Blackstone-Backed Vivint Solar Raises $330 Million in U.S. IPO

By Leslie Picker  

Vivint Solar Inc., the residential solar-cell installer backed by Blackstone Group LP (BX), raised $330 million in a U.S. initial public offering.
Vivint Solar sold 20.6 million shares for $16 apiece, according to a statement yesterday, after offering them for $16 to $18 apiece. Some of the proceeds will be used to repay debt owed to Blackstone, which will hold a 78 percent stake after the offering, regulatory filings show.
Vivint Solar was created nearly three years ago under Vivint Inc., a provider of residential-security services and technology that allows customers to

U.S. Judge Says Wal-Mart Must Face Mexican-Bribe Claims

By Jef Feeley 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) was ordered by a federal judge in Arkansas to face a pension fund’s claims the retailer defrauded shareholders by concealing corruption tied to bribes allegedly paid by officials of its Mexican unit.
U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey in Fayetteville rejected Wal-Mart’s bid to throw out the Michigan-based fund’s lawsuit accusing it of making misleading statements to regulators about claims it paid bribes to facilitate Mexican real-estate deals.
The world’s largest retailer has said it’s spent $439 million since 2012 in connection with investigations into allegations that employees paid bribes in Mexico, China, India and Brazil. Both U.S. and Mexican prosecutors have said they are probing whether executives of Wal-Mart’s Mexican unit were paying off local officials to clear the way for construction of new stores and warehouses.
The fund properly alleged that a

Fannie, Freddie Investors Lose Suits Over Lost Dividends

By Margaret Cronin Fisk, Jody Shenn and Clea Benson

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac investors lost their legal challenges to a change to the mortgage giants’ 2008 bailouts that sent their profits to the U.S. Treasury.
The lawsuits, among the first of almost 20 related cases to be decided, were filed by investors including Bruce Berkowitz, the head of Fairholme Capital Management LLC, who was named Morningstar Inc. (MORN)’s domestic stock manager of the decade for the 2000s, and billionaire hedge-fund manager Richard Perry’s Perry Capital LLC.
The investors sued for breach of contract over allegedly promised dividends and liquidation preferences, and what they called an illegal “taking” under the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth rejected their claims yesterday, finding that the government is allowed under a 2012 amendment to the companies’ bailout

American Apparel Said to Be Increasingly Open to Keeping Charney

By Matt Townsend

Photographer: Keith Bedford/Bloomberg

A file photo shows Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel Inc., standing for a... Read More

American Apparel Inc. (APP)’s board is increasingly open to keeping controversial founder Dov Charney at the clothing company, though not as chief executive officer, according to people familiar with the matter.
The retailer, which ousted Charney as CEO almost four months ago in an acrimonious split, is considering giving him a new role, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. In the meantime, Charney is serving as a paid strategic consultant.
Reaching an agreement with Charney would help

Icahn Campaign Led EBay to Mask Openness to PayPal Split

By Alex Sherman and Beth Jin

Related

• EBay, PayPal Most Successful Together, Donahoe Says

In February, EBay Inc. (EBAY) Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe appeared on Bloomberg Television with a message: Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn is wrong and PayPal is stronger as part of the online marketplace.
Yesterday, just seven months later, Donahoe announced he has decided to split off PayPal as a separate company from EBay -- exactly what Icahn had proposed.
What happened? Donahoe said he didn’t exactly change his mind and wasn’t pressured by his board to do it. Instead he was playing two games at once -- keeping Icahn at bay while assuring shareholders he was always open to the idea of a

EBay Going It Alone in Competitive Web-Commerce Market

By Spencer Soper and Brian Womack  

Related

• EBay, PayPal to Split on Carl Icahn Pressure

EBay Inc. (EBAY)’s separation from PayPal casts the online marketplace into an environment where the stakes are much higher as Amazon.com Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. battle for global supremacy.
Devin Wenig, 47, will continue to lead EBay’s marketplace business as chief executive officer after the split, inheriting an operation with roots stretching back to the early days of the Internet.
While EBay pioneered Web auctions and later became a virtual storefront for retailers, it hasn’t kept pace with the sales growth at bigger e-commerce companies. The company has also kept the basic design of its website unchanged over the years -- partly due to the influence of its community of buyers and sellers -- and only started to make more aggressive changes since Wenig’s arrival. EBay also had to apologize to users and ask them to

Japan’s Firms Plan Spending Boost as Sentiment Improves

By Toru Fujioka

Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

The Tankan index of big manufacturers rose to 13 in September from 12 in June, the Bank... Read More

Related

• BofA's Kichikawa on Japan Manufacturers' Sentiment

Japanese companies indicated they may boost investment by the most since 2007 as sentiment among big manufacturers unexpectedly improved, providing encouragement for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s revitalization effort.
Large companies see capital expenditure rising 8.6 percent in the year through March, according to the Bank of Japan’s Tankan survey released in Tokyo today. The big manufacturer sentiment index rose to 13 in September from 12 in June, above a median estimate of 10 in a Bloomberg News survey of economists.
Corporate leaders delivering on their plans is vital to Japan weathering a sales-tax increase in April that precipitated the economy’s biggest contraction in five years. The challenge for Abe is to ensure that large companies which have also invested heavily overseas follow through on domestic investment and deploy near-record cash as he

Nomura Bullish After Rajan Vigilance Drives Rally: India Credit

By Shikhar Balwani  

Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg

Raghuram Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

Related

• India's Rajan: Ultra-Low Rates May Distort Prices
• Nomura yield forecast

Nomura Holdings Inc. is betting Indian 10-year bonds will extend gains, after their best quarter in more than a year, as fund managers say the central bank is on track to tame Asia’s worst inflation.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year sovereign notes fell 24 basis points in the three months ended Sept. 30, the most in five quarters, while that on similar Indonesian debt rose. Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan kept the benchmark repurchase rate at 8 percent for the fourth straight meeting yesterday, and said that while price risks are “still to the upside,” they’ve receded since a review in August.
Nomura and IDFC Asset Management Co. say they are confident the RBI will meet its 2016 inflation target of 6 percent, even as Rajan said unforeseen developments could undermine the goal. A pick-up in monsoon rains and lower crude oil costs have

Guerrilla Indonesian Opposition Stymies Widodo: Southeast Asia

By Neil Chatterjee

Photographer: Ed Wray/Getty Images

Prabowo Subianto, former Indonesia's special forces army commander.

Related

• Both Candidates Claim Victory in Indonesia Election

Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces army commander, lost the battle for Indonesia’s presidency, both at ballot booths and in court. Since then he’s won several victories.
Prabowo’s coalition of seven parties has confounded expectations by holding together after his July election defeat, supported by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democrat party. With a majority in parliament, his lawmakers have passed rules that scrap direct regional elections, weaken the influence of President-elect Joko Widodo’s party and limit the ability of the anti-graft body to pursue legislators.
The moves underscore the challenge for Widodo, known as Jokowi, even before he takes office, to navigate a parliament and an oligarchy that may not favor his efforts to cut corruption and improve tax collection to boost an economy growing at its slowest pace since 2009. Prabowo’s parties will seek to set the agenda once Jokowi is sworn in this month, even as their abolition of direct local elections faces a

Korean Intervention Seen as Samsung Bemoans Won Jump: Currencies

By Kyoungwha Kim, Lilian Karunungan and Jiyeun Lee

Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju Yeol warned Sept. 12 that the won’s strength versus the... Read More

South Korea’s won is losing its appeal to a growing number of global investors who detect signs the central bank will step up efforts to weaken the currency as it marches to a third straight year of gains versus the yen.
Japan and South Korea are major competitors in the global market for shipments of electronics, automobiles and other products, making the exchange rate between the two nations vital to companies from Hyundai Motor Co. to Samsung Electronics Co. The won reached a six-year high of 9.5129 per yen on Sept. 25, near the strong end of the 9.5 to 9.6 range that Seoul-based broker Meritz Securities Co. says local exporters can bear.
“The tolerance for currency appreciation has