![\"BreakinNews\"](\"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/BreakinNews.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFor the full story, click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Stocks are weak — presumably because the market thinks strong jobs means a rate hike in December.<\/p>\n Personally I wish the Fed would get it over, raise rates, remove the uncertainty and a little of the volatility.<\/p>\n Nelson Peltz’s hedge fund Trian Fund Management said last month it had taken a $2.5 billion stake in GE.<\/p>\n Peltz is good at picking them. That’s a huge stake.<\/p>\n I bought some GE. It’s up. I think I’ll buy some more today.\u00a0 It’s sporting a not-shabby 3.1% yield.<\/p>\n The New York Times published its DealB%k <\/strong>supplement yesterday. Cover piece was by Andrew Ross Sorkin on “The Long and Short of it<\/em>.” Notable paragraphs:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cThe real money I\u2019ve made over the years is holding companies for seven, eight or nine years,\u201d Mr. Icahn said on Tuesday at a New York Times DealBook conference. \u201cYou got to buy them when nobody wants them, that\u2019s the real secret.\u201d<\/p>\n Trian, Nelson Peltz<\/a>\u2019s company, which has agitated for change at companies like Heinz and DuPont and recently made a $2.5 billion bet on General Electric<\/a>, also holds its investments, on average, for about three years. When he takes board seats as a way to bring about change, the holding time is even longer, because selling stock as a board member is more difficult because of insider trading issues.<\/p>\n Holding a stock for three or four years doesn\u2019t make them Mr. Buffett, who owns stakes in companies for decades. But set against the average investor, activist investors may look like Rip Van Winkle.<\/p>\n You can read the full article here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n BusinessWeek does its prediction thing this week.<\/strong><\/span> Sometimes magazines get it right. Sometimes they don’t. Maybe there’s a nugget or two here?<\/p>\n For BusinessWeek’s full 50 Companies to Watch<\/em>, click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Selling your business?<\/strong> <\/span>Take cash and run. For a company that writes about business, you’d think Forbes<\/em> would have been a little smarter. From today’s New York Times.<\/em><\/p>\n Forbes Sues Integrated Whale Media Over Deal<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0A year ago, when Forbes Media agreed to sell a majority stake to a consortium of Asian investors, Steve Forbes, the chairman and editor in chief, said he got nearly everything he wanted out of the deal.<\/p>\n “We were looking for a very particular kind of buyer,” he told The New York Times then. “We are pleased to say the long process was worthwhile.”<\/p>\n Now he is taking that buyer to court over allegations of default and corporate abuse.<\/p>\n The Forbes family is suing Integrated Whale Media Investment, a group comprising the investors Yam Tak Cheung and Wong Siu Wa. The complaint, filed with the Delaware Court of Chancery, said that Integrated Whale had borrowed from the Forbes family to finance part of the September 2014 transaction and missed an interest payment and eventually defaulted under the terms of their agreement.<\/p>\n The situation underscores the chances that merger and acquisition transactions – saluted at the time they are signed – will sour quickly. The risk, though, can be even higher when the seller finances part of the buyer’s purchase, as was the case with Forbes and Integrated Whale.<\/p>\n “This will force people to rethink seller financing altogether,” said Minor Myers, a professor at Brooklyn Law School. “To the extent that a seller is willing to finance a transaction, it will cause people to do a lot more due diligence, not just on the entity that’s on the hook but also who they are.”<\/p>\n While most of the financial details were redacted in the copy of the complaint, a person close to the deal, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said last year that the transaction valued Forbes at $475 million.<\/p>\n Integrated Whale acquired an 80 percent stake with cash, another person briefed on the matter recently said. Then, the Asian group borrowed about $71 million from the Forbes family to buy an additional 15 percent, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Forbes family holds the remaining 5 percent, the person said.<\/p>\n The complaint said Integrated Whale did not make its first interest payment, due on Oct. 1, 2014. Based on the terms of the agreement, the missed payment ultimately required Integrated Whale to repay the entire amount of the loan, which it did not do, the complaint said.<\/p>\n At the time of the transaction, Integrated Whale and Forbes deposited cash into an escrow account. On Sept. 12, the money was to be given to Forbes unless Integrated Whale had a specified reason for it not to. But that money has not been released, the complaint said.<\/p>\n As a response to Forbes’s request for the funds, Integrated Whale used its control over the company’s board to “embark on a retaliatory, multifront campaign of oppression through the abuse of the corporate machinery to penalize and dissuade the Forbes plaintiffs from enforcing their basic contractual rights,” the complaint said.<\/p>\n Integrated Whale’s management “rejects the allegations contained in the complaint as completely without merit,” the group said in an emailed statement. It is “currently reviewing all legal options regarding the complaint and reserves its rights.”<\/p>\n The parties entered into litigation in the British Virgin Islands, where Integrated Whale is domiciled. Integrated Whale gave testimony there that said Mr. Forbes had agreed orally to forgive the Asian investors’ default, according to the complaint. But the complaint said there was never such a conversation between Mr. Forbes and Integrated Whale.<\/p>\n If the Asian investors do not and cannot pay back the Forbes family, Integrated Whale could be liquidated. If that is the case, a majority stake in Forbes Media may – once again – be up for sale.<\/p>\n I believe this is true: <\/strong><\/span>(Even if it’s not, it’s a good story.) The South Sea Company was a joint stock company created in 1711 to help fund Britain’s war debt. The company received a monopoly to trade with South America, hence its name. Over the years the stock price soared. Even Sir Isaac Newton had shares in the company and he watched his wealth compound immensely.<\/p>\n Wanting to be somewhat conservative he sold all of his shares only to see the share price trade ever higher. Like a moth to a flame even Sir Isaac could not resist the speculative bubble and rebought his shares at ever higher prices. And then, around 1720, the speculative fever broke wiping out not only Newton’s wealth, but that of many of Britain’s finest families.<\/p>\n And that is when Newton wrote, “I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.<\/em>“<\/p>\n Give overseas up. <\/strong><\/span>This week in tourism:<\/p>\n + A friend runs a hotel in Sydney Australia. He had a guest from China who sat on the front patio and commented: “This is the first time I’ve seen stars this century.” Another guest told him it took him three days to recover from the smog in Shanghai.<\/p>\n + A couple of crazies attacked tourists in Fez, Morocco and seriously hurt them.<\/p>\n + Someone put a bomb on that Russian plane and blew it up over Egyptian Sinai.<\/p>\n This week, the British Foreign Office issued an update of British travel destinations at risk of a terror attack. In other words, don’t go there.<\/p>\n Go west. That’s my learned travel advice. Here are my four favorite travel spots in the safe U.S.A.:<\/p>\n This is the Snake River, made famous by Ansel Adams. It’s in Wyoming.<\/p>\n These are the Grand Tetons which you can see behind the Snake River.<\/p>\n This is obviously the Grand Canyon. Michael and I spent a week once rafting down it. Sheer joy.<\/p>\n This is Yosemite in the Spring. Susan and I were just there. Stay at the Ahwahnee Lodge if you can get in.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n