>>> PayPal’s Future Still in Play

Activist investor Carl Icahn’s quest to compel eBay to spin off its PayPal unit ended with a whimper in April. But the maneuvering over PayPal, a giant in the red-hot payments sector, seems to be just beginning.
Ebay has been telling potential recruits for the position of PayPal CEO that it’s considering spinning off the payments business as soon as next year, according to two people briefed on the conversations. The search for a new head of the unit began in June after former PayPal CEO David Marcus said he was leaving for Facebook.

>>> Pfizer still interested in AstraZeneca; could be interested in Actavis, othe

Pfizer still interested in AstraZeneca; could be interested in Actavis, other targets 

Pfizer is not throwing in the towel on a takeover to slice its tax rate as well as acquire a pipeline of medications, though the possible cost of buying AstraZeneca is increasing, according to a newswire report.

Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Pfizer is considering other potential targets, such as Actavis Plc, while it can take initial steps next week on a renewed bid for AstraZeneca, based in London, the article reported. Pfizer abandoned its effort to purchase the London drugmaker for USD 116bn on 26 May, the article reported. The board of AstraZeneca turned down Pfizer's offers, regarding them as not high enough, Bloomberg reported.

Actavis, based in Dublin, has yearly sales of USD 8.677bn, according to Business OneSource.

The sources said Pfizer executives prefer to arrive at a deal to acquire AstraZeneca, and that US-based Pfizer is unlikely to move toward an alternative target in the near future, the article reported.

Confidence in AstraZeneca's experimental drug pipeline could embolden its board to seek a higher price, Helvea SA's Odile Rundquist told Bloomberg.

Rules in the United Kingdom require that hopeful acquirers who abandon bids must usually wait six months prior to offering a renewed approach, which would put the end of Pfizer's waiting period at 26 November, the article reported. After three months, though, a target can ask a bidder to re-enter discussions, which is seen as unlikely in this case, considering the earlier rejections from AstraZeneca, the article reported. Bloomberg reported that in May, AstraZeneca told Pfizer an offer would need to be GBP 58.85 per share; the final proposal from Pfizer was GBP 55 per share.

A Reuters report said that AstaZeneca shares have gained over 7% this week amid speculation Pfizer could return following its failed GBP 71bn takeover bid in the spring. At the end of a longer piece about the possible tie-up, the newswire said analysts at Berenberg believe the US drug company could even target GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), AstraZeneca's larger UK competitor.

GSK has a market cap of GBP 68.9bn. AstaZeneca's stands at about GBP 54bn

NY Post : ‘Bud’-ding pot industry lights up a whole new economy

The budding pot industry is creating a tech boomlet.
Entrepreneurs David Bernstein and Vlad ‎Stelmak are two of the growing number of businesspeople to get a whiff of the possible profits as more than 20 states have now passed pot-friendly laws.
Their brainstorm? A website and app — WeedHire.com — devoted to helping people find jobs in the expanding marijuana industry.
The Fair Lawn, NJ, duo launched the site in May after seeing news footage of people waiting for hours to get into a marijuana job fair in Colorado.
“We were sitting together and we saw this story come up and we were just like, wow,” said Bernstein, who likes to call the dot-com boom surrounding the pot industry the “pot-com boom.”
The pair are hoping their site, which lists more than 250 jobs — including a photographer for WeedMaps and a lawyer for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Certification Center — will save their struggling business AnythingIT, a penny stock company that lost $1.3 million last year.
They aim to charge employers to post jobs, as well as to access users’ résumés and to conduct background checks on potential job candidates.
If WeedHire succeeds, the Garden State will benefit from added income tax revenue. That would be a bit ironic since Gov. Chris Christie stands as a vocal critic of legalizing pot and has even blasted the state’s medical marijuana program for its low enrollment, calling it a “front for legalization.”
The pot industry in the US is estimated to grow by 68 percent this year, to $2.57 billion. The industry could grow by another 700 percent over the next five years, to $10.2 billion, according to ArcView Group, which also connects investors to pot startups.
Taylor West, of the National Cannabis Industry Association, said business-to-business software makers have also benefited from the growth spurt, which has created demand for tracking software and point-of-service sales software.
“It’s important to keep track of the plants from seed to sale, and there are a couple different businesses that have popped up with products that help with that,” West said.
Hemp American Media Group, of Scottsdale, Ariz., started as a hobby with just one site in 2009, but now boasts 12 sites as the industry grows, co-founder Colby Ayres told The Post.
Hemp American launched a job-search site late last year called 420Careers.com, as well as a business for consulting on weed-related Web sites. This year the company launched MJbizwire, a press-release service devoted specifically to the pot industry.
Business is going so well that Hemp American is looking to raise $150,000 to hire some full-time developers to help them create “marijuana-related games” and mobile apps for their job site, Ayres said.
As more states legalized the drug, “we realized we can turn this into an actual company instead of a side gig,” Ayres added.