“The biotechnology giant Amgen is expected to plead guilty Tuesday to illegally marketing its drugs, people close to the investigation said Monday.
The United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York said in an advisory sent to the media on Monday that Amgen was scheduled to plead guilty at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning. It provided no other details…”
Comments »“Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), increasingly unloved by Wall St. because of problems with its 787 that might make the plane dangerous to fly, has decided to entice holders to keep their shares, or new investors to join the company’s list of owners. The aerospace firm will increase its dividend by 10% from 48.5 cents and will renew its $3.6 billion share buyback initiative that was initially approved in 2007…”
Comments »“Best CEO lists can be based on dozens of factors. For public companies, the best metric is usually share price. It is hard for chief executives to be considered very good if the shares of their company do not outperform the broader market.
However, current success does not mean future success is certain, and the best CEOs must also make sure their companies continue to thrive. To succeed, a CEO might have a strategic vision, a meticulous plan or the ability to hire and keep excellent management. Good performance means more to shareholders, if a stock price continues to improve over the long term. Near the top of the list of CEOs who have accomplished this kind of multiyear success are Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs.
24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 2012 track records of dozens of large company CEOs. We looked at share price, execution, revenue and EPS growth, as well as evidence of substantial long-term plans. Some of the CEOs who made the list because they excelled or stood out in some or all of these measures had one particularly good year. Dan Hess of Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) is an example. His ability to package his company and find a buyer were considered nearly impossible because of larger competitors AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless. Nevertheless, Hess managed to make a deal with Softbank, which paid a large premium to take a 70% interest in the Sprint.
Other CEOs have posted many years of strong earnings and sales growth. In most cases, to do so they have changed their products to draw in new customers or create better operating efficiencies. Howard Schultz of Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) is among these CEOs. Starbucks has not only expanded its store base, but it has done so to some extent because of a series of product innovations and additions.
To identify the best CEOs of 2012, 24/7 Wall St. screened for best performing stocks in the S&P 500 using Cap IQ. The market value of the company had to be greater than $3 billion. We also examined EPS and earnings growth for the most recent quarter and recent year. To ensure that we only measured the impact of the current CEO and not a predecessor, we only considered executives who had been in the position for at least two years. Finally, we only considered CEOs who had done something particularly meaningful that had, or likely would have, a long-term effect on the companies they run.
“Morgan Stanley is paying for its role in the troubled stock market debut of Facebook.
On Monday, Massachusetts’s top financial authority fined the bank $5 million for violating securities laws, the first major regulatory action tied to Facebook’s initial public stock offering.
William F. Galvin, the secretary of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, accused the bank of improperly influencing the stock offering process. The regulator’s consent order asserts that a senior Morgan Stanley banker coached Facebook on how to share information with stock analysts who cover the social media company, a potential violation of a landmark legal settlement with Wall Street. While the banker never contacted the analysts directly, his actions, Mr. Galvin said, put ordinary investors at a disadvantage because they lacked access to the same research.
“The broader message here is we are going to use any means possible to enforce the strict code in place about giving out information,” Mr. Galvin said in an interview. “We want to get the message across that if Wall Street wants to get confidence back, they can’t disadvantage Main Street.”
Comments »“Private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP said it is seeking to sell the company that manufactures a gun used in last week’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
“We have determined to immediately engage in a formal process to sell our investment in Freedom Group…We believe that this decision allows us to meet our obligations to the investors whose interests we are entrusted to protect without being drawn into the national debate that is more properly pursued by those with the formal charter and public responsibility to do so,” Cerberus said in a statement Tuesday…”
Comments »“Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), the world’s biggest retailer, said it’s investigating how it got a license for a store in Mexico as the New York Times reported its local unit bribed an official to change a zoning map.
Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB gave $52,000 to an official to redraw a 2003 zoning map that would have prohibited commercial development on a field less than a mile from the pyramids of Teotihuacan, according to the report. A former lawyer of the company known as Walmex cited the incident as he told Wal-Mart executives of how the unit used bribery, the newspaper reported….”
Comments »“Credit Suisse’s (CS) leveraged volatility-trading note — the one at the center of a trading controversy earlier this year – will undertake a procedure this week that should help it stick around U.S. markets.
On Friday, the bank announced a 1-for-10 reverse splitfor the VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX Short Term ETN (TVIX), a move that will increase its price by a factor of ten while reducing share count similarly.”
Comments »“(Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp has been ordered to pay a record fine of $17.35 million for failing to report a safety defect to the U.S. government in a timely manner, the U.S. Department of Transportation said.
The fine is the highest civil penalty ever paid by a single automaker to the department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for violations related to a recall, the department said on Tuesday.”
Comments »“Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) will withdraw patent lawsuits targeting Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s use of its technology in European countries, the company said today.
“Samsung has decided to withdraw our injunction requests against Apple on the basis of our standard essential patents pending in European courts, in the interest of protecting consumer choice,” the Seoul-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. The decision on European lawsuits comes hours after a U.S. court ruled it wouldn’t ban sales of 26 Samsung products in a patent lawsuit…”
Comments »“Purchase applications are a leading indicator for single-family home sales and housing construction. Yesterday, the Mortgage Bankers Association announced that purchase applications rose 1% in the week of Dec. 7, making it the fifth straight week applications have increased.
This news is an encouraging sign for large home-improvement retailers, including Home Depot (NYSE: HD ) , Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW ) , and Lumber Liquidators (NYSE: LL ) . These three companies benefit directly by selling appliances and materials for housing-related projects, serving three customer groups:
“TORONTO (Reuters) – Sun Life Financial Inc will sell its U.S. annuity business for $1.35 billion to a unit of asset manager Guggenheim Partners in a deal that should reduce the exposure of the insurer’s earnings to market swings and boost its cash levels.
Even so, shareholders pulled Sun Life’s stock down by 2.5 percent on Monday after the Canadian company announced the deal, which will reduce its book value and core earnings.
“The financial implications are more negative than we had assumed both in terms of the book value decline and the ongoing earnings impairment,” CIBC World Markets analyst Robert Sedran wrote in a research note.
Guggenheim’s Delaware Life Holdings unit will take on the business, which also includes some life insurance assets, and rename it Delaware Life Insurance Co.
New York-based Guggenheim, which has about $160 billion in assets under management, recently emerged as the lead bidder for the Sun Life assets, outbidding at least two other parties, sources told Reuters in November.
Sun Life, Canada’s No. 3 insurer, said last year it would stop selling variable annuities and individual life products in the United States to focus more on group insurance and voluntary benefits…”
Comments »“(Reuters) – Clearwire Corp agreed to sell roughly half of the company for $2.2 billion to majority shareholder Sprint Nextel Corp, which would then have full ownership of spectrum that will help it offer high-speed wireless services.
The $2.97-per-share deal is only 7 cents per share higher than a bid many minority shareholders said was too low days before. Clearwire shares tumbled 12.2 percent to $2.96 in morning trading on Monday.
Sprint already owns slightly more than half of Clearwire. The company said owners of 13 percent of Clearwire shares – Comcast Corp, Intel Corp and Bright House Networks LLC – had agreed to vote for the deal.
But it was not immediately clear whether Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, could win the backing of a majority of Clearwire’s minority shareholders, which it needs to take control…”
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“Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) is expected to receive a military satellite contract from the U.S. Air Force by Dec. 31 that may be valued at almost $2.6 billion, according to the service and the company.
The contract would cover the purchase of two space vehicles, the final installment in a six-satellite constellation of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications program…”
Comments »“HONG KONG (Reuters) – American International Group Inc may raise as much as $6.5 billion from the sale of its remaining stake inAIA Group Ltd in Asia’s second-largest block sale ever, exiting a business the U.S. insurer helped found nearly 100 years ago.
AIG is offering its 13.69 percent stake in AIA , or 1.65 billion shares, in a range of HK$29.65-HK$30.65 apiece, sources with direct knowledge of the plan said.
That is a discount of up to 6.3 percent to AIA’s close at HK$31.65 in Hong Kong on Friday, the sources said, declining to be identified as the terms of the offering weren’t yet public. Trading of AIA was suspended on Monday at the company’s request.
The sale marks the end of an era for AIG in Asia and its Chief Executive Robert Benmosche, who took AIA public in Hong Kong in the world’s third-biggest initial public offering ever.
AIG was forced to sell parts of its massive business after the U.S. government bailed the company out in 2008 as it teetered on the brink of collapse. The United States ultimately sent $182 billion on the rescue. AIA was one of the assets it put up for sale.
Since AIA’s $20.5 billion IPO, its shares have soared about 61 percent and become a top choice of fund managers looking to benefit from growing wealth in Asia and booming demand for insurance and other financial products.
The widely expected block offering of Asia’s third-biggest insurer will be surpassed only by Vodafone plc’s $6.6 billion stake sale in China Mobile two years ago. The offering also comes one week after a lockup on the shares expired, adding to two other rounds of AIA share sales earlier this year that had raised about $8 billion in total.”
Comments »“UBS AG (UBSN) is set to pay as much as $1.6 billion to settle claims of Libor manipulation by the U.S. Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.K. Financial Services Authority and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, said a person familiar with the probes.
The announcement could come by tomorrow, said the person, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter. The $1.6 billion figure would be more than three times the 290 million pounds ($469 million) that Barclays Plc (BARC) agreed to pay last June to settle allegations that its employees conspired to manipulate theLondon interbank offered rate, which is used in bank borrowing.
As part of the case, U.S. prosecutors are planning to file charges against multiple bankers associated with UBS’s rigging of Tokyo interbank lending rates, according to another person with knowledge of the matter. The charges would be the first brought by the Department of Justice against individuals alleged to have manipulated Libor and comparable lending rates in Europe and Japan.”
Comments »“Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) is poised to take back the title of world’s biggest automaker for 2012, as Volkswagen AG (VOW) fights General Motors Co. (GM) for second place heading into the final weeks.
The battle among the world’s biggest carmakers comes as the industry is headed for a record year. Global 2012 sales will top 80 million cars and trucks for the first time, as robust U.S. and Japanese purchases offset a European downturn, according to estimates from LMC Automotive. Toyota is rebounding from Japan’s 2011 tsunami to take the title from GM, while the fight for second between Volkswagen and GM remains too close to call, with less than one percent difference between their sales.”
Comments »“Bank of America Corp. (BAC) said it’s issued a notice of default to MBIA Inc. (MBI) after buying some of the bond insurer’s notes in an attempt to block a legal maneuver in their three-year dispute over toxic mortgage assets.
Bank of America, which failed to persuade investors to sell it a majority of the $329 million of 5.7 percent bonds due in 2034 that were outstanding early in November, said in a statement yesterday that it has acquired $136 million of the notes. MBIA said on Nov. 26 that it repurchased $170 million of the securities, leaving $159 million in investors’ hands, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
MBIA was seeking consent from its bondholders to alter terms of the securities to protect itself from the threat of a regulatory seizure of MBIA Insurance Corp., its unit that insured real estate-related debt that soured during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. After Bank of America bid to buy the December 2034 bonds, potentially providing holders with a better deal than the $10 per $1,000 of face value solicitation fee from MBIA, the insurer purchased about 52 percent of the debt in order to ensure it had sufficient support.
The bank is objecting to MBIA’s buying back notes at or above par from a select group of holders after discouraging bondholders in a Nov. 20 statement from accepting Bank of America’s tender offer at face value, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.
Bank of America also asserts the consent solicitation is invalid because their bond indenture dictates that if MBIA beneficially owns any portion of the notes, they don’t count as outstanding for purposes of changing the terms, according to the person.”
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