FT : Draghi and Renzi targets of alleged hacking operation

Draghi and Renzi targets of alleged hacking operation
Arrest of brother and sister in Italy raises alarm on vulnerability of public figures

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, was the victim of an alleged hacking attempt, according to Italian police and prosecutors investigating an extensive cyber espionage operation targeting some of the country’s best known public figures.

Matteo Renzi and Mario Monti, two former Italian prime ministers, were also among those targeted, according to police who on Tuesday arrested Giulio Occhionero, 45, and his sister Francesca Maria Occhionero, 49, over the alleged hacking.

Mr Renzi was targeted while he was prime minister last year and the arrests are likely to ring alarm bells over the potential vulnerability of top officials to cyber attacks. Italian police said the hacking was directed at a “galaxy” of public officials who possessed “strategic and sensitive information” which could have “great value”.

Prosecutors in Rome said two attempts were made last year to hack Mr Draghi’s email account. The first attempt was on June 23, the day of the UK’s Brexit vote, with a second in July. The attempts were made on a Bank of Italy email address used by Mr Draghi, who was governor of the central bank before joining the ECB in 2011. It was not clear whether the efforts succeeded.

The ECB declined to comment on the alleged incident. One person familiar with the matter said there was no sign that any ECB account had been breached.

Mr Renzi, who resigned as Italy’s prime minister in December after losing a referendum, was allegedly targeted last June on his personal email account. Mr Monti was targeted on his Italian senate account and his account at the Bocconi University in Milan on four occasions between May and June last year.

According to Italian authorities, the alleged hacking operation by Mr and Ms Occhionero began about six years ago. The inquiry was conducted jointly with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, because sensitive data the pair are said to have acquired was stored on servers in the US.

Italian prosecutors said the hacking was conducted by sending malware, or malicious software, to targeted email addresses. They said the investigation began after a top executive at Enav, Italy’s air traffic control company, received a suspicious email from an unknown law firm.

Mr and Ms Occhionero are normally UK residents but were currently living in Rome, Italian prosecutors said.

A lawyer for Mr Occhionero, who will be questioned by a judge on Wednesday, said his client denied any illegal activity and had servers in the US because he had business there. A lawyer for Ms Occhionero could not be reached.

Other alleged victims of the ring included Fabrizio Saccomanni, the former Italian finance minister; Piero Fassino, the former centre-left mayor of Turin; Paolo Bonaiuti, a former spokesman for Silvio Berlusconi; and Gianfranco Ravasi, a cardinal in the Catholic Church.

Italian police said that Mr and Ms Occhionero were well known in the closely-knit financial circles of the Italian capital. Both had roles at Westlands Securities, a private investment banking firm founded in 1998.

(ZH) Clooney Says The U.S. Got "A Little Unlucky" With President-Elect Trump

Clooney Says The U.S. Got "A Little Unlucky" With President-Elect Trump

George Clooney, apparently still upset that the millions of dollars he raised for Hillary Clinton's campaign was a complete and utter waste, told a group of reporters in London that the U.S. got "a little unlucky" with the election of Donald Trump and we're just going to have to "hope that he can do a decent job." Per The Hill:


“When we first needed a president, we had George Washington,” Clooney said, according to the Associated Press. “We had Jefferson, Adams.”

“When we had the Civil War, we had Lincoln,” Clooney, 55, continued.

“I think we’re going to be a little unlucky now,” Clooney — who hosted some big-ticket fundraisers for then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 White House race — said of Trump. “I can only hope for the best,” the actor added.

“We have to hope that [Trump] can do a decent job, because when the president of the United States fails, really terrible things happen,” Clooney remarked Monday during a reception for his upcoming feature film documentary about Syrian rescue workers, “The White Helmets.”
If only we could have all been "lucky enough" to have been blessed with Hillary Clinton perhaps we wouldn't have to be tortured by the daily comments from Hollywood's elites who somehow, despite living a life completely detached from reality, have convinced themselves that they know what's best for everyday Americans.
Of course, as a quick reminder, Clooney, proving just how detached from reality he is, is the one who declared back in May, along with many other Hollywood elites, that "There's not going to be a President Donald Trump. That's not going to happen."


Clooney had declared last May at a press conference, "There's not going to be a President Donald Trump. That's not going to happen."

"It's not going to happen because... fear is not going to be something that drives our country," Clooney said at the time. "We're not going to be scared of Muslims, or immigrants, or women. We're not actually afraid of anything."

Jerusalem Post : Israeli startups raise record $4.8 billion in 2016

Israeli startups raise record $4.8 billion in 2016

Amount raised in the fourth quarter was down 8% from the corresponding quarter of 2015.

Israeli high-tech companies raised a record $4.8 billion in 2016, up 11% from $4.3 billion in 2015, the latest IVC - ZAG (Zysman Aharoni, Gayer & Co. law firm) survey has found. The average financing round, which has been constantly growing over the past five years, reached $7.2 million in 2016, 19% above the $5.1 million five-year average.

However, the fourth quarter of 2016 saw $1.02 billion raised in 151 transactions, down 8% from $1.11 billion in 202 deals in the corresponding quarter of 2015, but up 9% from $933 million raised in 140 deals in the preceding quarter. The average financing round stood at $6.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, similar to the past two-year quarterly average of $6.6 million.

IVC Research Center CEO Koby Simana said, "As expected, 2016 ended as a record year in Israeli high-tech capital raising. However, despite the higher total amount, it was characterized by a smaller number of financing rounds, along with a higher average capital raising per round. When we looked into the numbers to try and explain the trend, we found what I would call a ‘B Crunch’ - a 30% drop in the number of second rounds closed in 2016 compared to 2015, while the number of earlier rounds slightly increased. This is a troubling trend for the Israeli VC funnel, since the majority of capital goes into later rounds - if there are no companies lined up for later investments, there could be a more serious issue later on."

The IVC-ZAG Survey reveals that, while capital-raising reached new heights in 2016, the number of financing rounds were fewer than expected, with 659 deals closed in 2016, marginally above the five-year average of 657 deals, and 7% below 2015’s record 706 deals. While the number of early rounds (seed and A rounds) increased slightly (5%), the number of B rounds dropped 30% and the number of later rounds - C or higher - was responsible for more than 60% of the capital, down 11% from 2015. B rounds' share of capital raising also decreased, falling from 25% in 2015 ($1.07 billion) to 16% in 2016 ($743 million), while early rounds and later rounds generated more capital and took up larger shares than the year before.

The IVC-ZAG Survey also reveals an upsurge in large deals (above $20 million) in 2016, both in terms of deal number and capital raised - with 76 deals and $2.68 billion, respectively - a 22% increase from the $2.19 billion raised in 68 deals in 2015.


Adv. Oded Har-Even, ZAG-S&W (Zysman Aharoni Gayer & Co. ) partner responsible for its US office, offers a possible explanation, "The increase in capital raising in mid- to late stages could imply a growing use of mezzanine funding in mature companies, gearing towards a possible M&A or IPO (preferably on NASDAQ). If this is indeed the case, then it's a very welcome trend, revealing a mature market considered to be on the ‘quick exit route’ following early stage investments."

Adv, Shmulik Zysman, founding partner of ZAG-S&W (Zysman, Aharoni, Gayer & Co.) agrees, adding: "We expect the uptrend in capital raising activity to continue in 2017, though possibly at slower rates."

Fifteen deals above $20 million reached a total of $573 million, or 56%, of all capital raised in the fourth quarter of 2016. This compares with $430 million (38%), raised in 14 deals in the corresponding quarter of 2015, and $517 million (55%) raised in 18 transactions in the preceding quarter of 2016.

Israeli VC fund investment activity

Israeli venture capital funds invested a total of $634 million in Israeli high-tech companies in 2016, slightly up from $627 million invested in 2015. In the past five years, Israeli venture capital fund investments steadily increased, from $482 million in 2012 to the current level. At the same time, their share of total capital invested has been decreasing gradually, from 26% in 2012 down to 13% in 2016, the lowest yet.

In the fourth quarter of 2016, $111 million was invested by Israeli venture capital funds in local high-tech companies, 44% below the $198 million invested in the corresponding quarter of 2015 and 20% below the $139 million invested in the preceding quarter of 2016. Israeli venture capital funds' share was down to 11% in the fourth quarter of 2016, from 18% and 15% in the corresponding quarter of 2015 and the preceding quarter of 2016, respectively.


Capital raised by sector

Software companies led capital-raising in 2016 with $1.7 billion, up from 2015 when the sector attracted $1.4 billion (32%), also placing first. Internet capital raising has noticeably decreased in 2016, when the sector attracted only $744 million or a mere 16% of total capital, compared with $1.12 billion raised in 2015, when Internet placed second with a 26% share.

Zysman observed that there was a 14% fall in life science capital raising in 2016. "Despite the decrease in life science capital raising in 2016, we remain optimistic with regards to the industry’s potential in Israel, due to three major reasons: the continuous interest shown by Chinese investors, good chances for the return of European and US investors to Israeli life science investments, and Donald Trump's imminent presidency. According to his campaign, Trump is expected to ease price control on drugs and medical services, bringing an optimistic note to the industry, which may increase the appetite for investments, Israel included."

FT : UK income inequality at its lowest since height of Thatcherism

UK income inequality at its lowest since height of Thatcherism
ONS figures highlight difference between perceptions that the wage gap is growing and the data

Income inequality is at its lowest level since the height of Thatcherism, according to official figures published on Tuesday, with jobs growth and low inflation in 2015-16 boosting poorer households’ living standards while earnings for the richest fell.

The figures, which show inequality at its lowest since 1986, highlight the difference between perceptions that the wage gap between the richest and poorest is growing and the data.

The Office for National Statistics published the data on the day the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn floated the idea, which he later stepped back from, of a cap on high pay. “We cannot go on creating worse levels of inequality,” he said.

The figures are the UK’s most up-to-date income inequality statistics and the first to provide evidence on 2015-16, with a history of more than 50 years. In June, figures based on a larger survey will be published. In the past these have also shown gradually decreasing income inequality in recent years.

Average household incomes for four-fifths of the population outside the richest 20 per cent were all higher in 2015-16 than before the financial crisis after taking inflation into account.

Incomes of the households in the poorest 20 per cent were 13 per cent higher than in 2007-08, while those in the middle of the income distribution were about 5 per cent higher. For the richest 20 per cent of households, incomes were 3 per cent lower on average than before the crisis.

This pattern of bigger rises in incomes for poorer households and drops among richer households has shown up in measures of inequality. The gini coefficient — a summary measure that has a value of 0 if there is total equality and 1 if one household has all the UK’s income — has declined steadily since it peaked in the early 1990s.

Measuring private sources of income alone — wages, self employment income, investment income and private pensions — inequality of “original incomes” was 0.49 in 2015-16, 8 per cent lower than its 1993 peak.
Matthew Whittaker, chief economist of the Resolution Foundation, said the perception gap between the facts on inequality and widespread complaints that living standards are inadequate is explained by the extremely low levels of income growth in the UK since the financial crisis.

Between 2007-08 and 2015-16, the annual growth of average incomes has been less than half the level of Thatcher period and the period between 1990 and 2007-08.

“There’s little comfort to be taken in the fact that inequality has narrowed when everyone is feeling that their living standards expectations aren’t being met,” Mr Whittaker said.

The section of society that has done best since 2007-08 are pensioners, who have had 13 per cent income gains, while non-pensioners have on average seen their disposable incomes fall 1.2 per cent.

The figures also show that the UK’s 5m rural households are richer on average than 20m urban counterparts, with countryside average disposable household incomes of £35,500 and urban incomes of only £32,500.

If experts from the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies are correct, 2016 is set to be the last year for some time of falling income inequality, because benefits for non-pensioners are set to be frozen for four years in cash terms until 2020.

>>> Porsche - Expect that VW settlement with DOJ will hurt group results of Pors

Porsche - Expect that VW settlement with DOJ will hurt group results of Porsche, cannot rule out results missing guidance 
As a consequence of the capital stake of currently 30.8 percent Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Stuttgart ("Porsche SE"), holds in Volkswagen AG, the financial consequences of this expected settlement will also negatively affect the group result of Porsche SE for the fiscal year 2016. The concrete implications on the result of the Porsche SE group for the fiscal year 2016 can only be reliably assessed once Volkswagen group has conclusively evaluated the financial liabilities resulting from this settlement. At this point in time it cannot be ruled out that the Porsche SE group result after tax may fall below the previously communicated corridor between Euro 1.4B and Euro 2.4B.

>>> Cegid - Reports Q4 Rev €86.3M v €81.9M y/y - Guides Q4 EBITDA, showing the G

Reports Q4 Rev €86.3M v €81.9M y/y 
- Guides Q4 EBITDA, showing the Group's results before the impact of financing, taxes, depreciation & amortization and provisions, at ~€83-84 million, after taking into account in 2016 the acquisitions carried out by Cegid in 2015. 
- Guides Q4 EBITDA before taking into account capitalized development costs should be approximately €49-50 million.