Alibaba Plans U.S. Listing

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is now planning to list its shares in the U.S., after talks with the Hong Kong stock exchange for an initial public offering in the city broke down, said a person familiar with the situation.
Alibaba's stock market debut could value the Chinese e-commerce company at $70 billion or more based on analyst estimates, making it the technology industry's largest IPO since Facebook's FB +2.60% offering last year, which valued the U.S. social network giant at about $100 billion. An Alibaba IPO would be much bigger than Twitter Inc.'s planned listing—the U.S. microblog's value is estimated at around $10 billion.

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Reuters

Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce company, has given up on listing in Hong Kong and is moving toward a New York IPO.

The loss of the IPO will be a big blow to Hong Kong's stock exchange, which has struggled in the last couple of years to regain its 2011 status of being the world's top venue for new listings. Investment bankers in Hong Kong have also been pitching for a role in the IPO, which could have been one of the city's biggest in recent years.
Alibaba has yet to file its listing plan with the U.S., but the Chinese e-commerce giant has already hired a U.S. law firm to work on an IPO in New York, and it will likely hire banks soon, the person said.
Alibaba, which operates online marketplaces such as Taobao and Tmall, had been looking at either Hong Kong or New York as a possible listing venue. It wasn't clear why the talks with the Hong Kong exchange collapsed, but Alibaba had been talking to the city's bourse about setting up a structure to allow its "partners"—which include Alibaba founder Jack Ma and senior management—to maintain some control over the makeup of its board even after an IPO. Specifically, the 28 partners at the firm would nominate the majority of the board, and put that nomination up for a vote with the shareholders. Critics said that such a system would grant too much power to the partners, whose suggestions would rarely be rejected by shareholders.
In a letter to employees earlier this month, Mr. Ma explained why Alibaba's partners—including himself—needed to have the power to determine the company's future while keeping its long-term vision intact.
"We believe that only a group of people who are passionate about the company and are mission-driven will be able to protect the company from external pressure from competition and temptation to seek short-term gains," Mr. Ma said.
A spokeswoman at Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd, 0388.HK -1.17% the operator of Hong Kong's stock exchange, declined to comment.
Alibaba's board nomination proposal had placed the Hong Kong exchange in a tough spot, as accepting the request would go against the bourse's oft-stated principle of treating all shareholders equally. Some critics urged the bourse to reject the proposal, saying that, if the exchange gave in, other prospective IPO candidates would also ask for special rights.
The person familiar with the situation declined to comment on how the talks ended—including whether the Hong Kong exchange clearly rejected the company's board nomination proposal—but said that Alibaba now plans to go public in the U.S.
Alibaba will opt for the same type of system of nominating the majority of its board, should it list in the U.S., the person familiar with the matter said, rather than adopting the dual-class voting system favored by many U.S.-listed technology companies like Facebook and Google Inc. A dual-class system allows a company to issue two classes of shares with different voting rights, giving founders and management greater weight in shareholder votes. Hong Kong, however, doesn't allow such a system.
According to the person, Alibaba believes that its proposed board nomination system can enable the company to determine its own long-term strategic direction while offering better protection of shareholder rights than a dual-class structure does.

SOURCE : http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304526204579096381790891334.html

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Pakistan earthquake: Hundreds dead in Balochistan

A powerful earthquake has killed at least 250 people in Pakistan's remote south-west province of Balochistan.

The 7.7-magnitude quake struck on Tuesday afternoon at a depth of 20km (13 miles) north-east of Awaran, the US Geological Survey said.
Many houses were flattened and thousands of people have spent the night in the open.
After the quake, a small island appeared off the coast near the port of Gwadar, witnesses reported.
People gathered on the beach to see the new island, which is about 9m (30ft) high and 100m long, Gwadar Police Chief Pervez Umrani said.
Balochistan is Pakistan's largest but least populated province.
The region is prone to earthquakes, with at least 35 people killed in a 7.8-magnitude tremor that was centred in south-eastern Iran in April.
Mud houses The latest quake was so powerful it was felt as far away as Karachi, Hyderabad, and India's capital, Delhi.

Entire villages are reported to have been flattened in the impoverished and sparsely-populated district of Awaran.
Balochistan government spokesman Jan Buledi said most of the fatalities were in Awaran town and the surrounding villages, and he warned that the death toll could rise. At least 340 people have been injured.
"We are seriously lacking medical facilities and there is no space to treat injured people in the local hospitals," Mr Buledi said.
He said helicopters were airlifting the most seriously injured to Karachi while others were being cared for in neighbouring districts.
Pakistan's military was among the first to respond to the crisis, having a heavy presence in the area already because it is fighting a long-running separatist Baloch insurgency.
The army said it had sent more than 200 soldiers, medical teams and tents from the regional capital Quetta, but the mountainous terrain is said to be hampering the rescue operation.

Read more : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24222760

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Miley Cyrus: Confessions of Pop's Wildest Child

In the backroom of a tattoo parlor on North La Brea Avenue in L.A., Miley Cyrus is about to get some new ink. "All right, face down," says the tattoo artist, a bald guy named Mojo. Miley flips onto her stomach and sticks her ass in the air. On the bottom of her dirty feet, in ballpoint pen, are written the words ROLLING (right foot) and $TONE (left).
EXCLUSIVE: Outtakes from Miley's Wild Cover Shoot
"People get tattoos of the most fucked-up shit," Miley says. "Did you know Alec Baldwin has Hannah Montana's initials tattooed on him? No, wait – Stephen Baldwin. He said he was my biggest fan, and I told him my biggest fans have tattoos. So he got hm tattooed on his shoulder." She shakes her head. "People do fucked-up shit."
For her first Rolling Stone cover story, Miley wanted to do something fun. "I thought about going to play laser tag," she says. "But laser tag sucks. And we could have gone bowling, but what are we, 90?" Naturally, the next idea was getting a tattoo.
"All right, darlin'," says Mojo. "You ready?"
"Ready," she says. Mojo fires up the needle, which begins buzzing extremely loudly. "I hate seeing the needle," says Miley. She cranes her neck backward. "Does it hurt? It hurts, right?"
Mojo: "Yeah, it hurts."
These are the 20-year-old pop star's first tattoos on her feet, but she has lots of others: a peace sign, an equal sign, a heart and a cross (all on her fingers); the words love inside her right ear and just breathe over her rib cage; a Leonardo da Vinci sketch on her right forearm, and above it, the Roman numerals VIIXCI, for 7/91, the month and year her parents first met. And on the inside of her left forearm, the words so THAT HIS PLACE SHALL NEVER BE WITH THOSE COLD AND TIMID SOULS WHO NEITHER KNOW VICTORY NOR DEFEAT. "It's from a Teddy Roosevelt speech," she says. "It's about how people judge who wins and who loses, but they're not the ones in there fighting." In other words, "It's about critics."
Four days earlier, Miley performed at the VMAs. Maybe you heard about it. A lot of people got mad. Miley did things with a foam finger that made the inventor of the foam finger accuse her of having "degraded" an "icon." Most people thought it was Miley's fault, but Miley didn't care. That's what the Teddy Roosevelt quote is about. Haters gonna hate.
Mojo leans in with the needle. On the stereo, "Apache," by the Incredible Bongo Band, is playing. He writes the r, then the o. "How you doing?" he asks.
"Good," Miley says, gritting her teeth.
Then he does the l. "Motherfucker!"
Over on the couch, a guy named Cheyne is cracking up. Cheyne, 22, is Miley's assistant, and also her best friend. They've known each other for a long time, but Miley hired him only last year, before she went to Philadelphia and Miami to record her new album. Cheyne was working at Starbucks at the time. "And I was like, 'Fuck that,'" Miley says. "My best friend can't work at Starbucks! We've been working ever since."
Mojo, on the g, hits a nerve. "Owwww!" Miley screams.
"You hanging in there?" Mojo asks.
"I'm alive," she says.
"OK. We're almost done."
Mojo takes a quick break while Miley collects herself, and then finishes the job. "Easy!" Miley says. After, Mojo asks if she'll do him a favor. He takes out his phone and calls his 10-year-old daughter, Josie, who just started fifth grade.
"What a cool dad!" says Miley. "Face­Timing from the tattoo shop."
Josie's face pops up onscreen. "Hi, Daddy!" she says.
"Hi, sweet angel!" says Mojo.
Miley leans in. "Hey! I hear you make a face like me!" Josie smiles and sticks her tongue out, and Miley does the same. "Yay!" Miley says.
"OK, say good night," says Mojo.
"Good night!" says Josie.
"Adios!" Miley says. Mojo hangs up, and Miley hops down off the table and lands on her feet.
"Motherfucker!" she says.
In this era of deep national polarization, there's one thing on which we can pretty much all agree: It's an interesting time to be Miley Cyrus. She's been dealing with fame in varying degrees for her entire life, first as the daughter of country star Billy Ray Cyrus, whose "Achy Breaky Heart" was to 1992 what "Blurred Lines" is to 2013, then as the insanely popular Disney tween icon Hannah Montana. But all that was just a prelude to Miley 3.0, a tongue-wagging, hard-twerking, all-grown-up pop star, like it or not.
Follow Miley Cyrus' Rapid Transformation From Disney Kid to Dirty Girl
Miley has been planting the seeds for her big transition to adulthood for the past five years. She was 15 when she weathered her first scandal, when she posed for Vanity Fair wearing a sheet that made her look topless. ("I feel so embarrassed," she said in a statement. "And I apologize to my fans, who I care so deeply about.") A year later came a pole-dancing stunt at the Teen Choice Awards (the "pole" was on an ice cream cart; the dancing was PG at most). The following year she was photographed in Spain drinking a beer at age 17, and a month after that, TMZ posted a video of her taking a rip from a bong. (Miley claimed it was legal salvia.) And yet, in millions of people's eyes, she's still Hannah Montana – which may be part of the problem.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/miley-cyrus-confessions-of-pops-wildest-child-20130924#ixzz2ftJXf6o9

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Roku Starts to Look More Like Apple TV

Roku and Apple TV are the two little boxes that fight for the big cord-cutting (or more likely, cord-supplementing) masses, though they have tackled it in different ways. But with new movie- and TV rental services offerings Roku announced today, and a coming ability to sling video from your computer or mobile device to your TV, Roku is starting to look more like its rival.
(To put this in perspective, though, far more people use a game console or a connected Blu-ray player than a set-top box to get online video to their TVs)
Roku is also launching a new line of streaming boxes that essentially bring higher-end features down to lower-priced models.
MORE: Beyond Netflix: Where Your Shows Are Hiding
Apple TV points you first toward its own iTunes service to buy or rent TV shows and movies, though it has always included Netflix streaming and has been adding more channels, currently up to 25. Starting as simply a Netflix streaming box, Roku has continually added video and music channels, now numbering about 1,000. (Thankfully, Roku also has a good universal search function that covers many of the biggest channels at once.)

Read More : http://www.tomsguide.com/us/roku-updates-services-devices,news-17599.html

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Eagle vs Deer: Rare Images Caught on Camera

 

Kerley said she was preforming a routine check to switch out the camera trap's batteries and memory cards when she noticed the deer carcass in the snow. But something in the scene was off, she said.
"There were no large carnivore tracks in the snow, and it looked like the deer had been running and then just stopped and died," Kerley said. "It was only after we got back to camp that I checked the images from the camera and pieced everything together. I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
The camera trap is part of a series set up in the Lazovskii State Nature Reserve in Primorye in the southern Russian Far East as a means to monitor the region's Amur tigers. Kerely and other ZSL researchers have been monitoring the territory for the past six years. Camera trap images are typically recordings of common prey species and occasionally a resident or transient tiger, so seeing an image of an eagle in the act of taking down a deer was unexpected. But Jonathan Slaght of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Kerely's study co-author, said golden eagles have a well-documented history of eyebrow-raising predation attempts.
"The scientific literature is full of references to golden eagle attacks on different animals from around the world, from things as small as rabbits -- their regular prey -- to coyote and deer, and even one record in 2004 of an eagle taking a brown bear cub," Slaght said.
Slaght added that Kerley was "really lucky" to have obtained images of such a rare and opportunistic predation event.

Read more : http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/4111/20130923/eagle-vs-deer-rare-images-caught-camera.htm

 

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Valve Introduces SteamOS, A Linux-Based Platform To Bring Steam To Your Living Room

Valve just announced the first part of its living room strategy with SteamOS, a free Linux-based operating system that takes the ‘Big Picture’ feature one step further. In addition to playing your game collection, SteamOS allows you to watch movies and listen to music.
The company has yet to announce a hardware partner for SteamOS, but this could certainly be the operating system behind the rumored Steam Box computer. OEMs will be able to use SteamOS to build gaming computers, as Valve states multiple times that it’s an open platform.
When it comes to gaming, SteamOS will work particularly well for audio performances and reducing input latency. Yet, only Linux games will work on SteamOS. While many games are now available on Linux, it still has a long way to go compared to Mac OS and especially Windows. That’s why you will be able to run Steam on your Windows or Mac computers in another room and then stream your games to your living room using SteamOS. Latency shouldn’t be an issue, as everything happens on your local network.
The family sharing feature now makes even more sense as the living room is the perfect place to let your kids play video games. Everyone will be able to have a separate profile and play the same games, just like you would on your Xbox.
SteamOS could certainly replace your gaming console, but it could replace your Roku or Apple TV as well for movies, TV and music. Valve didn’t announce a content partner but did say they are “working with many of the media services you know and love.” Services such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus and HBO Go should make their way to the platform.
While many of these services are only available in a few countries, SteamOS will be available for everyone in the world. We just don’t know when or what devices will run SteamOS. The second announcement is set for Wednesday.
The company has yet to announce a release date for SteamOS. And while it isn’t the long-anticipated Steam Box, Valve plans to make other announcements in the coming days. On Steam’s website, users can find a teaser page with three icons that represent three different announcements for the living room — SteamOS is only the first one.

SOURCE : http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/23/valve-introduces-steamos-a-linux-based-platform-to-bring-steam-to-your-living-room

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Fairfax consortium bids $4.7 billion to take BlackBerry private

(Reuters) - Smartphone maker BlackBerry has agreed to go private in a $4.7 billion deal led by its biggest shareholder, allowing the on-the-go email pioneer to regroup away from public scrutiny after years of falling fortunes and slumping market share.
The $9 a share tentative offer, from a consortium led by property and casualty insurer Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, will set a floor for any counteroffers that might emerge for Blackberry, which has been on the block since August.
As an investor, Fairfax Chief Executive Prem Watsa is often described as the Canadian Warren Buffett because he also takes the long view.
Blackberry shares peaked above $148 in June 2008 when the company's devices were still the top choice for bankers, politicians and lawyers.
The stock, halted pending the announcement on Monday, closed below the offer price on Nasdaq, at $8.82, indicating the market's lack of faith that other bids would emerge.
"I would think a competing buyout offer is quite unlikely," said Elvis Picardo, strategist at Global Securities in Vancouver. "The miniscule premium, and the muted market reaction, is another indication that the market views the odds of a competing bid as slim."
BlackBerry, based in Waterloo, Ontario, once dominated the market for secure on-your-hip email. But it introduced consumer-friendly touchscreen smartphones only after it lost the lead to Apple Inc's iPhone and devices using Google Inc's Android operating system.
BlackBerry has until November 4 to seek superior offers, which the Fairfax group has the right to match. The group is seeking financing from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and BMO Capital Markets to complete the deal and has until that November 4 deadline to conduct its due diligence.
A BlackBerry statement did not name members of the consortium, although many in the financial community see Canada's deep-pocketed and influential pension funds as likely participants.
"We need to be careful given disclosure constraints, but we can say that we are focused on a strong Canadian solution," said Fairfax spokesman Paul Rivett.
The pension funds, with assets around the world, traditionally take a long-term view in their investment decisions. Officials at the biggest funds either did not reply to requests for comment, said they had no information or declined to comment.
"We never discuss whether or not we plan to enter into any investment," said Deborah Allan, spokeswoman for Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.
CANADIAN BUFFETT
Watsa stepped down from the BlackBerry board of directors in August, citing a potential conflict of interest, as the company said it was exploring a sale.
Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper quoted Watsa as saying that a significant amount of the equity in the deal will come from within the country. The consortium included neither strategic players, nor other technology firms, he said.
BlackBerry's recent challenging years have been in stark contrast to the rapid growth it previously enjoyed.
The Z10 touchscreen device that the company hoped would claw back market share from the iPhone thudded badly at launch in January, and it has lost ground even in emerging markets where it had carved out an important role.
A spokeswoman for phone company MTN Nigeria, for example, said that while BlackBerrys are still very relevant in Nigeria, "the adoption rate has declined significantly from a year ago due to lack of newer low to mid-end smart phone models." In Brazil, locally made iPhones are the first choice for government workers. "I have never seen a Brazilian government employee using a BlackBerry," said one government source.
And while some U.S. government agencies still use only the BlackBerry, others allow devices like iPhones as well.
The American Lawyer surveyed 83 of the top 200 U.S. law firms in November 2012 and found that 90 percent of them expected to see a drop-off in the number of Blackberry devices.
John Sroko, chief information officer at Duane Morris, said that three years ago the firm only offered BlackBerry devices because they were deemed most secure. But in recent years, the firm has allowed their lawyers to use other devices too.
"People like Blackberry for the keyboard and email," he said. "The switch was caused by a better browsing experience and the apps."
NOBODY ELSE
Donald Yacktman, president and founder of Yacktman Asset Management which holds something under 1 percent of BlackBerry according to Thomson Reuters data, said he does not expect a counteroffer to emerge.
"This is pretty much Plan B. They've clearly not hit the targets," he said.
Jack Gold, principal analyst and founder of J. Gold Associates, said "this is probably the best possible outcome of several unattractive options for BlackBerry."
"Going private and potentially bringing back the founder of the company, Mike Lazaridis (as has been rumored) could buy them some time to put the house in order," he noted.
Lazaridis, BlackBerry's co-CEO until early 2012 and a board member until March, did not respond to requests for comment.
On Friday, BlackBerry said it would step back from the hypercompetitive consumer market and focus on what it calls enterprise customers - businesses, governments, legal firms and security forces.
The company warned it would report revenue on the sale of just 3.7 million of its phones for the entire second quarter, and write down almost $1 billion.
By contrast, Apple sold 9 million iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models in three days after their Friday launch.
A Defense Department official said the Pentagon had more than 600,000 mobile devices in use in spring, including 470,000 BlackBerrys, 41,000 devices with Apple operating systems and 8,700 smart phones with Android systems.
"We are moving towards a secure mobile communications infrastructure that supports a variety of devices," the official said.
Blackberry has rarely traded below $9 a share even in recent years when it issued profit warnings, slashed jobs and launched devices that arrived late to disinterested audiences.
In the past 12 months the stock has risen as high as $18.32 and fallen as low as $6.22 on the Nasdaq.
BDT & Company, LLC, BofA Merrill Lynch and BMO Capital Markets are acting as financial advisors, and Shearman & Sterling LLP and McCarthy Tétrault LLP are acting as legal advisors to Fairfax in connection with the transaction.

Read more : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/24/us-blackberry-offer-fairfax-idUSBRE98M0YI20130924

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