Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » JPMorgan Chase and Co.

LivingSocial Raises $176 Million In Private Offering

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:13:43 +0000

LivingSocial has raised $176 million in a private offering according to an SEC filing. Investors in this round include Amazon.com, U.S. Venture Partners, and Steve Case’s Revolution Ventures. Code Advisors and JP Morgan oversaw the deal and made $5 million in the process. LivingSocial offered $400 million worth of stock and sold a portion of it. About $224 million of stock still available. The final $224 million is expected to be bought in the next several weeks or months. This round of funding will be used for operations and expansion such as setting up a new company headquarters. [BusinessInsider]

SAP Acquiring SuccessFactors For $3.4 Billion

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 08:15:02 +0000

Enterprise IT company SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) is acquiring SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion or $40 per share. The transaction was made entirely in cash and is expected to close early next year. This is a 52% premium above Friday’s closing price.

“The cloud is a core of SAP’s future growth, and the combination of SuccessFactors’ leadership team and technology with SAP will create a cloud powerhouse,” stated SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott.

SuccessFactors is an employee management software companies that helps companies assess performance of employees. It also helps manage recruitment and human source needs for companies. SuccessFactors reported revenues of $91.2 million in the third quarter. SuccessFactors has over 3,500 customers spread across 170 countries.

Morgan Stanley served as the financial adviser for SuccessFactors and JPMorgan Chase advised SAP.

[NYT]

Netflix’s Stock Plummets After Company Warns Of More Subscriber Losses

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:49:38 +0000

The stock price of Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) has plummeted about 34% in heavy trading today. This is one day after the company announced a loss of over 800,000 subscribers. The company is also expecting to lose many more subscribers after adjustments to the new separation of DVDs and streaming services model. The stock price is trading at about $78.01 as of the time I am writing this article. Yesterday, the company’s stock was trading at about $93.30. In July, the company’s stock was at $300. Since July, Netflix has lost a market value of about $9.76 billion.

J.P. Morgan downgraded Netflix’s stock from “neutral” to “overweight.” They slashed their price target for Netflix to $67 from $205. Citigroup downgraded Netflix’s stock to “neutral.” In a letter to investors, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wrote:

We think that $7.99 for unlimited streaming and $7.99 for unlimited DVD are both very aggressive low prices, relative to competition and to the value of the services, and they are the right place for Netflix to be in the long term. What we misjudged was how quickly to move there. We compounded the problem with our lack of explanation about the rising cost of the expansion of streaming content and steady DVD costs, so that absent that explanation, many perceived us as greedy. Finally, we announced and then retracted a separate brand for DVD. While this branding incident further dented our reputation, and caused a temporary cancellation surge, compared to our price change its impact was relatively minor. Our primary issue is many of our long-term members felt shocked by the pricing changes, and more of them have expressed that by canceling Netflix than we expected.

He also added:

Investors and members will be relieved to know we are done with pricing changes, and that at $7.99 each for streaming and DVD we can move forward for a long time.

Palantir Technologies Raises $70 Million In Series F

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:33:44 +0000

Palantir Technologies has raised $70 million in Series F funding. Palantir’s total funding is now roughly $200 million. The valuation of the company is now around $2.5 billion. Two unnamed hedge funds participated in this round of funding.

Palantir is a data analysis company that focuses on structured, unstructured, relational, temporal, and geospatial content. Palantir can accept huge databases and filter the information. Palantir’s technology has been used by several government agencies including the FBI. Palantir also has a major deal with JP Morgan Chase.

[TechCrunch]

JPMorgan: Apple Cuts Orders For iPad In Supply Chain

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:19:16 +0000

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has cut down orders to vendors in their supply chain for the iPad according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM). This will directly affect sales at Hon Hai Precious Industry Co.

This is the first cut that analysts at JPMorgan’s team in Hong Kong had ever seen. This could result in a drop of 13 million units in the fourth quarter from 17 million units in the third quarter for vendors such as Hon Hai.

JPMorgan analyst does not expect to lower their projection of 10.9 million to 12 million units of iPad shipments in the third/fourth quarters after the adjustments in the supply chain. The Apple iPad accounts for about 73% of the tablet computer sales this year.

Pandora Stock Price Increases 60% After Opening, Closes At 9% High

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:20:16 +0000

Internet radio company Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) has gone public today. Pandora priced their shares at $16. Pandora opened at $20 and jumped to $26. This is an increase of over 60%.

At the point of mid-day trading, Pandora fell below $20. Pandora is currently losing money, but they raised $235 million with the $16 offering price. At the time of the offering, Pandora was valued at $2.6 billion. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Citigroup were the lead underwriters of the IPO.

Pandora hit about 90 million listeners at the end of April. Pandora lost about $1.8 million on revenues of $138 million last year. Pandora is expecting operating losses throughout the fiscal year of 2012. Pandora allows users to create custom music stations by indicating what their favorite songs are and who their favorite artists are.

Pandora makes most of their revenues from advertising on their website. They also generate revenue by offering premium accounts for a cost. The subscription revenues are less than 10% of sales. Pandora offer 9% of their shares outstanding to the public. This is a relatively small amount.

[Wired]

Groupon Hires Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley As Lead Underwriters For IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:44:53 +0000

Groupon Inc. has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriters for an IPO that they are planning for later this year according to sources with The Wall Street Journal. Groupon is expected to be valued at between $15 and $20 billion when the company goes IPO. JP Morgan Chase & Co. is expected to be a co-manager for the IPO according to the same sources.

The IPO is planned for the second half of 2011. Groupon was founded in 2008. They turn down a $6 billion offer from Google last year and raised $950 million in funding immediately after. Groupon employs 6,000 people across the globe. Groupon promotes deals for local venues through daily e-mails and they collect 50% of every sale.

[WSJ]

AVG Receives $235 Million As Part of Financing Deal

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:40:51 +0000

AVG Technologies has entered a credit agreement with JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. The company has secured a five-year term loan for $235 million in their first capital markets transaction. AVG said that the financing will give them resources to realize strategic growth opportunities. AVG was founded in 1991 and their anti-virus software is used by over 110 million consumers and small businesses. [TechCrunch]

Facebook Dispute Leads To Fatal Stabbing In Brooklyn

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 06:46:04 +0000

There were two reasons that led to the MySpace user base exodus to Facebook: 1.) Facebook was a solid alternative 2.) MySpace was often seen as a catalyst for criminal activities. After reading the news about Kamisha Richards (left) and Kayla Henriques (right), it appears that Facebook is starting to be seen in the media as that same type of catalyst.

Kamisha Richards, 22, died after being stabbed with a steak knife inside an apartment in Brooklyn. Kayla Henriques, 18, was arrested as a result of the murder. The tragedy was caused after a $20 loan had turned into a Facebook status fight. Richards was dating Henriques’ brother Ramel and the two were lifelong friends too.

About 3 days before the stabbing took place, Richards lent Henriques $20 so that she could buy Pampers diapers for her 11 month old son. Richards was upset when she found out that Henriques spent the money on something else.

“U don’t do 4no 1. … I have no kids and I refuse 2take care of any1 elses so yeah I will be needing that $20. … this the last time u will con me into giving u money,” wrote Richards on Facebook.

Henriques replied saying: “Dnt try to expose me mama but I’m not tha type to thug it ova facebook see u wen u get frm wrk.” Richards followed that up by saying “Ima have the last laugh.” Henriques eerily replied “We will see.”

Henriques is an 11th grader at John Adams High School and Richards graduated from John Jay College with a degree in criminal justice. Richards worked at JPMorgan Chase in Manhattan as a security guard and was planning to attend Brooklyn Law School.

[AOL News]

J.P. Morgan Acquires 10% of Twitter Through Stock Purchases From Existing Shareholders

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 04:01:39 +0000

There is a lot of speculation about how J.P. Morgan and angel investor Chris Sacca acquired about 10% of equity in Twitter for $450 million. The most interesting part here is how the funding round was conducted. It was not done as a venture capital series of funding.

The rumor is that J.P. Morgan committed most of the capital for the ownership in a $1 billion fund through angel investor Chris Sacca. And over the last several months, they have acquired $400 million in Twitter stock from existing shareholders at a price range of $16-$21/share.

This fund is now the second largest shareholder in Twitter according to sources. Sacca supposedly acquired $100 million worth of stock from Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, and other shareholders sold off another $300 million worth of Twitter stock. This means that J.P. Morgan’s fund still has about $700 million to spend on other popular web and mobile companies, which they’ll most likely plug in to companies as large as Groupon and Zynga.

[TechCrunch]