Investors in Health Care Seem to Bet on Incumbent  | Who is going to win the presidential election? You might want to ask Mark T. Bertolini, Andrew Ross Sorkin writes in the DealBook column. He just bet $5.7 billion on President Obama.
Mr. Bertolini is the chief executive of Aetna, which on Monday agreed to acquire Coventry Health Care, a huge provider of Medicare and Medicaid programs. His $5.7 billion bet makes a lot of sense if you believe that the Affordable Care Act - otherwise known as Obamacare - will not be repealed.
Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal the act “on my first day if elected,†so any gamble that Obamacare stays i ntact could be fairly described as a wager that President Obama will remain in office.
At a time when so many in the business community appear to be supporting Mr. Romney, it is telling that some businessmen and investors expect a different result - and are wagering more than rhetoric; they are staking their wallet on it.
DealBook '
Examining the Ponzi Scheme Through the Mind of the Con Artist  | Maybe “Ponzi scheme†should have its own spot in the Dewey Decimal System. Along with biographies of the schemers, a growing stack of scholarly references, legal tomes and articles aims to collect knowledge about this age-old crime.
But the latest entry in the category, “The Ponzi Scheme Puzzle: A History and Analysis of Con Artists and Victims†by Tamar Frankel, takes a different approach. While Professor Frankel is a legal scholar who has been on the faculty of the Boston University Law School since 1968, her book explores the psychology of the financial criminals and what makes them tick. She was inspired by a colleague who referred to them as “those mimics of trustworthiness: con artists.â€
Professor Frankel spoke with DealBook about the mind-set of the con artist, as well as the role that victims and society play. Her conclusions will not comfort Ponzi victims; she faults them for their gullibility and failing to “do their homework.†She finds, too, that society has a profound ambivalence toward con artists despite the vicious nature of their crimes - which, she notes, on rare occasions have even included murder.
DealBook '
Apple's Valuation Sets a Record for Public Companies  | Apple's marke t value rose to $623.52 billion on Monday, the most that a public company has ever been valued, the Bits blog writes. The previous record for market capitalization, $616.34 billion, was set by Microsoft in late 1999, at the height of the technology bubble.
NEW YORK TIMES BITS
European Central Bank Rejects Speculation About Its Plans  | The Continent's central bank issued a rare rebuke in an effort to tamp down speculation that it might act more aggressively to control borrowing costs for countries like Spain, The New York Times reports. “It is absolutely misleading to report on decisions which have not yet been taken,†the central bank said.
NEW YORK TIMES
Flying Private to Save Time  | The private jet industry ha sn't received much love in the aftermath of the financial crisis. But some executives now defend their use of private aircraft for flying to smaller cities. “Commercial air is more cost-efficient, but private is a massive timesaver,†Mark Dowley, an executive for a private equity firm, told The New York Times. “I'm very judicious with the private flying time, though, to manage the cost.â€
NEW YORK TIMES
With New Chief, Best Buy Tries to Set Its Own Turnaround  | Best Buy, the struggling electronics retailer aiming to turn around its fortunes, announced Monday that it had hired the chief executive of the hospitality company Carlson as its new leader. Best Buy is scheduled to report earnings on Tuesday, when it is expected to provide more details about its tu rnaround plans.
DealBook '
Glencore Says Xstrata Deal Is Not a ‘Must-Do'  | Facing a challenge from a Qatari sovereign fund over his deal to acquire Xstrata, the chief executive of Glencore appeared exasperated on Tuesday, saying the transaction was “not a must-do deal,†Reuters reports.
REUTERS
Barclays Discusses a Possible Tie-Up in Africa  | Barclays and the Absa Group of South Africa said they were in talks to combine their African units, but noted they weren't certain the discussions would lead to a deal, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Aetna Shares Rise as Investors Applaud Coventry Deal  | Shares of Aetna jumped as much as 5 percent on Monday after the company announced its $5.7 billion planned takeover of Coventry Health Care, as investors applauded the move toward more industry consolidation.
DealBook '
Greenlight May Have Benefited From Coventry Deal  | The hedge fund Greenlight Capital recently disclosed that it bought 6.66 million shares of Coventry in the second quarter, setting it up for a profit of $72 million, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Details Emerge of Micron's Plan for Elpida Memory  | Elpida, the bankrupt Japanese semiconductor maker that is being bought by Micron, will receive about $3.5 billion in support from its acquirer, the Asahi newspaper reported, accord ing to Bloomberg News.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Kinder Morgan to Sell Assets to Tallgrass for $1.8 Billion  | Kinder Morgan Energy Partners has agreed to sell some pipeline and processing properties to Tallgrass Energy Partners for about $1.8 billion in cash, in the latest asset sale by the company in the wake of its takeover of the El Paso Corporation.
DealBook '
British Phone Company Said to Pursue Sale of Spectrum  | Everything Everywhere, the British mobile phone operator, is in advanced talks with Three, a rival networked owned by Hutchison Whampoa, to sell part of its spectrum holdings, under pressure from European authorities, The Financial Times reports, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the discussions.
< span class="elsewhere"> FINANCIAL TIMES
Shares of Asian Brewer Soar on Heineken Offer  | After Heineken struck a sweetened deal for Asia Pacific Breweries, shares of the Asian brewery rose to a record.
REUTERS
Citigroup's Chief Challenges Idea of a Breakup  | Vikram S. Pandit, the chief executive of Citigroup, appeared to reject an argument by his predecessor, Sanford I. Weill, that big banks should split up. “What's left here is essentially the old Citicorp,†he told The Financial Times. “That's a tried and proven strategy. Why did it work? Because it was a strategy based upon operating the business and serving clients and not a strategy based on deal making. Th at's the fundamental difference.â€
FINANCIAL TIMES
Financier Gets Nod as One of 2 Women Admitted to Augusta National  | Breaking an 80-year-old ban against admitting female members, the Augusta National Golf Club turned to two women with distinguished careers. One is Darla Moore, a former banker turned financier whose negotiating toughness is the stuff of legend.
DealBook '
Contrasting Banking Styles Foster Turmoil in Spain  | A clash of cultures between the traditional Spanish savings banks, or cajas, and the recent euro-based banking economy “helped bring the country's banking industry to the brink of collapse,†The New York Times reports.
NEW YORK TIMES
Berkshire Hathaway Said to End a Bet on Municipal Bonds  | Warren E. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has terminated credit default swaps insuring $8.25 billion of municipal debt, ending a bullish bet five years ahead of schedule, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a regulatory filing and an unidentified person familiar with the transaction.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
With Dimon's Record Tarnished, Wall Street Lacks a Champion  | No prominent financier has stepped up to replace Jamie Dimon as the industry's ideological leader in the debate over additional regulation, Bloomberg News writes.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Swiss Banks Face Crisis of Morale  | Employees of some Swiss banks are none too pleased that their names were provided to United States officials amid an investigation into possible tax evasion, The Wall Street Journal reports. “The employees feel they are being betrayed,†Denise Chervet, general secretary of the Swiss banking personnel association, or ASEB, told the newspaper.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
UBS Courts Quantitative Hedge Funds  | UBS is starting a unit that combines services from its prime brokerage and direct-execution trading businesses, in an effort to attract clients among quantitative hedge funds, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Why One Customer Has Stuck With Bank of America  | Ann Carrns writes on the Bucks blog in response to readers who que stioned her decision to bank with Bank of America: “I'm very busy. The bank's online banking system has worked well over all for me. And inertia is a powerful force in the absence of an imperative to act.â€
NEW YORK TIMES BUCKS
Setting the Record Straight on Private Equity  | Writing in Fortune magazine, Dan Primack clarifies some misconceptions that have cropped up as the private equity industry has become a topic of debate in this year's presidential race.
FORTUNE
2 Sovereign Funds Invest in Natural Gas Project  | Sovereign wealth funds of China and Singapore have each invested about $500 million in a project by Cheniere Energy Partners t o build a plant to prepare liquified natural gas for export, Reuters reports.
REUTERS
Singapore Fund Bids for Hotels Owned by Paulson  | The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation has offered $1.5 billion for a bankrupt hotel group owned by the hedge fund Paulson & Company, Reuters reports.
REUTERS
K.K.R. to Invest in Chinese Retailer  | The private equity firm said it would acquire a stake in Novo Holdco, a Chinese clothing retailer, for $30 million, Reuters reports.
REUTERS
Soros Acquires Stake in Manchester United  | George Soros, the hedge fund billionaire, has taken a 7.85 percent stake in the Class A shares of the English soccer team, whose stock price has been trading below its initial public offering price of $14.
DealBook '
Hedge Fund Clients Request More Money in August  | Reuters writes: “Client demands to pull money out of hedge funds rose to their second-highest level this year in August, industry data showed, in a sign some investors may be reassessing these freewheeling portfolios after their performance failed to shine.â€
REUTERS
Mining Firm's Complaint Against Hedge Fund Is Dismissed  | A New York state judge threw out a defamation lawsuit filed by the Vancouver-based mining company Silvercorp Metals agai nst the New York hedge fund Anthion Management, which had published documents challenging the mining firm's accounting, Reuters reports.
REUTERS
Some Hedge Funders Play for Team Obama  | AR Magazine has compiled a list of hedge fund executives who have contributed to the Obama campaign, including James Chanos of Kynikos Associates and Scott Nathan of the Baupost Group.
AR MAGAZINE
Peter Thiel Joins Retreat From Facebook  | The punishing slide in Facebook's stock since its I.P.O. highlights the difference between two moneymaking cultures: Silicon Valley and Wall Street, The New York Times reports. Although not everyone is running away from th e stock, one prominent director and original investor, Peter Thiel, sold more than 20 million shares, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
NEW YORK TIMES
How Instagram Could Have Cut a Better Deal  | When negotiating a sale, Instagram's founders could have protected themselves from a decline in Faceook's share value if they had used some common merger tools, the Deal Professor writes.
DealBook '
Banks Said to Agree on New I.P.O. Quiet Period  | After the JOBS Acts loosened restrictions on banks' ability to publish research on companies they take public, banks have tended to adhere to a new “quiet period†of 25 days, the result of an informal agreement, The Wall Street Journal reports, c iting unidentified lawyers and bankers.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
A Vaunted Venture Capital Firm Stumbles  | Henry Blodget writes in Business Insider that Kleiner Perkins, a longtime titan of the Silicon Valley scene, has recently suffered a series of setbacks with investments in Facebook, Groupon and Zynga.
BUSINESS INSIDER
After Microsoft Deal, Yammer Chief Issues Gloomy Forecast for Silicon Valley's Start-Ups  | David O. Sacks, the chief executive of Yammer, who recently sold his business to Microsoft for $1.2 billion, is suddenly bearish on start-ups. On Saturday, he wrote on Facebook: “I think Silicon Valley as we know it may be coming to an end.â€
DealBook '
Video Game Start-Up Goes Under  | An ambitious start-up called OnLive fired half its staff and sold its assets to creditors under a plan that left its equity investors with nothing, The Wall Street Journal reports.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Regulator Finds Flaws in Audits of Brokerage Firms  | The New York Times reports: “The many auditors who inspect the financial statements of brokerage firms appear to be cutting corners and not doing all the work they should do, a worrisome sign after the collapse of the Peregrine Financial Group, a leading commodities brokerage firm, where a fraud had gone undetected for many years.â€
NEW YORK TIMES
The Treasury's Oversimplified View of Its Mortgage Relief Effort  | The Treasury Department says the mortgage banks were too messed up to put its anti-foreclosure plans into effect. But how accurate is this version of history?
DealBook '
Hedge Fund Manager Found Guilty of Insider Trading  | After less than a day of deliberations, a federal jury found Doug Whitman of Whitman Capital in Menlo Park, Calif., guilty of earning about $1 million in illegal profits trading technology stocks, including Google and Polycom.
DealBook '
When the C.E.O. Is Involved in an Insider Trading Case  | J ames V. Mazzo, the chief of Advanced Medical Optics, may have some legal strategies to defend against insider trading charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Peter J. Henning writes in the White Collar Watch column.
DealBook '
Treasury Names Chief of Anti-Money Laundering Unit  | The Treasury Department named Jennifer Shasky Calvery on Monday as the director of the financial crimes enforcement network, the Treasury unit that combats money laundering and other illicit financial activity.
DealBook '
Wrangling Over Terminology in a Mortgage Case  | The Wall Street Journal writes: “Exactly what is a subprime mortgage? How a U.S. judge answers that question could determine if three former Freddie Mac executives m isled investors about loans backed by the mortgage giant before it sank.â€
WALL STREET JOURNAL
