Morgan Stanley M&A boutique factory keeps crankingMorgan Stanley's M&A boutique factory just keeps cranking. Paul Taubman, the bank's former joint president, is the latest alumnus to ply his trade independently, helping Verizon on the $130 billion buyout of Verizon Wireless from Vodafone, announced this week. He follows Joe Perella, Bob Greenhill, Frank Quattrone, Michael Tory and others. It's both a curse and a compliment that so many Morgan Stanley bankers hang out their own shingles.Like nearly all of his predecessors, Taubman may not have left Morgan Stanley quite the way he'd expected. Yet as soon as the shackles in his non-competition agreement fell away, he was back in the mix advising Verizon.Individuals working on live deals are often retained by clients as they leave one employer for another. Taubman, however, had no ongoing working relationship with Verizon boss Lowell McAdam, though he had worked with a predecessor. Verizon called him out of the blue over the summer

White shoe diaspora

Reuters

Fracking may change US foreign policy for good

Fracking diplomacy

Business Standard

Washington Post shows NY Times way to trophy status

One-click plutocrat

Google shows hints of life like a newspaper

Googlefreude

"Made in Italy, Owned Elsewhere" will have to do

Cashmere bombshell

Wall Street finds itself in a 1994 state of mind

Ace of rebase

WWJDD

Is Exxon building Big Oil's skyscraper equivalent?

Colossus of Exxon

Facebook&rsquo;s imminent stock sale risks putting stock markets to shame. Investors will clamour for a piece of the social network. But, unlike Google&rsquo;s 2004 IPO, everyone who&rsquo;s anyone has already made a killing off Zuckerberg&rsquo;s dorm-room project. At a $100-billion valuation, it&rsquo;s hard to imagine much could remain.

Dislike

Facebook&rsquo;s $5 billion-plus initial public offering (IPO) won&rsquo;t bring a major status update. Listing on a exchange typically brings lots of changes. But, tick through the list and it&rsquo;s clear the social network, which filed for its long-awaited US IPO on Wednesday evening, is already largely there.

Privately public

Italy is a global leader in fashion, food and art but comes up short on multinational corporations. That&rsquo;s likely to change as Fiat plots a full takeover of Chrysler. Going global, though, comes at a price: Fiat&rsquo;s Agnelli family may need to put pragmatism over sentimentality and move its headquarters from Italy.

Arrivederci alle province

European governments have suffered a triple setback. Standard &amp; Poor&rsquo;s has stripped France and Austria of their triple-A ratings, and cut Italy to the same level as Ireland. Greek debt talks have broken down, while the European Central Bank has criticised the region&rsquo;s fiscal pact. After a brief lull, the euro zone&rsquo;s sovereign debt crisis is back with a vengeance.

Prescribing Kim

Say what you like about Goldman Sachs, but it sure is a clever negotiator. The Wall Street firm, which was publicly criticised a few weeks ago by one of its own for running roughshod over the interests of clients &mdash; dubbed &ldquo;muppets&rdquo; in internal speak &mdash; in the pursuit of profit, has now pulled off what looks like the trade of the year. But this one comes at the expense of its own shareholders.

Snowjob on West Street

It's easy to sympathise with the collective glee that greeted JPMorgan&rsquo;s shock revelation of some $2 billion of trading losses. The bank and its chief executive Jamie Dimon have received their long-awaited comeuppance. But this emotion &mdash; Dimonfreude, if you will &mdash; is dangerous. If one of the few big banks that managed to sidestep most of the credit crisis is proven fallible, confidence in the system itself will be shaken.

Rougher Dimon

Facebook hasn&rsquo;t even gone public yet. But it looks as though the social network is already being viewed with concern by acquisition targets. Instagram, the revenue-challenged, lightly-staffed startup Facebook just agreed to acquire for $1 billion, has snagged a whopping 20 per cent break fee if the sale isn&rsquo;t consummated by December. That&rsquo;s a wise safety measure given the life cycle of mobile apps. It could also be a comment on Facebook&rsquo;s lurking antitrust risks.

Instabreak

Vikram Pandit succumbed to the most basic rule of thumb: three strikes and you&rsquo;re out. A trio of Citigroup misfortunes, not all of the chief executive&rsquo;s making &mdash; the bank&rsquo;s dividend policy, his own compensation and the sale of Smith Barney &mdash; eroded the confidence of shareholders, regulators and the board. And, they couldn&rsquo;t have been much fun for Pandit to endure, especially after successfully navigating Citi to stability.

Pandit panned

Separating the roles of chairmen and chief executives is good governance, as a rule. That&rsquo;s why the practice is standard in the UK and has been gaining ground in the United States. But the logic is undermined by recent events at Citigroup. Chairman Mike O&rsquo;Neill&rsquo;s ouster of Vikram Pandit as chief executive last week is looking increasingly like a power-grab rather than a service to shareholders.

Mikeavelli

The Frankenstorm battering the east coast of the United States provides a salient lesson in the virtues of risk management. When it comes to natural disasters, there&rsquo;s no such thing as too much preparation. The same is true in business, particularly banking: calamities often strike without warning &mdash; and there&rsquo;s no such thing as too much capital.

Be prepared

Bob Iger and George Lucas are either flaunting their California roots, or they&rsquo;ve got something to hide. The Walt Disney boss unveiled a $4-billion purchase of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones creator&rsquo;s homegrown studio, Lucasfilm, on a day when Wall Street and stock markets were shut down by Hurricane Sandy. It&rsquo;s just as well: Iger is asking his shareholders to put lots of faith in the power of the Force.

Iger is your father

China Inc isn&rsquo;t letting politics get in the way of M&amp;A. The upcoming conclave of China&rsquo;s Communist Party, a once-a-decade changing of the guard, was supposed to hold back the global ambitions of state enterprises, at least temporarily. But CNOOC&rsquo;s $15.1-billion bid for Canada&rsquo;s Nexen suggests that&rsquo;s not happening.

18 and still hungry

Uniting America&rsquo;s fractured Republican Party on fixing Uncle Sam&rsquo;s finances could be presidential hopeful Mitt Romney&rsquo;s key to success. Even when it comes to economics, the Grand Old Party&rsquo;s divergent factions have wide disparities on matters ranging from monetary policy to defence spending to international trade. But reining in the ballooning US debt is one thing they all seem to agree on. To win the White House, that ought to be the campaign&rsquo;s rallying cry.

Grand old unification

Hegseth has neither canceled nor delayed any cyber operations directed against malicious Russian targets

Pentagon

Capacite infraprojects said that its board is scheduled to meet on Thursday, 6 March 2025 to consider various fund-raising option (debt) on private placement basis.

An Illinois man pleaded guilty Monday to killing seven people and injuring dozens more when he opened fire on a 2022 Independence Day parade in a Chicago suburb, a stunning development moments before opening statements in his trial on murder and attempted murder charges.
Appearing in a Lake County circuit courtroom, Robert E. Crimo III, 24, withdrew his earlier not-guilty plea in the Highland Park shooting.
Prosecutors initially charged him with 21 counts of first-degree murder  three counts for each person killed  as well as 48 counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors dropped 48 less serious counts of aggravated battery before jury selection last week.
On Monday, Judge Victoria Rossetti read the charges to Crimo and asked questions to be sure he understood before accepting the plea. He was sitting next to his lawyers wearing a dark suit.
Is that what you went over with your attorneys? Rossetti asked.
Yes, Crimo replied.
He gave mostly one-word answers to her follow-up questions. 

Gun shooting, mass shooting

The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) has proposed granting 'state' laboratory status to all labs in government colleges and those under the Delhi Jal Board to facilitate real-time water testing across the national capital, officials said on Monday.
The proposal was made during the 74th board meeting of the DPCC on February 13, 2025, at the Delhi Secretariat, where critical issues such as recruitment, pollution control measures, and infrastructure improvements were discussed, they said.
Currently, Delhi has only one state laboratory for water testing. The proposed move aims to bolster large-scale water quality monitoring and enhance data accuracy, they added.
The DPCC is also set to issue a public notice to gauge the willingness of government institutions to participate in the initiative.
"In the last meeting held in September 2024, it was directed that more labs, including Delhi Jal Board facilities and those in government colleges, be recognized as state labs to support ..

Pollution, New Delhi Pollution, Water Pollution, Yamuna, Delhi Yamuna

Sensex Today | Stock Market LIVE Updates, March 4: Overnight, the major Wall Street indices slumped with the S&P 500 falling 1.76%, the Dow Jones declining 1.48%, and Nasdaq sliding 2.64%

Domestic markets on Wednesday entered correction territory, with the benchmark Nifty and the broader market indices — Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 — declining more than 10 per cent from their all-time highs.

At Business Standard Manthan 2025, Samir Arora set the cat among the pigeons when he argued for the abolition of capital gains tax to bring back FIIs to Indian markets

Samir Arora at BS Manthan

US President Donald Trump sparked speculation with a cryptic social media post on Monday, saying, 'Tomorrow night will be big. I will tell it like it is'

Donald Trump, Trump

The small monetary fines are a mere rap on the knuckle, especially for Asia's richest person and his Reliance conglomerate

Mukesh Ambani

These two-wheeler makers' stocks have plunged between 40 per cent and 66 per cent from their respective 52-week highs

ola electric two wheeler ev

In 2015, Tata Motors cracked by 54% following a sharp 776% rally on the BSE & NSE. This time around the correction came after 562% surge; will history repeat itself as the stock searches for a bottom?

Tata motors

Latest news updates: Catch all the latest news developments from around the world here

JP Nadda, Nadda

The summit will be led by venture capitalist and White House crypto czar David Sacks, and will be administered by working group executive director Bo Hines, according to White House

Donald Trump crypto

The Fire Department is using fire brigades to transport Sangam water to district headquarters for fire personnel and other officials who could not attend the Maha Kumbh

Yogi Adityanath, yogi, UP CM

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States, according to the White House.
The order will allow government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in language other than English, according to a fact sheet about the impending order.
Trump had been expected to sign the order Friday. But by Friday night, the White House had not announced the order had been signed and did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The executive order will rescind a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organisations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.
Designating English as the national language promotes unity, establishes efficiency in government operations, and creates a pathway for civic engagement, according to the White House.
More than 30 

US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy clashed over war strategy, US aid, and ending the conflict in a tense White House meeting

Donald Trump, JD Vance, Volodymyr Zelenskyy

The father of an Indian woman on death row in Abu Dhabi has approached the Delhi High Court, seeking to know her well-being.
In his petition, which is likely to come up for hearing on Monday, Shabbir Khan -- a? resident of Banda in Uttar Pradesh --? said there was "profound uncertainty" with respect to his daughter Shahzadi's condition, and his repeated applications to the Ministry of External Affairs for clarification were "fruitless".
The plea further alleged that Shahzadi was inadequately represented before the local courts in a case pertaining to the alleged murder of her employer's four-month-old child and she was pressured into "confessing", leading to the imposition of death penalty on July 31, 2023.
"On February 14, 2025, the petitioner's daughter telephoned him from detention, informing him that she had been relocated within the facility and prior to her potential execution, her final wish was to speak with her parents," the petition said.
"The petitioner, with considerabl

gavel law cases

The combined market valuation of eight of the top-10 most valued firms eroded by Rs 3,09,244.57 crore in a holiday-shortened last week, with Tata Consultancy Services taking the biggest hit, in line with bearish trend in equities.
Last week, the BSE benchmark gauge Sensex tanked 2,112.96 points or 2.80 per cent, and the NSE Nifty tumbled 671.2 points or 2.94 per cent.
In February alone, the Nifty dropped 1,383.7 points or 5.88 per cent. The Sensex lost 4,302.47 points or 5.55 per cent.
The market valuation of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) plunged Rs 1,09,211.97 crore to Rs 12,60,505.51 crore, the most among the top-10 firms. With the sharp decline in its market valuation TCS slipped to the third rank in the top-10 most valued firms chart from the previous second place. HDFC Bank overtook TCS to become the second most valuable firm.
The valuation of Infosys tanked Rs 52,697.93 crore to Rs 7,01,002.22 crore.
Bharti Airtel's market valuation eroded by Rs 39,230.1 crore to Rs ...

TCS, Tata Consultancy

The 16th Finance Commission Chairman Arvind Panagariya on Saturday said India's aim to become a developed nation by 2047 is a "realisable ambition" for which the country's per-capita income needs to grow at 7.3 per cent in dollar terms to USD 14,000 over the next 24 years.
India's per-capita income, in 2023-24 dollar terms, is about USD 2,570, which is very low compared to countries like South Korea, Taiwan, United States, and other European nations.
Speaking at the 49th Civil Accounts Day, Panagariya said with the existing technology, coupled with reasonable capital accumulation and skill acquisition, India has enormous room for catching up with the per-capita income of developed nations and meet World Bank's definition of USD 14,005 per capita income annually.
Today, our per capita income in dollars is about USD 2,500. To get to USD 14,000 in 24 years or by 2047-48, what growth rate do I need for per capita income?  my per capita income from 2023-24 onward has to grow annually at 

Arvind Panagariya, Arvind

Tuhin Kanta Pandey on Saturday assumed charged as the new Sebi chief

Tuhin Kanta Pandey

For Modi/BJP supporters, Deep State is some amorphous entity, including global foundations, Left-activist corporations and investors, and also intelligence proliferations working in cahoots with them

Rob Cox

Rob Cox

Page 2 - Rob Cox

White shoe diaspora

Fracking diplomacy

One-click plutocrat

Googlefreude

Cashmere bombshell

Ace of rebase

WWJDD

Colossus of Exxon

Dislike

Privately public

Arrivederci alle province

Prescribing Kim

Snowjob on West Street

Rougher Dimon

Instabreak

Pandit panned

Mikeavelli

Be prepared

Iger is your father

18 and still hungry

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Pentagon denies report of halt in offensive cyber operations against Russia

Capacite Infra board to mull fund raising on 6 March' 25

Man pleads guilty to murder in shooting at suburban Chicago July 4 parade

DPCC plans expansion of state labs to facilitate real-time water testing

Stock Market LIVE Updates: GIFT Nifty drops over 150 pts on Trump's tariff order; Canada retaliates

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Tata Motors sinks 47% in 7 months, fall similar to 2015; stock headed to?