NY Post : Cohen fund boss Conheeney makes surprise exit

The changing of the guard at Steve Cohen’s hedge fund-cum-$11 billion family office neared completion Monday with the unexpected announcement of the departure of President Tom Conheeney.
Conheeney’s exit comes as his boss, Cohen, still faces federal civil charges related to insider trading at his former corrupt hedge fund, SAC Capital.
The ex-hedge-fund mogul is fighting the Securities and Exchange Commission’s efforts to bar him from the industry for life over failure to supervise his staff.
Eight employees have been convicted of insider trading.
A stay on the SEC’s case expires on Aug. 26.
This past spring, as the Stamford, Conn., investment firm was changing its name from SAC to Point72 Asset Management, Conheeney, who helped run Cohen’s massively successful investment funds for 15 years, talked to employees about “a sense of continuity” at the company.
“We anticipate it will be our home for many years to come,” he said at the time.
Cohen, who is the firm’s CEO, said that Conheeney will stay on until the end of the year to oversee the transition.
Douglas Haynes, a former McKinsey director, took over as president on Monday.
With Conheeney’s departure, all three top Cohen lieutenants have left the building. The others are Sol Kumin, SAC’s former chief operating officer, who left in November to form his own hedge fund, and Steven Kessler, SAC’s former chief compliance officer, who quit in February.
“It looks like Cohen’s cleaning house and wants to show the SEC he has all new people,” said one lawyer familiar with the matter.
Conheeney was the voice of the firm over the past year as it dealt with charges and convictions of insider trading by former employees.
Although Conheeney did not testify in the insider- trading trials of former portfolio managers Mathew Martoma and Michael Steinberg, his name came up several times in the proceedings as the key individual overseeing the business.
The change of firm designation was part of a plea agreement between SAC and US Attorney Preet Bharara on criminal insider-trading charges. The firm paid $1.8 billion to settle with both the US Attorney and the SEC.
This year, Point72 also beefed up compliance, as was required by the plea deal.
Bart Schwartz, a former federal prosecutor who has served as an independent monitor in other cases, was named as the independent monitor of trading at Cohen’s new firm.
Cohen also created a new position, “chief surveillance officer,” hiring Vincent Tortorella, a former federal prosecutor for that job.

>>> YouTube Music’s Secret Weapon: Music You Can�™t Get Anywhere Else

You Tube has already said, on the record, that it is launching a music subscription service. And YouTube has explained, on the record, why it is launching a music subscription service.

And now we know why YouTube thinks you might pay for its music subscription service: It will have stuff you can’t get from other music subscription services.

This revelation comes from images published by Android Police, which purport to show leaked screenshots of the upcoming service’s pitch.

YouTube isn’t commenting on the report, but based on everything I’ve heard about the service — which has been in the works for more than a year, and delayed several times — it appears to be the real deal.

The screenshots also don’t show much that’s surprising. Like almost every other music subscription service — and there many other music subscription services* — “Google Play Music Key” will offer ad-free, portable music, which you can listen to on and offline, for $10 a month.

And, of course, it lets you watch videos, which you can already do for free.

But YouTube’s service will have one thing that all the other paid services won’t have, at least for now: The ability to listen to many of the songs users have uploaded, via videos, that aren’t part of music acts’ official catalogs, like concert recordings or remixes.

We’ll have to see how this plays out in the real world, but my hunch is that the idea is to give subscribers access to a large “grey zone” of music that’s been on YouTube for a long time, often with copyright owners’ permission, but unavailable most other places.

That could include everything from dance mixes to fans covering famous artists to famous artists covering famous artists. It’s a really, really long tail, and it seems impossible to imagine it existing anywhere but YouTube. Spotify gives me on-demand access to all of Wilco’s albums, and all of Radiohead’s albums, but it won’t let me hear Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy covering Radiohead.

Music licensing is convoluted and frequently nonsensical. So I wouldn’t expect every cover, concert recording or remix you find on YouTube to be available on YouTube’s subscription service.

But no matter how much of that stuff is ultimately available, I wonder how much difference this will make to YouTube’s prospective audience. YouTube may have the same ambivalence, which is why it doesn’t seem to be playing up the feature that heavily in the promotional slides — it’s just one of many features it is pitching, most of which you can get somewhere else.

Which is probably the real reason YouTube thinks it will succeed: It won’t really be competing with other subscription music services at all, because most people aren’t using subscription music services. Instead it will be competing with free — that is, with itself.

So when YouTube converts some of its billion-plus users into subscribers, YouTube wins. And when the rest keep using YouTube for free, YouTube wins. Good odds.

*Partial roll call of paid subscription services available in the U.S.: Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio, Beats, Xbox and Google Play Music.

(MergerMarket) Iliad can finance increased T-Mobile offer but synergies hard to

Iliad can finance increased T-Mobile offer but synergies hard to prove

Iliad [EPA: ILD] can “easily” find additional equity to increase its USD 15bn offer for T-Mobile US, a source close to the situation said, describing its USD 33 per share offer as the starting point for negotiations.

Iliad last month offered USD 15bn in cash for 56.6% of T-Mobile US [NYSE:TMUS], at USD 33 per share. It valued the remaining 43.4% of T-Mobile US at USD 40.50 per share on the basis of USD 10bn of synergies to the benefit of the T-Mobile US shareholders.

Deutsche Telekom [ETR:DTE], which owns 67% of T-Mobile US, rejected the offer on the basis it did not add value for shareholders. As a standalone company, T-Mobile is worth USD 40 per share, a person familiar with the company said.

Iliad’s approach would leave Deutsche Telekom with a 29% stake in T-Mobile US. But, Deutsche Telekom wants to sell out of T-Mobile US completely over the next few years, which may be difficult with around 30%, the source said. So, Iliad will likely have to increase the stake it proposes to buy from Deutsche Telekom.

Iliad said its original USD 15bn offer would be financed via a combination of debt and equity, having the support of banks – understood to be BNP Paribas and HSBC – for the former. The equity portion would be approximately EUR 2bn, with Iliad founder Xavier Niel participating in the capital increase.

An increase in the stake it proposes to buy from Deutsche Telecom will require an increase in both equity and debt financing, but an increase just in the USD 33 per share offer price can be financed through additional equity only, the source said.

EUR 2bn is not a large amount for Iliad, the source said, especially given Niel’s participation, he added.

Additional equity could be raised at the Iliad level or from new investors in T-Mobile US, the source said.

But, as well as increasing its offer, Iliad must also prove there are synergies to a deal. A sector banker following the situation was sceptical, believing Iliad does not possess the assets or business to entice Deutsche Telekom into a deal.

Given that Iliad is a reseller of services and does not own its own network, it is difficult to see how it will realize USD 10bn of synergies from the T-Mobile network, the banker said. There are no cost synergies to be gained from tower consolidation or benefits from combining the spectrum of the two companies, he noted.

Deutsche Telecom, meanwhile, has done an excellent job at creating value with the US assets since its failed deal with AT&T [NYSE:T]. After US regulators shot down the deal, T-Mobile received 10MHz of nationwide spectrum. T-Mobile was also able acquire 700MHz of spectrum from Verizon [NYSE:VZ] earlier this year, a purchase financed from the AT&T USD 4bn break-up fee.

T-Mobile’s purchase of wireless company MetroPCS also saw T-Mobile listed separately on the New York Stock Exchange. Deutsche Telekom can sell shares of the company slowly over time or execute a secondary offering, this banker said.

RBC Capital - Dollar Tree (DLTR) may take one more shot, but ultimately unlikely

Dollar Tree (DLTR) may take one more shot, but ultimately unlikely they can outbid Dollar General (DG) for Family Dollar (FDO) --
RBC Capital Mkts believes DLTR could raise its bid for FDO given the incremental revenue/GM synergies firm highlighted, but suspect that DG will ultimately win-out in a bidding war for FDO. This should be a win for DG and FDO shareholders. DLTR would miss-out on the synergy opportunities, but would add $305 million to their coffers and should revert to their steady growth algorithm.

>>> Dick's Sporting Goods beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS midpoint

Dick's Sporting Goods beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q3 EPS midpoint below consensus; reaffirms FY15 guidance

Reports Q2 (Jul) adj. earnings of $0.67 per share, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.66; revenues rose 10.3% year/year to $1.69 bln vs the $1.65 bln consensus.
  • Consolidated same store sales increased 3.2%, compared to the Company's guidance of an ~1 to 3% increase. Same store sales for DICK'S Sporting Goods increased 4.1%, while Golf Galaxy decreased 9.3%. Second quarter 2013 consolidated same store sales decreased 0.4%, adjusted for the shifted retail calendar due to the 53rd week in 2012.
  • eCommerce penetration for the second quarter of 2014 was 6.3% of total sales, compared to 5.6% in the second quarter last year.
  • In Q2, the co recorded pre-tax charges totaling $20.4 million related to the restructuring of its golf business. These actions were taken to align the cost structure with current and expected trends in golf.
Co issues in-line guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $0.38-0.42 vs. $0.42 Capital IQ Consensus; comps +1-3%.

Co reaffirms guidance for FY15, sees EPS of $2.70-2.85 vs. $2.77 Capital IQ Consensus; comps +1.3%.

(BFW) Cinven Raises Iomart Offer to 300p-Shr, Deadline Extended

BN 08/19 11:00 *IOMART RISES AS MUCH AS 6.6% IN LONDON TRADING
BN 08/19 10:52 *IOMART: DEADLINE EXTENDED FOR DUE DILIGENCE, TALKS CONCLUSION
BN 08/19 10:52 *IOMART: PANEL CONSENTED DEADLINE EXTENSION TO SEPT. 16
BN 08/19 10:50 *IOMART GROUP IOM STATEMENT RE RULE 2.6 EXTENSION
Cinven Raises Iomart Offer to 300p-Shr, Deadline Extended
2014-08-19 11:05:09.386 GMT


By Gaurav Panchal
Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Says following receipt of indicative
proposal from Cinven regarding a possible offer for Iomart at
300p-shr, Takeover Panel extended deadline to Sept. 16 from the
earlier Aug. 21.
* Extension to conduct initial due diligence and enable the
parties to conclude ongoing discussions
* Statement:{NSN NAJVGE3HBS3K <GO>}
* July 24: Iomart Indep. Directors Rejected Cinven Offers of
275p, 285p {NSN N97PZU6JTSF5 <go>}

Link to Company News:{2628534Z LN <Equity> CN <GO>}
Link to Company News:{9990648Z LN <Equity> CN <GO>}
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Link to Company News:{IOM LN <Equity> CN <GO>}

For Related News and Information:
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To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Gaurav Panchal at +44-20-7392-0511 or
gpanchal2@bloomberg.net

>>> Home Depot beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line; raises FY15 EPS above conse

Home Depot beats by $0.08, reports revs in-line; raises FY15 EPS above consensus, reaffirms FY15 revs guidance; Q2 comps +5.8%

Reports Q2 (Jul) earnings of $1.52 per share, $0.08 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $1.44; revenues rose 5.7% year/year to $23.81 bln vs the $23.61 bln consensus.
  • Co issues guidance for FY15, raises EPS to $4.52 from $4.38 vs. $4.41 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; reaffirms FY15 revs of +4.8% to ~$82.59 bln vs. $82.52 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
  • Comparable store sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2014 were positive 5.8%, and comp sales for U.S. stores were positive 6.4 percent.
  • Guidance Details: This earnings-per-share guidance includes the benefit of the Company's year-to-date share repurchases of $3.5 billion and the Company's intent to repurchase an additional $3.5 billion of shares over the remainder of the year.