Apple Said to Plan Calls With Investors to Market Sale of Bonds

By Katie Linsell

Apple Inc. (AAPL) is holding calls with investors today to discuss a bond sale, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The world’s most valuable technology company hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) to organize the calls, said the person, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak about it. A London-based spokesman for Apple declined to comment on whether the securities would be denominated in euros.
Apple sold $12 billion of dollar notes this year after raising $17 billion in 2013 in the largest corporate bond sale at the time. A transaction in euros would be the first for Apple, and would allow the Cupertino, California-based company to borrow at the lowest rate relative to dollar-denominated debt in six years, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data.
“All-in funding levels in euros are so low for corporates at the moment it makes sense to issue here,” said Jens Vanbrabant, lead money manager at London-based investment firm ECM Asset Management Ltd., which oversees $8 billion. “It’s much lower than dollars. There is no

European Stocks Drop as Holcim, PostNL Fall on Earnings

By Namitha Jagadeesh  

European stocks fell, after this year’s biggest weekly rally, as investors weighed disappointing earnings from PostNL NV and Holcim Ltd.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 0.3 percent to 335.86 at 11:32 a.m. in London as Italian utilities led the decline. The Stoxx 600 rallied 2.9 percent last week as the Bank of Japan unexpectedly boosted its stimulus. The benchmark measure has rallied 8.3 percent from this year’s low on Oct. 16 and trades at 15.6 times the projected earnings of its members, near the highest valuation since 2009.
“Markets are taking a small break from the strong rebound,” said Espen Furnes, who helps oversee $85 billion at Storebrand Asset Management in Oslo. “Investors are still cautious. The reporting season is the main topic for investors. Ryanair numbers were

Spacecraft’s Rocket Motor Landed Intact, NTSB Chief Says

By Alan Levin and James Nash  

Photographer: Michael Nelson/EPA

Debris at the crash site of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rests in the Mojave desert, some 30 miles north of Mojave, California, on Oct. 31, 2014.

The rocket engine on the Virgin Galactic Ltd. spacecraft that broke apart on a test flight landed intact without obvious signs of damage, according to a preliminary assessment by U.S. investigators.
That suggests that the breakup of SpaceShipTwo was due to something other than an engine explosion, potentially eliminating one flaw that could have forced a reassessment of Richard Branson’s plans for private spaceflight next year.
The rocket showed no signs that the nitrous-oxide-based fuel had burned through, Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in an interview yesterday.

Space Taxis

As investigators over the weekend studied the fatal test flight by Virgin Galactic, manufacturers and regulators are assessing possible fallout on his plans for suborbital tourism and the U.S. government’s decision to deploy commercial space taxis to fly into orbit later this decade.
It was the week’s second accident involving a private spacecraft, after an

Publicis Buys Sapient for $3.7 Billion in Digital Ad Push

By Kristen Schweizer

Related

• Publicis's Sapient Deal Signifies `Dynamic' Change

Publicis Groupe SA (PUB), agreed to pay $3.7 billion for Sapient Corp. (SAPE), pushing the third-largest advertising company deeper into digital offerings and the U.S. as it moves past a failed merger with Omnicom Group Inc. (OMC)
Sapient stockholders will receive $25 in cash for each share, the companies said today, a 44 percent premium to Sapient’s Oct. 31 close in New York. Publicis is paying 19.2 times Sapient’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. That compares with a multiple of 14.5 times for similar targets over the past five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Publicis is moving on from the $35 billion merger with Omnicom, which was abandoned in May after executives clashed over how to run the combined entity. The owner o

HSBC Misses Estimates, Takes $378 Million Currency Charge

By Stephen Morris

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• HSBC Has Challenging Regulatory Environment: Costa

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) shares fell after it reported lower-than-estimated third-quarter profit as it set aside more than $1 billion for customer compensation and an investigation into rigging currency markets.
Pretax profit rose to $4.61 billion from $4.53 billion in the year-earlier period, the London-based lender said in a statement today. That compares with the $5.47 billion average estimate of seven analysts compiled by Bloomberg. The bank made a $378 million provision toward a settlement of the currency benchmark-rigging investigation and set aside an additional $701 million to redress customers in Britain.
“Regulatory cost inflation continues to be a headwind,” said Chirantan Barua, a London-based banking analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd., who has an outperform rating on the

Boies Poised for Possible Upset in AIG $25 Billion Bailout Trial

By Andrew Zajac and Christie Smythe  

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Lawyer David Boies, representing Greenberg and other American International Group Inc.... Read More

Lawyer David Boies has a shot at an upset win in the trial of Maurice “Hank” Greenberg’s $25 billion bailout case against the U.S. government, a turnaround from the weak odds he was given just a month ago.
Boies, representing Greenberg and other American International Group Inc. (AIG) shareholders, has had a series of evidentiary rulings go his way since the trial began Sept. 29 in Washington.
He’s also extracted useful admissions from witnesses to support Greenberg’s claims that the government set illegally harsh terms, including demanding an 80 percent equity stake as consideration for an $85 billion loan in the 2008 deal.
“I think the odds are good that Boies’s side will win, and they’ll get a meaningful number,” said Susan Webber, a founder of Aurora Advisors Inc., a management consultancy, who has followed the case for her Naked Capitalism blog. “Then the howling will start.”
That number is at least $25 billion according to Greenberg, 89, who was AIG’s chief executive officer for almost four decades before leaving in 2005. This week, the

Nobody Mourns Death of QE as Treasuries Prove Insatiable

By Cordell Eddings, Liz Capo McCormick and Daniel Kruger  

Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

Customers shop at a Costco Wholesale Corp. store in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. Weekly... Read More

Related

• Bond Markets Need `Orderly Adjustment' Post-QE

Even with the end of unprecedented bond purchases from the Federal Reserve, demand for U.S. Treasuries looks as strong as ever.
Investors submitted bids for $5.54 trillion of government debt at auctions this year, or 3 times the amount sold, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The bid-to-cover ratio is higher than the 2.87 last year, when the Fed purchased more Treasuries than at any time since the central bank began quantitative easing in 2008, and has been exceeded only twice on record.
While the Fed has been the biggest source of demand since the financial crisis, the willingness of foreign central banks, insurers and pensions to pick up the slack as it wound down its third and most aggressive round of stimulus suggests there’s plenty of buyers to keep U.S. borrowing costs low. Yields on the 10-year note, the benchmark for trillions of

Dollar Gains as Europe Stocks Decline, Natural Gas Rises

By Nick Gentle and Stephen Kirkland

Photographer: Andrea Morales/Bloomberg

Pedestrians walk down Beale Street at dusk in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. U.S. data... Read More

Related

• London & Capital Favors Equities Over Fixed Income
• BNP's Sneyd Says Dollar to Rally Further Versus Yen
• Citi's Elmer on Global Currencies, Investment Strategy

The dollar strengthened to an almost seven-year high versus the yen as a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing highlighted diverging growth outlooks for the U.S., Asia and Europe. Stocks fell and the ruble weakened while U.S. natural gas gained.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index advanced 0.4 percent by 7:30 a.m. in New York, with the currency climbing 1.1 percent to 113.60 yen, the most since December 2007. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.4 percent and Chinese shares in Hong Kong retreated from the highest level in six weeks. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures slipped 0.2 percent after the gauge closed at

Malone Gained Double Tax Break in Liberty Address Shift

By Jesse Drucker

Shifting the address of his Liberty Global Inc. from Colorado to London last year didn’t just put billionaire John C. Malone in a position to reduce his company’s tax bill.
He also took precautions to avoid the capital-gains hit that the so-called inversion would trigger for him and other investors. The day before the deal was announced, Malone -- the company’s chairman and controlling shareholder -- transferred $600 million of his shares into a tax-exempt charitable trust. He avoided paying taxes on his remaining stake, worth about $260 million, by exploiting IRS regulations meant to block a different loophole.
All told, Malone escaped about $200 million in personal taxes, and Liberty Global’s U.S. shareholders together likely saved more than a billion dollars, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“He’s congenitally averse to paying taxes,” said Robert Willens, an independent tax accounting analyst in New York City.
As the Obama administration attempts to

Tim Cook's revelation and the foreign market

Allen Wastler | @AWastler

<p>How Tim Cook's revelations affect global business</p> <p>Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed he was gay in a Bloomberg Businessweek essay earlier Thursday. Re/code's Kara Swisher explains whether that could affect Apple's global ambitions.</p>

In the United States, Tim Cook's public revelation that he is gay is one thing. On the international front, it is quite another.
Homosexuality in some parts of the world is considered immoral, even criminal. Yet that is where a majority of Apple's business is. Nearly 60 percent of the company's revenues came from outside the Americas, according to its latest earnings report.

Kaveh Kazemi | Getty Images

A vendor stands in front of an Apple logo attending to customers in a shop that specializes in iPhone products and it's accessories in Paytakht computer mall in Tehran, Iran.

Just this morning the Wall Street Journal has a story about Apple holding talks about selling its products in Iran should U.S. sanctions on that country ease. Homosexuality is against the law in Iran, in some cases punishable by death. One wonders what stance the government there would take over importing products from a company with an openly gay CEO.
Indeed, anti-gay sentiment is prevalent in the Middle East, albeit to