SAIC Plans Two-Way Split

The Science Applications International Corporation said on Thursday that it planned to cleave itself into two publicly traded companies, becoming the latest in a string of corporate break-ups.

SAIC plans to spin off its government services business, separating it from the division that provides technology for the national security, health and engineering industries. The government services unit is expected to report $4 billion in revenue for the year ended Jan. 31, while the national security business is expected to report $7 billion in revenue for the same time period.

The move is meant to reduce potential conflicts of interest, particularly for the government services business, which will be free to pursue systems engineering and technical assistance and offerings to the intelligence sector.

“In this next step of our strategic plan we configure ourselves for the future,” John Jumper, the company's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “This affords both companies an excellent opportunity to combine optimized cost structures, unrestricted access to their respective markets, and the leveraging of decades of SAIC's scientific and engineering excellence to unleash the growth and value we can deliver to our customers, employees and shareholders.”

A number of companies, from Sara Lee to Tyco, have pursued corporate break-ups as a way to unlock value. The rationale behind such moves is aimed at creating more focused companies that will generate better returns for shareholders.

SAIC is being advised by Citigroup on the plan.

On Eve of Romney\'s Big Speech, a Focus on Bain

As Mitt Romney prepares to take the stage at the Republican National Convention Thursday night to make his case for the presidency, his record at Bain Capital continues to be a focus - some might say the focus - of both his supporters and detractors.

Just hours before Mr. Romney's speech, his campaign launched a Web site on Thursday - business.mittromney.com - devoted almost entirely on his years at the investment firm Bain Capital. “Governor Romney's work at Bain Capital was about fixing companies that were broken and giving new companies a shot at success,” reads the Web site's home page.

The site features nine different one- to two-minute videos, each highlighting a successful Bain deal. Two video focus on the office-supplies retailer Staples, one of Mr. Romney's most successful investments during his tenure at Bain. Both show Mr. Romney roaming the aisles at a Staples store wearing that a blue dress shirt with a contrasting white collar, a de rigueur un iform of 1980s Wall Street.

The Staples videos are featured under the “building businesses” category. Two other categories - “fixing businesses” and “growing business” - highlight other money-making Bain deals, including a revival of the gadget chain Brookstone and a venture investment in the mountain bike maker GT Bicycles. There is also a video chronicling Mr. Romney's rescue of Bain & Company, the management consulting firm where he started his career. Mr. Romney came back to the firm and led a turnaround. (Bain & Company spun off the private equity arm, Bain Capital, in 1984.)

Outside of Bain's New York headquarters on Thursday, no was focused on the private equity firm's successes. Instead, all of the attention was on Bane, an imposing 10-foot-tall monster who lurched around the sun-kissed Manhattan sidewalks lambasting Bain's business practices. Bane is the villain who faced off against Batman in this summer's blockbuster movie “The Dark Knigh t Rises.” It will be “a long dark night you'll be facing if Romney gets elected,” said Bane, according to Bloomberg News report.

The protest was organized by United NY, a coalition of labor unions and community organizations that has staged a number of demonstrations against Bain. Accompanying Bane was a woman from the Bronx who was recently laid off from her job at Burlington Coat Factory, a Bain-owned company.

Cara Noel, a United NY spokeswoman, said that it staged the protest because “we wanted to send a clear message that a Romney economy would not work for the middle class and for low-wage earners.”

The media also continue to center on Mr. Romney's Bain years. Matt Taibbi, a writer who has made headlines for his screeds against Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street players, has now taken aim at Bain. In a new Rolling Stone article, Mr. Taibbi calls Mr. Romney “the hard-charging, chameleonic champion of a disgraced-yet-defiant Wall Street.”< /p>

As Barclays Retail Chief Rises, What of Firm\'s Investment Bank?

With the ascension of Antony Jenkins as Barclays‘ new chief executive, attention will inevitably fall to the part of the British bank that has grown the fastest in recent years: its investment bank.

Built from humble beginnings, specifically the debt operations of Barclays' BZW, the investment bank has become one of the firm's biggest profit centers. It was the darling of Robert Diamond Jr., whom Mr. Jenkins is succeeding and who resigned following the firm's $450 million settlement related to the fixing of the Libor interest rate.

Since arriving at Barclays in 1996, Mr. Diamond made it his mission to build out a world-class investment bank from scratch. But while he made headway over the years, the single most transformative event for Barclays was the firm's acquisition of Lehman Brothers‘ core American banking assets in the fall of 2008. Instantly, the British firm grew from respectable midtier adviser and lender to a major deal maker.

The combinati on of Lehman's advisory business with Barclays' balance sheet created a more formidable competitor to more established rivals like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. In 2008, Barclays' investment bank - then known as Barclays Capital - contributed £1.3 billion pounds to the firm's overall profit. The next year, the division pulled in £11.6 billion.

Nowhere was the unit's growth more apparent than in the business of advising on deals. Between 2002 and 2008, Barclays never rose higher than 9 in Thomson Reuters‘ worldwide league tables, with an average market share of about 9.3 percent. From 2009 through Thursday, that figure leaps to 13.8 percent, with the firm ranking fifth, six, or seventh.

Some of that was driven by a more conscious use of Barclays' balance sheet to supplement its traditional dispensing of advice. Last year, the firm lent $13.3 billion to a longtime client, Kinder Morgan, to buy the El Paso Corporation for $21.1 billion. The loan wa s eventually dispersed among several lenders, but the bank's willingness to provide the initial financing up front helped provide speed, certainty and confidentiality.

“We've long had a big-boy M.& A. business,” Hugh E. McGee III, Barclays' head of investment banking and a Lehman veteran, told DealBook last year. “And now we've got a big-boy checkbook.”

Barclays has been consistently strong in other businesses, such as debt capital markets, where the firm has ranked no lower than fourth since 2002.

But the firm still has room to improve in other areas: it has mostly come in fourth in Thomson Reuters' ranking of global equity capital markets bookrunners over the past decade, even after the Lehman deal.

Not all of the investment bank's gains have been met with plaudits, however. During Mr. Diamond's tenure, critics charged the firm with becoming a more rough-and-tumble bank with an eye squarely on the bottom line, creating what detractors have s aid is a culture that allowed lapses like the Libor scandal to take root. The American was memorably derided as “the unacceptable face” of banking by Peter Mandelson, a former Labour Party's business secretary

It's unclear what Mr. Jenkins has in mind for the investment bank, though he has already told Bloomberg News that he will “think strategically” about the business.

Credit Suisse Hires Head of Canada Metals & Mining

Credit Suisse has hired Matthew Hind as the head of its Canada metals and mining business within its investment banking department, the firm announced in an internal memorandum reviewed by DealBook. Mr. Hind, who will start his new position in December, is joining from Morgan Stanley.

How to Propose the Pogue Way

Two weeks ago, I proposed. To the sweetest, funniest, wisest woman I've ever known.

I wanted my children to feel a part of this life-changing event, so one night last spring, I asked them for their suggestions for a fantastic proposal. My two teenagers informed me that the most epic and unforgettable proposal would be a fake movie trailer. It would start out like any other romantic-comedy preview, but gradually reveal itself to be a thinly veiled version of our love story.

I persuaded the movie theater at a summer resort to slip it in among the real movie previews, on a night when both Nicki's family and mine were in the audience. You can watch the finished product here.

After its “premiere,” people kept asking if I'd be posting it online so they could show their friends. With Nicki's encouragement, I did - and to my astonishment, the video went viral. It also generated a lot of questions.

Here, then, are the answers.< /p>

Q. Nice job on Pogue's Proposal. But not all of us have thousands of dollars to spend on making full-blown movies for our girlfriends.

A. I had to laugh at this one. If you only knew how cheaply that movie was made! The whole thing was shot in two days, with a huge amount of planning but practically no budget.

If it looks professional, that's a testament to the skill of Zach Kuperstein, the recent N.Y.U. film school grad I hired as cameraman.

He used an ordinary Canon S.L.R. to record the video. That's it - a still camera. No Hollywood gear, no key grips or best boys. We used special lighting in only one shot, and it was the cheapie video light I wrote about last year.

I also paid the two stars - both talented Broadway actors - but all the others involved were friends and neighbors who just wanted to help out. I wrote, directed and edited the movie, and I gave myself a huge discount.

Q. Wait a minute - what about the opening shot? You clea rly had a crane rig for that.

A. Nope. Zach stood on the roof of my Prius with his tripod as I drove slowly along the street. The resulting footage was a little bumpy from the pavement, but the Analyze for Stabilization feature in Final Cut Pro X smoothed it out quite nicely.

For nighttime scenes, Zach duct-taped blankets over the windows. For the scene where “I” am hosting a Nova TV show, look closely: the “cameraman” is actually holding a 1985 VHS camcorder I found in the basement.

We didn't have a dolly, either. To film the jogging scene, Zach tied his tripod into the back of my car, like this:

As the car rolled, I sat next to him and held the microphone “boom” - a broom handle with an audio recorder duct-taped to the end of it. (For the second day of shooting, I hired a sound man with an actual boom.)

Q. In the YouTube version, we can see your girlfriend's reaction as she watches, picture-in-picture style. How could she not know she was being filmed?

A. I hid a Nikon S.L.R. in a ficus plant just beneath the screen. After the movie began, a friend moved a Sony NEX-5, on a tripod, to the back of the aisle, to record the actual proposal moment. And my daughter sat behind and across from Nicki, filming her from the side with an old Flip camera.

I was hoping that, despite the darkness and lack of rehearsal, one of those cameras would capture something usable.

Incredibly, all three did.

Q. At the end, you stand up in front of the movie audience and pop the question - and the characters on the screen seem to react. When she says “yes,” for example, they all start cheering. How could you be sure that the timing of her live reaction would work with what you'd already filmed?

A. I couldn't!

The onscreen characters interact with the live me four times. First, they encourage me to get out of my seat and bring Nicki to the “stage.” Second, when I lose my nerve, they ho ot for me to continue. Third, they gasp when I bring out the ring. And finally, they explode into cheers when Nicki says yes.

To film the on-screen sequence, I had the cast look out at a smiley face I'd taped to the tripod leg - a stunt double for where I'd be standing in the actual theater. To make sure their interruptions came at the right times, the cast reacted to the audio playback of my speech, which I had pre-recorded on my phone.

Then I spent a week rehearsing my live speech with that video, so my own timing would be right. As long as Nicki didn't say anything while I spoke, I would be golden.

Until, that is, I actually asked the question. At that point, timing was no longer in my control.

I wasn't actually worried that she'd say no; she'd dropped a few sweet hints over the months. The real problem was that I had left her enough time to say exactly one syllable.

What if she made a joke (“I'll have to think about it!”)? What if she we re too overcome to speak? What if I was too overcome to speak?

In all of those cases, the music would swell anyway, the actors would cheer inappropriately - and I'd look like the world's biggest idiot.

I worried about that moment for weeks. There was nothing I could do but hope.

As you can see in the video, my prayers were answered. Yes, I had left Nicki the time to utter one syllable - but that's all she needed.

She said “YES!”

Struggling Gleacher & Co. Explores a Sale

Gleacher & Company, the struggling investment bank started by the veteran Wall Street deal maker Eric Gleacher, has put itself up for sale.

In a statement Thursday, the publicly traded firm said that it was exploring strategic alternatives including selling itself and raising money from outside investors. The firm has hired Credit Suisse to manage a sales process, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Mr. Gleacher, a former Marine who ranks among the top golfers on Wall Street, was among a bevy of 1980s-era bankers â€" a group that included Steven A. Schwarzman, Bruce Wasserstein, and Robert Greenhill â€" who would go on to start their own advisory boutiques.

A number of prominent hedge fund managers worked at Gleacher early in their careers, including Philip Falcone of Harbinger Capital Partners and Larry Robbins of Glenview Capital Management.

But the Mr. Gleacher's firm has underperformed. After absorbing two years of losses including poor performance in its mortgage-securities unit, Gleacher's chief executive, Tom Hughes, has tried to turn around the business by shuttering unprofitable units, slashing its work force and overhauling management.

At its current stock price, Gleacher has a market capitalization of only $95 million. Greenhill & Company, by comparison, is worth $1.25 billion. Gleacher's stock rose 2 percent as of midday Thursday on the news.

Mr. Gleacher, 72, is the company's chairman of the board and second-largest shareholder, with an 11 percent stake, according to securities filings. Its largest shareholder is Matlin Patterson Global Advisers, the New York-based private investment firm, which owns about 28 percent.

Gleacher's move is the latest twist in the firm's complex history, which began in 1990 when Mr. Gleacher - a star mergers-and-acquisition investment banker at Lehman Brothers and then Morgan Stanley - hung out his own shingle. National Westminster Bank bought Gleacher in 1995 for $135 million, but four years later Mr. Gleacher severed ties with the British bank and took his firm private.

In 2009, the brokerage firm Broadpoint Securities acquired it and adopted the Gleacher name.

A Third Option for Regulators in the Money Market Fund Fight

The biggest battles are sometimes decided by the most arcane tactics.

That could turn out to be the case in a fierce fight between the mutual fund industry and top financial regulators.

At issue is whether to impose more regulations on the nation's $2.6 trillion of money market funds.

Regulators think the funds pose a risk to the financial system. In the 2008 financial crisis, investors fled the funds in droves, which worsened the credit freeze that gripped the banking system. Money funds then received a big bailout.

In a bid to lessen the chances of such events reoccurring, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed measures, including requiring the money funds to hold a capital buffer against losses. But the commission dropped the reforms last week, after it became clear that a majority of its commissioners weren't going to vote for the reforms. This was a big win for the mutual fund industry, which says some reforms made in 2010 are sufficie nt. The industry also argues the latest reforms would needlessly damage a popular investment product.

The regulators, however, may be able to effectively override the S.E.C. They can do that by involving the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a special committee of senior regulators set up after the crisis by the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul legislation.

The council's job is to spot big risks in the financial system and take action to address them, even if it means acting itself or pressuring individual regulators.

After the money fund reforms were blocked at the S.E.C., much speculation began on how the council might act. At first, there appeared to be two separate paths laid out in Dodd-Frank. But both had drawbacks for the regulators.

Now, a third option may exist. And it appears to get around the headaches involved in the other two.

The council, which is chaired by the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and has publicly backed the S.E.C.'s money fund reforms, is scheduled to meet toward the end of September.

Initially, one of the council's perceived options was to designate fund companies or individual money funds as systemically significant, and give them to the Federal Reserve to regulate. The problem: This approach would remove money fund regulation from the S.E.C., a potentially wrenching move that could undermine the standing of that agency. This option could also lead to a two-tier, unevenly regulated money fund sector, where larger funds might come under Fed oversight and smaller ones wouldn't.

The second option was to declare the general activity of money market funds as risky to the system. But if this route were taken, Dodd-Frank lays out a series of steps that puts the issue back to the S.E.C., where the majority of commissioners may still oppose reform. If that happened, Dodd-Frank then appears to move the issue to Congress, but it doesn't define how the stalemate would be br oken.

Enter option three.

With this, the council would use a part of Dodd-Frank, called Title VIII, that addresses regulation of the plumbing of the financial system. It refers to “utility” activities like organizing financial payments and processing transactions.

Using Title VIII, the council could take a two-step approach. It could designate a single activity or feature of money funds as a systemically important utility function. Next, it could then require reforms to buttress that function.

For instance, money funds have a special feature called a fixed net asset value, which allows them to say each share in a fund is worth $1 when in reality it may be worth slightly less. Regulators fear the stable net asset value could mask the risks of money funds from investors, who tend to use the funds like bank accounts.

The council could designate the stable net asset value as systemic and require that the funds hold capital.

The big apparen t advantage for the regulators is that it avoids the pitfalls of the other options. It would keep money fund regulation at the S.E.C. And, unlike option two, this part of Dodd-Frank doesn't map out steps that could lead to stalemate. Instead, it allows the council to require the S.E.C. to introduce the sort of reforms that the council favors.

But there is a weakness with this approach. While this part of Dodd-Frank does give the council a lot of leeway in determining a systemically important activity, opponents of reform may argue that money funds simply aren't part of the payment functions of the financial system, which is what title VIII was written for.

“On the face of it, this is not what Title VIII was designed to regulate,” said Jay G. Baris, a lawyer at Morrison & Foerster. “To me, it's a last resort.”

Business Day Live: California Tests a Plan to Cut Emissions

California tests its carbon emissions cap-and-trade program. | The best shoes for travel? Ask a flight attendant.

Buffett Celebrates His 82nd Birthday

How does the second-richest man in America celebrate his birthday? By giving other people presents.

Warren E. Buffett, who turns 82 on Thursday, is taking note of the occasion by increasing a donation of Berkshire Hathaway shares to the charitable foundations run by his children, according to a letter that was published by his hometown newspaper, The Omaha World-Herald. He estimated that the gift, to be distributed in annual installments, would be worth an average of more than $100 million each year.

“I knew you would apply your considerable brains and energies in order to make the most of the funds from my gift,” Mr. Buffett wrote in the letter. “However, you have exceeded my high expectations. Your mother would be as proud of you as I am.”

Mr. Buffett is doubling what remains of an earlier pledge of Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares, he said in the letter to his children, Susan, Howard and Peter. The sweetened gift now amounts to 24,441,704 Clas s B shares, currently worth more than $2 billion.

The first installment, of 1,222,085 shares, will be distributed in July, and subsequent installments will decrease by 5 percent each year, Mr. Buffett said in the letter.

Mr. Buffett, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $44 billion, has been a vocal (and musical) advocate for philanthropy, encouraging dozens of other wealthy families to give to charity.

At the outset of Mr. Buffett's 83rd year, Business Insider has compiled some of his most memorable quotes. One classic line comes from a 1989 letter to shareholders.

“It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price,” Mr. Buffett wrote, “than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

Romney Turned Down an Offer to Lead Tiger Management

Larry Downing/Reuters

EARLY LOSS Mitt and Ann Romney in Washington in 2008 after Mr. Romney dropped out of the race.

BOSTON - Not long after dropped out of the presidential race in early 2008, a titan of New York finance, Julian H. Robertson, flew to Utah to deliver an eye-popping offer.

He asked Mr. Romney to become chief executive of his hedge fund, Tiger Management, for an annual salary of about $30 million, plus investment profits, according to two people told of the discussions.

For Mr. Romney, who had spent the previous decade in public life forgoing any paychecks, the position promised to catapult him back to the pinnacle of American business and into the ranks of the stratospherically rich. Several friends and relatives urged him to accept. “Let's put it this way,” said Mr. Robertson. “He could have made a lot of money.”

But Mr. Romney was uninterested. His mind - and his heart - were elsewhere, still trained in the raw days after his political defeat not on Wall Street but on the White House and an urgent quest: to be understood by an electorate that had eluded him.

From the moment that Mr. Romney ended his first bid for the Republican nomination, he complained to friends, advisers and family that he had felt cheated out of a chance to explain himself to the country. He had emerged from his debut on the national political stage, he told them, as a caricature he did not recognize: emotionally uncaring, intellectually inauthentic, ideologically malleable.

Over the next three years, a little-examined period in his life, he sought to reclaim his public identity with the self-critical eye, marketing savvy and systematic rigor of the corporate consultant that he once was.

When Willard Mitt Romney, 65, delivers his acceptance speech Thursday night in Tampa, Fla., reveling in his success at winning over a fractious party and endeavoring to sell himself anew to Americans, he will owe the moment in no small measure to what he did during this time.

It was a restless period when he labored to persuade voters to see him as he saw himself: a man of deep convictions and big ideas, a credible party leader and inevitable presidential nominee.

He coolly assessed the failings of his 2008 campaign and undertook an intensive yearlong tutorial on everything from the tax code to global jihadism. He wrote a book laying out his vision and values to answer conservative doubters and counter charges of flip-flopping, elbowing aside a ghost writer who he felt could not accurately channel his voice. He bought good will in his party by crisscrossing the country to raise money for hundreds of candidates, even cutting a check for one lawmaker's portrait in the New Hampshire State House.

Mr. Romney returned as a far stronger candidate - a crisper debater, a more decisive manager, a better strategist and a stick-to-his-message campaigner whose chief selling point this time around, his business expertise, was well suited to the political moment. But he also ran up against the limits of his own overhaul.

“This is who I am,” he told a publisher while pitching his book. “And I want the book to reveal it.” But instinctively uncomfortable with public introspection and averse to exposing his private life, he offered no personal narrative for people to feel they really knew him.

His exhaustive campaigning between presidential races did little to diminish his awkwardness with voters. And for all his preparedness on foreign policy - he had traveled to Afghanistan and the Mideast - he managed to offend his hosts and inspire unfortunate headlines on his first overseas trip as his party's presumptive nominee.

Mr. Romney's quick reimmersion into politics after his 2008 loss was revealing for a man who, at 60, had already conquered high finance and state government but who still needed to set ambitious goals and yearned to fulfill the grandest of them. Suddenly rudderless for the first time in his adult life, he recoiled at the prospect of an unstructured existence, telling an adviser: “I'm not just going to meet with people. I need a plan.”

Morning Take-Out

Barclays Names C.E.O. Amid Tumult  |  Barclays has appointed Antony Jenkins, the head of the retail and business banking unit, to be its new chief executive, as the British bank deals with the fallout from the interest-rate manipulation scandal and other legal issues.

Mr. Jenkins, who will become C.E.O. immediately, steps into the top spot during a period of uncertainty for the bank.

Along with the rate-rigging scandal, the bank faces questions about its capital-raising efforts in 2008. On Wednesday, Barclays disclosed that the Serious Fraud Office is looking into payments related to agreements between the bank and Qatar Holdings, an investi gation that follows a similar inquiry by the Financial Services Authority.

“We have an obligation to all of those stakeholders - customers, clients, shareholders, colleagues and broader society - and a unique opportunity to restore Barclays' reputation by making it the ‘go to' bank in all of our chosen markets,” Mr. Jenkins said in a statement.
DealBook '

DEAL NOTES

Warren Buffett Celebrates 82nd Birthday  |  The Omaha investor is marking the occasion by increasing an earlier pledge of Berkshire Hathaway shares to the three foundations run by his children, according to The Omaha World-Herald. “I'm confident you will use the money wisely, each in your own way,” Mr. Buffett said in a letter to his children.
OMAHA WORLD-HERALD

Slowing Growth Underscores Pressure on the Fed  |  With data released on Wednesday showing the economy continued to grow at a tepid pace, Ben Bernanke faces pressure to outline a plan to stimulate growth when he speaks on Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyo., The New York Times reports. Still, many economists expect the Federal Reserve chairman to wait to announce major plans until after a meeting on Sept. 12-13.
NEW YORK TIMES

Mergers & Acquisitions '

Carlyle Agrees to Buy DuPont Performance Coatings for $4.9 Billion  |  Private equity firm Carlyle Group has struck a deal with DuPont to buy its DuPont Performance Coatings for $4.9 billion in cash.
DealBook '

ING to Sell Canadian Unit to Scotiabank for $3.1 Billion  |  The ING Group said on Wednesday that it would sell its Canadian unit to Scotiabank for about $3.1 billion in cash, as the Dutch bank continues to sell assets to pay for its government bailout.
DealBook '

Two Views of This Summer's Deal-Making  |  The dollar value of mergers announced this summer was the lowest amount since financial markets began trembling in the summer of 2007. But the number of transactions was the second highest, reflecting a time of plentiful but small deals.
DealBook '

Facebook Allowed to Use Stock for Instagram Deal  |  A California regulator signed off on Facebook's deal to a cquire Instagram, allowing the social network company to use stock that has fallen significantly in value since the agreement was struck, The Wall Street Journal reports.
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Ryan Seacrest Said to Abandon Bid for Dick Clark Productions  |  The “American Idol” host, along with his private equity partners Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital, have withdrawn from the auction for Dick Clark Productions after performing due diligence, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
WALL STREET JOURNAL

French Banks Prepare to Pull Out of Greece  |  Société Générale was the latest, saying it was in advanced discussions to sell its 99.1 percent stake in Geniki Ban k, one of Greece's biggest financial institutions.
DealBook '

Johnson & Johnson to Acquire a Stake in Genmab  |  The Danish biotechnology company Genmab has struck a deal with Johnson & Johnson that could be worth more than $1.1 billion, Reuters reports. The pact, centering on the rights to a cancer agent, involves a transaction that would give Johnson & Johnson a 10.7 percent equity stake in the Danish company.
REUTERS

Daikin Shares Drop After Goodman Deal Is Announced  |  Daikin Industries may have finally gotten its wish by buying Goodman Global from the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, but its shareholders do not seem as enthusiastic.
DealBook '

INVESTMENT BANKING '

S.&P.'s Onetime Credit Chief Departs  |  Mark Adelson, who was the chief credit officer at Standard & Poor's before he was demoted late last year, has left the company, Reuters reports. He had been a public critic of credit rating companies before he was given the chief credit officer role in May 2008, as S.&P. was looking to improve its rating methods during the financial crisis.
REUTERS

Bond Trading Firm Said to Court a Buyer  |  The bond trading company Gleacher is looking to sell itself and has approached at least one rival firm, Bloomberg News reports, citing two unidentified people with knowledge of the matter. Gleacher's top investor, the private equity firm MatlinPatterson Global Advisers, is said to be applying pressure for a sale.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

I.C.B.C. Reports Slower Growth in Profit  |  The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China said its income climbed 11 percent in the second quarter, the slowest quarterly earnings growth in three years, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Blackstone Shifts Business Away From Knight  |  The Blackstone Group, one of the investors involved in the deal to rescue Knight Capital, moved certain securities away from the brokerage firm, in line with rules to prevent conflicts of interest, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

A Bet on Wells Fargo Pays Off for Berkshire Hathaway  |  Berkshire Hathaway's investment in Wells Fargo has been a source of growth for its stock portfolio, as other investments, like International Business Machines, have faltered, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

PRIVATE EQUITY '

Mitt Romney, Debt Creator?  |  In a Rolling Stone article, Matt Taibbi takes aim at Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital, comparing that work to the candidate's rhetoric in the presidential election. Mr. Taibbi writes: “Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.”
ROLLING STONE

Chinese Companies Give Priv ate Equity a Second Look  |  Chinese companies appear to be warming to the prospect of private equity deals, as it becomes more difficult for them to raise money through the stock market, The Wall Street Journal writes.
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Renesas Shares Leap on Reports of a Pending K.K.R. Investment  |  Reports that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts may ride in to help bolster the Japanese chip maker Renesas Electronics have given its shares a big boost.
DealBook '

Wisconsin Pension Exits Private Equity Investments  |  Wisconsin's pension board has sold $1 billion worth of its holdings, including positions managed by the Blackstone Group, K.K.R. and the Carlyle Group, Reuters reports.
REUTERS

Federal Contractors Attract Buyout Firms  |  Firms like CM Equity, the Carlyle Group and Cerberus Capital have been finding success investing in companies that sell services to the federal government, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

HEDGE FUNDS '

Hedge Fund Proposal Would Allow Secretive Enclave to Open Up  |  A new proposal outlined on Wednesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission would remove a longtime restriction barring hedge funds from marketing themselves in public.
DealBook '

Romney Turned Down an Offer to Lead a Hedge Fund  |  The New York Times reports: “Not long after Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race in early 2008, a titan of New York finance, Julian H. Robertson, flew to Utah to deliver an eye-popping offer. He asked Mr. Romney to become chief executive of his hedge fund, Tiger Management, for an annual salary of about $30 million, plus investment profits, according to two people told of the discussions.”
NEW YORK TIMES

City Officials to Discuss Bridgewater's Building Plans  |  Officials in Stamford, Conn., are set to meet on Thursday with the developer overseeing the construction of the new headquarters of Bridgewater Associates, the giant hedge fund, The New York Post reports. The project has stirred up controversy for interfering with a historic boat yard.
NEW YORK POST

I.P.O./OFFERINGS '

Yelp Surges After Lockup Expires  |  Shares rose 22.51 percent, its largest one-day gain since the company went public in March.
DealBook '

Facebook Co-Founder Sells More Shares  |  Dustin Moskovitz, one of the founders of Facebook who left to work on another start-up, has been steadily selling his Facebook position since the lockup expired. This week, he sold a total of 450,000 Class A shares, according to Reuters.
REUTERS

Japan Airlines Sets a Pri ce Range for Offering  |  At the high end of the range, the Japanese airline would raise $8.4 billion, making its offering the year's second biggest share sale after Facebook's, The Associated Press reports.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Carlyle Agrees to Buy DuPont Performance Coatings for $4.9 Billion

Private equity firm Carlyle Group has struck a deal with DuPont to buy its DuPont Performance Coatings for $4.9 billion in cash.

The private equity firm said it was interested in Dupont's coating business because of the unit's technology, its brands, and its ability to expand in developing markets, such as China and Brazil. The business is expected to generate about $4 billion in revenue this year,

“DuPont Performance Coatings is a leader in the automotive and industrial coatings sectors with world-class products and customer service,” DuPont's chief executive Ellen Kullman said in a statement on Thursday. “After a careful review, however, we have determined that DPC's full growth potential would be best realized outside DuPont and through the sale to Carlyle.”

Over the years, Carlyle has made several bets in the industrial and transportation markets, including Allison Transmission and Hertz Global Holdings, which it acquired in 2005 and took publ ic in 2006. In July, Carlyle Group also partnered with BC Partners to buy Hamilton Sundstrand Industrial from United Technologies for $3.46 billion.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.

Barclays Names C.E.O. Amid New Investigation

Barclays said on Thursday that it had appointed Antony Jenkins, an insider, to be its new chief executive, as the British bank seeks to move on from the interest-rate manipulation scandal that claimed its former head and a potentially damaging new investigation into the deal in which it raised capital to avoid a government bailout.

Mr. Jenkins, who heads the retail and business banking unit, is stepping into the top job immediately, the bank said. Barclays had been seeking a new chief since early June, when Mr. Jenkins' predecessor, Robert E. Diamond Jr., resigned abruptly.

Mr. Diamond's resignation came less than a week after the bank agreed to pay $450 million to settle accusations by U.S. and British authorities that it had sought to manipulate for its own benefit the London interbank overnight rate, an interest rate that serves as a benchmark for hundreds of billions of dollars of contracts and derivatives.

Barclays is the only bank so far to have ack nowledged complicity in the Libor manipulation, but the U.S. and British financial authorities are investigating other lenders in the case.

Mr. Diamond, an outspoken American investment banker who took over the top job at Barclays in September 2010, has been credited with helping to make Barclays into a major Wall Street player. But he became a symbol of executive excess in Britain, drawing a $10 million pay package last year at a time when the British government was cutting jobs and services in the name of austerity.

Even before the Libor scandal broke, Mr. Diamond had been booed and heckled by shareholders at the annual meeting in April, and more than a fourth of shareholders voted against awarding him the compensation package approved by Barclays' board.

In a statement, Mr. Jenkins acknowledged the challenges ahead, saying the bank had “made serious mistakes in recent years and clearly failed to keep pace with our stakeholders' expectations.”

H e added: “We have an obligation to all of those stakeholders - customers, clients, shareholders, colleagues and broader society - and a unique opportunity to restore Barclays' reputation by making it the ‘go to' bank in all of our chosen markets.”

He will be stepping directly into the hot seat. In addition to the Libor investigations, which could still yield criminal charges, and lawsuits connected with the case, Barclays said Wednesday said that the Serious Fraud Office, the British government agency that investigates and prosecutes white collar crime cases, “has commenced an investigation into payments under certain commercial agreements between Barclays and Qatar Holding LLC.”

The bank had already disclosed in its interim results last month that the Financial Services Authority, the British market watchdog, was investigating “Barclays and four current and former senior employees, including Chris Lucas, group finance director” regarding “the suf ficiency of disclosure in relation to fees payable under certain commercial agreements and whether these may have related to Barclays capital raisings in June and November 2008.”

Unlike its peers, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays managed to avoid a government bailout in the dark days of 2008, despite taking on the scorched American assets of Lehman Brothers.

When British regulators ordered London banks to raise capital. Barclays turned to sovereign wealth funds in Abu Dhabi and Qatar. The bank raised a total of 4.5 billion pounds, or $7.1 billion, from Qatar in July and October 2008. Qatar Holdings is currently the largest shareholder in Barclays, with a 6.65 percent stake, according to Bloomberg data.

Barclays said last month that it “considers that it satisfied its disclosure obligations and confirms that it will cooperate fully with the FSA's investigation.”

Marcus Agius, the Barclays chairman, said in a stateme nt that Mr. Jenkins “stood out among a very competitive field of internal and external candidates,” and praised his role in developing the bank's strategy. Mr. Agius, who is also stepping down over the Libor scandal, is to be succeeded in November by David Walker.

The bank said Mr. Jenkins annual salary would be 1.1 million pounds, with an annual bonus of up to a maximum of 250 percent of his salary. He also stands to gain up to 400 percent of his annual salary under Barclays' long-term incentive program.

Mr. Jenkins started his finance career at Barclays in 1983, before moving to Citigroup in 1989, where he worked in both London and New York. He attended Oxford University, where he obtained a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics. He also has an M.B.A. from the Cranfield Institute of Technology.

Shares of Barclays fell 0.9 percent in London morning trading.