WSJ : Google Takes Stake in Messaging Startup Symphony Communication Services

Google Takes Stake in Messaging Startup Symphony Communication Services
New fundraising round values Symphony at $650 million

Google Inc. has invested in a new round of funding for Symphony Communication Services LLC that values the Wall Street-backed messaging company at about $650 million, people familiar with the matter said.

Google’s support adds a technology-industry stalwart to the list of banks and investment firms—such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and BlackRock Inc.—that have backed Symphony and its fledgling communications software. Symphony’s latest funding round is expected to close this week, the people said.

Representatives for Google and Symphony declined to comment.

Symphony has said it would offer news and research on the platform in addition to its primary chat function. It agreed last month to provide news content from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal on the platform. Dow Jones is a unit of News Corp.

WSJ : Activist Investors: Helping or Hindering?

Activist Investors: Helping or Hindering?

Journal examines 71 campaigns at big companies, finds runaway winners, a few duds

The rise of activist investing has sparked debate across markets, boardrooms and even the presidential election: Are activist shareholders good or bad for business?

The Wall Street Journal examined that question with a comprehensive look at what happens to large U.S. companies after an activist arrives. The conclusion: Activism often improves a company’s operational results—and nearly as often doesn’t.

There has been a marked rise of activist investing over the past several years, with hedge-fund figures such as Nelson Peltz, William Ackman and Daniel Loeb buying up stakes in the some of the nation’s biggest companies, such as Procter & Gamble Co., DuPont Co., Yahoo Inc. and Apple Inc., pushing for changes from buybacks to breakups.

In the latest move, Mr. Peltz’s Trian Fund Management LP on Monday announced one of activism’s biggest investments ever, a $2.5 billion stake in General Electric Co., drawing the conglomerate into the activist sphere of influence.

The Journal looked at 71 campaigns against companies with market capitalizations of more than $5 billion over a period dating back to 2009, the start of the surge of agitation.

The review studied changes at these companies in earnings, margins, corporate spending, employee efficiency and shareholder return versus peers.

The resulting data bolster the increasingly popular conclusion that the best corporate response to activism isn’t total resistance or completely surrendering, but rather careful consideration of each individual proposal and the activist making it.

“The focus is changing to whether the idea is good or bad,” says Avinash Mehrotra, co-head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s activism defense and shareholder advisory group. One key factor in judging an idea’s merits, he said, is the time frame an activist is demanding.

The review shows that shares of large companies confronted by activists are more likely to outperform stocks among their industry peers than they are to underperform. But the differential isn’t great. Slightly more than half, or 38, of the situations in the Journal study led to better shareholder returns than industry peers for the period studied after the activist went public. In the end, the median campaign beat peers by just under 5 percentage points.

At the same time, companies in the study slightly underperformed industry peers in terms of growth in earnings and slightly beat them on profit margins. As for capital spending as a percent of operating cash flow—seen as a measure of reinvestment—of the 48 companies in the study with good data for that measure, 25 raised spending or left it at the same level, while 23 lowered it.

While much has been written about the rise of activism, its long-term effect on companies remains little understood and hotly contested. Some contend activists are a much-needed check on corporate leaders, keeping them accountable for their decisions and spending. Others say that activists scare executives from wise decisions that need time to pay off. Still others say it is case by case, a view the Journal’s data support.

Even those on opposing sides of the debate have recently suggested that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Laurence Fink, chief executive of money manager BlackRock Inc., has argued the economy is at risk because of the kinds of short-term moves often associated with activists, though he says he doesn’t mean all activism is bad.

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has pledged tax reforms targeting “hit-and-run” activists, though she also says some activists help hold managers accountable.

Activists themselves increasingly say not all campaigns are for the best.

“We definitely do not believe that all activism today is a good or a catchall,” veteran agitator Carl Icahn said in a recent interview. “There are bad activists, and we agree that it’s bad. All they want to do is get in and rock the boat and make a quick trade.”

In aggregate, the Journal data show, the best chance an activist has at driving outperformance at big companies is by getting a board seat, either for their own employees or a nominee they trust. Of the 38 situations in which activist-dogged companies outperformed industry peers, activists got a say on the board in 24. The outcome suggests that moving the needle at a big company—where leadership is already likely fielding advice from a host of bankers, lawyers and analysts—involves getting a voice in the boardroom.

Some activists regularly seek board representation, like Mr. Icahn, ValueAct Capital Management LP, Trian Fund Management LP and Relational Investors LLC. Their successes include Adobe Systems Inc. and Forest Laboratories Inc.

ValueAct used the board representation it had in all seven of its investments to outpace its rivals in the study. The San Francisco-based firm, whose founder and chief executive Jeff Ubben has been outspoken about his industry needing to avoid short-term profits at the risk of tarnishing themselves, had all seven of its investments in the survey beat peers, with a median 16.5 percentage points above peers. Mr. Ubben was recently nominated to the board of 21st Century Fox, which until mid-2013 was part of the same company as Wall Street Journal publisher News Corp.

Others clearly see the value of board intervention in big companies as well. In the 71 campaigns the Journal reviewed, 46 sought board representation and 40 got it.

Still, board influence doesn’t assure shares will rise: Sixteen companies where activists got on the board underperformed their peers, including J.C. Penney Co., where Mr. Ackman’s intervention contributed to an attempt to change corporate strategy that fell flat. J.C. Penney was the worst performer in the study compared with peers, and second-worst total-shareholder return. Only bankrupt energy company Walter Energy Inc. came in worse.

Far fewer activists working at the large-company level seem to bother with one of the most common requests for activists—stock buybacks, a generally shareholder friendly way to spend corporate cash. In the sample, activists sought buybacks in only 25 of the 71 situations.

The message: If you’re going to target a big company, you’ve got to get more creative than just asking for a cash payout.

>>> No iPhone is safe: Newly found malware can harm any iOS devi

No iPhone is safe: Newly found malware can harm any iOS device

Gone are the days when iOS malware reports were a rare thing. Following a wave of malware attacks on the iPhone and iPad – including a massive App Store hack and an Apple ID theft operation – a new security report reveals there’s dangerous malware in the wild that can harm any iPhone, iPad or iPod touch regardless of whether they’re jailbroken or not.

DON’T MISS: Report claims Surface Pro 4 has a killer feature iPad users can only dream of

Called YiSpecter, the malware app was discovered by security company Palo Alto Networks, the same entity that first detailed the XcodeGhost hack.

YiSpecter can infiltrate any iOS device via a variety of means, posing as a genuine Apple-signed app once installed. Once on your iOS device, the app can then make itself invisible to the user by disguising itself as an actual iOS app, or hiding itself from the home screen – which means the user has no means of deleting it.

“On infected iOS devices, YiSpecter can download, install and launch arbitrary iOS apps, replace existing apps with those it downloads, hijack other apps’ execution to display advertisements, change Safari’s default search engine, bookmarks and opened pages, and upload device information to the C2 [command and control] server,” the researchers revealed.

Even if manually deleted, the malware will automatically re-appear.

There are many ways of installing YiSpecter on the phone, including hijacking traffic from nationwide ISPs, a worm on Windows, offline app installations, and community promotions. The app takes advantage of Apple’s enterprise certificates that are used to sign four app components to fool the operating system into believing it’s a genuine app.

Palo Alto Networks has devised a way of removing the malware app and additional apps that it may have installed, but you might require third-party programs that give you access to the phone’s file system – check it out below:

* In iOS, go to Settings -> General -> Profiles to remove all unknown or untrusted profiles;
* If there’s any installed apps named “情涩播放器”, “快播私密版” or “快播0”, delete them;
* Use any third-party iOS management tool (e.g., iFunBox, though note that Apple’s iTunes doesn’t work in this step) on Windows or Mac OS X, to connect with your iPhone or iPad;
* In the management tool, check all installed iOS apps; if there are some apps have names like Phone, Weather, Game Center, Passbook, Notes, or Cydia, delete them. (Note that this step won’t affect original system apps but just delete faked malware.)

>>> Caught On Tape: Furious French Workers Attack Air France Executives, Rip

Have a look to these videos of Air France Union…such a shame, what a country!!!!



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-05/caught-tape-furious-french-workers-attack-air-france-executives-rip-their-clothes


Caught On Tape: Furious French Workers Attack Air France Executives, Rip Their Clothes Off

 
Earlier today amid the general gloom of Europe's sliding non-manufacturing PMIs, the one place that stood out like a sore thumb bucking the deteriorating trend, was France which not only posted an increase from August but also beat expectations.
We strongly doubt this metric has any basis in reality because among numerous other contrary-specific factors,Bloomberg reported that as part of Air France’s long-running spat with workers over cost cuts, violence erupted earlier today as protesters stormed a meeting where managers were presenting plans for 2,900 jobs cuts, causing executives to flee with their clothes in tatters.
According to the report, human resources chief Xavier Broseta and Pierre Plissonnier, the head of long-haul flights, scaled an eight-foot high fence to escape, shielded by security guards, with Broseta emerging shirtless and Plissonnier with his suit shredded.
Casting some serious doubt on the service PMI "recovery" is that the attacks happened Monday as Air France told its works council that after the failure of productivity talks with pilots last week some 300 cockpit crew, 900 flight attendants and 1,700 ground staff might have to go. The cuts could include the first forced dismissals since the 1990s, according to the carrier, which subsequently postponed the meeting.
The company, unhappy with the terrible publicity that the photos and video clips presented below will unveil about the corporate culture at Air France, promptly tried to downplay the incident, saying in a statement that "these attacks were made by isolated and particularly violent individuals as the demonstration by personnel on strike was going on calmly," adding that a complaint had been filed for aggravated violence. We expect many more complains will be filed before the latest surge in anger at the upcoming layoffs dissipates.
It's not just bad news for up to 3,000 soon to be unemployed workers but for Boeing too, which may be about to see the first scrapping of Dreamliner orders:
Under the savings plan announced today, Air France’s fleet would be reduced by 14 jets, with orders for Boeing Co. 787s scrapped and aging Airbus Group SE A340s phased out. The Air France-KLM Group unit indicated there was scope for compromise should unions come forward with serious savings measure.

 

Air France said last week it was planning cuts to jobs, jets and routes in the absence of a deal with pilots, who had been asked to work more hours for the same pay to help end annual losses that began in 2011. Government ministers had urged the sides to continue talking so that jobs could be saved.
The upcoming layoffs were once again blamed almost entirely on events in Asia: "The changes would require a shrinking of Air France’s network, with a reduction in frequencies and more sweeping seasonal capacity cuts next year, following by the termination of some routes in 2017, especially to Asia, where competition is toughest. Frequencies to 22 destinations would be affected."
Expect more outbursts of violence and even more profits for tailors in Paris, confirming the Keynesian "torn suit fallacy", because the job cuts are said to be implemented around mid-December at the earliest, or just in time for the holidays.
Meanwhile, this is the outcome as the anger of several thousand French workers finally spills over.

 

And roll the tape:

FT Lex : General Electric: with friends like these

General Electric: with friends like these

The company and activist investor Nelson Peltz mostly agree — for now

But for a dreary stock price chart tracing chief executive Jeff Immelt’s 14-year tenure, Nelson Peltz’s presentation on General Electric could have been published by the company itself.
On Monday, Mr Peltz’s Trian Partners disclosed that it owned a whopping $2.5bn of GE, a 1 per cent stake. Unlike its recent agitation at DuPont, Trian is not trying to engineer a coup at GE. While Mr Peltz is happy to point out the weak performance of the company’s shares, he is largely supportive of Mr Immelt’s overhaul of the conglomerate. So Mr Immelt need not panic yet. But Mr Peltz’s compliments are distinctly backhanded.
When Mr Immelt succeeded Jack Welch in 2001, he inherited trouble. The dotcom bust was taking hold and the global economy was heading for a recession. Then the 2008 financial crisis exposed the time bomb that GE’s sprawling bank, GE Capital, had become. In the years since, Mr Immelt has been directing the company towards its industrial roots, emphasising areas such as power, water, oil and gas, aviation and healthcare — all long-term growth areas in an urbanising world.
Mr Immelt is no innocent victim of his predecessor’s risk taking. He was happy to take the earnings contribution from GE Capital — about half of the total — before the financial crisis and did not anticipate the impending calamity. After the crisis he committed to a more modest paring of the volatile contribution of GE Capital. Only this year did he decide to bring it below 10 per cent of earnings.
Even though Mr Immelt’s reformed view of GE’s strategy fits with Mr Peltz’s, there will be tension over capital allocation. The investor noted that the company had spent $30bn on M&A in recent years, mostly at high valuations. He is asking for a better explanation of returns from dealmaking. He also wants GE to sacrifice a notch or two of its credit rating to issue debt, using the proceeds to buy back shares.
If GE’s shares rally — due to earnings growth or a better valuation multiple — the battle over capital allocation or any specific prescription may never be joined. Mr Peltz’s investments at bank Lazard and restaurant Domino’s Pizza succeeded while avoiding acrimony. Should GE shares continue to sputter, however, Mr Immelt’s job will not be safe for long.