Archive for June 25th, 2009

(CNN) — He was lauded and ridiculed. He broke down barriers and built them around himself. He soared to heights unimaginable with his music, and he made the ignominious front page of gutter tabloids worldwide.For Michael Jackson, the spotlight was always present, and the rest of the world followed.With “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” — the latter with Eddie Van Halen’s scorching guitar solo — he was almost single-handedly responsible for getting videos by African-American artists on MTV and helped revitalize the moribund Top 40 format in the early 1980s.”Michael Jackson made culture accept a person of color way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a friend. “Michael did with music what they later did in sports, and in politics and in television. No controversy will erase the historic impact.”0:00
/2:40The future of radio”Thriller,” a 14-minute video extravaganza directed by John Landis, paved the way for the elaborate music videos to follow — including Jackson’s “Scream,” recorded with sister Janet in 1995, which cost a reported 7 million and may be the most expensive video ever.His incredible dance talent, a modern twist on the Motown moves he witnessed as a child, led to a heightened focus on choreography in pop music videos and stage shows.His 1982 album “Thriller” smashed records. It was No. 1 for 37 weeks and, at its peak, sold a million copies a week. To date, it has sold nearly 50 million copies worldwide. The achievement set a high bar for Jackson; when his 1995 greatest-hits CD, “HIStory,” sold 7 million copies, it was considered a relative failure.Jackson was also a fashion icon, his heavily zippered leather jackets a de rigueur 1980s fashion accessory, his single, spangled glove beyond compare.On the down side, Jackson also led in making pop stars the subject of the paparazzi and tabloids in a way, perhaps, equaled only by such icons as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the pre-”Sgt. Pepper” Beatles. Rumors abounded, from his pets to his sleeping habits to his cosmetic surgery, all fodder for the press. After stories arose of possible child molestation, he never got back in the media’s good graces; he was treated as a traveling circus.From the time he was a child, it was obvious Michael Jackson was something special. In 1966, when he was 8, he joined his brothers in the band his father put together and started singing lead with brother Jermaine.Though Motown Records was the top label of the 1960s, inventing what it called “the Sound of Young America,” by 1969 — when Jackson and his brothers in the Jackson 5 first hit the charts — the label was finding itself out of step with the psychedelic and hard-soul sounds of the times.Enter the quintet from Gary, Indiana.Motown signed the group in 1968 and poured its all into the Jackson 5’s first single, “I Want You Back” — the writing and production team were credited as “The Corporation” — and Jackson’s imploring, dramatic vocal rocked America. The song hit No. 1 in January 1970, and was followed by three more No. 1s in quick succession.Thanks to their squeaky-clean image, the Jackson 5 became teen idols, unusual for a group of African-American youngsters. Michael Jackson’s face appeared on the covers of teen magazines; the band even became the subject of an animated Saturday-morning TV show, another first for an African-American group.But it was in the 1980s, when Jackson became a worldwide phenomenon, that his impact really began to be felt.He was much imitated, from his hair to his clothes to his dance moves. The music was superbly crafted pop, produced by Quincy Jones and often written by Jackson himself. Even rock critics approved; the album “Thriller” earned an A from the picky Robert Christgau, among others.There came a moment, around that time, when pop music went into a Jackson era. “Thriller” had nine songs; seven of them became singles. Jackson teamed with Lionel Richie to write the fundraising song “We Are the World”; it was his presence, as much as that of Richie, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder, that propelled the song to No. 1.Jackson reteamed with his brothers for an album, “Destiny,” and accompanying tour. It was the hottest tour of the year, despite complaints about sales practices. (Partly because of the controversy, Jackson announced publicly he was donating all his money from the tour to charity.)He was a role model. At the peak of his fame, there were reports of a humbly dressed Jackson ringing doorbells as part of his Jehovah’s Witness faith.Though Jackson’s image eventually became sullied by the molestation allegations and stories of eccentricity, there was never any doubt about his entertainment legacy. “Thriller” and “Bad” are still among the top sellers of all time. His fluid dance moves and stage presence set standards that rising stars — often compared to Jackson — struggle to equal.”Of all the thousands of entertainers I have worked with, Michael was the most outstanding. Many have tried and will try to copy him, but his talent will never be matched. He was truly one-of-a-kind,” said Dick Clark, who would know.And then there’s the music, from the early, explosive joy of the Jackson 5 hits to the elegant ballads, down-and-dirty grooves and ecstatic dance hits of his solo years. “The Love You Save,” “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” “Bad” — they are pop music boiled down to its best essence, with a good beat, an engrossing melody and even, sometimes, a message of love and fellowship.It’s enough to take a listener to the moon.

Source:CNN

HOUSTON (Reuters) — Accused swindler Allen Stanford will remain in a Texas jail overnight after a U.S. judge Thursday delayed allowing him to post bond because the government opposed it.U.S. Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy had approved a plan for Stanford to pay 500,000, including a 100,000 cash deposit, that would allow Stanford to walk free until his trial begins in August.Judge Stacy then stayed the issuance of Stanford’s bond after the U.S. government objected on the grounds that Stanford is a flight risk.

Source:CNN

NEW YORK: Every state has committed at least half its highway stimulus funds so none will lose any of its allocation, the Obama administration said Thursday.States had until June 29 to obligate the funds or risk losing half the leftover money. Only a month ago, some 14 states had yet to satisfy that goal. Hawaii was the last to meet the mark, hitting it on June 19. Maine has secured 100% of its funds and 15 states have more than 80% of their money committed.”By delivering on these projects ahead of schedule and under-budget, we have been able to do even more than we expected,” said Vice President Joe Biden.The Federal Highway Administration has approved a total of 15.8 billion for more than 4,800 projects, as of June 25. States, however, have spent less than 190 million, as of June 19, according to federal data.To commit the funds, states had to gain approval for their projects from the Federal Highway Administration, an agency of the Department of Transportation. The money doesn’t actually have to be spent, which can take months as projects go through the contracting and construction process. Some states — Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Arizona, Virginia and New Mexico — have yet to claim any funds. Illinois has spent the most, claiming more than 47.6 million of the 664 million allocated so far.0:00
/3:00States’ budget bummersRepublicans in Congress said they were concerned by the slow pace of spending.”This is pitiful that we can’t get people working, we can’t get the stimulus money out,” said Rep. John Mica, (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. “People want jobs and they want them now.”The administration did not report how many jobs have been created or saved thanks to the infrastructure funding. The issue has become a source of controversy, with Republicans on Capitol Hill questioning the the recovery act’s effectiveness in stemming the unemployment tidal wave.States are sharing 26.6 billion for highway infrastructure projects, though only 18.6 billion is subject to the June deadline. The road allocations are among the earliest of the 280 billion in funds going to states and municipalities as part of the 787 billion recovery act.Including transit and airport construction, the federal Department of Transportation is making 48.1 billion available, of which 19 billion has already been committed to more than 5,300 projects, according to the administration. Currently, more than 1,900 projects are underway.A total of 369 million has been spent, Mica said. Only 11 million has flowed to the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates, he said.

Source:CNN

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Smartphone maker Palm Inc. Thursday posted a narrower-than-expected loss despite a steep revenue decline, sending its shares up more than 7%.The maker of the Pre posted a net loss applicable to common shareholders of 105 million, or 78 cents a share, in the fiscal fourth-quarter ended May 29, compared with a loss of 43.4 million, or 40 cents a share, in the year-ago period.Excluding items, Palm’s loss came to 40 cents a share, versus an average analyst estimate of 65 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.Revenue fell more than 70% to 86.8 million, versus a Wall Street estimate of 80.3 million.Shares of Sunnyvale, California-based Palm (PALM) closed at 14.02 on the Nasdaq and rose to 15.03 in extended trading. The company’s shares have more than quadrupled this year.

Source:CNN

NEW YORK (Fortune) — It is no surprise that Hans Vestberg, who will become Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson’s CEO next year, started off an interview about his new post by talking about the global financial crisis. Vestberg, after all, is the Swedish telecommunications gear maker’s chief financial officer, and he’s had a front-row seat for the worldwide economic malaise.But Vestberg, who will replace Carl-Henric Svanberg (he’s becoming BP’s chairman), will face more challenges than the global economy, which may start to rebound as he takes office. A more persistent challenge for Ericsson (ERIC) may well be competition from rivals old and new.Earlier this month Nokia Siemens, a joint venture of the two telecom giants, agreed to acquire key wireless assets from Canada’s Nortel. The purchase will give Nokia Siemens a stronger foothold in the North American market, where Ericsson, the world’s largest supplier of wireless telecom equipment, has been a major player.The Nortel deal “gives Nokia Siemens something else in their arsenal,” says Jane Zweig, CEO of the Shosteck Group, a telecommunications consulting group. “And I don’t think Ericsson really factored Nokia Siemens in.”Ericsson also faces stiff competition from a pair of Chinese equipment makers, Huawei and ZTE.Huawei and ZTE have been taking share from established equipment makers such as Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) and others for years. Initially customers had concerns about the quality of the Chinese companies’ products. But today, phone operators say, the products from Huawei and ZTE are comparable to those made by longtime gear providers.0:00
/3:19What’s in your iPhone?Vestberg, 44, says he believes Ericsson has its own set of tools in its arsenal. “Of course, we will always face competition whether they are French American or Chinese,” he says. “I think our competitive advantage is our technology leadership. We will compete by having the best technology and the most robust technology.”He also points to Ericsson’s strong presence in the services business. As telecom networks have become more complex, a growing number of operators are turning to Ericsson (and others) to basically run their systems and help them migrate from one generation of technology to the next.Vestberg appears to have the energy for the job. Since joining the company in 1991 he has worked for Ericsson around the world in markets such as China, Chile and Brazil. He was president of Ericsson in Mexico and served as CFO for Ericsson in North America.Executives and analysts who’ve met Vestberg describe him as personable and relationship oriented. And because he worked so closely with Svanberg, they say, investors are not likely to see many radical changes in Ericsson’s strategy.

Source:CNN

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Bank of America Corp. was sued on Thursday in a federal lawsuit in New York, accusing the largest U.S. bank of discriminating against female brokers at the former Merrill Lynch & Co. by offering them lower retention bonuses than their male counterparts.The lawsuit seeks class-action status, and contends that women brokers were typically eligible for lower bonuses because of gender bias at Merrill, including the brokerage’s practice of steering wealthier clients to male brokers.Because bonuses were based on “production,” or fees earned on client assets, the payout practice authorized by Bank of America “disproportionately disadvantages women and advantages white men as favored employees,” the complaint said.The case was brought in Manhattan federal court by Jaime Goodman, who said she worked as a Merrill broker for 16 years prior to the Jan. 1, 2009 merger.According to the complaint, Goodman was a top-quintile performer at Merrill, having been “a 1 million producer for nearly a decade,” but would have fared even better and gotten a higher retention bonus absent discrimination.Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) did not immediately return requests for comment.The plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages including the value of all compensation and benefits lost because of the alleged bias, as well as punitive damages and other remedies.

Source:CNN

NEW YORK: The global financial crisis took a heavy toll on the world’s wealthiest individuals last year, with the number of millionaires falling by a record amount, according to a report released Thursday.The number of high net worth individuals, those with assets of 1 million or more, plummeted by a record 19.5% in 2008 to 8.6 million worldwide, a survey by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini showed. In 2007, the millionaire ranks totaled 10.1 million worldwide. Millionaires saw the value of their investments cut to 32.8 trillion, down 19.5% from 40.7 trillion in 2007, as world stock markets and property values plunged. The “unprecedented” declines wiped out all of the gains from the previous two years, the report said. “What started as a financial crisis soon expanded into the larger economy, affecting mature and emerging markets alike,” the report said. “World equity markets lost a decade of gains.”The number of millionaires in the United States fell 18.5% last year to 2.5 million. But the U.S. remains the single largest home to millionaires, accounting for 28.7% of the global millionaire population, the report said. While the world’s population of millionaires is still concentrated in the United States, Japan and Germany, the survey showed that the ranks are beginning to shift to other regions. For example, China now has more millionaires than United Kingdom, the report said. The firms now expect millionaires in the Asia-Pacific region to outnumber those in North America by 2013, in part because of strong economic growth in China.Millionaires in Brazil, another developing economy, also moved up on the list despite last year’s turmoil. Brazil surpassed Australia and Spain to reach 10th place among millionaire populations globally.Looking ahead, millionaire’s financial wealth is forecast to grow to 48.5 trillion by 2013, advancing at an annualized rate of 8.1%. This compares with annualized growth of 10.4% from 2005 to 2007.”This growth will be driven by the recovery in asset prices as the global economy and financial system right themselves,” the report said. Still, the world’s millionaires remain defensive when it comes to their investments. The report showed that millionaires have half of their investment portfolios in cash and fixed-income instruments.

Source:CNN

NEW YORK (Reuters) — The U.S. Federal Reserve on Thursday extended a number of its emergency funding facilities and swap lines with central banks around the world to Feb. 1, 2010, saying that while conditions in financial markets have improved recently, some markets remain impaired and seem “likely to be strained for some time.”The U.S. central bank had set up a number of programs to support various credit markets that were frozen in fear of large losses as a result of the crisis. The programs had been scheduled to expire at the end of October.The Fed’s Board of Governors approved extension of the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF), the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), and the Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF).The Fed also extended the temporary reciprocal currency arrangements, known as swap lines, between the Federal Reserve and other central banks to Feb. 1.

Source:CNN

NEW YORK: If you’re looking for signs that the market and economy are slowly returning to normal, it is somewhat encouraging that demand for new stocks is finally perking up again.Medidata, a software company for big drug companies, went public Thursday and its stock was up more than 20% in late-morning trading. Medidata’s initial public offering comes one day after two Chinese firms, chemical manufacturer Chemspec International (CPC) and water treatment equipment maker Duoyuan Global Water (DGW), also had successful debuts as public companies. As amazing as it may sound, these three offerings make this week the busiest one for IPOs since April 2008.With that in mind, could the IPO market continue to show signs of life? And if so, will other hot private companies, most notably social networking darlings Facebook and Twitter, soon file for offerings of their own?That might be asking for too much. While Facebook has effectively stolen all the thunder from MySpace, and Twitter is earning raves due to its use as a means for social protest in Iran, both companies still haven’t proven how they intend to transform from merely being cool to also being profitable. And even though IPOs do appear to be making a comeback, investors still seem to be favoring substance over style. It’s helping that companies and underwriters appear to be doing a good job of gauging demand for the new stock. So stocks have tended to do well on their first day but not skyrocket to absurd heights the way low priced dot-com IPOs did back in the late 1990s.”For the most part, everything’s that come on to the market since November has worked. There haven’t been any disasters or disappointments. Deals are being priced at more reasonable valuations,” said Ben Holmes, publisher of MorningNotes.com, a Boulder, Colo.-based independent research firm focusing on IPOs and secondary issues. Talkback: Would you invest in Facebook or Twitter if they go public? Are they worth the hype?Leave your comments at the bottom of this story. But after this week, there’s not much for investors to choose from as the pipeline of prospective IPOs remains mostly empty. There is one company on tap to go public next week, tech service firm LogMeIn. That’s it.Part of that is a typical slump in activity during the summer. The pipeline could start to fill up later this year as long as the recent crop of IPOs continues to fare well.”As long as demand and performance stay healthy, the window for IPOs will remain open,” said Eric Guja, a research analyst with Renaissance Capital, a Greenwich, Conn.-based investment firm specializing in IPOs “But the one thing we’ve yet to see is a real pickup in filing activity.” 0:00
/2:44Twitter finds its ‘moment’That said, there actually have been several successful IPOs so far this year. And some of them have even been ones with significant investments from venture capitalists. The knock on some venture-backed IPOs in the past is that VCs may have rushed some companies onto the markets to take advantage of momentum and investor enthusiasm. As a result, some VC-backed companies debuted to dizzying one-day returns and wound up quickly fizzling once it became apparent that the companies didn’t have the revenue and profits to justify the hype.Quality makes a comebackBut last month, enterprise software firm SolarWinds (SWI), a profitable company that had investments from VC firms Bain Capital, Insight Ventures and Austin Ventures, went public. It was the first venture-backed IPO since last August.The company priced its offering above its initial range and debuted at 12.50. The stock is up nearly 10% since it began trading.SolarWinds’ debut was followed a day later by another venture-backed IPO: online restaurant reservation management firm OpenTable (OPEN). Benchmark Capital, a leading investor in eBay, and Impact Venture Partners are two of the prominent VCs involved in the OpenTable deal. Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActive is also an investor. Shares of OpenTable, which recorded a slight net loss last year but has enjoyed healthy revenue increases and posted decent operating profits, are up more than 40% since they hit the market. Medidata (MDSO) is also venture-backed. And like OpenTable and SolarWinds, the company has an actual business that allows it to generate steady revenue. Medidata’s biggest customers are the heavyweights in pharma and biotech, such as Johnson & Johnson and Amgen.With that in mind, the timing might still not be right for Facebook or Twitter to test the public waters. “Higher profile deals like a Facebook or Twitter could see a lot of demand. But they may be more speculative as far as their business models go,” said Guja. When you look at some of the other successful IPOs of this year (without venture backing) it’s clear that investors are looking for firms that are either: A. already generating earnings or B. heavily exposed to the growth juggernaut that is China.Shares of language software developer Rosetta Stone (RST), which posted annual profits last year and in 2007, are up nearly 40% since the company’s IPO in April. And shares of Chinese online gaming firm Changyou (CYOU), which is also profitable, have more than doubled since it went public in April. Holmes said one company that has already filed for an offering that he thinks could have a chance of doing well is A123 Battery Systems, a company developing lithium-ion batteries for cars. But he’s not predicting a Facebook or Twitter IPO anytime soon.”We had a total absence of new offerings for a long time and we’re just getting back to the low end of normal issuance,” he said. “The IPO market isn’t healthy enough yet to bring out something epic.” Talkback: Would you invest in Facebook or Twitter if they go public? Are they worth the hype?
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