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Archive for January, 2008Filed under: Deals, From the boards, Wendy’s Intl (WEN)
With its stock down about 40%, no buyer has yet emerged for the company. This day Wendy’s announced that the “Special Committee of its Board of Directors, which is reviewing the Company’s strategic options, believes that it is in the final stages of its review process.” That’s right: a press release saying nothing except that they’re almost done with their review — What does that even mean? 2 more days? 2 more months? They don’t say but they caution investors that “there is no assurance that the process will result in any changes to the Company’s current plans or when a specific announcement may be made.” The press release added: “The review process being undertaken by the Special Committee has taken longer than anticipated, primarily due to the continuing turmoil in the financial markets.” What goes unsaid is that the stock’s sharp decline in value would seemingly make it more attractive as an acquisition. But with the stock down more than 7% this day, it doesn’t look like investors are betting on that.
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Circuit City shares spike 33% on takeover talks, then settle back downPosted by: in Latest NewsFiled under: Deals, Rumors, Circuit City Stores (CC)
Circuit City is now valued at just over $800 million, which puts the company in prime shape for acquisition. One must ask, though, why private equity wasn’t interested a week ago when the company’s market cap was valued under $600 million? That’s a little over half a billion for the second-largest consumer electronics chain in the U.S. with nationwide locations. Apparently, not a single entity besides Wattles sees any value here. Wattles did state that he’s considering an outright purchase of the company or a forced leadership change now that he has amassed over 6% of the company’s shares. Something — anything — needs to shake up Circuit City back into profit reality soon. No other money has come calling, so it may be Wattles’s sole call to make. If you’re holding on to your CC shares — and you haven’t sold them on fear — you might soon be rewarded. That’s, if you haven’t taken profits from the company’s wild increase last week. Filed under: Deals, Blackstone Group L.P (BX)
Despite all this, there was still lots of talk that the deal would close. After all, ADS is a strong company (even if there are some issues with the economy). Besides, the merger agreement was airtight. Well, investors failed to consider something important: regulatory hurdles. Basically, it seems that the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) wants Blackstone to be an unlimited source of financial support if there are troubles at ADS (this is perhaps based on the current turbulence in the financial markets). For a savvy firm like Blackstone, this was certainly a dealbreaker. The recourse for ADS? Of course, the company may pursue litigation. However, this will be time-consuming and ugly. Investors are making their own judgment: the stock price of ADS is down $23.87 to $41.73 in today’s trading. Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook Conor Dougherty wrote an interesting story for the Wall Street Journal’s RealEstateJournal.com last week. In it, Dougherty covered a new trend: Second-home buyers are drastically changing the nature of huge slices of rural America. You can read the story here. The main thrust is that as affluent retirees and other wealthy buyers buy second homes on remote areas, they bring with them demand for interior-design studios, spas and organic supermarkets. These shops are now popping up in these areas. It’s a dramatic change. According to the Journal’s story, some residents of these areas think about this trend the most significant change to their areas since the interstate highways first came through. Of course, such change has its good and bad sides. On the positive side, the new shops are a nice amenity for the residents of these rural areas. On the negative, the influx of wealthy second-home buyers can drive up property values so high that longtime residents of an area can no longer afford to live there. On the whole, then, I’d say that negative outweighs the positives — at least for those longtime residents. Tags: CareerJournal.com, rural areas, second homes, Wall Street Journal
Small Business Lawyer, Attorney, Law, Legal Help - FindLaw for … Filed under: Business, Internet, Search
Traditional review sites that have lengthy reviews of establishments. But PlaceShout is all about brevity, with a maximum review length of 100 characters. You can navigate the site by searching for a particular item: For instance: “Coffee in San Francisco” or you can view areas by map and look for reputable establishments near you. When you pull up a particular location’s rap sheet you can see everything that has ever been stated about them. Much like comments on Digg, comments on the site can be given a thumbs up or a thumbs down. A particular comments amount of votes determines what order it is seen on a places review sheet. For instance if someone states the grilled cheese at Earls Sandwich shop is the bomb, and you think its the worst thing to ever be put on sliced bread you can give their comment a thumbs down and move it down on the list. PlaceShout is a relatively new kid on the block, so there’s not an overwhelming amount of reviews out there to peruse for a lot of cities, you can currently add reviews however for anywhere. The cities with the most reviews are Ann Arbor, MI at 260 and San Francisco with 234. If you want to check out reviews of places in your area some good similar sites to check out are JudysBook, InsiderPages, and Yelp. [via EmilyChang] One of my current, and most-read posts, started me thinking: When something goes wrong with a residential real estate buy, who steps up to take the blame? Increasingly, the answer to that question seems to be ”no one.” Last week, I wrote this post, about a couple suing their real estate agent after allegedly overpaying for their house. The couple claimed that their agent should have known that they were paying too much, and should have warned them against it. The case is complicated. And it’s not clear whether the agent really did do anything wrong. But in a news story about the case, an expert witness for the agent did say something that bothered me: The witness stated that it was the couple’s duty to make sure they weren’t overpaying for their house, not the agent’s. My question: Why? Why is the agent receiving a commission check from the sale of the house if the agent — who was representing the buyers in this transaction, not the sellers — if he wasn’t willing to make sure his clients weren’t spending too much money? Isn’t this the least amount of service we want from a real estate agent? Unfortunately, this dodging of accountability seems to be rather common in the residential real estate business. I have my own example. My wife and I bought a nice tiny home in a suburb of Chicago about two years ago. Unfortunately, during heavy rain storms, our basement leaks, a lot. This wasn’t disclosed to us when we bought the home. Who’s to blame? The sellers, sure, unless, by some astonishing coincidence the same basement that’s already flooded three times for me in two years never flooded once for them in 8-plus years. But what about our home inspector? We paid him to search the house for just this sort of thing before we bought. Unfortunately, when we called the inspector he denied accountability: He inspected our home during a dry time of the year. How was he supposed to know the basement leaked? Sounds lame to me, but that’s his excuse. Next we tried our real estate attorney. Maybe he could help us retrieve some dollars from the sellers. He couldn’t. Trying to prove that the sellers knew the basement leaked would be too expensive and time-consuming, and there was no certainty that we’d win our case. So there you’ve it: We’re stuck with a leaky basement that we’ve to pay to fix ourselves. The sellers who more than likely didn’t disclose the problem and the home inspector who didn’t find it are sailing along. Where’s the accountability? Maybe if there was more of it, the general public wouldn’t have such a dim view of real estate professionals. Filed under: Deals, Press releases, Israel The news today the Israeli defense company Elbit Systems (NASDAQ: ESLT) signed a $40 million deal with the Royal Netherlands Army (RNLA) isn’t just the latest in a string of new deals for Elbit, but could help the company penetrate the NATO countries as well. Elbit Systems will supply systems to the RNLA’s ground forces that’ll include enhanced tactical personal (ETCs), incorporating tactical communication devices, and data communication software. The systems will be installed in more then 1,800 of the RNLA’s automobiles, including tanks, armoured automobiles, and others. The project involves extensive cooperation with the Netherlands MoD’s C2 Support Centre. Commenting on the deal, Bezhalel Machlis, Corporate VP & General Manager Land Systems & C4I Division, Elbit Systems said: “Winning the tender to supply Battlefield Management Systems to the Netherlands MoD constitutes another step in establishing our position as leader in the C4I fast growing and developing market. Elbit Systems’ BMS systems are in use this day by over 20 militaries worldwide and we view this contract awarded by the Netherlands MoD, a leading country in NATO, as a springboard to potential future business in this market.” Elbit has been signing deals all over the place, but if they can crack NATO member countries defense budgets, this stock will soar higher. Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has a position and is long ESLT. He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 1/27/08 Filed under: Deals, Press releases, Israel The news this day the Israeli defense company Elbit Systems (NASDAQ: ESLT) signed a $40 million deal with the Royal Netherlands Army (RNLA) isn’t just the latest in a string of new deals for Elbit, but could help the company penetrate the NATO countries as well. Elbit Systems will supply systems to the RNLA’s ground forces that’ll include enhanced tactical computers (ETCs), incorporating tactical communication devices, and data communication software. The systems will be installed in more then 1,800 of the RNLA’s cars, including tanks, armoured automobiles, and others. The project involves extensive cooperation with the Netherlands MoD’s C2 Support Centre. Commenting on the deal, Bezhalel Machlis, Corporate VP & General Manager Land Systems & C4I Division, Elbit Systems said: “Winning the tender to supply Battlefield Management Systems to the Netherlands MoD constitutes another step in establishing our position as leader in the C4I fast growing and developing market. Elbit Systems’ BMS systems are in use this day by over 20 militaries worldwide and we view this contract awarded by the Netherlands MoD, a leading country in NATO, as a springboard to potential future business in this market.” Elbit has been signing deals all over the place, but if they can crack NATO member countries defense budgets, this stock will soar higher. Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has a position and is long ESLT. He has no positions in any other stock mentioned as of 1/27/08 |
When Mark Wattles 
Over the past few months, investors were curious about the deal spread — the difference between the acquisition offer and the market price — of 
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