Cyber Attack is a reality and China is the main source

 China’s Cyber games


Washington has not had much success persuading Beijing to rein in its hackers even though American officials and security experts have long known that China is the main source of cyber attacks on the United States. 

On Tuesday, a new report from Mandiant, an American computer security firm, publicly documented an explicit link between Chinese hackers and the People’s Liberation Army. 

The report cites a growing body of digital forensic evidence that most of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around a 12-story office tower on the outskirts of Shanghai that is the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Mandiant tracked individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups, known as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group,” to the headquarters of the military unit, which is central to China’s computer espionage operations. 

It followed “Comment Crew” for six years, monitoring 141 attacks by looking at Web domains, malware, Internet protocol addresses and embedded codes.

Chinese officials denounced the report, but their reaction was hardly a denial. 



In a second development that could further raise the stakes for Beijing, Washington decided to share with American Internet providers and antivirus vendors information about the unique signatures of the largest of the Chinese groups, including those originating from the area where Unit 61398 is based. 

The government warnings will not link the hackers and their computers to the Chinese Army as such, but the effects will be felt when the hackers and computers are denied access to American networks, as many of the Internet providers and antivirus vendors are expected to do. 
 

Americans are increasingly concerned about cyber attacks intended:

1)to steal corporate secrets and



2) to “sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems,”
as President Obama said in his recent State of the Union address.

 
As a defensive measure, Mr. Obama last week signed an executive order promoting increased information-sharing about cyber threats between the government and private companies that oversee the country’s critical infrastructure, including its electrical power grid, gas lines and waterworks. 



 



 


Read More:
China’s Cybergames - NYTimes.com
 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/opinion/chinas-cybergames.html?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20130220&_r=0

SEC Freezes Swiss Account Used in Trades Ahead of Heinz Deal

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has frozen the assets of a Swiss trading account that allegedly made a series of "highly suspicious" trades reaping about $1.7 million ahead of the blockbuster sale of H.J. Heinz Co. HNZ -0.30%
 
The regulator's move came one day after Heinz said it was selling itself for $23 billion to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRKB +0.56% and Brazilian private-equity firm 3G Capital in one of the biggest food-industry acquisitions ever.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court on Friday, the SEC said the traders invested nearly $90,000 in options that would gain in value if Heinz's share price rose. A day later, after the deal was announced, the traders stood to reap a profit of more than $1.7 million, the lawsuit said. Regulators began an inquiry into possible insider trading very shortly after the deal was announced, alerted by a spike in options trading the day before, according to people close to the investigation.

Heinz shares jumped $12.02 to close at the offer price of $72.50 in trading on Thursday after the deal was made public. Before that, the stock had traded at about $60 or below since November 2012, the SEC said—price levels at which the options involved in the trading now under scrutiny would be valueless.

The stock ended 4 p.m. composite trading Friday at $72.28 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The SEC said the timing and size of the trades were highly suspicious given the account had no history of trading in Heinz securities in the last six months. Trading in Heinz's options in the several days ahead of the deal's announcement was minimal as well, the SEC said.
SEC investigators don't yet know the number or identity of the traders involved in the suspicious trading.

"Despite the obvious logistical challenges of investigating trades involving offshore accounts, we moved swiftly to locate and freeze the assets of these suspicious traders, who now have to make an appearance in court to explain their trading if they want their assets unfrozen," said Sanjay Wadhwa, senior associate director of the SEC's New York Regional Office.

Heinz and the investor group weren't accused of any wrongdoing. A spokesman for the investor group, which includes 3G Capital, declined to comment Friday. Berkshire Hathaway and Heinz didn't immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

The trades were done through an account at GS Bank in Zurich, a unit of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS -0.60% Goldman wasn't accused of any wrongdoing. "We're cooperating with the SEC's investigation," a Goldman Sachs spokeswoman said Friday. 

The SEC investigators conducting the inquiry are the same team investigating suspicious trading linked to another 3G Capital deal, the 2010 purchase of Burger King, BKW +4.70% said a person close to the investigation.

The SEC in September 2012 took emergency action to freeze the assets of a stockbroker the agency alleged had exploited a tip from a 3G Capital investor to trade ahead of the firm's purchase of the burger chain.

The Heinz enforcement action is one of the fastest ever filed by the agency, according to officials. The SEC typically files only one or two emergency actions related to suspected insider trading using options every year, usually to prevent the risk that profits from suspicious trading will vanish offshore.

"If we didn't act [to freeze assets] and ended up proving a case of insider trading but the money had gone, it would be a pyrrhic victory," Daniel Hawke, chief of the SEC's market abuse enforcement unit, said in a telephone interview.

A version of this article appeared February 16, 2013, on page B3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: SEC Freezes A Swiss Account Over Heinz Trades.

By CHAD BRAY and JEAN EAGLESHAM

 Source:
SEC Freezes Swiss Account Used in Trades Ahead of Heinz Deal - WSJ.com

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323478004578306500280942678.html?mod=igoogle_wsj_gadgv1

Buffett and 3G hungry for Heinz Deal

This is a deal to take Heinz private .... allowing more flexibility in how the partners manage the asset without so much scrutiny by the various financial market regulators and complaining shareholders with an eye on quarterly profits.

Buffett dips into ketchup business, buys Heinz

The acquisition of Heinz by Warren Buffett and 3G Capital is a landmark moment in the journey of a company that began selling horse­radish in a Pennsylvania farming town in 1869.

Heinz went bankrupt just a few years later but went on to become one of the world’s best-known brands.

Yesterday’s $28 billion (€21 billion) acquisition will both bring Heinz back to its beginnings as a private company and give it a chance to become more global at a time when the US food industry is undergoing rapid transition.

“It’s an opportunity to build this brand more globally but fundamentally the company is returning to its roots,” said William Johnson, chief executive of Heinz, yesterday.


For his money, the Oracle of Omaha gets one of the nation's oldest and most familiar brands, one that's in refrigerators and kitchen cupboards all over the U.S. 

The deal is intended to help Heinz accelerate its expansion from a dominant American name into a presence on grocery shelves worldwide. 

The Pittsburgh-based company also makes Classico pasta sauces and Ore-Ida potatoes, as well as a growing stable of sauces suited to regional tastes around the world. 

Buffett's investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway, is teaming with investment firm 3G Capital to snap up Heinz, which had long been a subject of takeover speculation.  New York-based 3G is best known for its acquisitions of Burger King and its role in the deals that created Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's biggest beer maker.


Heinz is being acquired at a moment of strength for the company but it follows a recent period of investor unrest about its performance. 
In 2006, Nelson Peltz, the activist investor who now sits on its board of directors, took a 5 per cent stake in the company and pushed Johnson to cut costs, streamline operations and reinvest in marketing.

In recent years, Heinz has been something of a trailblazer in its own right, actively seeking deals in Brazil and China and repackaging its core ketchup to make it easier for Americans to dress French fries in new ways.

 Although ketchup and sauces still account for just under half its sales, Heinz has expanded over the years to include a much broader array of products across 200 countries, including ABC soy sauce in Indonesia, Quero tomato sauces and vegetables in Brazil and Complan nutritional drinks in India. 
 
In 2010, the company bought Foodstar, which makes Master brand soy sauce and fermented bean curd in China.

However, the company remained under pressure to unload some of its struggling brands and its frozen foods business, and analysts say that going private could aid in such disposals.

People familiar with the Heinz transaction said 3G Capital was hungry for a new deal, and set its sights on Heinz. 

The group approached Buffett about joining forces last December, and discussions with Heinz picked up in earnest in the past six weeks.


Berkshire is putting up $12.12 billion in return for half of the equity in Heinz, as well as $8 billion of preferred shares that pay 9 percent, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 3G Capital will run Heinz, and Berkshire will be the financing partner.

By taking the company private, Johnson said, Heinz will have the flexibility to react more quickly without the pressure of satisfying investors with quarterly earnings reports. 

The company's push to go global began more than a decade ago, and about two-thirds of its sales already come from outside the U.S. 

Heinz is increasingly focusing on emerging markets, where it expects to get about a quarter of its sales this year. Like other packaged food companies, it is betting that staking an early claim in countries with multiplying ranks of middle-class customers will secure its own future.



“The value opportunity for the shareholders was too good to pass up,” Johnson said.  

“This is the largest transaction in history for a global food business.”

Heinz is a prize because it has the type of name recognition that takes years to build, said Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst for NBG Productions. One testament to the strength of the brand has been the company's ability to raise prices even in the competitive market, he said.  

For Buffett, the deal, which is expected to close during the third-quarter of this year, is a chance to further cement his legacy.

“Buffett is trying to make the non-insurance businesses more significant,” says Vitaliy Katsenelson, a value investor and long-time Buffett watcher. 

“Buffett is willing to pay so much more than he would in the past, but he wants bulletproof businesses that can’t be destroyed.”

Heinz appears to be a classic fit for Mr Buffett, who likes consumer companies and has taken equity stakes in Coca-Cola.


Buffett has recently said that he's been hunting for elephant-sized deals. At the end of last year, he said on CNBC that he had about $47 billion in cash available.
Berkshire's biggest acquisition ever was its $26.3 billion purchase of BNSF railroad in 2010. 

Last year, Buffett also starting building a newspaper company with the $149 million acquisition of 63 Media General newspapers and several other small or mid-sized newspapers. Berkshire now owns 28 dailies and a number of other publications. 

Berkshire's real estate unit also bought the Prudential and Real Living real-estate franchises nationwide last fall. 

The deal is a departure for Berkshire Hathaway. Generally, Buffett prefers to buy entire companies and then allow the businesses to continue operating much the way they were before. Berkshire has also helped finance deals before - most recently during the financial crisis of 2008, when he made lucrative deals for Berkshire when few other companies had cash. 

Heinz shareholders will receive $72.50 in cash for each share of common stock they own. Based on Heinz's number of shares outstanding, the deal is worth $23.3 billion excluding debt. Including debt, it's worth about $28 billion. 

The price for the deal represents a 20 percent premium to Heinz's closing price of $60.48 on Wednesday. Heinz said the deal was unanimously approved by its board. 

"It's our kind of company," Buffett said in the CNBC interview, noting Heinz's signature ketchup has been around for more than a century. "I've sampled it many times."




Sources:
  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2013/0215/1224330056725.html

http://www.eveningsun.com/business/ci_22591316/buffett-dips-into-ketchup-business-buys-heinz

Obama: ...no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty."

 
GET A LIFE NOW

Obama: "Let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty."


http://t.co/M4U5r2M6



The Best from Twitter

In-A-Gist algorithmically curates tweets based on popularity in real-time. We collate tweets on the same topic and this page is built from such curated tweets. We keep refreshing this page as and when we find popular tweets on topics mentioned in the tweet. They are presented in the "Related Tweets" section.

Source:

"Let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty." : MotherJones

http://inagist.com/all/302164220349382657/

Too big to jail, Washington's new line on Wall Street

American politicians love to talk about "holding people accountable." 


The reality of accountability is often quite different. 

Remember "Too big to fail"?

That was the ugly political shorthand for companies, Wall Street banks especially, that had amassed so much power and money that letting them suffer the consequences of their own stupidity would cause such widespread damage that they must be rescued.

Rescued, of course, with taxes gathered from the people their stupidity and greed had seriously harmed.

Too big to fail quickly morphed into a Washington acronym — TBTF — in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse.

The investment banks that triggered the collapse were almost all deemed TBTF.

The government gave them hundreds of billions of dollars, which the banks then immediately took to the gamed casino of the stock market, enriching themselves almost obscenely before piously repaying the original bailout money.


Meanwhile, thousands of TSTJR (too small to justify rescuing) companies were left to strangle. 

Many, such as the U.S. computer chain Circuit City, dumped entire workforces.


For a while, these workers demonstrated and marched and hoisted placards asking, "Where's my bailout, dude?"

Then they disappeared into the nasty sinkhole that Wall Street's so-called masters of the universe had opened up.

Today, another acronym is taking form. It's the corollary of too big to fail — TBTJ. Too big to jail....!!!

 
Most recently, that includes Standard & Poor’s, the ratings agency upon whose advice everyone from ordinary punters to huge institutional investors rely.

S&P, as it is known, was at the top of the heap — the ultimate enabler in one of the greatest economic debacles of modern times.

Here's the way it worked: 

Home buyers of moderate means would decide to buy a house that they couldn't afford, and some of them — well, a lot of them — would lie about their incomes.

These arrangements even had a name: the "liar loan." Pay a few more points in interest, and there was no need to actually document your worth.

All of this would be facilitated by a mortgage broker, who would concoct a plan in which the buyer would pay only interest on the loan, if even that, for the first few years.

Often the broker would sweeten the deal by offering a buyer "cash on closing," even if that person had no down payment.

In order to do this, the broker would rely on a pliable appraiser, who would dutifully overvalue the property by, say, $50,000 or so, allowing the buyer to purchase a Lexus or a nice vacation before moving into the home and taking on a mortgage that the purchaser couldn't really justify.

Up the food chain

Throughout this process, the lending bank would wink at all this. And why not? It intended to sell the crappy loan on up the food chain to Wall Street anyway.

At that point, a Wall Street heavyweight like Goldman Sachs would stack up thousands of equally crappy loans and turn them into "mortgage-backed securities."

Then Goldman or some other bank would stack up thousands of mortgage-backed securities, creating an entity called a "collateralized debt obligation" (CDO), the collateral being these overvalued homes that their owners couldn't afford.

Then along would come a ratings agency like S&P, or Moody's, or Fitch's, which would assign an "AAA" rating to entire tranches of this garbage, applying the imprimatur that big investors like pension funds needed in order to justify their purchases.

Unfortunately, these supposedly independent ratings agencies were paid by the companies whose crappy products they were assessing, and were in competition with each other, meaning positive ratings were good for business.

Trillions worth of these CDOs were then sold worldwide.

Everybody was happy. And everybody grew rich along the way. Then one day it all collapsed, as all Ponzi schemes must.

But the collapse left American prosecutors with a conundrum.

Something ought to be done, somebody "had to be held accountable."

But so many Americans had lied and weaseled and skived that charging them all would require building hundreds of costly new jails — difficult to do in a financial crisis, with tax revenues drying up.

So, the government decided to do the American thing: It sued.

Since 2008, Washington has sued and settled with AIG, the seller of credit default swaps, as well as certain mortgage firms that knew they were selling loans to people who couldn't pay, and several of the big banks that oversaw it all.

These big corporate players coughed up a few billion, which for them was chump change compared to all the money they had made back in the good days.

On down the chain went the authorities. Last week, the Justice Department announced it would file a civil suit for $5 billion against Standard and Poor's, which helped put the stamp of legitimacy on the whole rotten mess.

How long can it be before Washington goes after Moody's and Fitch's, too?
After all, governments do need money nowadays.

But has anyone gone to jail for all this fraud? Please. This is the land of free enterprise.

High officials at the Justice Department have been trotted out to explain that proving criminal intent in such cases is often difficult, which says a lot about either the wiliness of the financiers or the competence of the prosecutors.

Besides, settlements profit the treasury. So, the big players are still really rich, if perhaps just a little less so as a result of "being held accountable."

As for the millions of consumers who took out "liar loans," well, they're still horribly in debt, so there's not much point suing them. And besides, they were just reaching for the American dream, weren't they?

Unfortunately, many of the companies that were adjudged TSTJR went under, millions of Americans were thrown out of work, and millions of others saw their life savings evaporate.

Or watched in horror as home after home on their own streets went into foreclosure, killing their own property values in the process.

The question on their placards five years ago — "Where's my bailout, dude?" — seems as valid today as it was then.

Basically, here's the government's answer: 

Sucks to be you, dude. But don’t worry, we’ll hold somebody accountable, sort of.











Source:
Neil Macdonald: Too big to jail, Washington's new line on Wall Street - World - CBC News

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/02/10/f-rfa-macdonald-wall-street.html

Warren Buffett rides again...

BLOOMBERG: Buffett ‘Magic’ Assists Iscar in Bid to Double Tools Business

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (A)’s International Metalworking Cos. is seeking to double sales and profit and is counting on Warren Buffett, its “No. 1 salesman,” to help it meet that goal.

“When you go around the world with him it’s like magic,” Eitan Wertheimer, chairman of the Tefen, Israel-based company, said in an interview in Caesarea broadcast today on Bloomberg TV. Wertheimer has traveled with 82-year-old Buffett to India, China and Japan. The business “couldn’t afford” not to have him come along, Wertheimer said.

The company, known as Iscar, was founded in 1952 by Eitan’s father Stef Wertheimer from an old rented shack. It makes cutting gear for industries including aerospace and auto manufacturing. Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire paid $4 billion in 2006 for an 80 percent stake in the company, which has about 11,000 employees worldwide.

“I would love to see Iscar doubling itself,” said Eitan Wertheimer, 61, declining to provide a time frame or financial details on the company. “I think we have a good chance to double ourselves.”

It will probably take Wertheimer a decade to meet his goal, said Martin Prozesky, a London-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

Iscar controls about 8 percent of the market, compared with about 20 percent held by competitor Sandvik AB (SAND), Prozesky said. “Positioning yourself as a good growth brand in China is a key challenge,” he added.

Israel is seeking to boost sales to fast-growing economies such as China as Europe continues to struggle and global trade has slowed. Exports account for about 40 percent of Israel’s gross domestic product.

Even with slower growth, China is “an amazing market” for Iscar, Wertheimer said.

Buffett’s involvement is a “huge” endorsement for Iscar and “definitely helps them gain new customers,” Prozesky said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alisa Odenheimer in Jerusalem at aodenheimer@bloomberg.net; Elliott Gotkine in London at egotkine@bloomberg.net

 

Read the full transcript of the October 24 2012 Squawk Box Interview with Warren Buffett
Download the 2010 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report
Download the 1977 - 2011 Warren Buffett Letter's to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders

 

	The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Second Edition by Warren E. Buffett
	The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

 Source:
Everything Warren Buffett

 http://everythingwarrenbuffett.blogspot.ca/

Investor Websites

• Political Animal
• Share Investor Blog
• Share Investor Group Websites
• Share Investor News
• Share Investor's Daily Forex Updates
• Shareinvestor.net.nz
• Warren Buffett Bookstore
• Warren Buffett TV

Resources

• Berkshire Hathaway
• Bloomberg Television
• Buffett & Coca Cola
• Buffett Biography
• Buffett Quotes & Asides
• Buffett Secrets
• Buffett Timeline
• Buffett's Annual Letters(1965-2008)
• Buffett's Investment Techniques
• Buffett's Portfolio
• The Intelligent Investor: Book Review
• The Warren Buffett Page

Silobreaker News Service

Silobreaker

Global business: Safety agency deals blow to Boeing, Apple under pres...

Financial Times - Companies

Bold attempt to unlock tech cash reserves
suggest the piling up of wealth is about to be met with a wave of financial engineering...

http://link.ft.com/r/8P1R88/MJPXET/IYLFJP/EXV4ZZ/K9H739/FW/h?a1=2013&a2=2&a3=8

• 07 Feb 2013 at 4:58 PM
• Hedge Funds

David Einhorn Sees A Lot Of His Nana In Apple

By Bess Levin

 

 



“It is kind of like my grandma Roz. She wanted to hoard money. She would not leave me a message on my answering machine because she did not want to be charged for a phone call. It is really hard to convince somebody with that mindset to change what they’re doing. We have come up with what we think is a win-win situation for Apple where Apple gets to keep its war chest, they get to keep the money, they get to have it for bad times, for growth, for acquisitions.”     [Bloomberg TV, earlier]

• Tags: Apple, David Einhorn, Grandma Roz, Greenlight Capital, hedge fund managers, Lawsuits, you have a collect call from..."Grandma Roz"

Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f76c8b68-7152-11e2-9056-00144feab49a.html#ixzz2KIEfzziL

Bold attempt to unlock tech cash reserves

By Richard Waters in San Francisco and Dan McCrum and New York

The tech industry’s near-$500bn treasure chest has become one of the stock market’s most alluring targets – and some creative minds in the investing world think they have finally found ways to unlock it.

The stash of nearly half a trillion dollars represents the cash and investments held by the 20 largest US technology concerns. It is the product of hoarding by companies with huge cash flows but a historic aversion to distributing their excess riches to shareholders.

Technology companies' cash piles

Two unrelated events on Thursday suggest that this conspicuous piling up of wealth is about to be met with a wave of creative financial engineering.


In a regulatory filing, PC maker Dell revealed that it plans to bring more than half of its $14.2bn in cash and investments into play to support the proposed buyout by founder Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake.
Meanwhile, hedge fund manager David Einhorn launched an attack on Apple in an effort to force the company to cough up more of its mounting cash pile, using a novel approach based on issuing a new class of preferred stock.

The moves reflect fresh responses to the two main issues that have prevented tech companies from dispensing more of their cash up to now.

One is a concern that it will limit their financial flexibility while doing little for their stock prices.

Exhibit A in this regard is Microsoft. Beset by a flagging share price after the tech industry bust, the software maker dipped into its own cash reserves in 2004 to pay a special dividend of $32bn to its shareholders. It also began to pay a regular dividend at the same time.

Its share price since then has gone nowhere, even as it has ramped up its regular payout in recent years to give it an above-market dividend yield.

According to Bill Miller, one of the best-known US value investors, part of Microsoft’s problem has lain in not being clear enough about what it plans to do with the cash reserves that are still piling up: more dividend-hungry investors would be drawn to the stock if they knew how much Microsoft had earmarked for them.

Yet this alone would not address the dilemma that tech companies face as they seek to draw a new class of value investors looking for higher yields while at same time trying to appease a traditional shareholder base focused solely on growth.

Issuing a separate class of preferred stock would get around this, according to Mr Einhorn, whose fund, Greenlight Capital, owns nearly $600m of Apple stock. It would in effect leave investors with a choice of whether to make a growth or a value bet when investing in Apple.


The $50bn securities would be targeted at income investors to test the waters for demand. Greenlight argues that a 4 per cent dividend, costing Apple just $2bn year, would be a proof of concept, and would be in line with the sub-4 per cent yield on 30 year debt issued by Microsoft, according to Mr Einhorn.

A 4 per cent yield is equivalent to a 25 times earnings multiple, a far higher valuation than that for Apple stock. When it rejected the idea last year, the company told Greenlight that it was advised that an 8 per cent yield would be required – a position contested by Mr Einhorn, who argued that the yield would be closer to that on Microsoft’s debt.

The second restraint on higher cash distributions by tech companies, meanwhile, has come from the geographic location of their financial reserves.

Some 72 per cent of the money is held outside the US, according to bond rating agency Moody’s Investor Service: bringing that back to the US, which companies would have to before using it for corporate purposes like paying dividends, would result in a 35 per cent US tax charge.

US tech companies have lobbied hard for a tax holiday, arguing that it would free them up to bring more money back to invest in the US. 

In an interview with the Financial Times recently, John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco Systems, which has 83 per cent of its cash overseas, warned that his company was tired of waiting for relief from Washington and would soon put the money to use in other countries instead.

Dell’s buyout could represent one tax-efficient response to this roadblock. As part of its proposed buyout, the company said that it will reshuffle its reserves to repatriate $7.4bn of cash.

Ordinarily, that would result in a significant tax charge. But Dell can look forward to a degree of relief thanks to the large interest payments it will face on the debt needed to take it private, said Edward Kleinbard, a professor of law at the USC Gould School of Law. 

It would be able to apply interest costs in the two years after a buyout to retroactively reduce the tax liability, he added – an amount that would be unlikely to offset much of the tax, but would still lessen the impact.




Additional reporting by Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco 

 

 Source:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f76c8b68-7152-11e2-9056-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KHxdnBbm