createpositivechange

Category: Business

  • Legality of Hunt Oil deal “uncertain”

    Hunt Oil’s controversial production-sharing deal with Kurdistan is “legally uncertain” and has “needlessly … Baghdad told The New York Times.

    Dallas-based Hunt Oil is run by Ray Hunt, a close friend and advisor of president Bush.

    Speaking anonymously, the official told The Times that the State Department advised Hunt before the… American and international oil companies.

    On the web
    Official Calls Kurd Oil Deal at Odds With Baghdad – New York Times

    Related stories on Muckety
    Why Ray Hunt is so powerful

  • Senate reviews Google-DoubleClick deal

    Execs from Google and Microsoft are scheduled to appear before the Senate today to argue the merits of Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick.

    Google announced the $3.1 billion deal in April, but the plan requires approval of the Federal Trade Commission and regulators abroad.

    As CNet notes today, this will be the first time that Congress has scrutinized the Internet behemoth. Microsoft, with years of experience in arguing antitrust issues, has mobilized a legion of lobbyists to block the deal, saying it would create an online advertising monopoly.

    Consumer privacy groups have also raised concerns. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is scheduled to testify today as well. His group says the deal would give Google too much information about web users.

    Google is expected to argue that it respects users’ privacy, and that its current business focuses on text-based advertising, while DoubleClick specializes in banners.

    In his prepared testimony, released before the hearing, Google Senior VP David Drummond says Google and DoubleClick offer complementary services. “DoubleClick is to Google what FedEx or UPS is to Amazon.com,” he said.

    Those of us who have been running Google AdSense banners for ages find this argument a bit puzzling.

    On the web:
    Microsoft, Google square off in Washington – CNet

    Related stories on Muckety:
    Advantage Microsoft in flap with Google?

  • Why Ray Hunt is So Powerful

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • Send All Lawyer Jokes to Marc Andreessen

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • Blackwater’s protective web

    Blackwater USA, the State Department’s largest private security contractor, is under siege on several fronts.

    Iraq’s state minister for national security affairs announced today that the firm would face criminal charges for the fatal shootings of Iraqi citizens. Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., is also under investigation on the home front.

    But a tight web of political and business connections helps shield the company from the most formidable of attacks.

    Erik Prince, the former Navy SEAL who founded Blackwater in 1996, is a major contributor to the GOP. Federal Election Commission records show that he has given more than $200,000 to Republican committees and candidates in the last decade.

    His sister, Betsy DeVos, is the former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and wife of Amway co-founder Dick DeVos, unsuccessful candidate for governor.

    Prince is also on the board of Christian Freedom International, a nonprofit whose aim is to help persecuted Christians around the world. Fellow board members include former Sen. Don Nickles and former Swiss ambassador Faith Whittlesey.

    The group’s president, Jim Jacobson, was a policy analyst with the Reagan White House. Its vice chairman, Paul Behrends, was a partner in the once-powerful lobbyist firm, Alexander Strategy Group, which represented Blackwater. The group closed shop in January 2006, citing unfavorable publicity from its ties to Jack Abramoff.

    Blackwater’s vice chairman, Cofer Black, is former director of counterterrorism for the CIA and also a top adviser to the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.

    Officers of Blackwater’s parent company, Prince Group, include Joseph Schmitz, former inspector general of the Defense Department and the son of a congressman. (An irrelevant but interesting connection here: Schmitz’s sister is Mary Kay LeTourneau, the former school teacher who was prosecuted and imprisoned for having sex with an underaged student. The two were married after her release in 2004.)

    Blackwater resumed guarding American diplomatic convoys in Iraq on Friday, after Iraqi officials backed away from plans to expel the company. The Iraq ministry said Blackwater guards had fired on a Baghdad square without provocation, killing 11 people.

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ordered a review of security practices in the wake of the shootings. Federal prosecutors also are investigating whether company employees illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq.

    On the web:
    Iraq Probe of U.S. Security Firm Grows – Washington Post

  • Dreamworks and Paramount Headed for Splitsville

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • Buffett Connection Leads to Major Gift

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • At Brinker, directors eat free

    Brinker International, the Dallas restaurant company with $4.3 billion in annual revenue, pays members of its board of directors well, more than $200,000 a year in cash and stock, according to the company’s proxy statement.

    And it gives them a complimentary dining card for use in company restaurants, which currently number about 1,800 in 49 states, Washington, D.C., and two dozen foreign countries. Brinker’s outlets include Chili’s, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, On the Border and Maggiano’s Little Italy.

    The dining card is a great perk for motivating directors to learn first hand about the company’s business and its products. Wonder how many of Countrywide Financial’s directors and their families hold some of the exotic mortgages that are now causing chaos in the credit markets? Or, how many Mattel directors and their families have toys with lead paint in their homes?

    A few of Brinker’s directors did not make use of their dining card, as first reported by footnoted.org. Among them was Robert Gates, who left the board late last year when he became Secretary of Defense.

    George Mrkonic, the retired president of Borders Group, and John Mims, co-founder of Cypress Ridge Partners, also did not use their cards.

    The remaining outside directors did make use of their cards, some of them, apparently, liberally. In its proxy, the company listed only the tax gross up amount paid to each director, related to use of the dining card. That amount would be much less than the value of the meals received.

    Ron Kirk, former mayor of Dallas and a partner in the law firm of Vinson & Elkins, received a gross up of $1,022. Rosendo Parra, a retired Dell executive, received $528. Erle Nye, chairman emeritus of TXU, the giant utility company being acquired by private equity firms, received $415. And James Oesterreicher, the retired chairman of J.C. Penney, received $250.

    Keep in mind that the average meal (food and drinks) at Chili’s, Romano’s and On the Border generates less than $15.50 in revenue, according to Brinker’s 10-K. The average meal revenue at Maggianos is $25.80.

  • A Change of Course for Indymac

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • Murdoch Gets Taste of His Own Medicine

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • Plum Tv Courts the Elite

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • Auditor doubts NovaStar’s health

    It’s one thing when stock market analysts knock your company’s prospects. Even worse when your auditor does the same.

    Subprime lender NovaStar Financial cancelled plans to raise $101 million Tuesday saying its auditor, Deloitte & Touche LLP , wanted to include a statement in the company’s financial disclosures about the “uncertainty of NovaStar’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

    Kansas City-based NovaStar also said it was cutting another 275 jobs, dropping the employee count to 600, down from more than 2,000 at the end of 2006.

    “We are pulling back to focus on NovaStar’s core strengths and preserve liquidity,” NovaStar CEO Scott Hartman said in a statement.

    Scott Valentin, an analyst at Friedman, Billings Ramsey & Co., wrote that “an eventual liquidation of the company is highly probable.”

    On the web
    NovaStar survival at risk as First American cuts jobs – Reuters

  • Meyerson leaves Accredited

    Accredited Home Lenders, the troubled mortgage company with two former S&L regulators on its board, lost a key director this week.


    Click here for help putting maps on your site.

  • Zuckerberg Fights Lawsuit Over Facebook Idea

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • At the Robin Hood Foundation the rich take from the rich


    Click here for help putting maps on your site.

  • Gupta picks home-grown board members

    While controversial tech entrepreneur Vinod Gupta widely cultivates political alliances around the country, he stays close to home when he picks board members for his Omaha-based company, infoUSA.


    Click here for help putting maps on your site.

  • Whole Foods, but not the whole story

    So, now we know how at least one corporate CEO got his kicks. For years, he posted on financial bulletin boards, under an alias, sometimes criticizing the competition.

    “I posted on Yahoo! under a pseudonym because I had fun doing it,” Whole Foods CEO John Mackey acknowledged on his company’s Web site last night. “I never intended any of those postings to be identified with me.”

    Mackey used the pseudonym “Rahodeb,” a variation on his wife’s name, Deborah, from 1999 until last summer The New York Times reported.

    The FTC, which is trying to block Whole Foods’ acquisition of another organic grocer, Wild Oats, disclosed the pseudonym in a footnote in a court document. Using his alias, Mackey had posted about Wild Oats.

  • Competition on a New Level

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

  • Bearish on Mr. Brooks

    Bear Stearns was under tremendous pressure on the weekend of June 17. Two hedge funds managed by the company were near collapse.

    What did Richard Marin, chief of the asset management unit that oversees the funds, do? He went to the movies. Then he blogged about the film, Mr. Brooks. (Marin gave it a thumbs down.)

    “I had been working 24-7 on this thing. Taking a small amount of time to clear my head seemed reasonable,” he told the New York Times.

    We suspect that when the Times discovered the blog, whimofiron.blogspot.com, it was open for public viewing. But by this morning, readership was by invitation only.

    Update: Bear Stearns replaced Marin on June 29, naming Jeffrey B. Lane to head the unit. Marin now serves as an adviser to Lane.

    On the web
    A New Genre on Wall St.: Bailout Blog – New York Times (registration required)

  • Sec Chairman Defends Record

    This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.