TWITTER OPENS UP  | Twitter on Thursday made public its prospectus for an initial public offering, providing a glimpse at the high-flying company’s financial health. The filing showed just how central smartphones and tablets are to Twitter’s business, underscoring the technology industry’s shift to a mobile world, Vindu Goel and Michael J. de la Merced report in DealBook. But despite evidence that Twitter is increasing its revenue from mobile advertising, the company also showed that it has not yet turned a profit, and has been steadily losing money, and that its user growth has been slowing since the end of last year.
The Twitter I.P.O. â€" the most anticipated stock sale since Facebook went public last year â€" is expected to make early employees and investors rich. Evan Williams, one of the founders, owns 12 percent of Twitter, a stake valued at $1.2 billion in August. Jack Dorsey, another co-founder, owns stock worth about $483 million. The venture capital firms Benchmark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital are also large stockholders, as is DST Global, a Russian firm that made a fortune on its early investments in Facebook, DealBook writes.
Twitter’s offering comes at an auspicious time, with investors keen to place highly optimistic values on social media companies. But Facebook’s initial stumbles show the dangers of assuming that everything will go smoothly, DealBook’s Peter Eavis writes. And investors should keep in mind that competition for advertising dollars â€" the main source of revenue for social media companies â€" could intensify in the coming years, some investment specialists said.
At the same time, Twitter’s prospectus highlights many of the company’s differences from rivals like Facebook. One unexpected change is the lack of multiple classes of stock, DealBook’s Michael J. de la Merced reports. Shareholders will all have a single vote on corporate matters.
For Goldman Sachs, the bank leading the I.P.O., the assignment confers prestige and bragging rights. The Goldman banker on the deal, Anthony J. Noto, a former Army Ranger and pro-football executive, has proved himself a keen observer and trusted banker of Web pioneers, despite seeming to be an odd fit among the cerebral recluses of the tech world, DealBook’s David Gelles writes.
The filing on Thursday also raised new questions about the strained relationship between two of the company’s founders, Claire Cain Miller writes in the Bits blog. Mr. Williams has all the voting rights associated with the shares owned by Mr. Dorsey, even though Mr. Dorsey is chairman of Twitter’s board. “Under this agreement, Mr. Dorsey granted Mr. Williams a proxy to vote the shares held by him or his transferees,†the filing said in a footnote.
WALL STREET PREPARES FOR A POTENTIAL DEFAULT  | The government is partly shut down, but a bigger concern for Wall Street is a potential default on public debt should Congress fail to raise the nation’s borrowing limits later this month, Susanne Craig and Jessica Silver-Greenberg report in DealBook. Financial firms are making preparations just in case.
“To guard against possible mayhem from a debt ceiling crisis, some of the nation’s largest banks are deploying plans that were developed in 2011 â€" when the government first looked as if it were on the verge of surpassing its debt ceiling limits,†DealBook writes. “One senior bank executive said his bank’s plan includes stocking retail branches with at least 20 percent more cash. That way, any customers who want to stockpile cash reserves in the event of a default can readily withdraw their money.â€
ON THE AGENDA  | With the government still shut down, no jobs report will be released today. Shares of Potbelly are expected to begin trading today after pricing above an expected range in the I.P.O. Thursday evening. Richard Kovacevich, Wells Fargo’s former chief executive, is on CNBC at 8:10 a.m .
NEW LEADER CONSIDERED FOR TRADING COMMISSION  | As Gary Gensler’s tenure as a Wall Street regulator draws to a close, the White House has begun to vet Timothy G. Massad, an assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, as a potential successor as leader of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, DealBook’s Ben Protess reports. Mr. Massad, who oversees financial stability issues at the Treasury, has expressed interest in the job, a person briefed on the matter said. But vetting is preliminary. The White House is considering at least two other candidates and has not reached a decision.
A Smaller Bonus for Microsoft Chief  | Microsoft said Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive, received 39 percent of the total annual bonus he could have received this year, as the board penalized him for the company’s performance.
NEW YORK TIMES BITS
Talks Over Sale of Lucky Brand Said to Collapse  | Fifth & Pacific, the company formerly known as Liz Claiborne, was close to selling its Lucky Brand line to a private equity firm, “but talks broke down near the finish line, said people familiar with the matter,†The Wall Street Journal reports.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Drug Firm Ikaria Said to Consider a Sale  | The company, which is backed by private equity and venture capital, could sell for more than $2 billion, Reuters reports.
REUTERS
Ellison Agrees to Settlement Over Acquisition of Pillar Data Systems  | Larry Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, “has agreed to give up a potential payout of around $500 million to settle accusations of a conflict of interest in the 2011 acquisition by Oracle of a company he controlled, according to court documents,†Reuters reports.
REUTERS
Dimon No Longer Chairman of JPMorgan Bank Unit  | Jamie Dimon has given up his chairmanship of the main banking subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase, though he remains chairman and chief executive of the parent company, The Wall Street Journal reports.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Goldman’s Reform School  | A case study for Goldman Sachs employees in London is among internal training sessions that “shed light on the efforts being made by the firm to burnish a badly tarnished reputation,†The Economist writes.
ECONOMIST
Amid Bloodshed in Pakistan, a Stock Market Soars  | “Over the past 12 months alone, the Karachi Stock Exchange has surged more than 44 percent, placing it among the world’s top-performing stock markets in dollar terms this year, according to Bloomberg,†The New York Times writes.
NEW YORK TIMES
NYSE Liffe Suspends Trading Over Glitch  | It was the latest example of a breakdown affecting a high-tech trading platform.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Mergermarket Said to Draw Interest of Private Equity  | “Dozens of strategic and private equity players including Bloomberg News and Warburg Pincus are circling Pearson’s financial news provider Mergermarket ahead of an Oct. 7 deadline for first-round bids,†Reuters reports, citing unidentified people close to the deal.
REUTERS
DealBook »
Facebook Prepares to Sell Ads on Instagram  | Promotions on Instagram will be Facebook’s first attempt to make money from its acquisition of the photo-sharing service.
BLOOMBERG NEWS
The Latest Fashion Accessory Is an I.P.O.  | LVMH may have found an original way to keep close the hot designers that made it worth 75 billion euros and created the world’s largest luxury group, Pierre Briançon of Reuters Breakingviews writes.
REUTERS BREAKINGVIEWS
How a Pair of Bitcoin Moguls Got Hooked  | “It was a chance encounter on a beach in Ibiza, Spain, in the summer of 2012 that would lead to Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss becoming two of the biggest investors in Bitcoin,†Bloomberg Markets Magazine writes.
BLOOMBERG MARKETS
After a Fraud, Regulators Go After a Bank  | In a rare action, regulators filed action against TD Bank in connection with a Ponzi scheme. It is not clear, however, whether this represents a new attitude on the part of regulators to try to force banks to pay attention to possible Ponzi schemes, Floyd Norris writes in the High & Low Finance column in The New York Times.
NEW YORK TIMES
DealBook »
Boehner Pledges to Avoid Default, Republicans Say  | The New York Times reports: “Speaker John A. Boehner has privately told Republican lawmakers anxious about fallout from the government shutdown that he would not allow a potentially more crippling federal default as the atmosphere on Capitol Hill turned increasingly tense on Thursday.â€
NEW YORK TIMES
What Might Happen in a Debt Ceiling Crisis  | Nathaniel Popper offers a guide in the form of a Q&A.
NEW YORK TIMES
Jobs Report Is a Casualty of Government Shutdown  | “Economists and statisticians at the Bureau of Labor Statistics will be at home, and everyone from Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed’s chairman, to thousands of traders glued to their Bloomberg screens, will be left without one of the most important clues to the state of the economy,†The New York Times writes.
NEW YORK TIMES
