Tag: shareholder

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Barclays beats revenue estimates and ups shareholder funds

Barclays beats profit estimates and ups shareholder payments

Barclays and HSBC buildings are seen amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, Britain October 20, 2020.

Matthew Childs | Reuters

Barclays beat second-quarter profit expectations on Wednesday and boosted returns to shareholders, with its investment banking and equities businesses posting record incomes.

The British lender posted a quarterly attributable profit of £2.1 billion ($2.9 billion), up from £90 million for the second quarter of 2020. Analysts had expected net reported income of £1.7 billion for the three months until the end of June, according to Refinitiv data.

Equities and investment banking fees were up 38% and 27%, respectively, in the second quarter.

Barclays also announced increased capital distributions to shareholders, with a half-year dividend of 2 pence per share and a further share buyback of up to £500 million.

The bank has also seen a significant reduction in credit loss provisions, as outlined in its first-quarter earnings report.

Barclays shares are up by around 15% year-to-date, but were as much as 31% higher at the end of April.

Other highlights for the quarter:

  • Group revenues hit £5.4 billion, fractionally up from £5.34 billion a year ago.
  • CET 1 ratio, a measure of bank solvency, came in at 15.1%, up from 14.2% a year ago.

Barclays has previously indicated that it expects costs to rise in 2021 compared to the previous year, due to coronavirus-related expenses, a real estate review, further structural cost action and pay increases.

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World News

High shareholder Data Edge on the preliminary public providing

Top shareholder Info Edge on the initial public offering

A Zomato Delivery boy adjusts a grocery order in his delivery bike amid the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic on November 8, 2020 in New Delhi, India.

Nasir Kachroo | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Indian internet company Info Edge has no plans to sell its entire stake in Zomato if the grocery delivery startup goes public, a senior executive said.

Zomato filed for an initial public offering of up to Rs. 82.5 billion ($ 1.1 billion) in April, in which the company will issue new shares valued at up to Rs. 75 billion. The company plans to use the proceeds to fund organic and inorganic growth initiatives, which may include mergers or acquisitions.

Info Edge, the startup’s largest shareholder, will sell shares valued at up to 7.5 billion rupees ($ 101 million), the company said in an IPO in April.

“We continue to invest in Zomato, we will not sell our entire stake,” said Chintan Thakkar, CFO and Executive Director at Info Edge, told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on Tuesday.

Zomato participants

Info Edge was the first institutional investor to support Zomato and, according to Thakkar, currently holds around 17% of the shares in the start-up. Other shareholders include rideshare giant Uber, Alibaba subsidiary Ant Group and Singapore state investor Temasek.

“What we announced is that we could hit up to $ 100 million,” he said, referring to the number of Zomato shares Info Edge could sell. “We still have the option of not paying even $ 100 million.”

“Most of our stake will likely stay in Zomato, so we will keep investing in it,” said Thakkar.

Thakkar didn’t want to reveal when Zomato’s IPO could take place.

He said anything Info Edge receives from the offering will be added to existing funds that are likely to be used in the company’s operations and can be used to buy or acquire a strategic minority stake in potential midsize companies.

Info Edge will primarily deal with technology startups or “anything that has a sizeable market and can disrupt the existing market,” he added.

India’s fragmented food delivery scene

Together with rival start-up Swiggy, Zomato dominates the US $ 4.2 billion grocery delivery market in India, which is highly competitive but also very fragmented.

In its prospectus, Zomato said it faces intense competition from chain restaurants that have their own online ordering platforms. Other competitors are cloud kitchens and restaurants that operate their own delivery fleets, as well as offline orders over the phone.

The company also said the pandemic had a significant impact on business last year as most restaurants were temporarily closed and many customers were unwilling to order outside food. Zomato said its restaurant service income was also severely impacted.

In February, Zomato said it raised $ 250 million from donors like Tiger Global Management and Fidelity. That was months after a $ 660 million financing round closed.

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Business

Tribune Sale to Alden Faces Shareholder Vote

Tribune Sale to Alden Faces Shareholder Vote

In the end, the hedge fund prevailed.

Tribune Publishing shareholders, whose titles include The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and The New York Daily News, agreed on Friday to sell the company to Alden Global Capital, an investor with a reputation for cutting costs and jobs dismantle.

Alden’s offer, which already owns around 200 local newspapers, met with resistance: Journalists in Tribunes newspapers protested against the sale and publicly pleaded for another buyer. Stewart W. Bainum Jr., a Maryland hotel manager who had planned to buy The Baltimore Sun, offered a glimmer of hope when he showed up with a last-minute deal for the entire company. He was briefly supported by a Swiss billionaire.

However, the competing offer never came together in full, leaving Tribune shareholders a choice of approving or rejecting Alden’s offer. Tribune’s board of directors had recommended voting for the sale.

“The Tribune purchase confirms our commitment to the newspaper industry and our focus on getting publications to a place where they can function sustainably over the long term,” Alden president Heath Freeman said in a statement Friday to The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune reported that the deal had been approved.

Friday’s vote had required the approval of two-thirds of the shares held by investors other than Alden, who hold a 32 percent stake in Tribune.

The company’s second largest shareholder, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns a 24 percent stake in Tribune, did not cast a vote, his spokeswoman said on Friday.

“Over the past few years, Tribune Publishing has been a passive investment as it has continued to focus on the leadership roles it holds in its companies,” said the spokeswoman for Dr. Soon-Shiong in a statement emailed.

Alden began buying news agencies more than a decade ago and owns the MediaNews Group, the second largest newspaper group in the country, with titles like The Denver Post and The Boston Herald. While buying a newspaper in an era of shrinking print runs and advertising sounds like a questionable investment, Alden has found a way to make a profit by laying off workers, cutting costs, and selling real estate.

“Alden’s playbook is pretty simple: buy cheap, cut deeper,” said Jim Friedlich, executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a nonprofit journalism organization owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer. “There is little reason to believe that Alden will approach full ownership of Tribune any differently than the other news properties.”

The hedge fund’s first priority would be to consolidate Tribune’s operations with those of its other newspapers, which would result in job losses and cost savings, predicted Friedlich, who acted as unpaid advisor to Mr Bainum.

“This is the strategic logic of the acquisition and one would hope – but not expect – that the savings from these synergies will be reinvested in local journalism and digital transformation,” he said.

Tribune agreed in February to sell to Alden, which owned it for years, a deal worth approximately $ 630 million to Alden.

In business today

Updated

May 21, 2021 at 8:22 p.m. ET

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Mr Bainum emerged as a potential savior in February when he announced that he would be creating a nonprofit to buy The Baltimore Sun and other Maryland newspapers from Alden once the Tribune purchase was completed. However, his business with Alden soon ran aground when negotiations about the works agreements that would come into effect when the papers were handed over stalled.

As a result, Mr. Bainum made a full-company offer on March 16, surpassing Alden with an offer that valued the company at approximately $ 680 million. He was joined by Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire who lives in Wyoming and who had expressed an interest in the Chicago Tribune property. Mr. Bainum would have raised $ 100 million, Mr. Wyss funded the rest.

Tribune agreed to look into the offer from the couple, who started a company called Newslight, and said on April 5 that it would begin negotiations because it had decided the deal could result in a “superior proposal.” Part of the discussion involved access to Tribune’s finances.

Mr. Wyss took himself out of the equation less than two weeks later and left the listing after his staff reviewed the books. One reason for his decision, according to those knowledgeable, was that his plans to convert the Chicago newspaper into a competitive national daily would be nearly impossible to implement.

Mr. Bainum told Tribune on April 30 that he would increase the amount of money he would personally use to fund the fund from $ 100 million to $ 300 million as he sought like-minded investors to replace Mr. Wyss. In addition to the need to fund the remainder of his $ 380 million offer, Mr. Bainum’s offer was contingent on finding someone to take responsibility for The Chicago Tribune, according to three people aware of the discussions.

In a statement on Friday, Mr. Bainum thanked “the journalists, readers and civic investors” who had supported his mission.

“Although our efforts to acquire the Tribune and its local newspapers have failed, the trip confirmed my belief that a better model for local news is both possible and necessary,” he said.

Mr Bainum said he has continued to focus on Baltimore, reviewing various options for locally-supported nonprofit newsrooms and will announce this in the coming days.

“Baltimore has a proud tradition of impactful journalism that resonates within and beyond its borders, and I look forward to working with those who are committed to writing the next chapter,” he said.

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Business

Former Brooks Brothers minority shareholder sues, claiming ‘dangerous religion.’

Former Brooks Brothers minority shareholder sues, claiming ‘bad faith.’

In 2020, he told the New York Times that none of the sales and investment discussions “met the needs we saw”. The TAL lawsuit, which also cites the Del Vecchio family holding company, Delfin, as a defendant, alleges that none of the discussions with the board of directors or shareholders were shared. Like many global apparel suppliers, TAL, which owns 11 factories and reportedly employs over 26,000 people, was hit hard by the volatility caused by the outbreak of the pandemic. At one point, apparel production fell to just 30 percent of group capacity due to the drop in demand from retailers, resulting in the permanent closure of several factories and a relocation to the manufacture of personal protective equipment.

In August 2020, Brooks Brothers was sold to SPARC Group, a joint venture between Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in the United States, and Authentic Brands Group for $ 325 million, after stores closed on their balance sheets had led to chaos, a licensing company. TAL is also an unsecured creditor in bankruptcy proceedings.

Paul Lockwood of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, lawyer for Claudio Del Vecchio, said: “The allegations in the complaint are false and we expect the court to dismiss the case.” Katie Jakola of Kirkland & Ellis, the law firm representing TAL, said they’d look forward to her day in court.

However, some observers doubt that it will come to that.

“This appears like two rich parties are making complaints,” said William Susman, chief executive officer at Threadstone Advisors. “The owners of the Brooks Brothers have already endured their pain. TAL is a large, demanding company. Hard to feel they were betrayed. Sounds like a settlement is in everyone’s future. “

Elizabeth Paton contributed to the coverage.

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Politics

$100 million New Jersey deli firm proprietor kills consulting cope with shareholder

$100 million New Jersey deli company owner kills consulting deal with shareholder

Hometown deli, Paulsboro, NJ

Mike Calia | CNBC

The mysterious $ 100 million corporation, which as of Monday owns a single delicatessen store in New Jersey, killed the advisory deal that has been paying $ 15,000 a month to a company controlled by its chairman’s father since last May.

Hometown International’s move to terminate the consultancy agreement with Tryon Capital LLC by mutual agreement came after articles from CNBC detailing the close relationships between Tryon Capital partner Peter Coker Sr. and the deli owner, chairman Peter Coker Jr from Hong Kong.

The elder Coker is also a shareholder in Hometown International, whose combined revenue for the past two years has been about $ 10,000 less than what the Tryon Capital company paid in consulting fees.

“Given the recent negative press against the company and Tryon’s clients, the parties determined that it was in the best interests of the company and its shareholders to terminate the advisory agreement at this point,” Hometown International said in its 8-K Filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“The parties believe such termination will reduce distractions and allow the company to advance its proposed acquisition strategy,” the file said.

The registration was signed by Paul Morina, CEO of Hometown International, who is also a Principal and Head Wrestling Coach at Paulsboro High School in Paulsboro, New Jersey, where the deli is located.

At the same time, E-Waste – a Shell company affiliated with both Coker Sr. and Hometown International – terminated its own consultancy agreement on Monday that paid Tryon Capital $ 2,500 a month.

Hometown deli in Paulsboro, NJ

CNBC

In E-Waste’s own 8-K report, which announced the end of the consulting contract, “the recent negative press” regarding this company “and Tryon’s clients” was also mentioned.

The end of the contracts was praised by Manoj Jain, founder of Maso Capital in Hong Kong, a major investor in Hometown International. Maso Capital uses Hometown International and E-Waste as vehicles for acquisitions.

Jain made a statement referring to CNBC’s coverage last week of controversy surrounding Peter Coker Sr., others associated with Tryon Capital, and E-Waste.

“We are very concerned about these serious allegations and are pleased that the relationship between the two companies and Tryon Consulting has now ended,” Jain said in a statement to CNBC.

“We look forward to both public companies advancing their stated acquisition plans,” said Jain.

Jain owns sole voting rights over approximately 2.5 million common shares of Hometown International, or more than 20% of the nearly 8 million common shares outstanding. The stock closed at $ 13.29 per share on Monday, up 0.38%.

An SEC filing by Hometown International in April 2020 and a similar filing by E-Waste earlier this month suggest that both companies intend to raise investments from Jain and others to fund efforts to evaluate potential merger candidates with other companies, particularly private companies, to use.

The filings of the individual companies almost exactly one year apart show that they have either sold or sold 2.5 million shares apiece as part of these efforts.

While Hometown International has combined sales of around $ 36,000 in its Paulsboro delicatessen store in the past two years and E-Waste has no significant business, both companies could be attractive to private companies looking to become US public companies through the use of reverse merger or other means.

Tryon Capital’s advisory agreements expire days after Hometown International was delisted from the more prestigious OTCQB and relegated to the less prestigious Pink market for “public interest reasons”.

Hometown International has also been given a “Buyers Attention” warning sign by the OTC Markets Group, which operates these marketplaces.

OTC Markets executives said the downgrade was due to “irregularities” in Hometown International’s public statements.

OTC Markets executives also said they were watching filings from E-Waste, whose mailing address is that of another North Carolina company affiliated with Coker Sr. that has borrowed more than $ 200,000 from E-Waste.

E-waste also owes Hometown International $ 150,000, according to a promissory note filed with the SEC.

E-waste, which trades on the Pink market, saw no stock sales on Monday and ended the day at $ 8.41 per share, a staggering $ 105 million market cap.

CNBC has detailed how Peter Coker Sr., who holds more than 63,000 common shares of Hometown, has been sued in the past for allegedly hiding money from creditors and corporate-related fraud. He has denied these allegations.

In August 1992, Coker Sr. was arrested in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and “charged with prostitution and other crimes after allegedly exposing himself to three girls while driving around a school one night,” The Morning Call reported at the time . Coker Sr. and his son did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

CNBC has also detailed Coker Sr.’s links with E-Waste.

Coker Sr.’s partner in Tryon Capital, Peter Reichard, stepped in in 2011 on a criminal case that resulted in his conviction of an illegal donation program of thousands of dollars to the successful 2008 campaign for the governor of North Carolina at Bev Perdue , a Democrat.

The program involved the use of a fake advisory contract between Tryon Capital Ventures and a fast food franchisee who wanted to endorse Perdue. Coker Sr. was not charged in this case.

Reichard is also a managing director with Coker Sr. of a company called Europa Capital Investments, which owns 90,400 common shares of Hometown International and has warrants for an additional 1.9 million shares.

James Patten, a financial analyst at Tryon Capital, wrestled with Morina, CEO of Hometown International, in high school.

Patten is banned from working as a stockbroker or working with broker-dealers by FINRA, the broker-dealer regulator, according to the regulator’s database, which lists several disciplinary actions taken against Patten over the course of his career.

Hometown International conducted a full audit for nearly two weeks after hedge fund manager David Einhorn found the company’s market cap exceeded $ 100 million despite only owning a tiny deli.

A major investor in both Hometown and E-Waste is a Macau, China-based company called Global Equity Limited.

An owner of Global Equity, Michael Tyldesley, is listed in the financial statements as the director of another Macau company, VCH Limited, which also has interests in Hometown International.

VCH Limited has entered into an advisory agreement with Hometown International which, according to SEC filings, pays $ 25,000 per month.

That agreement was not mentioned in the filings filed on Monday announcing the termination of Tryon Capital’s advisory agreements with Hometown International and E-Waste.

Categories
Politics

Supreme Courtroom considers shareholder swimsuit towards Goldman Sachs

Supreme Court considers shareholder suit against Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs shareholders argued in the Supreme Court Monday that they could sue the investment banking giant for its general statements about freedom from conflict of interest.

Shareholders said these statements were proven untrue and artificially raised Goldman’s stock.

The case, which dates back to the bank’s marketing of risky stocks prior to the 2008 financial crisis, could make it difficult for stockholders to bring future class action lawsuits over securities fraud. However, during about two hours of telephoning, the judges signaled that it was unlikely that they would reach a comprehensive decision in favor of both sides.

The case focuses on Goldman’s marketing of a synthetic secured bond called Abacus and other CDOs that has not disclosed that the company or its key customers have heavily bet against the products. Goldman ruled in 2010 with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $ 550 million for fraud related to abacus, the largest penalty a Wall Street bank has ever faced.

Shareholders, including the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, said they lost billions on news of the SEC investigation that fueled Goldman’s stock price. The case is securities fraud, they argue, because Goldman made false statements such as “Our customers’ interests always come first” and “We have extensive procedures and controls in place to identify and address conflicts of interest.”

To date, the case has not gone beyond the class certification phase, which means shareholders are still struggling to sue together. Goldman has argued that the statements in question were too general to have any bearing on the price of its stock. The US 2nd Court of Appeals rejected this argument in an April statement that was on the side of the shareholders.

The questions raised at the hearing indicated that there may be a majority of the judges willing to overturn the Circuit 2 decision in favor of Goldman’s shareholders, but they are unlikely to contradict much of his reasoning.

The judges noted that the positions of the attorneys who argued for each side appeared to have converged since the court first approved the case. Goldman Sachs attorney, for example, has dropped the bank’s previous position that generic statements can never be the basis of a securities fraud lawsuit.

“It seems to me you are both in the middle,” said Judge Amy Coney Barrett, an appointment from former President Donald Trump, once to Tom Goldstein, attorney for shareholders. Goldstein is a partner at Goldstein & Russell and publisher of SCOTUSBlog.

Judge Stephen Breyer, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, told Sopan Joshi, a Justice Department attorney who made arguments that the case was filled with too much technical jargon.

“This seems like an area that the more I read about it, the less we write about it, the better,” said Breyer. “It’s based on very peripheral issues,” Breyer told Goldstein.

The main controversy was whether the 2nd Circuit, in its decision in favor of Goldman shareholders, might have closed the door to companies that could argue that their statements were generalized in order to thwart class action lawsuits.

The Justice Ministry, which did not speak out in favor of either party, filed a brief in February stating that the 2nd Circle’s decision on this point was ambiguous.

The DOJ asked the judges to overturn the lower court’s decision to clarify that a company could actually argue that what it said was too general to have an impact on its stock price. On the other hand, the agency said that just because a statement is generic does not automatically mean that it cannot affect the stock price.

“The parties seem to be largely in agreement with each other and with us,” Joshi said on this point during the clashes.

Goldstein agreed that the fact that a statement is general should not be excluded from consideration when a court is considering whether to bring a class action lawsuit. However, the statement of the 2nd circuit did not say otherwise, and he asked the court not to reverse the decision of the court of appeal.

In contrast, Goldman’s attorney Kannon Shanmugam argued that the 2nd Circuit statement declined to consider the generic nature of Goldman’s alleged misrepresentation. That was unfair, he argued, as general statements tended to have less influence on stock prices.

“The more general a statement is, the less likely it is that it will contain the kind of information that is in the stock price,” Shanmugam said. “We think that in this case the statements are extremely general.”

Justice Elena Kagan, appointed by former President Barack Obama, suggested that the court could do exactly what the Justice Department asked.

She asked Goldstein, “Why shouldn’t we just evacuate and say, ‘Here’s what the law really is, we want to make sure you do it under the appropriate standard?'”

Goldstein said that reversing the lower court’s opinion would be “somewhat offensive” to the lower court and essentially “literary criticism”. He said the 2nd circuit was clear in a 2018 statement on the same case.

“Both opinions are in front of you,” Goldstein told Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee. Goldstein said the court could clarify the 2nd Circuit opinion while affirming it, rather than reversing it.

“We are in this position where the two of you are closer together and now we have to decide what to do with the opinion of the 2nd Circle,” Barrett said at one point.

The Supreme Court decision is expected in late June.

The case is Goldman Sachs Group v Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, No. 20-222.