectations
Facebook’s business posted a slightly stronger quarter than Wall Street expected as its mobile advertising business continues to grow. The company reported its third-quarter earnings today.
AP Photo/Ben Margot, File
Facebook slightly beat analyst expectations as its mobile advertising business continues to chug along, bringing in $3.2 billion in revenue and exceeding Wall Street's expectations for people checking the app every day.
When the company first went public in 2012, Facebook's mobile advertising business didn't exist. Today, the company's mobile advertising revenue consists of %66 of its advertising revenue. Facebook also reported adjusted earnings of 43 cents per share.
That's about in line with what Wall Street was looking for, with analysts expecting Facebook to earn 40 cents per share on $3.12 billion in revenue, with mobile advertising revenue consisting of 66% of the company's total advertising revenue.
Its total user base was also about in line with what Wall Street expected. The company said its user base grew to 1.35 billion monthly active users, while 864 of those users were checking the company's applications every day. Wall Street was expecting 1.35 billion monthly active users and 851 million daily active users.
In addition to launching the Facebook Audience Network and its mobile app install advertising product, which has quickly grown to what analysts have predicted to be a $1 billion annual business, the company recently re-launched its advertising platform called Atlas. That expands the company's advertising footprint to applications off of Facebook, and opens a new user set that potential advertisers can tap into Facebook's data to better target and make money off their ads.
Facebook is expected to increase its share of the worldwide digital ad market from 5.8% in 2013 to 8% this year of the expected $140.7 billion in digital advertising revenue, according to eMarketer. By comparison, Twitter is expected to hold a 0.8% share of digital advertising, up from 0.5% in 2013, according to eMarketer.
"We believe the digital advertising industry is growing faster than previously expected and Facebook continues to gain share," Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia wrote in an analyst note to investors.
Yahoo Finance
Part of the trick for the company has been figuring out how to not only grow its user base, but also figure out how to correctly rank and target its mobile ads. As BuzzFeed News previously detailed, the company has around 13 million to 14 million active advertisements on any given day, and the company works to whittle those ads down to the 10 or so that the company shows to its users on a daily basis.
Thanks to the growth of its mobile advertising products, the company has continued to beat analyst expectations and its stock has continued to blow past its all-time high. That's driven the company's valuation past $200 billion and beyond historically iconic American companies like Coca-Cola and IBM.
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Aeropostale Hires Nash Grier, Vine Star With History Of Anti-Gay Tweets
The struggling teen retailer has been criticized by fans for partnering with Nash Grier for a new clothing line.
Topsy / Via dailydot.com
Struggling teen retailer Aeropostale struck a nerve with its latest gimmick to get teens to buy its clothes: hiring a Vine star with a history of racist and anti-gay tweets and videos.
Aeropostale, which has been aggressively using social media and social media stars to convince teens it's a brand for their generation, just launched a new clothing collection with popular Vine users Nash Grier, Hayes Grier, Cameron Dallas and Carter Reynolds. The company said the garments, which cost between $13 and $20, were "hand-picked" by the four, who collectively have more than 20 million followers.
While Aeropostale touted Nash Grier, who has more than 9 million followers, as the "King of Vine" in a release yesterday, numerous customers have been outraged with the retailer's decision to work with him.
Nash Grier came under fire this summer for regularly using anti-gay slurs on Twitter, as outlined by The Daily Dot, uploading then deleting a Vine saying only gay people get HIV, in which he yells "fag" to a camera, and another Vine in which he "explains" how Asians name their children. (He throws a spoon down stairs then garbles an uneducated mimicry of Chinese.) Grier, who is 16, has apologized for anti-gay comments, saying he "was young, ignorant, stupid and in a bad place," and that he has "nothing against anyone or anything that promotes equality."
That wasn't enough to change everyone's opinion of Grier, however, judging by the angry comments from some shoppers. "Thanks for supporting boys who have been openly racist and homophobic," one Twitter user wrote, adding: "This is disgusting." Another asked: "How are they good ambassadors for your brand? Unless your brand is homophobic and racist?"
The backlash highlights the challenges brands face in working with today's new breed of celebrity in a supremely competitive landscape. Marketers are increasingly tempted by the vast reach and youthful appeal of Instagram, Vine and YouTube stars for ad campaigns, but unlike typical celebrity endorsers, these self-made stars have often been through little vetting, or examination by the media.
Aeropostale didn't return multiple calls and emails for comment on whether they considered Grier's controversial past before striking up this partnership.
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West Valley City, UT Accident Lawyer/Attorney Marc Grimaldi – Car, Truck, Motorcycle, 18 Wheeler, Boat, Auto
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Online Investment Advisor Wealthfront Raises $64 Million
The money, on top of $65.5 million its already raised, gives it $100 million in cash. The war chest will be put to good use in a battle with some of America’s financial giants.
AndreyPopov/AndreyPopov
Wealthfront has another $64 million to fight off Charles Schwab and any other big brokerage or advisor that wants to get into automated online investment advice. The Silicon Valley startup that's become a favorite among cashed-up technology workers announced Tuesday morning that it has raised a new round of funding, with a new lead investor, Spark Capital.
This latest round makes Wealthfront the most richly funded of the new wave of online investment advisors that create portfolios, adjust them over time, and optimize for taxes all using software, rather than humans. It's also one of a number of well-funded startups in the broader financial technology sector, as software starts to slowly creep its way into an industry where large chunks of work are still done by hand and where relationships reign supreme.
Wealthfront constructs a portfolio out of 12 different asset classes (different types of stocks, bonds, commodities, and real estate) based on an investor's risk tolerance. It automatically adjusts its balance over time using theories derived from academic finance about how to best allocate investments.
"The capital gives us the independence and freedom to focus on the client," Wealthfront chief executive Adam Nash said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. Wealthfront, unlike other finance startups, has raised its money from individuals in the tech industry -- early investors included Yahoo's Marissa Mayer and Quora founder and former Facebook chief technical officer Adam D'Angelo -- and well known venture capital firms like Index Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Benchmark, rather than the asset managers, private equity firms, and banks that have started investing in Silicon Valley.
"This was an opportunity that gives us a balance sheet to ensure we don't take money that would give us conflicts," Nash said.
Wealthfront has been growing quickly, hitting $1 billion in assets under mangement in June despite starting with just over half a billion in the beginning of the year. The service only launched at the end of 2011. In just a few months since the June milestone, assets under management have grown to over $1.5 billion.
Nash said that Wealthfront wasn't looking to raise money, and the company said that it hasn't spent any of the $35 million that it raised in April. Instead, Spark (an investor in Twitter and the upstart IEX stock trading venue) wanted to get involved with the company, and "one of the unfair benefits that the leaders in a new category have is that it always has access to capital," Nash said.
Jeremy Philips, the lead investor for Spark and a former News Corp executive, was a client before his firm committed the capital to Wealthfront, which isn't surprising because Wealthfront has caught on the strongest with its fellow technology companies. Nash, who was an executive at LinkedIn before he joined Wealthfront, said the company doesn't have a sales force (although it does advertise heavily online) and most of its new customer come from referrals from current customers. "We share Wealthfront's long term vision to give everyone, not just the wealthy, access to sophisticated financial advice," Philips said in a statement.
And those customers are young and often work in technology. More than 60% of its customers are under 35 and the average account size is around $90,000. At the data analysis giant Palantir, employees can get the .25% fee Wealthfront charges covered by the company as a benefit, while Twitter employees can use Wealthfront to sell down their Twitter stock automatically over time so they're not over exposed to one large holding.
The funding announcement comes one day after Charles Schwab, a giant in investment advising and brokerage, said it will roll out an automated online investment service called Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. The new service, like Wealthfront, will construct portfolios and rebalance them and sell assets automatically to harvest tax benefits, but without any advisory fees.
"We spent a few years telling people that the future of individual investing is automated," Nash said. "The thing about the Schwab announcement is that it just confirms that fact that everyone is going to do this."
Schwab's advisory fee of zero is lower than Wealthfront's .25% of assets — although it hasn't released details that would allow for a direct comparison — but Nash says that since it's been software-based and automated from day one, it will have superior focus on its product. "The history in technology shows there's a huge value in leadership for a new entrant that leads into a market and innovates in it," Nash said.
Nash also said that Wealthfront is intensely focused on younger investors, whereas Schwab's large existing customer base is concentrated among baby boomers. "Schwab's average customer is in their 50s, we designed our entire service around what millennials are looking for." Alison Wertheim, a Charles Schwab spokesperson, confirmed this number but said that "with millions of clients there is quite a wide spread so averages don't really mean much."
"We don't believe we'll kill Charles Schwab," Nash wrote in a blog post. "It is a great company, albeit focused on a different customer - the baby boomer. We do believe, however, that we'll force Charles Schwab to become even better."
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The 14 Most Bill Ackman Things Bill Ackman Has Ever Said
The hedge fund titan has had a number of larger than life quotes attributed to him over the years, and this weekend brought even more. It appears we have reached peak Ackman.
Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
Hot on the heels of his latest New York Times profile, in which the outspoken hedge fund titan offers up some of his choicest quotes yet, here's a look back at some of the most memorable Ackmanisms, presented without comment.
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Monday, October 27, 2014
This Startup Says Competition From A $2 Trillion Giant Is "Really Exciting"
Why Betterment’s founder Jon Stein couldn’t be happier that Charles Schwab is competing with him.
Nichelle Stephens/flickr / Via flic.kr creativecommons.org
One of America's financial giants is stepping directly onto a startup's turf, and its founder couldn't be happier.
Charles Schwab, which controls $2.4 trillion worth of assets, announced Monday that it would launch an automated online investment advisor service, similar to that offered by the upstart Betterment (and its Bay Area based rival Wealthfront). "This is really really exciting for us," Betterment chief executive officer Jon Stein said in an interview with BuzzFeed News following the Schwab announcement.
Schwab said today it will offer a service similar to Betterment's, all with no advisory fees or commissions. While Charles Schwab chief executive Walt Bettinger wouldn't name a specific rival when asked by analysts, the offerings are remarkably similar to its smaller competitor: automated investment advice, access to a range of asset classes, and with automated tax optimization for accounts larger than $50,000.
The new offering suggests that Schwab "looked at the list of features that Betterment provides and said oh yes of course we'll provide those things," Stein said. "Today they're providing none of them."
Schwab won't launch the service until sometime in early 2015.
"It's a validation of our space, a space we created five years ago, we were once a voice in the wilderness saying investing is changing, now we have Charles Schwab finally entering the space," Stein said. He doesn't plan on changing course with Betterment in light of Schwab's decision to compete directly, and will focus instead on improving the core product. "We're built on smarter technology, that's what we do best," he said.
What Schwab will be able to do better than Betterment or any other startup competitor is aggressively market its new product, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. The company said Monday that it has a marketing and advertising campaign scheduled for early next year to coincide with the service's launch. Betterment hopes that campaign will bring attention to the industry, particularly among customers who still hadn't considered using an online financial advisor.
One other way Schwab is looking to get around its competitors is the headline price of its service: zero. While Betterment and Wealthfront charge fees on top of the cost embedded in the funds it uses to construct its portfolios, Schwab will not be charging an advisory fee, although it will generate revenue from when it uses its own funds or from managing others.
Stein is skeptical of that too. "There's no such thing as free in financial services, customers are paying for the service, it's just not as transparent as our services," Stein said. "They're paying perhaps through suboptimal asset allocation through Schwab ETFs, perhaps through suboptimal bid-offer spreads or payment for order flow or through the expense ratio in their ETFs."
Ultimately, Stein sees more awareness of automated investing as a positive for his own company, which has amassed $975 million in assets. "There was a lot of hand wringing and alarm when Barnes and Noble entered the online book selling space to compete against Amazon. In that case the technology company won and I think, it's not a perfect parallel, but I think we have a lot of advantages in our smarter technology."
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Twitter Disappoints Wall Street With Mediocre User Growth
The company said it had 284 million monthly active users, about in line with investor expectations. The company reported its third-quarter earnings on Monday
Eric Gaillard / Reuters
Twitter about met expectations set by investors for its growing user numbers, making slightly more money than expected.
Twitter said its total monthly active users were 284 million, up from 271 million in the second quarter this year. Without a major event like the World Cup, Twitter wasn't able to continue dramatically its user base, showing that it needs flagship events like that to juice its user numbers. Even though the company has been touting user activity around events like NFL games, it hasn't quite hit the highs that it achieved during the World Cup over the summer.
That, apparently, wasn't enough for Wall Street, even though it brought in more revenue than what Wall Street was seeking. After reporting its earnings, Twitter's stock fell about 9%. Analysts were expecting the company's user numbers would hit 284 million monthly active users. Twitter said it brought in earnings of 1 cent per share, on $361 million in revenue. Analysts overall were expecting earnings of 1 cent per share on $351 million in revenue.
That metric is important for the company, which has to prove to investors that it can continue to grow the company and, in turn, grow its advertising revenue. Last quarter, Twitter's user growth rate actually improved on a quarter-over-quarter basis, stemming a long string dating back to 2012 of declining user growth rate. The company 16 million users between the first and second quarter, and tktk users between the second and third quarter.
The last quarter was helped with a large number of people Tweeting about the World Cup. At the time, CEO Dick Costolo said on the earnings call today that the company had 2 billion additional Tweet impressions from across the Web during the World Cup. But that the company has seemed to hold of its decline is a good sign for Wall Street.
"Recall, second-quarter user metrics were much stronger than expected (user growth of 16 million quarter-over-quarter versus estimates in the 10 million to 12 million range) and the subsequent debate has been whether this metric was boosted primarily by the FIFA World Cup or the impact of the product changes," Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia wrote in a note.
Twitter accounted for 0.5% of global digital ad revenues in 2013, according to eMarketer, and is expected to increase to 0.8% this year. By comparison, Facebook is expected to increase its share of the worldwide digital ad market from 5.8% in 2013 to 8% this year, according to eMarketer.
Twitter's advertising growth may soon actually transcend its user base. Last week, at the company's first developer conference, Twitter rolled out a suite of tools that would allow developers to let users sign in with their Twitter accounts and run ads powered by its mobile ad network, MoPub. That's a big change for Twitter, which has historically not been very receptive to developers and instead shifted its narrative of the Twitter "platform" to mean embedding content from Twitter on other parts of the Internet.
Those tools may increase the company's overall footprint of its advertisements if developers choose to begin using them. If its new developer tools, like one that enables users to log in with just a phone number, become popular it can increases Twitter's overall footprint among applications, and by extension the distribution of its advertising network.
While the stock is off from its highs after its mobile active user growth was lower than expected, Twitter's share price has found some stable footing through much of the quarter, hovering around $50. Should Twitter be able to continue growing its user base and rolling out new advertising tools, as well as expanding that advertising network, it can continue to grow its business — and in theory that should make investors a little more willing to return Twitter to its initial valuation shortly after it went public.
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Charles Schwab Undercuts Silicon Valley, Offers Online Financial Advice For Free
The service is a howitzer pointed at startups who have tried to steal business from Schwab and other old-school brokerages and advisors.
Jim Young / Reuters / Reuters
Charles Schwab, one of the nation's largest brokerages and financial advisors, is going full robot. The San Francisco-based company said today it will launch an automated online investment advisory service sometime in the first quarter of 2015, in competition with a new breed of online financial players that are chasing after the industry's old guard.
The company wants the service to address demand for "sophisticated low cost investment advice" chief executive officer Walt Bettinger said on a call with analysts today.
The program, which will be called Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, will compete directly with the startups that are trying to steal market share from brokerage and fund giants like Schwab by offering a cheap online services that allocate savings into broad stock and bond indices.
The Schwab service, along with those it competes with, is most squarely targeted at investors who have some money saved besides a 401(k) or a pension, but not enough to require a full-service financial advisor. Charles Schwab became a $35 billion company by serving precisely these investors through its brokerage business, which let them invest the money themselves in stocks, as well as by managing a range investment funds for customers to park their money in.
The new online services are particularly appealing to investors who live online and want to services that are native to the web. "For clients who are technology savvy," said Naureen Hassan, the senior vice president of Schwab Intelligent Portfolio, "it can be a lifetime offering."
But that lucrative and profitable market of investors is now being targeted by a number of startups that offer investment advice, funds to invest in, and even software tools that recommend when to sell assets to optimize tax liabilities. This, all delivered over the web and primarily by computers, not well-compensated humans, has become a cheaper option, as well as one that appeals to customers that expects a slick online interface.
Schwab's rhetoric is nearly identical to its startup competitors, despite being the exact type of company they're trying to displace. "One of the biggest barriers for people receiving good investment advice is the cost of that advice," Hassan said. "We wanted to bring investment advice to everyone at all levels."
Investors have been defecting to the new competitors, and those are the people that Schwab is now deploying its massive resources to win back — in part by offering the service for free.
Bettinger, the Schwab CEO, said today that the service would also target do-it-yourself investors that are "fee-sensitive," and looking for cheap investment advice. Startup automated investment advisors like Betterment and Wealthfront have been accumulating assets at a rapid clip, as investors are attracted to their low fees and academic investing formulas.
Those formulas, known as portfolio theory, identify the best way to allocate an individual's investments over time, based on their tolerance for risk. For low-cost online services, they help a computer do the work often done by highly-paid humans.
The Schwab service, which the company said will launch in the first quarter of next year, provides a largely similar offering to Wealthfront and Betterment. It will be automated, investing a client's assets based on their answers to an online questionnaire, and will adjust their investment mix over time. It will also be "developed for ease of use and completely technology enabled for today's investor," Bettinger said, meaning it will be paperless and "device agnostic." The big difference, Schwab says, is cost, service, and sophistication.
That includes 24-hour live customer support and no advisory fees, no commissions on trades, and no fees on accounts. Schwab will generate revenue, it said, through the Schwab funds that customers can invest in, and from managing exchange-traded funds from other providers.
Betterment, the New York based investment advisory startup, recently launched a partnership with Fidelity, the Boston-based fund and brokerage behemoth, to offer its services to the almost 3,000 independent investment advisors Fidelity works with through its Institutional Wealth Services platform. Schwab said it will offer a similar program to the investment advisors it works with "shortly after" it launches for retail customers.
Schwab
Wealthfront, the biggest of the so-called robo advisors, has over $1 billion in client assets, while Betterment, a New York based advisor, has $875 million. Both are drops in the multi-trillion dollar bucket of total assets under management in America. One attraction of current automated investment advisors is how cheap they are: Wealthfront charges .25% for client balances over $10,000 while Betterment charges .35% to .15% depending on the size of the balance. Schwab will charge nothing.
Managed accounts from old-school advisory services, even ones that just hold cheap exchange traded funds, can cost around 1% of client assets, while individual funds and personalized investment advisory services can be even more expensive. Schwab, however, is trying to compete on price, even if it means potentially cannibalizing its existing services. "This is about clients and delivering to clients solutions to their best interest," Bettinger said on the call, "We've never been afraid to cannabialize parts of ourselves historically."
Schwab oversees some $2.4 trillion in client assets and, through its relationship with independent financial advisors and its own advisory services, it has $1.19 trillion in assets that receive "some advisory service." Schwab, which started as a discount brokerage, has been moving more and more of its business into some kind of fee-based advisory service. "50% of client assets are under some form of fee-based investment advisory relationship, a long way from the discount brokerage of Schwab four decades ago," Bettinger said.
Reuters reported three weeks ago that Schwab was planning on offering its own automated investment advisory service. Reuters reported, citing conversations with Schwab executives, that the service was being developed internally and would be "likely" free.
Wealthfront especially has made it clear that it's looking to grow to the scale of Schwab, its rival that is also based in the San Francisco Bay Area. "Wealthfront reached $1 billion in assets in less than half the time it took Schwab," the company said in a blog post in June, "We hope that by focusing on Millennials the way Schwab focused on Baby Boomers, we can continue our rapid growth to $10 billion, $100 billion, and beyond."
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Walmart Apologizes For Selling "Fat Girl Costumes" On Website
Nike Is Speaking "Very Directly" With The NFL About Domestic Violence
Nike brand president Trevor Edwards responded to questions about the company’s NFL sponsorship at a conference today.
Gary Cameron / Reuters
Nike, the exclusive provider of NFL jerseys, is still facing questions about its relationship with the league after the release of a video showing Ray Rice knocking his then-fiancée unconscious.
Nike brand president Trevor Edwards, asked about the company's involvement beyond individual NFL endorsements at a conference sponsored by Women's Wear Daily, said Nike "expressed our views very strongly" to the league.
The NFL "admitted they had not handled the situation well and really didn't have a clear process within their organization to manage their way through it," Edwards said at the conference in New York.
"We certainly have those conversations with them, and we're very, very clear about it," Edwards said, referencing comments by Nike CEO Mark Parker last week in which he made similar points. "We cannot tolerate domestic violence or any of these issues, and they're serious issues. They're serious for sports but they're also serious for society at large, and that's how we viewed it. We speak very directly with them about it."
Nike ended an endorsement deal with Rice after the release of the video, and subsequently ended its endorsement of Adrian Peterson, who is charged with abusing his 4-year-old son. Parker told Bloomberg News last week that the league has been making progress on domestic violence and child abuse, adding that "this has been a great lesson for the NFL."
Nike has had the NFL clothing license since 2012.
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Denver DUI Attorney Marc Grimaldi – Top DWI Lawyer (720) 506-1414
Denver DUI Attorney Marc Grimaldi – We specialize in tough DWI criminal charges and are known as one of the most effective Denver Colorado DUI Lawyer firms that you could …
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Sunday, October 26, 2014
Oregon DUI LAW
YOU MUST REQUEST A HEARING WITH THE OREGON DMV, OR ELSE YOUR LICENSE WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE SUSPENDED. PLEASE CONTACT AN OREGON DUI DEFENSE LAWYER …
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Workers Compensation Lawyer Medford, NJ (866) 598-0941 New Jersey Workmans
Workers Compensation Lawyer Medford, NJ (866) 598-0941 New Jersey Workmans Call us toll free: (866) 598-0941 When you hire Begelman, Orlow, And Melletz to re…
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Who Said It: Gene Simmons From Kiss Or Tech Luminary Marc Andreessen?
Can you guess if this business advice is from the Kiss bassist’s new book, Me, Inc. , or from the prolific venture capitalist?
Fred Prouser / Reuters
Carlo Allegri / Reuters
Kiss is as much a business as a rock band, leveraging its music into roughly 5,000 brand extensions ranging from action figures and lunch boxes to comic books and coffins and more. Much of the band's financial success has been masterminded by its bloody-tongued bassist Gene Simmons, who this week released a business advice book titled Me, Inc.: Build an Army of One, Unleash Your Inner Rock God, Win in Life and Business (Dey St., 2014).
Over the course of 224 pages, Simmons, who has appeared on Celebrity Apprentice and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Forbes, doles out business advice that ranges from the banal (don't take vacations; pursue your vision relentlessly) to the offensive (don't get married, pick either career or family) to the xenophobic (speak English, don't bring your yarmulke to a business meeting).
But sandwiched between such misguided and ill-informed advice are also a lot of stunningly trenchant observations about business and entrepreneurship. In fact, much of what Simmons writes sounds like it could have come out of the mouth of a venture capitalist mentoring a budding startup entrepreneur. Someone like, say, Marc Andreessen. (Disclosure: Andreessen Horowitz is an investor in BuzzFeed.)
Below are 15 quotes, some pulled from Simmons' book and others from some of Andreessen's various interviews and speaking engagements over the years. Can you guess which ones come from the rock performance artist whose band has sold approximately 75 million albums worldwide over the course of four decades or from the co-founder of Netscape and tech luminary who has led investments in Facebook, Twitter, and more?
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Saturday, October 25, 2014
Xiu J. Chen, 32, of Medford, and Ronald Keplin, 57, of Woburn charged with Human Trafficking
Xiu J. Chen, 32, of Medford, and Ronald Keplin, 57, of Woburn charged with Human Trafficking.
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Friday, October 24, 2014
DUI Attorney Marc Grimaldis Oregon
DUI Attorney Marc Grimaldis Oregon Attorney Marc Grimaldis, http://ift.tt/1z6e2TK GP7A Oregon Attorney Marc Grimaldi for DUI Charges when looking to protect yourself and y…
http://www.dui.com Rob Gage is a DUI Lawyer located in Omaha and Lincoln NE who will fight for you from arrest to trial. Call today for a free initial consul…
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British Bank HSBC Faces A Third Sexual Harassment Lawsuit
A male employee says his repeated complaints of sexual harassment by a colleague were ignored by management. He was later fired after a physical confrontation with the alleged harasser.
Henry Romero / Reuters
A third HSBC employee is suing the bank for sexual harassment, this time a due diligence employee who alleges in a lawsuit filed in federal court that a supervisor dismissed his complaints of being harassed by a male coworker.
The employee, Michael Preston, worked in the due diligence department of the British bank's New York office for a year. He says a coworker asked him while in the bathroom "how's that penis" and whether it "would be put to good use this weekend." Preston alleges in the suit that he then went to another employee, a friend of the alleged harasser, who then told him, that he should "give him what he wants one day, he will be happy and leave you alone."
Preston then went to his supervisor, who told him the alleged harasser was a "fun" and "jokey" guy.
Preston sued HSBC earlier this week in federal court in Manhattan (the complaint is embedded below) for sexual harassment, sex discrimination, and retaliation. He is seeking unspecified damages for "monetary and/or economic harm" as well as for "harm to his professional and personal reputations and loss of career fulfillment" along with compensation for mental anguish and emotional distress. Preston's lawsuit was first reported by Law360, a legal news website. HSBC is yet to respond in court.
This is the third sexual harassment lawsuit HSBC has faced this year. Two other men, including one who still works at the bank, sued in June and August respectively alleging that they had been given smaller bonuses, lower pay, and fewer responsibilities after complaining that a female coworker was being sexually harassed.
One of the earlier suits alleged that a senior executive, told a 27 year old female employee at a holiday party in 2010 that she should break up with her boyfriend, "dress sexier," and "show more skin" at work, and then pulled down the employee's blouse trying to expose her breasts.
The suit also alleged the same executive pressured the female employee to have sex with an HSBC executive in Brazil and told other HSBC employees that the female employee was having sex with HSBC clients "every time she traveled...on HSBC business."
The executive has since left the bank, the Financial Times reported yesterday. In a court filing, HSBC said it had investigated the matter and "took firm action toward the former supervisor" and "removed her from her position."
In the latest lawsuit, Preston alleges that the coworker continued the harassment , including by "physically touching and fondling him in a sexual manner on the arms, legs, buttocks and neck" and, sometime in mid-June, asking him to perform oral sex on him. Preston says he went to his supervisor again later in June and asked to be moved away so that "the physical groping of thighs and other parts of his body" would stop. Preston approached another supervisor who said he would "look into it."
Robert Sherman, an HSBC spokesperson, said the bank couldn't comment on pending litigation. "HSBC values a positive work environment and safe speak up culture where employees are encouraged to escalate concerns. All allegations are rigorously investigated and our policies against harassment and retaliation are strictly enforced," he said in a statement.
After receiving a good performance review, Preston approached another supervisor and told him that he could no longer work with the person allegedly harassing him. When he returned from a vacation, the coworker, who had covered some of his work, told Preston that he hoped Preston "rewards [him] real well," the suit says, all "while making a sexually explicit gesture." The next day, Preston says, he suggested they go to the gym so he could "check out [Preston's] penis in the locker room." Again Preston says he complained to a supervisor who told him she had no time for his complaints.
It all boiled over the next day when the man came from behind, Preston says, and "stroked Mr. Preston's neck and arms." Preston told him to get away, but after continuing to be touched, Preston "with an open fist" pushed his hands away, the suit says. The following Monday, Preston was suspended for hitting the man, and was fired four days later. According to his LinkedIn page, Preston is unemployed.
HSBC is just one of many large banks defending itself from sexual harassment claims by current and former employees. There is a long running suit against Goldman Sachs filed by two former junior bankers who alleged the investment bank is a "boys club" where sexual harassment was tolerated and women were systematically given fewer promotions and paid less than men. They are seeking to expand the suit into a class action.
UBS, the Swiss bank, was sued by a former intern who alleged that her boss in the bank's US wealth management business offered her designer purses and shoes in exchange for sex.
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