S.E.C. TAKES AIM AT 10TH FORMER SAC EMPLOYEE  | The Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into Steven A. Cohen’s hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors, isn’t done just yet. Federal regulators announced on Thursday a civil case against Ronald N. Dennis, who worked for SAC for less than two years, for prompting a number of illegal trades stemming from confidential tips he received about two technology companies, Dell and Foundry Networks, Ben Protess and Matthew Goldstein write in DealBook. Mr. Dennis, the 10th former employee of SAC to face civil or criminal insider trading charges, settled with the S.E.C., agreeing to be banned from the securities industry and to pay $200,000.
The charges are the latest against a former SAC employee and come eight months after the indictment of SAC itself. After the indictment, the inquiry into SAC and Mr. Cohen, who has long been viewed as the target of the investigation, began to lose momentum. The trades at the center of Mr. Dennis’s case allowed SAC to make more than $3 million in profit and avoid losses and were at the heart of the charges against Michael S. Steinberg, the most senior SAC Capital employee convicted.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TOO SOFT ON MORTGAGE FRAUD  | Four years after President Obama promised to crack down on mortgage fraud, his administration has made the crime its lowest priority, closing hundreds of cases after little or no investigation, according to report released on Thursday by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Matt Apuzzo writes in DealBook. The report shows that the F.B.I. considered mortgage fraud, which was one of the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, to be its lowest-ranked national crime priority and that the Justice Department has repeatedly and significantly overstated its efforts to prosecute the crime.
Mr. Apuzzo writes: “The report by the department’s inspector general undercuts the president’s contentions that the government is holding people responsible for the collapse of the financial and housing markets. The administration has been criticized, in particular, for not pursuing large banks and their executives.â€
From Bloomberg View’s Jonathan Weil: “The report seems to ignore the reality that the Justice Department and F.B.I. had every incentive to juice their stats, because of the relentless criticism they received over their failure to identify even a single senior Wall Street executive who committed crimes related to the financial crisis. So while it’s helpful to have the audit report, we don’t have the full story of why this particular fiasco happened. Nor did the inspector general’s office release any of the raw evidence it gathered as part of its examination, such as e-mail traffic or other documents.â€
G.E. TO SPIN OFF RETAIL FINANCE UNIT  | General Electric on Thursday filed to spin off its North American retail finance unit in an initial public offering as part of an effort to reduce the size of its GE Capital division, Michael J. de la Merced writes in DealBook. The unit, which handles credit cards for stores, said it planned to rename itself Synchrony Financial. GE Capital at one point brought in just under half of all of G.E.’s revenues.
Mr. de la Merced writes: “By holding a public offering for Synchrony, G.E. will avoid incurring taxes. It is also unlikely that G.E. can find a buyer big enough to acquire the entire business, since the most logical bidders â€" big financial institutions â€" are largely limited in the size of acquisitions they can make.â€
G.E. said it planned to sell up to 20 percent of Synchrony in an I.P.O. and distribute the rest of the company to its shareholders next year. The prospectus didn’t provide many details other than a preliminary $100 million fund-raising target meant to determine registration fees.
ON THE AGENDA Â |Â The producer price index report for February is released at 8:30 a.m. The consumer sentiment index for March is out at 9:55 a.m. Stanley Fischer, the nominee for vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, speaks at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research conference at 9:45 p.m. in Stanford, Calif. Warren E. Buffett is on CNBC at 8 a.m. Dan Gilbert, the chairman of Quicken Loans, is also on CNBC at 8 a.m. Scott M. Stringer the New York City comptroller, is on Bloomberg TV at 8:15 a.m. Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank, is on Bloomberg TV at 10 a.m.
LIONS GATE FINED FOR FENDING OFF ICAHN Â |Â In 2010, Lions Gate Entertainment successfully defended against a takeover by Carl C. Icahn. But on Thursday, the movie and television company admitted failing to disclose how it stopped him and agreed to pay a $7.5 million penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Floyd Norris writes in DealBook. It was the first time in more than 25 years that the commission had filed an enforcement action for deceiving shareholders in the course of fighting off a hostile tender offer.
The tactics cited by the S.E.C. included a board meeting that began one minute after midnight on the morning of July 20, 2010, just after a standstill agreement with Mr. Icahn had expired. The S.E.C. said that Lions Gate failed to disclose transactions that resulted from the meeting, and lied about others, in proxy materials sent to shareholders that ultimately caused Mr. Icahn to lose a proxy battle to elect a minority slate of directors.
Singapore Government Firm Pursues Buyout of Olam International  | The buyout group, led by Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s government investor, has offered Olam a premium of about 12 percent to where the shares first traded, valuing the company at more than $4 billion.
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Star-Struck by Alibaba’s Movie Company Deal  | Investors may be betting that Alibaba will move into digital entertainment, but they are too easily excited, Robyn Mak of Reuters Breakingviews writes.
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JetBlue to Sell In-Flight Television Business  | JetBlue Airways announced it would sell its in-flight entertainment business, LiveTV, to Thales Group, a French defense electronics company, for $400 million, Reuters writes. The move is part of the airline’s efforts to cut costs.
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Fitch Group Buys Business Monitor International  | Fitch Group announced on Friday that it had acquired Business Monitor International, an independent provider of country risk and industry analysis, Reuters writes. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Investment Bank Chief is UBS’s Top-Paid Executive  | After leading a turnaround at the investment bank, Andrea Orcel earned about $13 million in 2013, more than Sergio P. Ermotti, the Swiss bank’s chief executive.
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Barclays to Overhaul Investment Bank  | Barclays is preparing to shake up its troubled investment bank amid increasing investor concern, The Financial Times writes. The move is expected to result in thousands of job cuts, adding to pressure on the division’s two leaders.
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Charterhouse in Talks to Buy Skillsoft  | The European buyout firm Charterhouse Capital Partners is nearing a deal to purchase the education software provider Skillsoft for more than $2 billion, Reuters writes, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation.
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Britain’s OneSavings Bank Considering I.P.O.  | OneSavings Bank, the British lender backed by the private equity firm J.C. Flowers, is exploring an initial public offering and is expected to announce on Friday that it has begun preparations for a flotation, The Financial Times writes.
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Carlyle and Louis Bacon to Acquire Commodities Firm Traxys  | The private equity firm Carlyle Group and the trader Louis Bacon have agreed to purchase a controlling stake in the commodities trading firm Traxys Group, The Wall Street Journal reports. The move underscores the increasing allure of commodities middlemen as banks exit the business.
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Showtime Orders Hedge Fund Pilot Called ‘Billions’  | Showtime announced its first drama pilot order of the season Thursday, a project co-created by Andrew Ross Sorkin, an author and financial reporter for The New York Times. The show is called “Billions,†The New York Times writes.
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ONO Said to Approve I.P.O. Plans  | Shareholders of the Spanish cable company ONO are said to have approved plans on Thursday for an initial public offering. But on Friday, an unidentified source said that shareholders were close to reaching a deal with the British telecommunications giant Vodafone for around $10 billion including debt, Reuters writes.
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Circassia I.P.O. Inspires Optimism for European Health Care  | The allergy drug specialist Circassia priced at the top of its range in its initial public offering on Thursday, raising $332 million, which fueled optimism about the health care sector across Europe, The Wall Street Journal writes.
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Gambling on Candy Crush  | Earlier this week, King Digital Entertainment, the maker of the popular game Candy Crush Saga, filed for an initial public offering, but one writer is skeptical of the company’s valuation. “I have no doubt that investors will snap this offering up: the market is willing to value Zynga, which has lost six hundred million dollars over the past three years, at $5 billion. King looks like a bargain by comparison. But this is a pure gamble,†James Surowiecki writes in The New Yorker.
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Eventbrite Raises $60 Million  | Eventbrite, the online ticketing service, said it had raised $60 million in financing led by Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price, Reuters writes. The new funding tempered expectations that the company would hold an initial public offering this year.
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Lemon Digital Wallet Founder Gets $20 Million for Bitcoin Start-Up  | Wences Casares, who sold his Lemon digital wallet platform for $43 million last year, has secured $20 million to fund a new Bitcoin wallet and vault start-up called Xapo, ReCode reports.
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Payment Start-Up Clinkle Tries to Move Past Stumbles  | The payment start-up Clinkle seemed to be doing well, raising $25 million in 2013 and attracting interest from high-profile investors, including Peter Thiel, an early backer of Facebook. Now, the company is trying to get back on track after recent troubles that included employee departures and a security breach, Bloomberg Businessweek writes.
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UBS Attempted to Rig Interest Rate, Hong Kong Regulator Finds  | The main banking regulator said it discovered that from 2006 to 2009, about 100 internal chat messages attempting to rig the interest rate had been sent by UBS traders to the employee who was responsible for making submissions on the bank’s behalf.
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At Hearing, Fed Board Nominees Endorse Current Path  | Stanley Fischer, Lael Brainard and Jerome H. Powell stood by the Federal Reserve’s efforts to reduce unemployment, The New York Times writes.
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Facebook’s Zuckerberg Complains to Obama Over Government Spying  | In a public post on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said the United States government “should be the champion for the Internet, not a threat.†He said he called the president on Wednesday to complain about the latest revelations of spying by the National Security Agency, the Bits blog writes.
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