>>> Heckert Solar could look at M&A options to accelerate growth

Deal Reporter

Heckert Solar could look at M&A options to accelerate growth

Heckert Solar could make acquisitions to expand its product portfolio and its geographical reach, Head of Marketing and Sales Michael Boenisch said.

The private German manufacturer of high power photovoltaic modules is wholly owned by the founding Trinkerl family. In 2014, it generated EUR 58m revenues with 200 employees, the executive said.

To date Heckert Solar has grown only organically, Boenisch said. He did not comments when asked about possible ongoing talks with acquisition candidates.

The characteristics of the product and the business model are important acquisitions criterias rather than the size of the target, the executive said. There is no need to go to the US to find an acquisition candidate, Boenisch answered when asked about preferred locations for a deal.

With an equity ratio of 70%, Heckert Solar is well financed to support its future growth, the executive said. IPO and new investors are not part of the company’s short-term plan, he added.

Meanwhile Heckert Solar is looking for distribution partners to enter new markets, Boenisch said. Poland, Turkey and South America are attractive expansion areas, he added. He mentioned that right now Germany is the company’s main market.

Heckert Solar is managed by the first and second generation of the Trinkerl family, the executive said. In 2013 Benjamin Trinkerl took over the management of the company. His father, the founder Xaver remained member of the Supervisory Board, according to a company’s press realease.

Heckert Solar was established in 2001 by Xaver Trinkerl in Chemnitz (Germany).

In 2014, the company increased its production capacity from 180MW to 240MW per year. Other increases are currently under evaluation, the executive said

(BFW) Mediobanca CEO Won’t Sell Telecom Italia Stake to Bollore

Mediobanca CEO Won’t Sell Telecom Italia Stake to Bollore
2015-06-24 13:54:54.665 GMT


By Kasper Viita and Sonia Sirletti
(Bloomberg) -- Mediobanca rules out selling its stake in
Telecom Italia to Vivendi’s Vincent Bollore, CEO Alberto Nagel
tells reporters in Milan.

* NOTE: Mediobanca holds 1.64% of Telecom Italia
* June 17: Vivendi said to consider increasing stake in
Telecom Italia to 10-15%

For Related News and Information:
First Word scrolling panel: FIRST<GO>
First Word newswire: NH BFW<GO>

To contact the reporters on this story:
Kasper Viita in London at +44-203-525-9219 or
kviita1@bloomberg.net;
Sonia Sirletti in Milan at +39-02-8064-4206 or
ssirletti@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
James Ludden at +44-20-3525-2645 or
jludden@bloomberg.net
Tim Barwell

NY Post : Naked drunk woman tries to kick down Kim Kardashian’s door

A drunken naked woman scared pregnant Kim Kardashian by trying to kick in the star’s hotel room door in the South of France.

The reality star and businesswoman, appearing at Cannes Lions festival on Wednesday, said she’d had no sleep, “There was a woman knocking on a hormonal pregnant woman’s door, namely me, at four in the morning — not knocking but banging and kicking, and I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards, and she was naked,” Kim said.

She added, “So I screamed profanities at her and told her to put some clothes on and get off my door, but she kept using her AmEx as the key. She had no idea it was my room.”

Kim had tweeted in the early hours, “Thanks to the drunk naked woman banging on my door, I have now been up since 4am…I took a fun video of her as a reminder of why I never tolerated drinking 2 much!…She thought her Amex was my room key lol.” She told the Cannes audience that she decided not to post the video, adding, “I hope she’s not here in this room.”

Thanks to the drunk naked woman banging on my door I have been up since 4 am! I'm so sleepy now but have to work! It's gonna be a long day!

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 24, 2015


I took a fun video of her as a reminder of why I never tolerated drinking 2 much! Slob kabob! I won't post it but it's funny!

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 24, 2015

Kim, who is a few months pregnant and is expecting a baby boy, was in Cannes to talk to the elite of the ad and creative world about her mobile video game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. A year in, the game, created with Glu, has had 22 million installs, streamed a billion sessions and 90 million purchases for clothes and products. They have just signed a deal with Karl Lagerfeld to sell Chanel items on the platform.

The “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star said the game reflects her life, “The game is you just want to make it in Hollywood, you want to make it to the A-list and get as many fans and followers and cool wardrobes as possible .. .we really mirror my real life, and make it in real time.”

Wearing a Balmain black caped suit with gold piping, Kim said her husband Kanye West, with whom she already has daughter North, had persuaded her to get into the gaming business, “I wouldn’t say it was risky, but it was new territory for me to go into the gaming space … I had just had my daughter and I just wasn’t sure I really wanted to be working this much, and I wanted to be sure I could give it 100 percent. It was actually my husband that talked me into it, he loves video games.”

Kim, who has 37 million followers on Instagram and 32.8 on Twitter, also talked about social media, “I don’t have a strategy, and I don’t have a team doing it for me, I am not knocking anyone else that does that, but I don’t find it to be authentic, if you are talking about personal things and sharing personal photos, but you are having someone else do that for you.”

But she isn’t that proud of her early attempts at it, “My Myspace page just resurfaced and it was pretty embarrassing, I called myself a princess.”

Of her current social media strategy, “You just have to be authentic. There’s nothing more than I can’t stand is when Instagram becomes very promotional. I know a lot of my brands get frustrated that I don’t promote as much as they would like, but I only do it if its authentic, if I genuinely love it.

“I have really stayed true to myself on Instagram — maybe too many bikini selfies for some people, but it’s what I want.”

Speaking at a following press conference, she said she was proud to be a pioneer for women in the gaming business, “Gaming is typically a men’s world, most of the games are male driven, so I feel excited we brought a female fan base to the gaming and to the tech world, and I hope that this brings other opportunities for women in this field.”

(BN) Emboldened Sika Seeks to Pitch Takeover Alternatives to Family

Emboldened Sika Seeks to Pitch Takeover Alternatives to Family
2015-06-24 13:42:09.614 GMT


By Jan-Henrik Förster
(Bloomberg) -- Sika AG Chairman Paul Haelg said he’s much
more confident about fending off Cie. de Saint-Gobain SA’s $2.7
billion hostile takeover attempt now than at the start of the
year.
While the Swiss adhesives maker has drawn up alternative
proposals to the Saint-Gobain deal, it has yet to make headway
in persuading members of the founding Burkard family to consider
them, Haelg said. The Burkards, which agreed to sell Saint-
Gobain their 16 percent stake with majority voting rights, lost
an appeal to prevent Sika from restricting their influence,
blocking a move to oust executives against the deal.
“I am very surprised that the Burkards don’t want to
discuss alternative proposals with us,” he said on the
sidelines of Sika’s investors day in Zurich today. “We have an
alternative proposal ready and the family is aware of it.”
The court ruling in Sika’s favor and the entrance of an
investment fund backed by Nassef Sawiris that’s agitating for
the deal terms to be changed has given management a boost in a
legal battle that threatens to extend into years.
Sika said alternative scenarios for Saint-Gobain could be a
bid for the whole company or the integration of its Weber
business with Sika’s mortar unit. The integration of the mortar
businesses where both companies compete could lead to synergies
of 150 million euros, Sika said.
The company has strong support from investors to further
resist the deal.
“The decision of the superior court of Zug has given us
much more confidence than we had in January,” Haelg said at the
company’s investors day in Zurich. “The language of the court
is very strong and we feel it’s in line with what we think.”
Buying out the family’s shares is probably not beyond
Sika’s reach, Haelg said, without saying if that’s another
viable option. Southeastern Asset Management, which has acquired
an initial 3 percent of Sika’s share capital and the backing of
the politcally and industrially influential Sawiris, manages $25
billion in funds.

For Related News and Information:
Top Swiss stories: TOPS <GO>

To contact the reporter on this story:
Jan-Henrik Förster in Zurich at +41-44-224-4116 or
jforster20@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Mariajose Vera at +49-89-244478-803 or
mvera1@bloomberg.net
Andrew Noël

>>> Altice lack of debt guarantees factored into Bouygues rejection

Deal Reporter

Altice lack of debt guarantees factored into Bouygues rejection

Altice’s [AMS:ATC] lack of debt financing guarantees were among the factors that led Bouygues [EPA:EN] to reject its EUR 10bn proposal to acquire Bouygues Telecom, a source close to the deal said.

Altice head Patrick Drahi’s proposed offer would have been largely funded by borrowing. While banks were lining up to provide financing, lending agreements were only given in principle, the source and a person close to the situation said.

This compounded perceived antitrust risks as Bouygues could not be sure banks would finance the deal if remedies were severe, the person said. Entering negotiations with Altice would have placed too much of the execution risk on Bouygues, the source and person said.

The deal would have required major concessions, with both Bouygues and Altice having to give up part of their 3G and 4G networks, a lawyer following the situation said.

But, the financing was not the main issue Bouygues had with Altice’s proposal. Job cuts, and different management styles when it comes to employment issues is seen as an insurmountable issue, the person said.

Drahi’s cost-saving measures, currently being imposed on SFR, which Altice acquired last year, are being viewed with disdain, the person added.

But, any deal between French telcos is seen to be off the table for the time being as the national telecoms regulator is expected to kick off a spectrum auction at the end of the year, the source said.

Altice’s failure to show it had taken the cost of participating in the spectrum into account in its offer was also seen as a concerning omission, the person said.

JP Morgan, BNP Paribas and Morgan Stanley were understood to be leading debt talks, but as many as 10 banks were in negotiations with Altice regarding financing, the source said.

The mix of banks was seen to be in flux as there was a chance some could lose confidence in the deal, the source said. Altice’s existing debt level was also seen as an issue, the person said. As of 31 December 2014 Altice's consolidated pro-forma net debt stood at EUR 24bn, compared with net debt of EUR 6,255bn in 2013. Consolidated pro-forma net leverage including synergies stood at 4.4x at 31 December 2014.

The French economy minister Emmanuel Macron was reported on Monday (22 June) as saying Drahi’s telecommunications empire was expanding too quickly and taking on debt too fast.

But, Altice was considering an equity raise in light of the Bouygues approach to prevent its leverage ratios from exceeding around 5x, the source said. It had not decided on how much of the total financing for Bouygues Telecom the equity raise would contribute, the source said.

Bankers and a minority shareholder previously told this news service that an equity issue at subsidiary Numericable would be the most viable financing route for a bid for Bouygues Telecom.

>>> Delhaize/Ahold merger of equals goal and common outlook allowed deal – execs

Deal Reporter

Delhaize/Ahold merger of equals goal and common outlook allowed deal – execs

Merger talks between Royal Ahold [AMS:AH] and Delhaize [EBR:DELB] were successful because of trust built between the parties, and because discussions began with a focus on a merger of equals, Ahold chairman Jan Hommen said.

At a press conference announcing the merger, Delhaize chairman, Mats Jansson, added that there were ups and downs during negotiations, as management answered a question on how the process was different from previous deal talks between the companies.

As reported, Delhaize and Ahold had previously looked at combining in 2006/07 and 2012. Jansen refused to answer who initiated discussions this time. Talks were aided by the fact that 90% of each of the two companies’ strategic outlooks matched, Ahold CEO Dick Boer said.

Ahold CEO Boer and his Delhaize counterpart Frans Muller noted they had known each other for 15 years. Talks between the two uncovered they had the same strategic rationale for their companies, Muller said. They also decided it would be “good fun” to work together, he said.

The tie-up will see the creation of Ahold Delhaize, with the Belgian company’s shareholders owning 39% of the new entity and Ahold shareholders owning 61%. Ahold investors will receive a pre-closing capital return of EUR 1bn and its management will carry out a stock-split prior to the merger.

A changing and evolving grocery industry meant both companies were looking for ways to better compete against discounters and high-end grocers, Boer said. Both were repositioning their US operations in the face of changing consumer preferences, the executives said.

Both sets of management sought to stress the deal as a merger of equals, with representation on the new supervisory and management boards split equally between the two companies. Delhaize’s Janssen will become chairman of Ahold Delhaize, with Ahold’s Boer taking the CEO role.

The boards were adamant that the three top managers at each company – CEO, CFO and US COO – stayed with the new entity, Jansson said. Delhaize’s Muller will become deputy CEO and chief integration officer. Ahold’s Jeff Carr will be CFO, with his counterpart Pierre Bouchut becoming COO Europe. The two US heads will keep their respective positions for each company’s operations there.

The deal is expected to close in mid-2016. This is mainly due to a possibility that the deal’s merger review in the US could take some time, Boer said. The parties were less concerned with the European review, as Ahold has only 31 stores in the north of Belgium, where the companies overlap.

Meanwhile, the deal structure, and expected EUR 500m annual synergies, should see the combined entity have a net debt/EBITDAR ratio of about 1.7x, according to a deal presentation. The executives would not be drawn on whether the new entity will look to stick to Ahold’s leverage ceiling of 2x. The intent is to have the “same outlook” in terms of maintaining a strong balance sheet, they said.

Delhaize was trading down 4.87% at EUR 83.74 early Wednesday afternoon, giving it a market capitalisation of EUR 8.67bn. Ahold was trading down 0.79% at EUR 18.81, giving it a market cap of EUR 16.82bn.

>>> Cybersecurity stocks mostly lower this morning following strong YTD performa

Cybersecurity stocks mostly lower this morning following strong YTD performance

  • The WSJ last night reported on concerning holes in Einstein, a gov't security system.
  • Jim Cramer discussed the space on Mad Money last night, pointing to PFPT and IMPV as under the radar cyber security stocks; both are higher premarket.
  • Recent high flying cyber security stocks: FEYE is down 2.5% while CYBR is down 1.5% and PANW is down 1%.
  • FTNT is down 3% after Citigroup and Baird downgraded the stock (the latter was on valuation)


WSJ Article :

Breached Network’s Security Is Criticized

System that failed to prevent millions of sensitive government files from being hacked is largely unable to stop the most sophisticated attacks

WASHINGTON—A federal security system that failed to prevent millions of sensitive files on government employees from being improperly accessed has been plagued by delays and is largely unable to stop the most sophisticated attacks, current and former U.S. officials said.

The security system in place at the Office of Personnel Management, known as Einstein, is incapable in most cases of stopping previously unknown malware from penetrating government networks. It mostly relies instead on “signatures” from past computer breaches, and then looks for similar digital fingerprints.
.
“In this particular case, it did not detect it at first because it had not seen it before,” Phyllis Schneck, a top cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview.

Stopping hacks from never-before-seen spyware—called “zero-day exploits”—is a major challenge for both the government and corporations. Private-sector firms such as FireEye Inc. and Palo Alto Networks Inc. sell technology that sometimes detects previously unknown threats, while other systems quickly respond with protective security patches once a new intrusion code appears.

The Office of Personnel Management had been working with outside firms to provide some protection against zero-day threats, but the coverage was spotty and didn’t protect the entire network, people familiar with the matter said. Investigators believe the hackers were able to slip through an unprotected part of OPM’s system. Since the breach, the agency has expanded protection across the network using outside firms.

Another vulnerability of Einstein, which is used by most government agencies, is that it does little to stop people from breaking into government networks using stolen login credentials, current and former U.S. officials said. Recorded Future, a Massachusetts Internet technology company, has found stolen login credentials available online for roughly 50 federal agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management.

OPM Director Katherine Archuleta disclosed Tuesday that the intruders in the attack, which the agency revealed earlier this month, obtained a “compromised” user credential from a government contractor, Keypoint Government Solutions, that they used as part of the breach. Keypoint didn’t respond to a request for comment.

OPM officials said they have been working for more than a year to overhaul their computer security protocol, and the agency’s inspector general has said the agency has made improvements to what was once a decentralized and fragmented system.

Ms. Schneck said DHS is working to expand Einstein’s capability so it will be able to better defend against zero-day exploits. But there is no timeline for this expansion.

Similarly, U.S. agencies are supposed to use something called a “continuous diagnostics and mitigation” program, which hunts for spyware after something has breached a network. But many agencies haven’t fully adopted this program.

Major security weaknesses remain, Michael Esser, the assistant inspector general for audits, said Tuesday, adding that “OPM has not yet implemented a mature continuous monitoring program.”

DHS has spent at least $529 million on Einstein implementation through 2014, the agency said. Einstein covers civilian federal networks, while the Pentagon uses different security systems.

Using new spyware lacking fingerprints to break into a computer network is considered a sophisticated and expensive way to steal data. The technique often is deployed by hackers linked to foreign countries, security experts said. Hackers in China have used such spyware in the past, several U.S. officials said, and they believe the OPM breach was carried out this way.

Intrusions by criminal hackers and foreign countries have breached U.S. government computer networks for more than a decade, including systems controlled by the Navy, Energy Department and many other agencies to steal a wide range of information.

“OPM is just the most recent example of the government’s systemic failure to protect itself,” Sen. John Boozman (R., Ark.) said at a hearing about the breach on Tuesday.

U.S. officials are now scrambling to reinforce their computer security protocols. They are forcing network administrators to use “multifactor” login credentials to make it harder for people to break into databases. They also are looking at expanding encryption of data as well as “masking,” a technique that essentially hides private records, and data fragmentation, which breaks data sets into multiple pieces, making it harder for intruders to steal a cache of information.

U.S. officials said they need to put in place multiple safeguards because hackers have numerous ways to penetrate networks. “The adversaries—they only need one way in,” Richard Spires, the former chief information officer at Department of Homeland Security, told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday.

Scrutiny of Einstein intensified after the OPM breach, and Senate lawmakers are quietly working on a bill that would require the DHS to study its effectiveness at preventing attacks.

The agency has defended Einstein, saying it helped detect the spyware in the OPM breach, but lawmakers have pointed out that Einstein did nothing while hackers extricated millions of sensitive personnel records for more than a year.

“While DHS has developed Einstein…it only detects known intruders, proving that it is completely useless in the latest OPM hacks,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, said at a hearing last week.

Einstein’s history has been marked by controversy and delay. The Bush administration rolled out the first version in 2004, but few agencies participated because it was voluntary and simply monitored network traffic, doing little to prevent attacks.

In 2008, the Bush administration required agencies to comply with a new version, dubbed Einstein 2, which for the first time looked to identify malware and intrusions.

As hackers became more aggressive, DHS and the National Security Agency began developing Einstein 3, which aims to block known intruders. But concerns about the NSA’s role and a lack of uniform agency networks bogged the down the process.

A number of federal agencies, including OPM, still haven’t adopted Einstein 3 as of several weeks ago.

“I think Einstein—in whatever iteration—can probably be considered to be outdated technology,” said Gus Coldebella, the former top DHS lawyer. “It’s better than nothing, but unless the bad guys are using something that’s already identified in Einstein, it’s not going to pick it up.”

Despite the criticism, U.S. officials said they are committed to Einstein, and are looking for ways to update or supplement the system with techniques to prevent breaches or detect them more quickly.

“We should take a broad look across the federal government, look at our high-value assets, make sure we were comfortable with the kinds of security we have,” Tony Scott, the White House’s chief information officer, said in an interview.

>>> US Gapping up

Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance: MEET +23.6%, LEN +4.1%

M&A news: MCGC +0.9% (received a revised acquisition proposal from HC2 Holdings (HCHC)), MR +0.8% (forms special committee to evaluate previously announced $30/share 'Going Private' proposal)

Other news: CPXX +13.4% (announces positive induction response results from Phase 3 Study of CPX-351 in patients with high-risk (secondary) acute Myeloid Leukemia), ARTX +13.2% (announces $8.7 mln in New Orders), NVGN +8.3% (cytotoxic chemotherapy drug, Anisina, has been fast-tracked by the Company to be ready to come into clinics), BOX +6% (Box and IBM (IBM) announce partnership to collaborate in cloud-based services ), NKTR +5% (to replace CASY in the S&P SmallCap 600), SMI +4.7% (SMI, Huawei, and QCOM form JV), CREG +4.5% (enters into a repurchase agreement for the waste heat power generation, with Sinosteel Group Jilin Ferroalloys), KITE +4.4% (CEO discusses co's immunotherapy treatment on CNBC), MELA +3.8% (modestly ticking higher after yesterday's weakness), TKAI +3.3% (initiates a Phase 3 clinical trial of Galeterone, in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer), NFLX +2.9% (announces seven-for-one stock split), ORAN +2.6% (announced the expansion and availability in Asia Pacific), WATT +2.3% (following yesterday's ~25% move higher), CNIT +1.8% (reports a strategic agreement with the Linyi municipal government, to implement its the 'CNIT Internet + Smart Linyi' project), CASY +1% (to replace AOL int he S&P MidCap 400), VNDA +0.8% (reports positive results from the long-term maintenance REPRIEVE), PSTI +0.8% (granted Australian patent for 3D Cell Expansion Technology & use of PLX cells in broad range of indications)

Analyst comments: CPRX +8.5% (initiated with a Buy at MLV & Co; $14 tgt; also - reports top-line results in a proof-of-concept trial of Vigabatrin), EA +2.1% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Jefferies), VMW +1.8% (added to Conviction Buy List at Goldman), AMAT +1.7% (added to Conviction Buy List at Goldman), F +1.6% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman),RDS.A +1.4% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank), CCL +1.1% (target raised to $60 at Stifel), BHP +0.8% (upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at Credit Suisse), AVGO +0.8% (initiated with a Buy at Argus; tgt $163), RCL +0.7% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman), CORR +0.7% (upgraded to Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts), TERP +0.7% (added to Analyst Focus List at JP Morgan
)