BI : Steve Cohen's $11 billion hedge fund is looking for the next generation of

Point72 Asset Management, the $11 billion family-office hedge fund led by Steven A. Cohen, has officially joined Facebook.

That's because the historically secretive hedge fund is now using social media to attract the next generation.

"Eighteen months ago, the Firm launched a social media project to support our Mission of 'offering the greatest opportunities to the industry’s brightest talent,'" Mark Herr, head of corporate communications, wrote in a memo to staff seen by Business Insider.

"Our goal was to tailor a strategy to reach potential new employees through the media forms best suited to getting their attention and persuading them to consider Point72 for their careers."

Point72 launched its careers Facebook page on Thursday afternoon. It had previously joined Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and Google+ as part of its social media push.

"This is the foundation for our efforts to attract the next generation of investment and investment services professionals," Herr wrote.

"We are convinced we offer unparalleled career choices. Our social media presence will mean that the candidates we seek will hear the best argument for why to work here from us directly."

Hedge funds these days are in an arms race against each other to snap up the best possible talent.

In the memo, Herr pointed to a recent survey of 5,000 banking and finance candidates, which found that 82% of the candidates use careers sites such as LinkedIn and Glassdoor; 77% use social media as they decide where they want to apply; and 76% use Google search in pursuit of their next career move.


"Very simply, if you're not looking for the next generation of talent on social media, you're waiting on the wrong corner for your Uber to arrive," Herr wrote.

In a keynote address at a conference earlier this year, Point72's president Doug Haynes said the firm is "not capital constrained—but talent constrained."

As a family office, Point72 manages the wealth of Cohen and some of the firm's employees. The fund has about $11 billion in assets. The firm's growth is based strictly on returns.

That means the fund needs the best possible talent.

Point72's head of human capital, Mike Butler, told Business Insider recently that the firm had been investing heavily in talent, particularly growing younger talent through initiatives such as the Point72 Academy.

That's because there's been a sea of change in the industry, with investment-banking classes shrinking and more young workers heading to Silicon Valley, making it difficult to hire top talent.

>>> Oppenheimer reiterates Outperform rating, price target $309 - The Gastrointe

Oppenheimer reiterates Outperform rating, price target $309 
- The Gastrointestinal Drugs Advisory Committee of the FDA met yesterday to discuss the safety/efficacy of Ocaliva (obeticholic acid) for the treatment of primary biliary cholangitis. The panel voted 17-0 in favor of recommending approval of Ocaliva in PBC, as firm had anticipated based on the strong effects of the drug on ALP, and the positive opinion by FDA on the appropriateness of ALP as a surrogate marker, which was conveyed in the briefing documents released on Tuesday. Firm expects FDA to approve Ocaliva on May 29th and anticipate good uptake of the drug based on the positive opinion of KOLs about the efficacy and safety/tolerability of Ocaliva, in particular using 5->10mg titration dosing.

>>> Can this video parody get Brits to care about online privacy?


Can this video parody get Brits to care about online privacy?

Watch this video - {}

After John Oliver used humor to tackle the U.S. surveillance reform debate last year, to try to get Americans to care about online privacy — via the mass medium of, er, dick pics — U.K. comedy duo Cassetteboy is attempting something similar, using its trademark video cut-up parody format to slice through all the government spin around UK surveillance legislation, and hopefully fire up the famously reluctant British public by making them realize what’s at stake for their online privacy.
“Every time you go online, every email you sign, I’ll be watching you,” says a parody of UK Home Secretary Theresa May in the video.
May has been spearheading a drive to expand surveillance powers in the UKsince long before the current Investigatory Powers bill was drafted, with her prior bill faltering when the government’s former coalition partners refused to support it (dubbing that draft legislation a Snoopers’ Charter — the same moniker critics like rights group Privacy International apply to her new surveillance bill).
“Think of your own smartphone, it’s no longer a no-go zone. It’s under attack because we will hack all of the technology you own,” U.K. PM David Cameron appears to say in another of Cassetteboy’s cut together sequences.
The Investigatory Powers bill, which is in the process of being scrutinized in detail by UK MPs, does indeed include provisions for ‘bulk equipment interference’ — aka the power for state agencies to hack devices en masse. Not that you’ll find the real-deal David Cameron talking so plainly about the scope of the bill’s hacking powers.
The draft legislation also includes some weasel wording on encryption whichthrows doubt on the legality of end-to-end encryption, given the bill contains clauses requiring companies to remove ‘electronic protection’. May has also previously specified companies should be able to supply data in a legible form to authorities when served with a warrant — a position that is either fallacious or disingenuous.
Meanwhile, more tech companies are rolling out end to end encryption. Onlythis week, for example, messaging app WhatsApp, completed the integration of e2e encryption across its platform. Is the UK government seriously saying it would outlaw WhatsApp?
“It’s all the information you give to any corporation. Every conversation in every situation, every communication, every website you use, everything you do, every day in every way,” runs another stitched together sequence.
The video repurposes The Police’s Every Breath You Take as its musical backing to hammer home the point that the legislation aims to legalize a regime of mass surveillance that was only revealed, in 2013, by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and has since been judged illegal by multiple courts.
“A new power that allows us to get your browsing history from the Internet,” says another edited snippet of May later in the video, for once clearly describing the bill’s provision for the creation and storage of so-called Internet Connection Records — a hugely intrusive requirement that ISPs hold details of every website accessed by users for a full 12 months.

May normally prefers to describe ISCs as ‘akin to an itemized phone bill’ — leaving critics to point out the folly of such a comparison…

>>> US Gapping down

Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance: RT -14.2%, SEAC -10.1%, GPS -7%, (March comps) PSMT -4.2%,RECN -4.2%, ANGO -2.3%, WDFC -1%


Other news: VKTX -24.9% (following yesterday's 36% gain), NBIO -8.5% (granted orphan designation by the FDA for pritumumab for the treatment of pancreatic cancer), PSLV -4.2% (announces the launch of a follow-on offering of transferable, redeemable units of the trust), CME -2.5% (hearing attributed to a block trade), MOMO -1.7% (Alibaba confirms 27.7% active stake)

Analyst comments: AKS -2.2% (downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS), X -1.3% (downgraded to Sell from Neutral at UBS), VIAB -0.7% (initiated with an Underperform at RBC Capital Mkts)

>>> US Gapping up

Gapping up
In reaction to earnings/guidance: DLTH +10%

M&A news: AFOP +19.7% (Alliance Fiber Optic to be acquired by Corning (GLW) for $18.50 per share; Corning expects the acquisition to be accretive to its earnings per share during the first year; AFOP issues Q1 rev guidance), NXPI +2.4% (attributed to report that company might sell standard products unit), YHOO +1.2% (Re Code reports that Yahoo (YHOO) has extended deadline for bidders 1 week to April 18)

Select EU financial related names showing strength: DB +3.6%, CS +3.1%, SAN +3%, BCS +2.5%, ING +1.9%

Select metals/mining stocks trading higher: FCX +2.8%, RIO +2.7%, RIO +2.7%, BBL +2.4%, BHP +2%, AA +1.8%

Select oil/gas related names showing early strength: OAS +7.4%, WLL +4.6%, SDRL +4.2%, CHK +3.3%, MRO+2.7%, RIG +2.3%, RIG +2.3%, RDS.A +2.2%, E +2%, BP +2%, TOT +1.8%, BHI +1.4%

Other news: AVXL +16.5% (granted orphan designation by the FDA for its 1-3-propan-1-one compound for the treatment of frontotemporal dementia), DEPO +11% (Starboard discloses 9.8% active stake, believes that meaningful change is required to ensure DepoMed is acting in the best interest of all shareholders), ICPT +6.1% (confirms an FDA Advisory Committee unanimously recommended accelerated approval of Ocaliva for the treatment of PBC), SUNE +5.5% (continued strength, short-covering), ABMD +4.5% (receives FDA Pre-Market Approval for its heart pumps to provide treatment of ongoing cardiogenic shock), MRCY +1.8% (prices 4.5 mln shares of its common stock at $19.25 per share), CNAT +1.5% (in sympathy to ICPT), SCTY +0.9% (closes second financing within its renewable energy tax equity program), .

Analyst comments: N/A

DJ Vivendi Close to Acquiring Mediaset's Pay TV Business By Nick Kostov

DJ Vivendi Close to Acquiring Mediaset's Pay TV Business
By Nick Kostov
PARIS--French media firm Vivendi SA is close to acquiring the pay TV business of Italy's Mediaset SpA, according to people familiar with the matter, moving to snap up more assets to create a European rival to U.S. streaming video giant Netflix Inc.
Under the terms of the deal under discussion, Vivendi and Mediaset will swap a 3.5% stake and take seats on each other's boards, the people said. Since Vivendi's market value is roughly six times more than Mediaset's, it will take control of the Italian firm's loss-making pay TV unit, valued at around EUR900 million ($1.02 billion) by some analysts.
The alliance with Mediaset, which could be announced as soon as Friday, is a key step in Vivendi Chairman Vincent Bolloré's project to build a multilingual, pan-European group to challenge Netflix, the U.S. streaming juggernaut that has also produced original shows such as 'Orange Is the New Black' and 'House of Cards', as well as compete against pan-European pay-TV giant Sky PLC. Vivendi is also working on a new European streaming service, which could be launched as soon as this fall, and would compete against pan-European pay-TV giant Sky PLC, the people said.
"To face up to Netflix we're going to have to do something similar," said one person familiar with Vivendi's thinking. "They're the main competitor forcing us to transform and evolve."
Vivendi also has its sights on the U.S. market, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
Subscription-video-on-demand services such as Netflix and Amazon Inc.'s Prime have sent traditional broadcasters scrambling, as they gain millions of customers each year and produce a growing library of their own content.
Netflix launched in Italy, Spain and Portugal last October. In January, it said it was expanding its Internet TV network to another 130 countries around the world.
But European viewers, most of whom aren't fluent in English and are accustomed to watching programs in their local language, pose a challenge for the Los Gatos, California-based firm. Netflix, which has a well-stocked library of movies and TV in the U.S., has a limited offering in its European countries where the rights have often already been sold to other distributors.
Vivendi is betting that it can copy Netflix's streaming service in Europe by simultaneously buying rights in several territories. Traditionally, studios have sold the rights for TV shows individually by country.
Vivendi is also buying some independent studios, underscoring its belief that local content in countries like France, Spain and Italy would appeal to large audiences in places like Africa and Latin America where they speak the same language. This week, it bought minority stakes in Sunny March TV, an independent company co-founded by British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, and Spain's Bambu Produciones.
"If we want to be serious we have to invest in original local content--that's what makes the difference," said Dominique Delport, president of Vivendi Content.
Shalini Ramachandran contributed to this article
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com