Eike
Batista is now a 'negative billionaire' - (www.businessinsider.com) Eike Batista, once Brazil's richest man, has
earned himself the rare title of "negative billionaire." According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, Batista, who was worth $35 billion in 2012,
now owes $1.2 billion. Furthermore, a Brazilian federal judge is ordering the
seizure of Batista's assets, Bloomberg's Blake Schmidt reported Friday. Authorities are seizing all of Batista's
financial assets in Brazil, as well as any real estate, his boat and his
airplanes. This is the latest action taken against Batista for charges of insider trading and stock manipulation, in an alleged attempt to save his
flagship oil company OGX. Batista made his first fortune trading gold in the
1980s, and went on to start six companies in mining, energy, and oil.
Intuit
halts all state e-filings on fraud concerns - (www.cnbc.com) Intuit has halted the transmission of all state
e-filing tax returns on worries of rampant fraud, the company said. During the
current tax season, Intuit said that the company and some states have noticed
an increase in "suspicious filings" and attempts by to use stolen
information to file fake state tax returns, and then claim resulting tax
refunds. Although the company said it did not believe its systems had been
compromised, it said it took a "precautionary step" on Thursday by
pausing state return e-filings.
THE
TECH 'TITANIC': How red-hot startup Fab raised $330 million and then went bust - (www.businessinsider.com) On
Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, Fab CEO Jason Goldberg gathered a dozen executives in
the eighth-floor conference room of the company's New York City headquarters. When
the executives filed in, they were handed a five-page document. Goldberg sat at
the head of the table, his expression somber beneath his salt-and-pepper
scruff. He explained that Fab, a company that had been valued at $900 million
just three months previously, was about to change drastically. Two-thirds of
the company needed to be fired. Its European division would more or less be
shuttered. The company had burned $200 million of the $336 million it had
raised, and it had failed to find a sustainable business model. Jason Goldberg,
CEO and cofounder of Fab. "We are going to make this work,"
Goldberg's five-page missive began. "It has to start with brutal
honesty." Goldberg advised everyone to "acknowledge that we have a
serious problem." "We spent $200M in the past 2 years. $200M!"
Goldberg's letter read. "We spent $200M and we have not proven out our
business model. We spent $200M and we have not proven that we know precisely
what our customers want to buy.
Greece Seeks Plan C After Eurogroup Rules Out Bridge Loan - (www.bloomberg.com) Euro-area governments won’t grant Greece’s request for a short-term financing agreement to keep the country afloat while it renegotiates the terms of its financial support, said Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the bloc’s finance ministers’ group. “We don’t do” bridge loans, Dijsselbloem told reporters in The Hague on Friday, when asked about Greece’s request. “A simple extension is possible as long as they fully take over the program.” The European Union’s latest rebuff raises the stakes for Greece’s new government, which has already failed in its demands for a debt writedown. The next showdown is scheduled for Feb. 11 in Brussels, when Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis faces his 18 euro-area counterparts in an emergency meeting after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras delivers a major policy speech on Sunday. “After an aggressive start, which resulted in a reality check for the new government, I think they are becoming more pragmatic,” said Aristides Hatzis, an associate professor of law and economics at the University of Athens. “No matter what they say to their internal audience, what they do abroad matters most.”
A
big labor strike at West Coast ports is costing Japanese automakers millions - (www.businessinsider.com) Japanese
automakers are being forced to ship some car parts to U.S. plants by expensive
air cargo and tweak production processes as a protracted labor dispute at U.S.
West Coast ports shows no signs of letting up. Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd's
Subaru, the fastest-growing brand in the United States, said this week that it
now had to shoulder an extra 7 billion yen ($60 million) in costs a month due
to air freight, which has seen prices go up with the extra demand. "It
looked like the labor talks were going well at one point but in recent days the
slowdown has grown quite severe," Fuji Heavy Chief Financial Officer
Mitsuru Takahashi said.
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