Morning Agenda: Is Occupy a Fad?

Occupy Wall Street: From Frenzy to Fad?  |  Occupy Wall Street celebrated its one-year anniversary on Monday as protesters filled the Financial District. But the movement - which initially struck a chord, or a nerve, depending on your view - doesn't seem to be generating the same buzz anymore. As Andrew Ross Sorkin writes, Occupy Wall Street may now be more of a footnote in financial history:

“Have any new regulations for banks or businesses been enacted as a result of Occupy Wall Street? No. Has there been any new meaningful push to put Wall Street executives behind bars as a result of Occupy Wall Street? No. And even on the issues of economic inequality and upward mobility - perhaps Occupy Wall Street's strongest themes - has the movement changed the debate over executive compensation or education reform? It is not even a close call.”< br />

 |  Still, Occupy changed the way we talk. Even the “1 percent” now use the phrase “1 percent.” John Carney of CNBC tweeted: “I reckon #OWS was so successful that the accomplishments have turned invisible. 99% is everyone's term now.”

 |  On Monday, the protesters planned to block access to the New York Stock Exchange by forming a human wall, but the police countered with a blockage of their own, setting up metal barricades.

The number of arrests reached 181 by early evening, police said, according to the City Room blog. A purple-cassocked bishop was arrested, according to Bloomberg News, and at least one person, Richard Swensson, a 24-year-old college graduate, said the demonstrations caused him to miss a job interview.

From the 99% to the 47%  |  While Occupy gave us the “99 percent,” Mitt Romney may be credited with putting the “47 percent” into the popular vernacular.

In a video obtained by Mother Jones, Mr. Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, took aim at the 47 percent - referring to the percentage of people who are said to not pay income taxes. Mr. Romney, at a fund-raising event, described the 47 percent as people who “are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.” Monday evening, in a hastily called news conference, Mr. Romney stood by the substance of the remarks.

The event took place earlier this year at the home of Marc J. Leder, one of the private equity industry's more colorful deal makers. As The New York Times reported thi s year, Mr. Romney was an early investor in some of the deals done by Mr. Leder's Sun Capital, which oversees about $8 billion.

The Big Banks Keep Getting Bigger  |  European banks, hobbled by the sovereign debt crisis, promised to shrink their balances sheets last year. But the the biggest institutions, like BNP Paribas, Banco Santander, and UniCredit, have only bulked up their size since then. “They have Mario Draghi to thank,” reports Bloomberg News. With an infusion of money from the European Central Bank, the firms just don't feel the pressure to sell off assets.

More Money for Carlyle's Spending Spree  |  The Carlyle Group has amassed at least $2.87 billion for its latest buyout fund, which has a target of $10 billion, Reuters reports. As DealBook noted, the firm has been unusually busy as of late, striking 19 deals worth nearly $14.1 billion over the 12 months that ended in mid-August.

Carlyle's David M. Rubenstein is putting his money to good use. Last year, he donated $4.5 million for panda fertility research at the National Zoo. Over the weekend, the zoo welcomed a new baby panda into the world. Alan Beattie of The Financial Times tweeted: “Oh God - the feelgood panda story is also a feelgood private equity story. This is a black day for cynics.”

You Got ‘Einhorned'  |  David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital is known for his ability to move stocks simply by raising questions about a company's health. The Wall Street Journal measured the extent of the hedge fund manager's power:

“The nine companies where analysts and investors saw his comments as negative fell by a median of 4.9% on the same day, the analysis shows. Thirty day s later, the median decline was 13%.”

Don't Pack Away Your Gala Wear  |  J. Michael Evans, a Goldman Sachs vice chairman, and his wife, Lise, who recently upgraded their abode, are two co-chairs of an event tonight at Cipriani 42nd Street on behalf of the nonprofit New Yorkers for Children. The black-tie gala, which begins at 6:30 p.m., is to support children in foster care. Downtown at the Cipriani Wall Street, George Soros is being honored tonight by the Institute of International Education. Bloomberg News has details of the season's social calendar, featuring events with the likes of Vikram Pandit, Gary Cohn and John Paulson.

Roger McNamee, managing director and co-founder of Elevation Partners, the venture capital firm that counts Bono among its principals, is on Bloomberg TV at 6 p.m.

Ex-UBS Trader' s Personal Betting Accounts  |  A prosecutor at the trial for Kweku M. Adoboli, the former UBS trader who faces four counts of fraud and false accounting, said Mr. Adoboli had several spread-betting accounts that violated the bank's rules, Bloomberg News reports. Mr. Adoboli was said to have been in debt, with his personal bank accounts mostly overdrawn.

Resistance to a Plan to Put More Women on Boards  | 
Nine countries in the European Union have signed a letter opposing a proposed law that could penalize companies that do not allocate 40 percent of their board seats to women, The New York Times reports. The Deal Professor recently wrote about the possible benefits of such a law.

Mergers & Acquisitions '

Dole Food to Sell 2 Busine sses to Itochu for $1.7 Billion  |  Dole, the world's largest fruit company, said it would put the cash proceeds from the sale of its packaged foods and Asian fresh fruit businesses toward paring down its debt and the costs of reorganizing its struggling business.
DealBook '

Lenovo to Buy Cloud Computing Company  |  Lenovo, the personal computer maker, said on Tuesday that it would buy Stoneware for an undisclosed sum, as the frenzy for cloud-based technologies continues.
DealBook '

Political Demands Could Derail Aerospace Merger  |  The governments of Britain, France, Germany and Spain are set to weigh in on the proposed merger between BAE and EADS, Reuters reports.
REUTERS

New Wrinkle in Micron-Elpida Deal  |  Reuters reports: “U.S. bondholders who have been battling Elpida Memory Inc's planned sale to Micron Technology Inc revealed on Monday the bankrupt Japanese chipmaker had carried out ‘unauthorized' dealings involving its U.S. assets.”
REUTERS

Google Buys Nik Software  | 
NEW YORK TIMES BITS

Oracle to Buy SelectMinds, Social Recruiting Company  | 
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chinese Company to Acquire DNA Sequencing Firm  |  Complete Genomics , a struggling DNA sequencing company in Silicon Valley, has agreed to be acquired for $117.6 million by BGI-Shenzhen, a Chinese company that operates the world's largest sequencing operation.
DealBook '

Liberty Media Moves Closer to Taking Over Sirius XM  | 
WALL STREET JOURNAL

INVESTMENT BANKING '

How Private Banks Attract the Super-Rich  |  Reuters reports: “What do you get the client who has everything? An evening at a sleep school to get tips on how to beat insomnia? A chance to play cricket with former England star Andrew Flintoff? Advice on finding the right school? These are just some of the services offered by Barclays.”
REUTERS

Volcker Rule Said to Affect Morgan Stanley Fund  |  Reuters reports that the Volcker Rule, which limits a bank's ability to put its own capital at risk, “is causing headaches for Morgan Stanley as it prepares to raise a new multi-billion-dollar global infrastructure fund, people familiar with the situation said.”
REUTERS

A New Way to Bet on Junk Bonds  |  Bloomberg News reports that exchange-traded funds are on track to overtake credit derivatives as the main way investors bet on junk bonds.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

PRIVATE EQUITY '

Examining the Ubiquity of Private Equity  |   A Q.&A. with Jason Kelly, author of “The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything.”
DealBook '

Apollo Gains Market Share in Collateralized Loan Obligations  | 
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Learning Tree Chief Makes Buyout Offer for Company  | 
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Massage Company to Change Hands  |  Roark Capital Partners is buying Massage Envy from Sentinel Capital Partners, Fortune reports. Financial terms were not disclosed.
FORTUNE

HE DGE FUNDS '

LightSquared Lenders Question a Harbinger Transaction  |  Lenders to the bankrupt wireless company said in a court filing that a $263.8 million loan the company received from Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners was actually an “equity infusion,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Hedge Funds Abandon European Bank Stocks  |  With returns on equity diminishing, some hedge funds are growing frustrated with European bank stocks as more patient investors, like mutual funds, are taking interest in the sector, Reuters reports.
REUTERS

Elliott Management Squares Off With Lehman  |  The hedge fund Elliott M anagement, a creditor to Lehman Brothers, said Lehman's plan to sell a stake in Navigator Holdings valued the asset at too low a price, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

I.P.O./OFFERINGS '

Foreign Companies Prepare to List in China  |  China is finalizing a new listing venue as part of an effort to make Shanghai a global financial center.
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Trulia to Test I.P.O. Waters  |  The real estate listing company is set to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 20.
MARKETWATCH

MegaFon Looking to Tap Demand for Russian Telecoms  |  MegaFon, a telecommunications company controlled by Alisher Usmanov, Russia's richest man, is looking to raise an estimated $3 billion, Reuters reports.
REUTERS

VENTURE CAPITAL '

In Crowdfunding, Getting Money Is the Easy Part  |  Entrepreneurs who raise money through crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGogo are finding that the new financing model “comes with a host of potential pitfalls that are often difficult for project creators to anticipate, and hard for the armchair philanthropists who back them to grasp. Backers are essentially putting their trust in the project creators, giving them cash in return for the promise of a future reward,” reports Jenna Wortham in The New York Times.
NEW YORK TIMES

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Square Closes Financing Round  |  While several large venture capital firms have led Square's past financing rounds, this deal featured less traditional backers, like Rizvi Traverse Management, Citi Ventures and Starbucks.
DealBook '

Start-Up Lender Raises $30 Million  |  Kabbage, which helps small online merchants get capital, raised a $30 million financing round led by Thomvest Ventures, AllThingsD reports.
ALLTHINGSD