Let the bailouts begin.
Comments »Monthly Archives: November 2011
BLACK FRIDAY ONLINE SALES +26%
Online retail sales in the United States on the post-Thanksgiving shopping day known as “Black Friday” jumped 26 percent this year, led by Amazon.com Inc
Comments »German Finance Minister Exploring European Stability Union
Should the Fed Save Europe From Disaster?
Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn Have Beef (Kobe, of Course)
AS Wall Street smackdowns go, this one’s a doozy.
In one corner is Carl C. Icahn, the corporate raider who made C.E.O.’s tremble back in the 1980s and, at 75, is still chasing deals.
In the other is William A. Ackman, 45, one of Mr. Icahn’s figurative heirs and a leading practitioner of the bruising, Icahnesque craft politely known as activist investing.
These ultrarich men battled for seven years in multiple courts, over a relatively paltry $4.5 million. That might be real money to mere mortals, but to these two, it’s barely a rounding error.
So why bother? This battle, it turns out, was more about big egos than big money — and it has left both men spitting expletives. The scrape finally ended this month, with Mr. Ackman victorious. But, before it was over, the affair occupied a Who’s Who of powerful lawyers and ran up millions of dollars in legal fees, all because of an otherwise forgettable deal the pair cut back in 2004.
“The guy is a shakedown artist,” Mr. Ackman sneers. “His word is worthless.”
Mr. Icahn says: “He’s now the young gunfighter who wants to show he beat the older gunfighter with a big reputation. He just likes pounding himself on the chest.”
In the secretive world of hedge funds, most money managers prefer to keep low. Not Mr. Icahn and Mr. Ackman. They are media hounds who court public attention and regularly star at investor conferences. Both buy stakes in companies and agitate for change. Both bemoan what they see as management failures and try to shame companies into replacing their C.E.O.’s, shake up their boards and do whatever it takes to bolster the value of their investments.
In many ways, this is a generational battle, a clash of old Wall Street and new Wall Street. Mr. Icahn may at times seem trapped in the 1980s, right down to his Gecko-esque blue shirts with white collars and cuffs. After 50 years in this game, he still seems to think that most companies would be better off if they would just listen to Carl C. Icahn.
Mr. Ackman is the smart-alecky boy wonder in a crisp modern suit and a Charvet tie. He, too, has become wildly rich, albeit without the old Icahn gruffness. After losing a battle against Target in 2009, he choked up during a speech in which he quoted Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy.
When he first met Mr. Icahn in 2003, Mr. Ackman was virtually unknown outside Wall Street circles. It looked as if he might remain so. His world was falling apart. Gotham Partners, the hedge fund he helped to found when he was in his 20s, had just blown up. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Eliot Spitzer, then attorney general of New York, were investigating him. His investors wanted their money back.
So Mr. Ackman cold-called Mr. Icahn.
He wanted to sell Hallwood Realty, a company whose stock traded at about $60. Mr. Ackman believed Hallwood was worth $140 a share. “By reputation, I knew he was a tough guy and a difficult guy,” Mr. Ackman says. “I wanted to make sure I could collect.”
He continues: “I insisted the agreement be short. I also insisted it have a mathematical example in it, so that there could be no question about the intent of the agreement.”
That’s not quite the way Mr. Icahn remembers it. He says that he was the one who was worried, and that Mr. Ackman was under investigation and desperate to sell. (Both investigations were later dropped.)
“I checked him out,” Mr. Icahn says. “He was in trouble with the S.E.C.; he had investors leaving him. A few of my friends called me up and said; ‘Don’t deal with this guy.’ ”
Mr. Icahn says he saved Mr. Ackman’s bacon, although he puts it more colorfully. The two hammered out a contract. Mr. Icahn said he would pay Mr. Ackman $80 a share and offered a form of insurance. If Mr. Icahn unloaded his shares within three years, the two would split any profit above a 10 percent return.
Mr. Ackman wanted to bulletproof the deal. He included a provision that if the payout became contentious, the loser would pay all the legal fees. And if any payment was delayed, the contract stipulated, Mr. Icahn would owe Mr. Ackman a hefty amount of interest.
Initially, everything went according to plan. Mr. Ackman even visited Mr. Icahn’s offices to share another investment idea with him: betting against MBIA, a bond insurer that he believed was poised to collapse.
“We were rooting for Carl because we were effectively partners,” Mr. Ackman says. “And then” — expletives follow.
In 2004, Hallwood merged with another company, for $137 a share, netting Mr. Icahn a tidy profit. After waiting a few days, Mr. Ackman called to compliment him and to ask about his share.
As Mr. Ackman tells it, the older man scoffed: “First off, I didn’t sell,” Mr. Icahn told him. Mr. Icahn argued that a merger did not constitute a sale of shares.
“Well, do you still own the shares?” Mr. Ackman asked.
“No,” Mr. Icahn said. “But I didn’t sell.”
And so it went. Mr. Ackman threatened to sue. Mr. Icahn roared that he would countersue.
“Go ahead, sue me. You know what, I’m going to sue you!” Mr. Icahn shouted, according to Mr. Ackman, who says Mr. Icahn told him that he took his advice on MBIA and lost $20 million.
Mr. Icahn says that he never threatened to sue Mr. Ackman and that he held onto his bet against MBIA long enough to make money. Mr. Ackman sued in 2004, contending breach of contract.
As years rolled by, the dispute became a running joke on Wall Street. Mr. Ackman went on to open a new firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, and became an investing celebrity. He took positions in the likes of Sears, McDonald’s and, more recently, J. C. Penney. He made $1.5 billion on a bet on General Growth Properties.
Mr. Ackman’s offices in Midtown Manhattan are white marble and white leather, punctuated with odd pieces like the pilot’s ejector seat from a nuclear bomber from the 1950s. Had Mr. Icahn paid him from the start, he says, he would have shared his winning ideas. Instead, he joined with firms like Vornado Realty Trust, the big real estate company run by Steven Roth. Mr. Roth, he says, has made reams of money from the relationship.
While Mr. Ackman has moved on, Mr. Icahn, in many ways, seems frozen in time. His offices are filled with mahogany and classical paintings and sculptures. He still keeps odd hours, sleeping in and then working late. His voice is still Far Rockaway growl. He uses it to bark at corporate directors, competitors and, periodically, Mr. Ackman.
“Maybe I can be a tough guy, but I’ve been in business since 1960 and made money every year except 2008,” Mr. Icahn says. “I have never ever been in a lawsuit with anybody who trusted me with money or in a lawsuit with any employee.”
Over the last seven years, Mr. Icahn and Mr. Ackman have interacted only a few times. Mostly, it is their lawyers who have suffered the endless rounds of motions, hearings and appeals. (Mr. Ackman hired Andrew J. Levander, the criminal defense lawyer who was recently hired by Jon S. Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey, who presided over the recent collapse of the brokerage firm MF Global.)
Mr. Ackman and Mr. Icahn agree about one interaction. It was a few years ago — they disagree about the exact date — at Il Tinello, a restaurant on West 56th Street that Mr. Icahn likes.
After a lengthy, boozy dinner, Mr. Icahn made an offer: he would put $10 million in one of Mr. Ackman’s favorite charities to settle the dispute once and for all. Mr. Ackman refused, saying the money belonged to Gotham investors. The men left amicably. Mr. Ackman says he paid the bill.
Then, in late 2010, the lawsuit resurfaced as a point of conflict. Mr. Ackman received a call from a friend, David Tisch, the New York investor, wanting to know about his experience with Mr. Icahn. Mr. Tisch told him that Mr. Icahn was looking to invest about $100 million in Mr. Tisch’s new fund, Mr. Ackman says. (Through a spokesperson, Mr. Tisch says he never turned down a formal offer from Mr. Icahn and would welcome any investment in the future. Mr. Icahn says he does not recall anyone by the name of David Tisch.)
So Mr. Ackman says he told his friend what had transpired. Mr. Tisch refused Mr. Icahn’s money.
Mr. Icahn, says Mr. Ackman, called in a huff.
“Bill, you’re blaspheming me,” Mr. Icahn complained, according to Mr. Ackman.
Mr. Icahn says he does not recall any such conversation. He also notes that he is asked almost daily by hedge fund managers to make investments, so that losing out on one opportunity means little to him.
And that was it, until last month, after Mr. Icahn’s final appeal was denied. Mr. Ackman received nearly $9 million from Mr. Icahn, almost double the original amount, thanks to the accrued interest.
On the day of the transfer, Mr. Icahn called the younger man and left a message. Mr. Ackman returned the call. He never heard back.
At least until Nov. 17, when, after an inquiry from The New York Times, Mr. Icahn finally called — and let Mr. Ackman have it once again.
“He started to lecture me,” Mr. Icahn says of Mr. Ackman. “And I said, ‘I’ve been in this business for 50 years, and I’ve done O.K. without your advice.’ ”
IMF Bailout of Italy a ‘Rumor’, Already ‘Dead in the Water’
Any increase in funding of the IMF, which is already under-funded, has to be approved by the U.S. Congress. Anyone think ‘Mericans are going to approve sending hundreds of billions over to Italy?
Comments »IMF Said to Be Preparing a Loan of $794 Billion to Italy
This bazooka loan will give Monti and his new government more time, (12-18 months,) to devise and implement budget reform.
Comments »Germany and France to Announce a New Stability Pact
Changing existing rules and mandates may take too long so the leaders of the EU are “planning more drastic means.”
Comments »Toyota Tries to Spice Up Their Image With a New Sports Car
For now the only name is 86. Did anyone tell them that 86 means cancel or nothing left in the restaurant industry ?
Consumers Spend $11.4 Billion on Black Friday
Euro Zone May Free Banks from Taking Bond Losses
In a sentence, plans are taking shape to socialize all the losses over in the Euro Zone.
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Euro zone states may ditch plans to impose losses on private bondholders should countries need to restructure their debt under a new bailout fund due to launch in mid-2013, four EU officials told Reuters on Friday.
The possible move helped push stocks up in Europe and the U.S.
Discussions are taking place against a backdrop of flagging market confidence in the region’s debt and as part of wider negotiations over introducing stricter fiscal rules to the EU treaty.
Euro zone powerhouse Germany is insisting on tighter budgets and private sector involvement (PSI) in bailouts as a precondition for deeper economic integration among euro zone countries.
Commercial banks and insurance companies are still expected to take a hit on their holdings of Greek sovereign bonds as part of the second bailout package being finalized for Athens.
But clauses relating to PSI in the statutes of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) — the permanent facility scheduled to start operating from July 2013 — could be withdrawn, with the majority of euro zone states now opposed to them.
The concern is that forcing the private sector bondholders to take losses if a country restructures its debt is undermining confidence in euro zone sovereign bonds. If those stipulations are removed, most countries in the euro zone argue, market sentiment might improve.
“France, Italy, Spain and all the peripherals” are in favor of removing the clauses, one EU official told Reuters. “Against it are Germany, Finland and the Netherlands.” Austria is also opposed, another source said.
A third official said that while German insistence on retaining private sector involvement in the ESM was fading, collective action clauses would only be removed as part of broader negotiations under way over changes to the EU treaty.
Berlin wants all 27 EU countries, or at least the 17 in the euro zone, to provide full backing for alterations to the treaty before it will consider giving ground on other issues member states want it to shift on, officials say.
Germany is under pressure to soften its opposition to the European Central Bank ![[cnbc explains]](https://ibankcoin.com/news/wp-content/imagescaler/b095857bc35684a1ecf9bbc7c44ce936.gif){kind=small}
playing a more direct role in combating the crisis, and member states also want Berlin to give its backing to the idea of jointly issued euro zone bonds.
German officials dismiss any suggestion of a ‘grand bargain’ being put together, but officials in other euro zone capitals, including Brussels, say such a deal is taking shape and suggest Berlin will move when it has the commitments it is seeking, although it’s unclear when that will be.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Strasbourg on Thursday that there was no quid pro quo being set up.
“This is not about give and take,” she said.
Euro zone finance ministers will discuss the ESM at a meeting in Brussels on Nov. 29-30, including the implications of dropping collective action clauses from its statutes.
Complications
While most euro zone countries just want to forget about enforced private sector involvement, some are adamant that there must be a way to ensure banks and not just taxpayers shoulder some of the costs of bailing countries out.
Read the rest here.
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Banks Build Contingencies for Breakup of Euro
By LIZ ALDERMAN
PARIS — For the growing chorus of observers who fear that a breakup of the euro zone might be at hand, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has a pointed rebuke: It’s never going to happen.
But some banks are no longer so sure, especially as the sovereign debt crisis threatened to ensnare Germany itself this week, when investors began to question the nation’s stature as Europe’s main pillar of stability.
On Friday, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Belgium’s credit standing to AA from AA+, saying it might not be able to cut its towering debt load any time soon. Ratings agencies this week cautioned that France could lose its AAA rating if the crisis grew. On Thursday, agencies lowered the ratings of Portugal and Hungary to junk.
While European leaders still say there is no need to draw up a Plan B, some of the world’s biggest banks, and their supervisors, are doing just that.
“We cannot be, and are not, complacent on this front,” Andrew Bailey, a regulator at Britain’s Financial Services Authority, said this week. “We must not ignore the prospect of a disorderly departure of some countries from the euro zone,” he said.
Banks including Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Nomura issued a cascade of reports this week examining the likelihood of a breakup of the euro zone. “The euro zone financial crisis has entered a far more dangerous phase,” analysts at Nomura wrote on Friday. Unless the European Central Bank steps in to help where politicians have failed, “a euro breakup now appears probable rather than possible,” the bank said.
Major British financial institutions, like the Royal Bank of Scotland, are drawing up contingency plans in case the unthinkable veers toward reality, bank supervisors said Thursday. United States regulators have been pushing American banks like Citigroup and others to reduce their exposure to the euro zone. In Asia, authorities in Hong Kong have stepped up their monitoring of the international exposure of foreign and local banks in light of the European crisis.
But banks in big euro zone countries that have only recently been infected by the crisis do not seem to be nearly as flustered.
Banks in France and Italy in particular are not creating backup plans, bankers say, for the simple reason that they have concluded it is impossible for the euro to break up. Although banks like BNP Paribas, Société Générale, UniCredit and others recently dumped tens of billions of euros worth of European sovereign debt, the thinking is that there is little reason to do more.
“While in the United States there is clearly a view that Europe can break up, here, we believe Europe must remain as it is,” said one French banker, summing up the thinking at French banks. “So no one is saying, ‘We need a fallback,’ ” said the banker, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Read the rest here.
Comments »Prepare for Riots in Euro Collapse, British Embassies Warn
British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.
By James Kirkup, Deputy Political Editor
10:00PM GMT 25 Nov 2011
As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.
Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.
The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.
A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government’s concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.
“It’s in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare,” the minister told the Daily Telegraph.
Read the rest here.
Benny and the Jets: Man Flies Alongside Fighter Jets
This guy is truly living out his dreams; watch him fly alongside fighter jets.
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIFuldq2qAw 450 300]Comments »
Fun With RT
While many of you will question source, motive, etc; I think it behooves us all to look at current events from a different angle.
Comments »BREAKING: Pakistan Stops NATO Supplies After Raid Kills Up to 28
NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations, already deeply frayed, further into crisis.
Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes intoAfghanistan, used for sending in just under a third of the alliance’s supplies.
The attack is the worst single incident of its kind since Pakistan uneasily allied itself with Washington in the days immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. targets.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan, its ally in the war on militancy, have been strained following the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces in a raid on the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in May, which Pakistan called a flagrant violation of sovereignty.
A spokesman for NATO-led troops in Afghanistan confirmed that NATO aircraft had been called in to support troops in the area and had probably killed some Pakistani soldiers.
“Close air support was called in, in the development of the tactical situation, and it is what highly likely caused the Pakistan casualties,” said General Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
He added that he could not confirm the number of casualties, but ISAF is investigating the “tragic development.”
“We are aware that Pakistani soldiers perished. We don’t know the size, the magnitude,” he said.
The Pakistani government and military brimmed with fury.
“This is an attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty,” said Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. “We will not let any harm come to Pakistan’s sovereignty and solidarity.”
The Foreign Office said it would take up the matter “in the strongest terms” with NATO and the United States.
The powerful Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, said in a statement issued by the Pakistani military that “all necessary steps be under taken for an effective response to this irresponsible act.
“A strong protest has been launched with NATO/ISAF in which it has been demanded that strong and urgent action be taken against those responsible for this aggression.”
Two military officials said that up to 28 troops had been killed and 11 wounded in the attack on the outposts, about 2.5 km (1.5 miles) from the Afghan border. The Pakistani military said 24 troops were killed and 13 wounded.
EARLY MORNING ATTACK
It remains unclear what exactly happened, but the attack took place around 2 a.m. (2100 GMT) in the Baizai area of Mohmand, where Pakistani troops are fighting Taliban militants.
“Pakistani troops effectively responded immediately in self-defense to NATO/ISAF’s aggression with all available weapons,” the Pakistani military statement said.
The commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, General John R. Allen, said he had offered his condolences to the family of any Pakistani soldiers who “may have been killed or injured.”
The U.S. embassy in Islamabad also offered condolences.
About 40 Pakistani army troops were stationed at the outposts, military sources said. Two officers were reported among the dead.
“The latest attack by NATO forces on our post will have serious repercussions as they without any reasons attacked on our post and killed soldiers asleep,” said a senior Pakistani military officer, requesting anonymity.
Reflecting the confusion of war in an ill-defined border area, an Afghan border police official, Edrees Momand, said joint Afghan-NATO troops near the outpost on Saturday morning had detained several militants.
“I am not aware of the casualties on the other side of the border but those we have detained aren’t Afghan Taliban,” he said, implying they may have been Pakistani or other foreign national Taliban operating in Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan border is often poorly marked, and Afghan and Pakistani maps have differences of several kilometers in some places, military officials have said.
However Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said that NATO had been given maps of the area, with Pakistani military posts marked out.
“When the other side is saying there is a doubt about this, there is no doubt about it. These posts have been marked and handed over to the other side for marking on their maps and are clearly inside Pakistani territory.”
The incident occurred a day after Allen met Kayani to discuss border control and enhanced cooperation.
“After the recent meetings between Pakistan and ISAF/NATO forces to build confidence and trust, these kind of attacks should not have taken place,” a senior military source told Reuters.
BLOCKED SUPPLIES
NATO supply trucks and fuel tankers bound for Afghanistan were stopped at Jamrud town in the Khyber tribal region near the city of Peshawar hours after the raid, officials said.
“We have halted the supplies and some 40 tankers and trucks have been returned from the check post in Jamrud,” Mutahir Zeb, a senior government official, told Reuters.
Another official said the supplies had been stopped for security reasons.
“There is possibility of attacks on NATO supplies passing through the volatile Khyber tribal region, therefore we sent them back toward Peshawar to remain safe,” he said.
The border crossing at Chaman in Baluchistan was also closed, Frontier Corps officials said.
Pakistan is a vital land route for nearly half of NATO supplies shipped overland to its troops in Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman said. Land shipments only account for about two thirds of the alliance’s cargo shipments into Afghanistan.
A similar incident on Sept 30, 2010, which killed two Pakistani troops, led to the closure of one of NATO’s supply routes through Pakistan for 10 days.
NATO apologized for that incident, which it said happened when NATO gunships mistook warning shots by the Pakistani forces for a militant attack.
U.S.-Pakistan relations were already reeling from a tumultuous year that saw the bin Laden raid, the jailing of a CIA contractor, and U.S. accusations that Pakistan backed a militant attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
The United States has long suspected Pakistan of continuing to secretly support Taliban militant groups to secure influence in Afghanistan after most NATO troops leave in 2014. Saturday’s incident will give Pakistan the argument that NATO is now attacking it directly.
“I think we should go to the United Nations Security Council against this,” said retired Brigadier Mahmood Shah, former chief of security in the tribal areas. “So far, Pakistan is being blamed for all that is happening in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s point of view has not been shown in the international media.”
Other analysts, including Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, said Pakistan would protest and close the supply lines for some time, but that ultimately “things will get back to normal.”
Paul Beaver, a British security analyst, said relations were so bad that this incident might have no noticeable impact.
“I’m not sure U.S.-Pakistan relations could sink much lower than they are now,” he said.
Comments »Flash: NBA Will Play (If You Happen to Care…)
Early this morning, NBA fans received their first Christmas gift: a tentative agreement to end the 149-day lockout.
One final, 15-hour marathon negotiating session brought together the final elements of a new collective bargaining agreement that fans have been yearning for since owners locked out the players July 1.
The deal will allow the league to begin its season on Christmas Day, with the season’s first tipoff to take place at Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks will play the Celtics at noon.
That game is part of a cross-country tripleheader that will include Miami at Dallas in an NBA Finals rematch before MVP Derrick Rose and Chicago close the day by facing off against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Read more: http://trade.cc/kka
Comments »Economist: The Sinking Euro
THE designers of the good ship euro wanted to create the greatest liner of the age. But as everybody now knows, it was fit only for fair-weather sailing, with an anarchic crew and no lifeboat. Its rules of economic seamanship were rudimentary, and were broken anyway. When it struck a reef two years ago, the water flooded one compartment after another.
Comments »Fun With Nigel Farage: Germany Rules Once Again (video)
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWu3mP2S3q0 450 300]
Comments »Here is Why Nobody is Accountable For the Housing/ Financial Crisis (video)
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmO7W8iC5LE 450 300]
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