YAHOO: Don't worry about that thing that caused our stock to crash — it's fine (YHOO) | ||
| | ||
Yahoo says it's fine. In a statement on Wednesday, the company said the IRS issue that sparked a 7.6% sell off in its stock late in the day on Tuesday won't actually be an issue for the company. Here's Yahoo: An IRS representative stated Tuesday that the IRS plans to study its rules for issuing private letter rulings regarding the active trade or business requirement in spin-off transactions and will hold off processing new ruling requests. Yahoo understands that the IRS's statement is not specific to Yahoo's planned Q4 2015 spin-off of its remaining stake in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Small Business, reflects no change in applicable law, and does not affect previously filed ruling requests. Yahoo filed its pending ruling request with the IRS in Q1 2015. Yahoo continues to work toward completing the planned spin-off in Q4 2015. On Tuesday, a report from Bloomberg News cited comments from an IRS official made at a D.C. Bar Association event which said the agency is considering rules related to spin offs. Isaac Zimbalist of the IRS said, "The issue comes down to whether we’ve dropped a hot dog stand or a lemonade stand into a business that is primarily publicly traded stocks, cash and other wonderful things that I call appreciated property." And so the readthrough from the market is whether Yahoo's spin off of its Alibaba stake, which includes Yahoo's 384 million shares of Alibaba and its Yahoo Small Business unit, would be considered a "hot dog stand or a lemonade stand"-type combination. If so, the worry is that the deal could be in jeopardy. Yahoo announced back in January that it would execute a tax-free spin off of its Alibaba holding into a separate, publicly traded company. SEE ALSO: Yahoo collapsed Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions  | ||
| |
SAP's CEO says he does not believe Salesforce will be sold because its valuation is too big (CRM, SAP, MSFT, ORCL) | ||
| | ||
SAP chief executive Bill McDermott has once again ruled out that his company has any interest in buying rival Salesforce.com and went further on Wednesday by saying that Salesforce is unlikely to be acquired by any other player in the industry. Speaking to reporters ahead of SAP's annual meeting, McDermott was asked what would happen to his company's own business if a rival like Microsoft acquired Salesforce. The SAP CEO bluntly replied that he did not think a merger would happen, by Microsoft or other rivals such as Oracle. "I do not expect that to be the case at all because of the valuation of the company," McDermott said referring to the possibility Microsoft would buy Salesforce. He was then asked whether any rival would buy Salesforce and he responded: "No." Pressed further on the possibility Oracle might buy Salesforce, McDermott responded: "It is probably better than any [other] scenario for SAP because it will add more disruption to a commodity business." Salesforce has a market cap of close to $50 billion, but analysts predict a takeover premium could push up the value of a potential deal to $60 billion or more. News first emerged that Salesforce had hired advisors to consider, and perhaps fend off, a possible takeover offer on April 30. Since then the tech industry has been awash with gossip and theories about what might be happening. Potential rumored suitors include Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, IBM, and Google. Salesforce is due to report its first quarter results on later on Wednesday. SEE ALSO: Here's the latest Silicon Valley gossip about the rumored acquisition of Salesforce Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This simple exercise will work out every muscle in your body  | ||
| |
Gurbaksh Chahal's Gravity4 is trying to acquire another public ad tech company just a week after its last takeover bid was rejected | ||
| | ||
Ad tech company Gravity4 has made a 564,700,000 kr ($67.4 million) bid to acquire publicly traded rival Swedish company TradeDoubler. The news is startling for a number of reasons:
Chahal has maintained his innocence in the first case and has said he only pleaded guilty to avoid a "witch hunt." Neither Chahal or Gravity4 has responded to requests for comment about the second reported arrest. TradeDoubler would not comment on the Gravity4 acquisition bid when contacted by Business Insider. A press release from Gravity4 reads: Gravity4 has announced that it board of directors has doubled its offer of 282,350,000 kr for publicly traded TradeDoubler AB headquartered in Sweden. Gravity4 will purchase publicly traded TradeDoubler AB 282,350,000 kr (equivalent to 6.67 kr per share) in cash upon closing, additional to the equivalent of that amount in Gravity4 stock. This offer would value the full transaction at 564,700,000 kr (equivalent to 13.4 kr per share). Chahal is the former founder and CEO of another ad tech company, RadiumOne. He was fired by his board after the domestic abuse accusations became public. He once, unsuccessfully, tried to buy back his former company, but went on to start another: Gravity4. In the past nine months it has made nine acquisitions of small ad tech companies such as Triggit and, most recently, AdX Search. However, Business Insider understands those deals are modest, and mostly in stock. Chahal claims his new company is valued at $1 billion. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 11 icons of American pop culture who are actually Canadian  | ||
| |
IS, Syria regime locked in fierce battles near Palmyra | ||
| | ||
Beirut (AFP) - Jihadists from the Islamic State group entered the northern city limits of ancient Palmyra Wednesday, seizing a state security building after intense fighting, a monitor said. "The jihadists are once again in the north of Tadmur, after taking over the state security building," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP, using Palmyra's Arabic name. "They also seized a checkpoint in the same area," he said. IS's new advance comes after fierce clashes with Syrian government forces Wednesday on the northern and eastern edges of Palmyra. On Saturday, IS seized most of Palmyra's northern neighbourhoods, but was pushed out by regime forces less than 24 hours later. Fighting on Wednesday raged near security buildings in northern Palmyra, and close to the city's notorious prison in the east. The jihadist offensive on world heritage site Palmyra began on May 13 and has since left more than 350 people dead. Mohammad, an activist originally from Palmyra, told AFP that the city was suffering from water shortages and intermittent electricity. "A large number of people from the city's north have been displaced into other neighbourhoods. Some are sleeping in the streets," he said. On Monday, IS jihadists seized two gas fields north of Palmyra that the regime had been using to generate electricity for areas under its control. Antiquities officials fear that IS wants to destroy Palmyra's pre-Islamic cultural treasures, which include colonnaded streets and ancient citadels. The city is also strategically located at the crossroads of key highways leading west to Damascus and Homs, and east to Iraq. In Idlib, a regime air raid on the opposition-controlled village of Darkush left at least 22 civilians dead on Tuesday, the Observatory said. Darkush lies on the Syrian-Turkish border, just 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Ariha, one of the last remaining regime bastions in Idlib province. Also on Tuesday, a rebel coalition including Al-Qaeda's Syria branch seized control of the Al-Mastumah camp -- the largest military base in Idlib. A huge blast and fierce explosions rocked the site, and rebels swiftly overran the base as regime forces fled south to Ariha. According to the Observatory and Syria's state television, a teacher was killed and at least 20 students wounded Wednesday when mortar rounds landed on their school in Damascus. Syria's conflict began in March 2011 with peaceful anti-government demonstrations, but has evolved into a complex war that has left more than 220,000 people dead. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
| |
Iraqi forces say they thwarted ISIS attack near Ramadi overnight | ||
| | ||
Islamic State is seeking to consolidate its gains in the vast desert province of Anbar, of which Ramadi is capital, where only isolated pockets of territory remain under government control. The IS advance has exposed the shortcomings of Iraq's army and the limitations of U.S. air strikes. Government forces backed by Shi'ite militias have meanwhile been building up at a base near Ramadi in preparation for a counterattack to retake the city, where Sunni Islamic State forces have taken over tanks and artillery and large amounts of ammunition abandoned by fleeing Iraqi forces. There are fears in Washington and elsewhere that the fighting in Iraq will become a polarizing clash between Shi'ites and Sunnis as Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shi'ite, becomes increasingly dependent on the Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias to step in where the Iraqi military has failed. Islamic State fighters attacked government forces in the town of Husaiba al-Sharqiya, about halfway betweenRamadi and the Habbaniya military base where militia fighters have assembled, police and pro-government forces said. “Daesh (Islamic State) attacked us around midnight after a wave of mortar shelling on our positions," Amir al-Fahdawi, a leader of the pro-government Sunni tribal force in the area, told Reuters on Wednesday.
The Habbaniya base is midway between Ramadi and the town of Fallujah, which has been under Islamic State control for more than a year and is 50 km (30 miles) from the Iraqi capital. Islamic State appears to be trying to join up Ramadi and Fallujah by taking territory between the two towns. "They want to occupy more of Anbar," said Sabah Karhout, head of the Anbar provincial council. "Their primary aim is to connect Ramadi to Fallujah." As pressure mounted for action to retake Ramadi, a local government official urged citizens to join the police and the army to join what Shi'ite militiamen have said will be the "Battle of Anbar". Islamic State fighters have set up defensive positions and laid landmines, witnesses in Ramadi said. The group's black flags are flying over the main mosque and other buildings. The White House said a U.S.-led air campaign would back Iraqi forces in their attempt to regain Ramadi, whose fall exposed the limits of U.S. air power in its battle against the radical Sunni Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria.
SECTARIAN HOSTILITYAbadi's decision to send in the militia, known as Hashid Shaabi or Popular Mobilisation, to try to retake the predominantly Sunni city of Ramadi could stir up further sectarian hostility in one of the most violent parts of Iraq. Ramadi was Islamic State's biggest success since it captured the northern city of Mosul last year and declared itself an Islamic caliphate. While it has been forced to give ground in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, and in the Syrian city of Kobani, the group still controls large areas of Iraq and Syria. Local officials have said 500 people were killed in the fighting to take Ramadi and the international migration agency says more than 40,000 people have fled the city.
A Pentagon spokesman said it would have been preferable if the Iraqi troops had destroyed the equipment before leaving. An Iraqi army officer who commanded an armored regiment before Islamic State swept through Ramadi, said the militants had seized a storage facility that contained enough ammunition to sustain Islamic State for months. "The consequences of seizing the ammunition storage in Ramadi will be much worse than seizing the city itself," the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The real gain for Daesh was not control of Ramadi, but the bigger prize is the seizure of the army's major ammunition warehouse, where tonnes of different types of ammunition were stored.” In Syria, Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led air strikes are pressing an attack on Islamic State that has killed at least 170 members of the group this week, a Kurdish official and a monitoring group said. The official said Kurdish YPG fighters and allied militia have encircled Islamic State in a dozen villages near the town of Tel Tamr in the northeastern Hasaka province. The region is important in the battle against Islamic State because it borders land controlled by the jihadists in Iraq. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 70 people were injured while filming this movie with 100 untamed lions  | ||
| |
"This time they came from another direction in an attempt to launch a surprise attack, but we were vigilant and, after around four hours of fighting, we aborted their offensive,” he added.
YAHOO: Don't worry about that thing that caused our stock to crash — it's fine (YHOO) | ||
| | ||
Yahoo says it's fine. In a statement on Wednesday, the company said the IRS issue that sparked a 7.6% sell off in its stock late in the day on Tuesday won't actually be an issue for the company. Here's Yahoo: An IRS representative stated Tuesday that the IRS plans to study its rules for issuing private letter rulings regarding the active trade or business requirement in spin-off transactions and will hold off processing new ruling requests. Yahoo understands that the IRS's statement is not specific to Yahoo's planned Q4 2015 spin-off of its remaining stake in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Small Business, reflects no change in applicable law, and does not affect previously filed ruling requests. Yahoo filed its pending ruling request with the IRS in Q1 2015. Yahoo continues to work toward completing the planned spin-off in Q4 2015. On Tuesday, a report from Bloomberg News cited comments from an IRS official made at a D.C. Bar Association event which said the agency is considering rules related to spin offs. Isaac Zimbalist of the IRS said, "The issue comes down to whether we’ve dropped a hot dog stand or a lemonade stand into a business that is primarily publicly traded stocks, cash and other wonderful things that I call appreciated property." And so the readthrough from the market is whether Yahoo's spin off of its Alibaba stake, which includes Yahoo's 384 million shares of Alibaba and its Yahoo Small Business unit, would be considered a "hot dog stand or a lemonade stand"-type combination. If so, the worry is that the deal could be in jeopardy. Yahoo announced back in January that it would execute a tax-free spin off of its Alibaba holding into a separate, publicly traded company. SEE ALSO: Yahoo collapsed Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's how Floyd Mayweather spends his millions  | ||
| |
SAP's CEO says he does not believe Salesforce will be sold because its valuation is too big (CRM, SAP, MSFT, ORCL) | ||
| | ||
SAP chief executive Bill McDermott has once again ruled out that his company has any interest in buying rival Salesforce.com and went further on Wednesday by saying that Salesforce is unlikely to be acquired by any other player in the industry. Speaking to reporters ahead of SAP's annual meeting, McDermott was asked what would happen to his company's own business if a rival like Microsoft acquired Salesforce. The SAP CEO bluntly replied that he did not think a merger would happen, by Microsoft or other rivals such as Oracle. "I do not expect that to be the case at all because of the valuation of the company," McDermott said referring to the possibility Microsoft would buy Salesforce. He was then asked whether any rival would buy Salesforce and he responded: "No." Asked about the possibility Oracle might buy Salesforce, McDermott responded: "It is probably better than any [other] scenario for SAP because it will add more disruption to a commodity business." Salesforce has a market cap of close to $50 billion, but analysts predict a takeover premium could push up the value of a potential deal to $60 billion or more. News first emerged that Salesforce had hired advisors to consider, and perhaps fend off, a possible takeover offer on April 30. Since then the tech industry has been awash with gossip and theories about what might be happening. Potential rumored suitors include Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, IBM, and Google. Salesforce is due to report its first quarter results on later on Wednesday. SEE ALSO: Here's the latest Silicon Valley gossip about the rumored acquisition of Salesforce Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: This simple exercise will work out every muscle in your body  | ||
| |
One analyst thinks a boycott will rock Thomas Cook despite the CEO's apology over the death of 2 children at one of its hotels | ||
| | ||
The CEO of travel company Thomas Cook on Wednesday personally apologised to the parents whose children were killed by a carbon monoxide leak from a faulty boiler at a Corfu hotel in 2006. On Sunday, Thomas Cook said it received up to £3.5 million ($5.4 million) in insurance and legal compensation for costs associated with the death of the two children, Christianne and Robert Shepard, aged 7 and 6. The company gave half of its legal compensation to charity, after people became angry that the company had received more money from the case than the family had. But Will Hedden, dealer at London Capital Group, thinks the personal apology and anger over the incident from customers is likely to hit the company over the next year or so (emphasis ours): "First half results point to a lower seasonal loss than last year, with revenues climbing. The travel operator keeps its full year guidance for a growth in earnings, and states bookings for the key summer period were looking encouraging. The markets will be looking for what the company has to say over the recent bad press following the 2006 deaths in Greece and the compensation debacle. "Any possible customer backlash following the Greek-related compensation debacle may take until next year’s numbers to show, with this summer’s bookings likely to be already locked down by consumers. Despite pressure this week, the stock will find some support thanks to the stake that Chinese firm Fosun took in March, any real weakness will leave investors thinking the Chinese won’t miss the opportunity to gain more of a holding at a discount." Last week, a jury found that Thomas Cook's health and safety audit of the Louis Corcyra Beach Hotel, where Christianne and Robert Shepherd died in 2006, was inadequate, and led to the travel company "breaching its duty of care" to its customers. However, the court accepted that Thomas Cook was misled by the hotel about the nature of its gas supply. Thomas Cook's compensation is 10 times the amount received in a court case by the Shepherd family, which led to growing anger from the family and the travel company's customers. In response to this, Thomas Cook pledged to donate £1.5 million ($2.3 million) to charity Unicef, while the remaining amount of compensation would be taken by its insurers to cover the legal costs of the 10 year court case. Fankhauser told the BBC on TV today: "First I want to say that I am deeply sorry about the tragic death of Bobby and Christi Shepherd in 2006. From the deepest of my heart I am sorry. "It is clear that there are things that we as a company could have done better in the past nine years. In particular, the way we conducted our relationship with the family and this is something that we are going to change. "We could have done better in the past, we are sorry for that. We are going to try and help them move on with their lives. We did not handle our relationship with the family well. During the past nine years we failed to show the compassion that we should have shown to the family. That is probably the main mistake." Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Here's what 'Game of Thrones' stars look like in real life  | ||
| |
10 things you need to know before the opening bell (DIA, SPY, SPX, QQQ, CSC, TWC, ETSY, LOW) | ||
| | ||
Here is what you need to know. Greece says it will miss its next IMF payment without a new bailout. Reuters reports parliamentary speaker and Syriza politician Nikos Filis announced on TV: "If there is no deal by then [June 5] that will address the current funding problem, they won't get any money." The embattled government must make a $339 million debt payment on June 5 and three other debt payments in the two weeks following. Greece's two-year yield is down 4 basis points at 22.22%. Japan GDP topped estimates. The world's third-largest economy expanded at a 0.6% quarter-over-quarter clip, outpacing the 0.4% QoQ growth that was expected. The annualized growth rate of 2.4% was well above the 1.5% that economists were looking for. Japan's yen is lower by 0.2% at 120.96. The Bank of England minutes showed the vote to keep policy on hold was unanimous. Monetary Policy Committee members voted 9 to 0 in favor of keeping the benchmark interest rate at 0.50% and the asset purchase program at 375 billion pounds. All MPC members agreed an interest-rate hike was the next move the central bank would make. The British pound is up 0.1% at 1.5525. 5 big banks are expected to be fined more than $5 billion for rigging FX markets. UBS paid $545 million to settle allegations the investment bank manipulated currency markets and the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor). Four other banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland — are expected to plead guilty on Wednesday to rigging currency markets. Time Warner was approached about a takeover. The cable giant was approached by Altice about a deal after Time Warner's merger with Comcast was called off. A source told Bloomberg: "Deliberations on a deal are at an early stage and may not result in an agreement." Time Warner's market cap of $45 billion makes it larger than the $34 billion of Altice. Computer Sciences is splitting into 2 publicly traded companies. The company announced plans to separate its government and commercial businesses. The news came as the company announced earnings of $1.26 per share and revenue that slumped 12.6% from a year ago to $2.91 billion. Computer Sciences said it would pay a special dividend of $10.50 a share. Lowe's missed on the bottom line. The home-improvement retailer earned $0.70 per share, which fell short of the $0.74 Wall Street was expecting. Revenue edged up 5.4% versus a year ago to $14.13 billion, in line with the $14.26 billion that was anticipated. Lowe's reaffirmed its earnings-per-share guidance for full-year 2016 of $3.29, missing the $3.31 estimate. Etsy posted a huge loss. The Brooklyn-based online craft marketplace announced a loss of $0.84 per share. Revenue surged 44.4% to $58.5 million, slightly outpacing the $58 million that was anticipated. "At the end of the first quarter of 2015, the Etsy community included more than 1.4 million active sellers and 20.8 million active buyers. We made progress down our path to make Etsy an everyday experience, build local marketplaces, globally, offer high-impact seller services, and expand the Etsy economy," CEO Chad Dickerson said in a release. The stock was down as much as 18% in after-hours trade. Global stock markets trade mixed. Japan's Nikkei (+0.8%) led the advance in Asia, and Italy's MIB (-0.3%) paces the decline in Europe. US economic data is light. Crude-oil inventories will be released at 10:30 a.m. ET. The minutes from the April FOMC meeting will cross the wires at 2 p.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is off 2 basis points at 2.27%. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Watch a pilot squeeze his plane through this skinny canal in Greece  | ||
| |
Gurbaksh Chahal's Gravity4 is trying to acquire another public ad tech company just a week after its last takeover bid was rejected | ||
| | ||
Ad tech company Gravity4 has made a 564,700,000 kr ($67.4 million) bid to acquire publicly traded rival Swedish company TradeDoubler. The news is startling for a number of reasons:
Chahal has maintained his innocence in the first case and has said he only pleaded guilty to avoid a "witch hunt." Neither Chahal or Gravity4 has responded to requests for comment about the second reported arrest. TradeDoubler would not comment on the Gravity4 acquisition bid when contacted by Business Insider. A press release from Gravity4 reads: Gravity4 has announced that it board of directors has doubled its offer of 282,350,000 kr for publicly traded TradeDoubler AB headquartered in Sweden. Gravity4 will purchase publicly traded TradeDoubler AB 282,350,000 kr (equivalent to 6.67 kr per share) in cash upon closing, additional to the equivalent of that amount in Gravity4 stock. This offer would value the full transaction at 564,700,000 kr (equivalent to 13.4 kr per share). Chahal is the former founder and CEO of another ad tech company, RadiumOne. He was fired by his board after the domestic abuse accusations became public. He once, unsuccessfully, tried to buy back his former company, but went on to start another: Gravity4. In the past nine months it has made nine acquisitions of small ad tech companies such as Triggit and, most recently, AdX Search. However, Business Insider understands those deals are modest, and mostly in stock. Chahal claims his new company is valued at $1 billion. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: 11 icons of American pop culture who are actually Canadian  | ||
| |
