For almost five years, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has been surveying Wall Street analysts to extract clues about their views on companies before the outlooks were announced publicly. Now, the tactic has been shut down, Gretchen Morgenson reports in The New York Times.
BlackRock agreed on Wednesday to stop pursuing nonpublic views as part of a settlement with Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general. The firm also said it would pay $400,000 to cover costs of the investigation.
Mr. Schneiderman called BlackRock’s decision to end its global analyst survey program “a major step forward in restoring fairness in our financial markets and ensuring a level playing field for all investors.â€
The settlement documents show that BlackRock had polled analysts only days before companies announced their quarterly earnings. Survey questions included whether a company’s near term profits “are more likely to surprise on the upside or downside,†and “how likely is it that the company will be taken over in the next six months?†The investigation began after The Times published an article about the use of surveys in July 2012.
STILL NO JURY FOR FORMER SAC TRADER Â |Â Selecting a 12-member jury for the insider trading trial of Mathew Martoma, a former trader at SAC Capital Advisors, is proving difficult, Alexandra Stevenson writes in DealBook.
After two days, lawyers have yet to succeed in whittling down a cast of characters that included a chief executive of a footwear accessory company who showed up wearing boots with four-inch heels, a New York University film professor who spent the day chewing on an unlit cigar and an employee at an accounting firm. As a result, Judge Paul G. Gardephe of Federal District Court said he might have to bring in a new group of potential jurors on Thursday, meaning opening statements would be postponed another day.
Judge Gardephe did make one decisive ruling: He said lawyers for Mr. Martoma could not use testimony from Steven A. Cohen’s May 2012 deposition.
BANNER YEAR FOR BOUTIQUES Â |Â Boutique and independent investment banks had a banner year in 2013, taking their biggest share of merger and acquisition fees since records began in 2000, David Gelles reports in DealBook. At least one boutique or independent firm was involved in almost all of the biggest deals in 2013, including Verizon and Dell. The banks are even being hired as lead advisers for some transactions.
“Boutiques and independents have been taking share in part because companies and boards are seeking high-quality independent advice rather than just big balance sheets to finance their deals,†Mr. Gelles writes. But the picture is not as rosy for second-tier banks: “As the top banks continue to hold their own, and boutiques and independents continue to gain market share, the second-tier big banks are getting squeezed. Barclays, UBS and Deutsche Bank all posted double-digit percentage declines in advisory revenue last year.â€
ON THE AGENDA  | The Challenger Job Cut report is released at 7:30 a.m. Initial jobless claims are out at 8:30 a.m. Esther George, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, discusses banking and the economy in Madison, Wis., at 1:30 p.m. Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Minneapolis Fed, participates in a public town hall in Minneapolis at 8 p.m. A House hearing on the effect on international trade of the Fed’s quantitative easing program takes place at 10 a.m. Alcoa reports earnings before the bell. Mark Messier, the Hall of Fame hockey player, is on Bloomberg TV at 9 a.m.
@GSELEVATOR IS WRITING A BOOK  | @GSElevator, the Twitter account that claims to reveal comments said inside Goldman Sachs’s elevators, is shopping around a book proposal, Kevin Roose reports in New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer. The anonymous Twitter account currently has over 595,000 followers. Its most recent post from Jan. 7: “Shut up about the weather. It’s cold everywhere. We’re all cold. We get it.â€
The proposal for the book, tentatively called “Straight to Hell: True Tales of Deviance and Excess in the World of Investment Banking,†calls it “the definitive exposure of investment banking culture today,†Mr. Roose writes.
Facebook to Buy Indian Mobile Analytics Start-Up  | Little Eye Labs provides monitoring and analysis tools to measure the performance of Android apps, which will play into Facebook’s mobile strategy. DealBook »
Dish to End Bid for LightSquared  | The Dish Network Corporation is said to be terminating its bid for LightSquared, the telecommunications firm in bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal writes. WALL STREET JOURNAL
Forest Labs to Buy Specialty Drug Maker for $2.9 Billion  | Forest Laboratories is acquiring Aptalis, a privately held maker of treatments for cystic fibrosis and gastrointestinal disorders. DealBook »
Standard Chartered’s Finance Chief Exits  | The chief financial officer of Standard Chartered, Richard Meddings, will leave as the company combines its wholesale and consumer businesses. DealBook »
JPMorgan Hires I.M.F. Official for Regulatory Role in Asia  | Anoop Singh will be JPMorgan Chase’s head of regulatory strategy and policy for the Asia-Pacific region, according to an internal memo. DealBook »
Fraud Trial to Center on Mortgage Sales  | A criminal trial next month in New Haven, Conn., will focus on tactics used to sell mortgage bonds and could have an impact on a broader investigation into the sale of mortgage bonds since the financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal reports. WALL STREET JOURNAL
UBS Said to Explore Spinning Off Investment Bank  | UBS, the largest Swiss bank, is said to be weighing a spinoff of its investment bank, Bloomberg reports, citing analysts. BLOOMBERG NEWS
Sluggish I.P.O. Markets in Asia Thwart Private Equity  | Private equity investors in Asia are struggling to take their companies public because of slow I.P.O. markets, The Financial Times writes. FINANCIAL TIMES
Two Firms Take Stakes in MedHOK Â |Â Bain Capital Ventures and Spectrum Equity announced they have taken minority stakes in MedHOK, a health care software provider, for $77.5 million, Reuters reports. REUTERS
Fairfax Said to Buy More BlackBerry Debt  | Fairfax Financial Holdings, the Canadian financial services firm, is planning to purchase $250 million in BlackBerry’s convertible debentures, Reuters reports. The investment will provide BlackBerry with much-needed cash. REUTERS
Apollo Cashing Out of Lighthouse  | Apollo Global Management is planning to sell its investment in Lighthouse Investment Partners, a fund manager, Reuters reports, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. REUTERS
Twitter Names New Vice President  | Twitter announced (how else?) through a series of tweets that it had appointed Brian Schipper, an executive at Groupon, as its new vice president of human resources, ReCode writes. RECODE
Snapchat-Type App for Text Debuts  | Confide, a text-based off-the-record messenger app, was released on Wednesday and could become the “Snapchat for the corner office,†Bloomberg Businessweek reports. Unlike Snapchat, which destroys images, Confide erases text once it is read, which could appeal to professionals who want to speak candidly but do not want evidence they did so. (The media for transmitting self-destructing messages is not the only difference between Snapchat and Confide. As of Thursday morning, Snapchat had more than 145,000 Twitter followers; Confide had about 200.) BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
Five Lessons From Bitcoin  | The virtual currency “is close enough to collapse to merit an early retrospective,†says Edward Hadas of Reuters Breakingviews. DealBook »
Watch the Major CES Events in 5 Minutes  | The International CES, where companies showcase new products, is happening this week in Las Vegas. Couldn’t make it out there? Watch all the important action in five minutes or less, courtesy of The Verge. THE VERGE
Support at Fed for Slow Stimulus Cuts  | The Federal Reserve’s decision in December to taper its bond-buying campaign reflected increased confidence in the economy and continued uneasiness about the stimulus effort, according to an official account of the December meeting. NEW YORK TIMES
A Transition in Fannie and Freddie Oversight  | As Melvin L. Watt takes over the Federal Housing Finance Agency, he will face pressure to take steps that put taxpayers at greater risk in the mortgage market, moves that his predecessor resisted on principle, Phillip Swagel writes in the Economix blog. NEW YORK TIMES ECONOMIX
Regulators Look to Identify Large Asset Managers  | The Financial Stability Board and the International Organization of Securities Commissions said in a paper that they were planning to create a list of the “systemically important†asset managers, similar to what they have compiled for banks and insurance groups, The Financial Times writes. FINANCIAL TIMES
Spotlight on Yellen’s Years Ahead  | The debates Janet L. Yellen will face when she takes the helm of the Federal Reserve on Feb. 1 are more interesting than those viewed through the familiar hawk versus dove monetary prism, Peter Coy writes in Bloomberg Businessweek. BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
