Comcast Set to Acquire Time Warner Cable for $44 Billion

Comcast will announce a deal to acquire Time Warner Cable in an all-stock deal worth more than $44 billion that will unite the biggest and second largest cable television operators in the country, according to people briefed on the matter. .

The surprise merger â€" expected to be announced on Thursday â€" is likely to bring to an end a protracted takeover battle that a smaller cable rival, Charter Communications, has been waging for Time Warner Cable, and will be the second major deal for Comcast in recent years to radically reshape the American media landscape.

Time Warner Cable shareholders will receive 2.875 shares of newly issued Comcast common stock for each of their shares. Based on Comcast’s closing price of $55.24 on Wednesday, that values each Time Warner Cable share at about $158.82 each.

The combination of the two is certain to attract antitrust scrutiny by regulators.

David Faber of CNBC earlier reported the deal.

Charter, backed by John C. Malone’s Liberty had been courting Time Warner Cable for months.
Last month, Charter had offered to acquire the company for $132.50 a share â€" roughly around the market price of Time Warner Cable at the time.

The board of Time Warner Cable unanimously rejected that proposal, calling it “grossly inadequate.”

A deal by Comcast would come four years after the cable giant agreed to acquire NBC Universal from General Electric in a transaction that valued NBC Universal at $30 billion.

Morgan Stanley, Allen & Company and Citigroup had been advising Time Warner Cable on its defense from Charter, with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison providing legal advice. Comcast is being advised by JPMorgan Chase, among others.

Blackstone’s Burger and Beer Night for Charity

High-flying financiers from the Blackstone Group would normally frequent power lunch spaces like the Four Seasons restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.

But on Tuesday night, a handful of top executives of the investment giant were serving burgers and beer in a decidedly more casual establishment to raise money for charity.

At a fund-raiser at Clarke’s Standard in Midtown Manhattan, Blackstone employees crowded around the bar to see Jonathan D. Gray, the head of the firm’s huge real estate arm (and rising star), don a purple wig and goofy glasses. Joining him, in an equally ridiculous outfit, was the firm’s president, Hamilton E. James.

The Gray-James duo was one of several teams competing to raise the most in tips, going up against colleagues like Laurence A. Tosi, the firm’s chief financial officer; David S. Blitzer, the head of tactical opportunities; and Joseph Baratta, the global head of private equity.

The firm has staged various events over the years to support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Several months ago, the Blackstone technology team held a raffle contest, and later this year, some employees plan to do a lengthy bike ride in Lake Tahoe, Calif.

All proceeds from the latest event, from food and drink purchases to tips for the bartending competitors, went to the charity. A Blackstone spokeswoman told DealBook that the event raised nearly $25,000.

And the team led by Mr. Baratta and Peter F. Wallace, a senior managing director in the private equity group, prevailed in the race for tips.

Banking Group Drops Suit Against Volcker Rule

The American Bankers Association announced on Wednesday that it was dropping its lawsuit to block parts of the Volcker Rule from going into effect after regulators modified what the group found most objectionable.

The association’s move was not unexpected. In January, the five regulatory agencies responsible for carrying out the Volcker Rule relented to industry pressure and changed provisions that would have forced community banks to take write-downs on a type of security that many had invested in before the financial crisis. The banking industry argued that the original provisions violated the intent of the Volcker Rule, which was meant to curb risk-taking by big Wall Street banks, and would instead inflict financial pain on smaller ones.

Under the original terms, community banks would have been forced to shed collateralized debt obligations backed by so-called trust-preferred securities. Under the modified terms, banks will be allowed to hold onto them under certain conditions.

“After consulting with our membership and concluding our analysis of the impact of the regulators’ interim final rule, we have decided to dismiss our litigation,” Frank Keating, the chief executive of the association, said in a statement. “The interim final rule has allowed many banks to avoid taking hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary write-downs and has helped to minimize the cost and compliance burden for those that are affected.”

In its lawsuit, filed in December, the trade group contended that 275 small banks would suffer an imminent $600 million hit to their capital and make them less likely to lend to consumers and businesses.

Wall Street has been outspokenly critical of the Volcker Rule, a centerpiece of government regulation meant to prevent another financial collapse by prohibiting banks from making risky bets with their own money. The rule was approved in December, and many banks are now figuring out how to comply with the new provisions as they take effect. Goldman Sachs, for instance, announced that it had created a special “Volcker Rule” unit to ease itself into the new guidelines.

In its statement, the association said that some banks’ “legitimate business activities” would still be harmed by the Volcker Rule as it stands now and that it was “imperative” that regulators address remaining concerns.

Disney Plays Host for Digital Start-Ups

LOS ANGELES â€" The Magic Kingdom is letting 10 technology start-ups inside its walls as part of an effort to find new digital growth.

The Walt Disney Company on Wednesday announced a partnership with TechStars, which tries to accelerate early-stage companies by pairing entrepreneurs with established executives. Ten start-ups focused on media and entertainment ideas will receive $120,000 and work with Disney leaders for three months starting June 30. At the end, Disney and TechStars may take a stake in one or more of the companies.

Committed to offer advice are Robert A. Iger, Disneyâ€s chief executive and chairman, and leaders from Disney units like Pixar, Lucasfilm, ESPN and Imagineering, which handles design for the company’s theme parks. Disney Accelerator, as the program is called, comes as Disney’s digital unit revamps its online and mobile video-game operations.

“We are an innovative and forward-thinking company, but there is also real value in being friendly to outside ideas,” said Kevin A. Mayer, Disney’s executive vice president for corporate strategy and business development. “We want Disney Accelerator to be a part of how we profitably and defensibly grow our business.”

Mentoring for start-ups â€" either through TechStars or competitors like Y Combinator! â€" has become popular at a wide range of companies outside of Silicon Valley, but large media companies have been relatively standoffish. Mr. Mayer said that, before Mr. Iger’s tenure, Disney was “a bit more proprietary in our thinking.”

Examples of successful companies that have sprung from accelerators include Dropbox, the file-storage service, and Airbnb, which lets travelers rent accommodations in private residences.

Disney’s only major restriction on applicants, in the words of a spokeswoman: “Please, please don’t send us scripts.”

Correction: February 12, 2014

An earlier version of this article incorrectly rendered a quote from Kevin A. Mayer. He said, “We want Disney Accelerator to be a part of how we profitably and defensibly grow our business,” not “defensively grow our business.”

Krawcheck Says Women on Wall Street Have ‘Gone Backwards’

It has long been a feature of Wall Street that women are underrepresented in the executive ranks. But since the financial crisis, the situation has gotten worse, according to one former big bank executive.

“It’s not that we’ve even gone sideways, as we have in corporate America,” Sallie L. Krawcheck, a former executive at Bank of America and Citigroup, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. “We’ve gone backwards.”

Ms. Krawcheck, a prominent voice on the subject of women in finance, who owns the women’s network 85 Broads, said that the crisis tended to make banks more homogenous, reiterating an argument that she has made in the past.

“What I saw when I was on Wall Street is it’s not, ‘Well, let’s get rid of people who are different from us because they’ve got cooties,’” she said on Bloomberg TV. “It’s more, ‘Yeah, I know the numbers around diversity, and the diversity adds to business results in theory, but we are in a crisis mode and I need that person who I can trust today.’”

While the pipeline of workers entering the financial industry has a more balanced gender mix, those numbers skew male as workers advance through their careers, Ms. Krawcheck said.Ms. Krawcheck ran Sanford C. Bernstein & Company before leaving for Citigroup, where she was promoted to chief financial officer.

After clashing with other senior managers at Citigroup, she landed at Bank of America. But she was let go two years later as part of a broader restructuring.

In the television interview, Ms. Krawcheck recounted her own transition to working as a research analyst.

“I made a decision for my family,” she said. “I was an investment banker in my 20s, and as I was pregnant with my son and had my son, made a decision that that wasn’t the right choice for our family. So I became a research analyst.”

“I worked harder as a research analyst than an investment banker. But I owned my time,” she continued. “And I’ve said before, I never had a client who said, ‘I reject this research report because you did it on a Saturday night after your son was sleeping, not on a Thursday afternoon.’”

Former Top S.E.C. Enforcer Returns To Milbank

After spending the last four plus years investigating financial institutions, George Canellos will now be defending them.

Mr. Canellos, the former co-chief of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, announced on Wednesday that he would be joining Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy as a partner and global head of the firm’s litigation department. He will start in mid-March, two months after leaving the S.E.C.

Milbank is familiar turf for Mr. Canellos, who was a partner at the firm before joining the S.E.C. in 2009. And although he spoke to a handful of other large law firms since leaving the government â€" one firm offered him the chance to lead its New York office â€" Mr. Canellos said that he went with his “professional family” at Milbank.

“At the end of the day, it wasn’t a hard decision,” Mr. Canellos said in an interview. “There’s the nucleus of an outstanding practice already there.”

As head of global litigation, Mr. Canellos will run a group that has gradually become Milbank’s largest department. The group covers a wide array of matters, from the sort of securities and white collar cases Mr. Canellos specializes in to other practices like data privacy and mutual fund litigation.

“We’re not the white shoe firm that people think we are,” said Scott A. Edelman, Milbank’s chairman. “It’s a young dynamic firm. We have lots of opportunities to grow,” signaling that Mr. Canellos’s arrival could foreshadow other changes.

Mr. Canellos is the latest Wall Street regulator to switch sides. David Meister, Mr. Canellos’s counterpart at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, announced last month that he was becoming the head of the white-collar group in the New York office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. And Robert Khuzami, Mr. Canellos’s mentor and predecessor at the S.E.C., recently joined Kirkland & Ellis. Andrew Ceresney, who jointly led the S.E.C.’s enforcement unit with Mr. Canellos and now runs it on his own, joined the agency from Debevoise & Plimpton.

The job hopping raises questions about the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, as critics complain that it blurs the line between defense and prosecution.

For Mr. Canellos, the revolving door comes with some strings attached. He cannot contact the S.E.C. about official business for one year â€" and is forever banned from defending cases he had a role in investigating.

He also disputed the notion that government lawyers might go soft on Wall Street to bolster their job prospects down the line.

“If you’re in the S.E.C. pulling any punches, no one in the private sector has any respect for you,” he said.

At the S.E.C., Mr. Canellos established a productive yet complicated legacy. He presided over the agency’s crackdown on insider trading, producing cases against some of the biggest-name hedge funds on Wall Street, including SAC Capital Advisors and the Galleon Group. Mr. Canellos also helped reverse a policy at the agency that allowed defendants to “neither admit nor deny wrongdoing,” a decision that was cheered by Wall Street’s critics.

But he also, under Mr. Khuzami, helped drive the S.E.C.’s response to the financial crisis, which has drawn some scrutiny, both internally and from consumer groups. While the S.E.C. filed a number of big cases against banks tied to the crisis â€" including actions against Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase â€" the agency also closed some investigations into Lehman Brothers executives and Wall Street’s role in churning out faulty mortgage securities.

Mr. Canellos, a graduate of Columbia Law School, argued that those decisions came down to the law.

And Mr. Edelman said that Mr. Canellos’s track record at the S.E.C. is highly regarded in the legal world. “People think he did a great job â€" in both the cases he brought and the cases he didn’t bring,” Mr. Edelman said. “He’s a lawyer’s lawyer.”

Mr. Canellos and Mr. Edelman have followed somewhat parallel paths on the way to Milbank. They met more than two decades ago, as young associates at the white shoe firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. They both then landed at the United States Attorney’s office in Manhattan under Mary Jo White, who is now chairwoman of the S.E.C.

While they both joined Milbank, Mr. Canellos returned to the government in 2009, becoming director of the S.E.C.’s New York office. He moved to Washington in 2012 to become deputy director of enforcement and ultimately the co-chief.

“We’re ecstatic to have George return,” Mr. Edelman said.

Doing the Math on Grupo Bimbo’s Deal for Canada Bread

In its latest deal north of the border, Grupo Bimbo, the acquisitive Mexican bread maker, is spending $1.8 billion to buy Canada Bread. Paying 20 times earnings to move into a mature market may seem questionable. But Bimbo’s earnings fetch an even higher multiple at home â€" and the deal should lower its weighted average cost of capital.

Excitement over Mexico and its expanding manufacturing base has fed the country’s stock market. The Bolsa, the Mexican stock exchange, has more than doubled over the last five years and even withstood the more recent troubles of emerging markets. Grupo Bimbo has done even better, with its stock more than tripling. A rising middle class in Mexico means more demand for premium baked goods.

Meantime, a series of foreign acquisitions has added to the company’s growth. Most Americans probably don’t know that such breadbox staples as Thomas’ English Muffins, Arnold rye bread and Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies are all made by the Mexican company.

So what’s the attraction of a company that has stagnant sales and a profit margin below 5 percent? Bimbo trades at 26 times estimated 2014 earnings. Investors may simply pay more for Canada Bread’s earnings rebranded under the Mexican company’s logo. While there’s little geographic overlap, there probably are some cost savings to be found and new products to be introduced. Bimbo, for example, has cashed in on rising demand for Mexican food, including tortillas, in the United States.

Rapid expansion brings risks, as other companies that have expanded cross-border have found out. Cemex, for example, gobbled up cement producers at breakneck pace until plummeting demand and hefty debt nearly sank the group during the financial crisis. But economic fluctuations have little effect on demand for bread, and even with this acquisition, Bimbo has kept its debt to a reasonable level of around three times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

Moreover, expanding its business in predictable Canada means Bimbo will reduce its exposure to Mexico, which has a volatile financial history. That creates a financial synergy by lowering the company’s cost of capital. That should turn a seemingly expensive deal for a bland product into something more satisfying.

Robert Cyran is a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. For more independent commentary and analysis, visit breakingviews.com.

Chief Executive Turnover High in January, Report Says

New year, new chief executive.

A total of 131 C.E.O.’s in the United States, mostly at public companies, departed their posts in January, the highest monthly total since February 2010 and 15.9 percent higher than the same period last year, according to findings from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm.

Boards are more inclined to shuffle management when business is good. Companies may be riding high after the stock market surged in 2013 and the country’s economy grew at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter.

“In good times, you have time to make a shift, things are going O.K.,” said Gary Neilson, a senior partner at Booz Allen, which does a separate study on executive turnover. “But when things are moving fast, you need someone at the helm who’s holding on tight.”

January’s numbers may have also reflected an unusually high number of retirements. The average tenure for exiting executives was nearly 15 years, the highest on record since Challenger began tracking data more than a decade ago.

In total, 43 executives said they were stepping down because of retirement. Thirty-two chief executives resigned from their position, while 22 transitioned into other roles at the company.

Challenger assembled the report by surveying announcements of executive changes. Some of the prominent announcements last month of C.E.O.’s who were stepping down include Tim O’Shaughnessy, formerly of Living Social, and Casey Sheahan of Patagonia.

Firms also often tend to change leadership at the beginning of the year, so month-to-month data can be volatile. Still, January’s numbers may hint that 2014 could outpace 2013 for executive turnover.

“Certainly it suggests that there may be a canary in the coal mine sort of thing,” said John A. Challenger, Challenger’s chief executive.

A total of 1,246 chief executives departed American firms in 2013, according to Mr. Challenger. That’s the highest number since 2008, when 1,484 executives left.

Mr. Neilson said his firm’s survey found that that the steepest global declines in turnover were in 2009 and 2010. Out of the top 2,500 companies by market capitalization, Booz Allen found that 11.6 percent of firms changed their top management in 2010, the lowest number in recent years. Mr. Neilson said that annual turnover had typically been about 14 percent to 15 percent over the last decade.

Companies in the health care and financial sectors had the most turnover in January, according to Challenger, with 24 departures in each.

Standard Chartered Looking to Sell Swiss Private Bank

LONDON - Standard Chartered, the British bank that earns most of its profit in Asia, is prepping its Swiss private bank for a sale as it prunes its non-core operations, a spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday.

As part of a strategy unveiled in November, the bank is selling or exiting several of its smaller businesses outside its core markets in hopes of bolstering returns across the group. The bank is focused on growth markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Standard Chartered will continue to operate it commercial banking business in Switzerland, but is looking to sell its Swiss private bank, the spokeswoman said.

Wealthy clients will be able to receive similar services from its private banking operations in other parts of the world.

The Wall Street Journal reported Standard Chartered’s plans for the sale earlier Wednesday.

The news comes a day after the bank announced it had appointed Michael Benz to serve as group head of its private banking operations. He will be based in Hong Kong.

Mr. Benz, who takes the post on Feb. 17, was most recently the designated chairman for Asia at Julius Baer. He was formerly chief executive of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s wealth management business in the Asia-Pacific region.

Standard Chartered was formed in 1969 through the merger of two banks, whose combined history dates back 150 years. It operates in 68 countries.

The bank warned in December that its operating profit at its consumer bank would fall in 2013 for the first time in a decade. The bank is set to report its year-end results on March 5.

Its private banking operations, which are based in Singapore, began business in 2007.

Grupo Bimbo to Buy Canada Bread for $1.7 Billion

Grupo Bimbo, the Mexican baking giant, is crossing the North American continent for its latest bread deal.

The company has agreed to buy Canada Bread, a Toronto-based baking company that is 90 percent owned by Maple Leaf Foods, for $1.83 billion Canadian dollars, or $1.67 billion, according to an announcement on Wednesday.

Including a recent dividend paid by Canada Bread, the offer of 72 Canadian dollars a share represents a 31 percent premium over the company’s closing price on Oct. 18, the day before Maple Leaf said it was exploring strategic options for the business. It is also a 34 percent premium over the 20-day volume-weighted average stock price ending Oct. 18.

Maple Leaf has agreed to vote its shares in favor of the deal, Canada Bread said in its announcement. Investors appear to be expecting the deal to go through, sending shares of Canada Bread, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, up 7 percent on Wednesday to 72.05 Canadian dollars.

Grupo Bimbo already has a number of well-known bread brands in its portfolio, including parts of Entenmann’s, Thomas’ English muffins and Sara Lee bakery. In 2012, it was seen as a potential suitor for Hostess Brands.

Its deal for Canada Bread, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the second quarter of this year. Under the deal’s terms, Canada Bread can pay quarterly dividends of up to 75 Canadian cents a share until the transaction closes.

“This is an excellent outcome for our bakery businesses and shareholders,” Richard Lan, the president and chief executive of Canada Bread, said in a statement. “Becoming part of Grupo Bimbo, the world’s leading bakery company, and benefiting from its focus, expertise and resources, will create new opportunities for our people, customers and business partners.”

A special committee of independent directors of Canada Bread received legal and financial advice, as well as a fairness opinion, from CIBC World Markets.

Evaluating the Dearth of Female Hedge Fund Managers

Whitney Tilson is the managing partner of the hedge fund firm Kase Capital Management, which he founded more than 15 years ago. Mr. Tilson is also the co-founder of Value Investor Insight, an investment newsletter, and the Value Investing Congress, a biannual investment conference.

A recent report by the consulting firm Rothstein Kass found that hedge funds managed by women performed better than a broad index of hedge funds.

This shouldn’t be surprising, as numerous studies have shown that women take less risk, do more diligent research, suffer less from overconfidence, trade less frequently and are quicker to admit mistakes â€" all of which lead to higher, and less volatile, returns.

At the same time, the report and other statistics show that few hedge funds are run or led by women. This is reinforced by my own 15-plus years of experience in this business: I’ve met well over 1,000 hedge fund managers, and only a small handful have been women.

If women are, in general, better suited to be successful investors, then this is a strange market inefficiency. It would be like discovering that tall people were vastly underrepresented in the N.B.A. What could possibly explain this?

But she’s willing to take this risk because “if even one man running a large fund thinks about whether he is being biased when he hires yet another male analyst into a coveted job without considering any females, then I guess distributing my thoughts is worth it.”

Here is what she wrote:

I have many thoughts on this topic, based on 15 plus years in this business. One of them is that there are few women from my cohort left in the business.

Women were disproportionately fired in the 2008 crisis, and most ended up leaving the industry, either because they couldn’t find new jobs or because the jobs they could get offered pay cuts of 50 percent or more from what they made before (the same applies to most men, in fairness). If you can make the same money in a corporate job with less stress, fewer hours, more flexibility and more tolerance of the demands of motherhood, you really have to love this business to have stayed, particularly as a mom.

As for performance, I think there is sociological and perhaps biological conditioning toward risk aversion in women. Most (but not all) women that I know who were managing portfolios in 2008 outperformed their male peers by an enormous ratio. This wasn’t surprising because they always tended to outperform in weak markets. I have always thought it best to avoid the big down years because they tempt investors to pull their money at the absolute worst time - usually right before a manager bounces back because their style comes back in favor, some big positions recover or the market in general improves.

I learned, however, that outperformance in down markets may be best for your investors but not best for your career ambitions. Capital allocators - no matter how sophisticated they claim to be - are drawn to emerging managers who can show one or two flashy big years.

You would think the allocators would understand that big up years are predicative of big down years (for all but the top 10 to 20 managers in the world) and that long-term compounding at lower annual return but lower volume wins over the long term. But it doesn’t work that way in the real world. It’s a problem for the whole investment management world, but it affects male and female managers disproportionately.

She goes on to add:

The other big factor if you’re thinking of starting your own fund is if you want backing by a big firm like Blackstone, they are looking for you to slap down $1 million to $2 million of your own money into the business. To do that, you better have saved at least $3 million to $4 million in your career, and do so before you turn 40 at the latest, because they aren’t into seeding people who are too “old.”

I know exactly two female analysts who are paid enough to accumulate that kind of wealth in their 20s and 30s. I am sure there are more, but you just have to look at the male-to-female ratio at the big funds that pay their analysts $1 million or more a year to know that there are almost no female candidates for the Blackstone-type seed.

She concludes:

The lack of female success in this business makes me sad. I went to a top business school, so women M.B.A. students and recent graduates call me frequently to ask for my advice about going into this field. I love it, but I am conflicted about recommending it. It’s kind of like deciding to be an actor - your hard work and inherent talent may not pay off for you because the odds are stacked against you, so you should do it only if you can’t imagine spending your life any other way.

Another female friend of mine who works at a top hedge fund agrees that few women are in the pipeline, and the women tend to gravitate toward other fields in finance, like private equity, even though those sectors are less family friendly.

“I don’t know whether the screaming trading-desk reputation of hedge funds is to blame, or the misperception that you need to love poker or have been buying stocks since you were 5,” she writes. “Regardless, I don’t think we will see more female hedge fund managers until we see more female hedge fund analysts. This problem extends across finance/asset management, not just hedge funds.”

The dearth of women in the hedge fund industry at all levels is in stark contrast to other professions formerly dominated by men, such as law and medicine. Though women are still underrepresented at the highest levels, they account for about half of all law and medical school students, meaning that the pipeline is full of talented, ambitious women, whereas it’s pretty much empty in my business.

Are the men in the business just incredibly sexist? For sure this exists, but sexism is alive and well in many professions in which women have made enormous inroads. So what’s different about hedge funds?

My observation is that far fewer women, from an early age, have an interest in the hedge fund business. Is there something about it - especially as practiced by most hedge funds - that is less appealing to women than men?

I don’t think it’s primarily because of lifestyle/workload factors. Being a hedge fund manager is demanding and intense, but the number of hours worked doesn’t correlate with fund performance, which is what really matters to investors. In addition, the market is only open 6½ hours a day, five days a week, and most investment research can be done from anywhere, at any hour of the day or night.

This profession attracts all types of people, from social jocks to nerdy loners, but I’ve found that most hedge fund managers share a few traits: they are highly competitive, have an abundance (often overabundance) of self-confidence, and thrive amid high levels of stress and uncertainty. Many are motivated by money, but what they really enjoy is the challenge of trying to outwit the market and other investors. In short, investing is an endlessly complex, stimulating, fascinating, entertaining game that the best practitioners love to play, irrespective of the financial rewards.

There are plenty of women who have some, if not all, of these characteristics, but I’d bet that there are exponentially more men who do. (Incidentally, I’m not saying that these traits, especially taken to extremes, result in the best long-term investment performance. Balancing confidence with humility is critical, for example. I’m simply highlighting what is, not what should be.)

I love this business, and I want my three daughters to be able to follow in my footsteps if they wish. So, if there are barriers to women, I want to figure out what they are and try to knock them down.

Please post your thoughts, questions or observations in the comments section, and my friends and I will endeavor to respond - and perhaps together we can devise some practical solutions to this problem.

Activist Fund to Back C.E.O. Candidate at Cliffs

The activist hedge fund pushing for change at Cliffs Natural Resources plans to back a candidate for chief executive as it steps up its fight at the mining company.

The investor, Casablanca Capital, plans to disclose on Wednesday that it is backing Lourenco Goncalves, the former chief executive of Metals USA, as its choice to lead the company.

And the firm plans to nominate a slate of candidates, including Mr. Goncalves, to replace a majority of Cliffs’s board.

Casablanca has been calling on the mining concern to combine its Bloom Lake property in Canada with its Asian assets, spinning them off into an internationally focused company.

The hedge fund has also demanded that Cliffs put its remaining assets into a master limited partnership to curb its taxes and increase payouts to investors.

Casablanca’s move on Wednesday follows Cliffs’s announcement on Tuesday that it plans to cut up to $425 million in capital spending and lay off 500 employees. But the cost-cutting initiative wasn’t enough to satisfy Casablanca, which plans to say that the proposal was a “knee-jerk reaction” that doesn’t improve the company’s performance enough.

“We believe they are inadequate to address Cliffs’s issues, including the need for dramatic cost savings, and do not demonstrate the strong leadership needed to create substantial value for shareholders,” Donald Drapkin, the founder of Casablanca, said in a statement.

According to the hedge fund, Mr. Goncalves is the right person to lead the mining company as it searches for a new leader. During his time at Metals USA, the company’s stock price grew sevenfold before being taken private.

Imerys to Buy U.S. Materials Firm For $1.6 Billion

LONDON - The French specialty materials maker Imerys said Wednesday that it has signed an agreement to acquire Amcol International for $1.6 billion in cash and the assumption of debt.

The offer of $41 a share in cash represents a 19 percent premium over the volume weighted average closing price of Amcol over the past 30 trading days.

The deal is expected to complement Imerys existing business of providing minerals and specialty materials, such as ceramics, to industry and expand its offerings to the oil and gas market. Amcol is a leading producer of bentonite, which is used in machine tooling, construction and drilling.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first half of 2014. The deal has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

“We are very excited with the many business and development opportunities that we believe we can create by combining our two companies, and we are looking forward to welcoming the 3,000 employees of Amcol,” said Gilles Michel, the chairman and chief executive of Imerys. “I am convinced that this merger, which meets our financial criteria, will create value for our shareholders.”

Imerys plans to fund the transaction with debt.

Amcol, based in Illinois, is a producer of specialty minerals and materials and has a presence in 26 countries. The company posted revenue of more than $1 billion last year.

Imerys employs about 16,000 people in 50 countries and had revenue of 3.9 billion euros, or about $5.32 billion, in 2012.

Société Générale Swings to Fourth-Quarter Profit

PARIS â€" Société Générale, the French bank, on Wednesday reported a return to profit in the fourth quarter, as it booked fewer one-time items than it did a year earlier, and said it would raise its dividend.

The bank, based in Paris, reported net income for the three months through December of 322 million euros, or $439 million, a reversal from the €471 million loss it posted a year earlier, when it took a charge for revaluing its own debt and wrote down the value of its stake in Newedge Group. Revenue for the quarter reached €5.8 billion, up 20 percent.

The fourth-quarter profit was more than double analysts’ average forecast of €152 million. Jon Peace, an analyst at Nomura in London, wrote in a research note that the earnings surprise appeared to have been driven by a sharply narrower loss in the bank’s “corporate center” unit, which includes its real estate and equity portfolios, as well as more favorable tax treatment.

Elsewhere, profit rose across the board, with French retail banking up nearly 11 percent in the quarter, international retail banking and financial services up nearly 14 percent, and the global banking unit, which includes investment banking, up 4 percent.

For the full year, revenue rose 4.3 percent from 2012, to €22.8 billion, while net income tripled to €2.2 billion from €790 million. Société Générale is proposing a 2013 dividend of €1 per share, up from 45 euro cents a share in 2012.

Frédéric Oudéa, the bank’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement that the 2013 results “provided confirmation of the robustness of Société Générale’s universal banking model.” The bank will present a plan on May 13 to raise its return on equity to 10 percent by the end of 2015, he added.

Shares of Société Générale, which have gained about 40 percent over the last 12 months, rose more than 4 percent in Paris trading on Wednesday morning.

The bank’s latest results nonetheless suffered from a €445.9 million fine imposed by the European Commission over antitrust rule violations associated with the manipulation of Euribor interest rates. Société Générale, just one of many global banks under investigation recently for manipulating market benchmark rates, said in December that the events in question took place between 2006 and 2008 and that the sole employee involved had left the bank in 2009.

The bank also said it ended the year with a common equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 10 percent under the coming Basel III regime, a measure of its financial strength. Like the rest of the “systemically important” euro zone lenders, Société Générale is this year undergoing a major review of its financial soundness by the European Central Bank.

The hope is that the scrutiny will reveal any capital shortfalls and finally end worries about the fragility of the European financial sector more than five years after the Lehman Brothers shock.

The bank said it had also improved its liquidity buffer â€" the assets it can draw on to fund short-term financing requirements â€" sufficiently to repay the European Central Bank for cheap three-year loans it received at the height of the euro zone crisis. The E.C.B. used long-term refinancing operations to smooth the market in late 2011 and early 2012, offering banks unlimited three-year loans at rock-bottom interest rates. SocGen did not say how much it received from the E.C.B.

SocGen’s announcement follows that of the Italian lender Intesa Sanpaolo, which last month said that it had fully repaid €36 billion borrowed from the E.C.B.

The repayments are a sign of confidence that the banks have turned the corner in restoring their finances.