The draft of the government’s controversial $700 billion financial rescue plan released Sunday makes it clear that CEOs of firms seeking the bailout are about to have their pay packages capped.
The proposal seeks to rein in compensation at participating companies by limiting their tax deduction on executive salaries exceeding $500,000. It allows officials to recover bonuses that have been paid out based on financial statements that later prove to be inaccurate. And it bans exit-pay packages, or golden parachutes, at those companies. Read.
Blockbuster Video has called off its deal to purchase electronics retailer Circuit City. “Based on market conditions and the completion of our initial due diligence process, we have determined that it is not in the best interest of Blockbuster’s shareholders to proceed with an acquisition of Circuit City,” Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes said in a press release. Read.
Former Hewlett-Packard vice president Atul Malhotra has been indicted by federal prosecutors for allegedly passing a confidential email from his previous employer, IBM Corp., to senior H-P executives. According to an indictment filed June 27 in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., Atul Malhotra was the director of sales and business development for IBM’s printing-services division in March of 2006. That’s when he requested confidential pricing information about IBM services. Mr. Malhotra became a vice president of H-P’s printing division in May of that same year.
That July, the indictment alleges, he “sent an e-mail to an H-P senior vice president with the subject ‘for your eyes only’” with an attachment including the confidential information. He allegedly followed it up with a similar email to a second senior vice president.
Don’t screw with Steve Wynn, owner of Wynn Las Vegas Casino. In May of this year, Wynn Las Vegas recovered a $400,000 gambling debt from retired basketball player Charles Barkley after filing a lawsuit against the TNT TV personality. After the media reported the lawsuit, Barkley quickly repaid the debt, plus $40,000 in district attorney’s fees for the case.
Then in June Wynn’s Casino filed a lawsuit against the NBA & Alonzo Mourning Charities seeking payment for a convention bill dating to the 2007 All-Star game.
Wynn Las Vegas claims NBA Entertainment, NBA Properties and co-defendant Alonzo Mourning Charities have failed to pay a $50,000 bill for convention and meeting space and related services used during the 2007 NBA All-Star weekend.
Now “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis is in the hot seat again after the Wynn Las Vegas Casino filed a $2 million lawsuit against him for unpaid gambling debts dating back to February 2007. According to the lawsuit, Wynn Las Vegas extended $2.5 million in credit to Francis on Feb. 16, 2007, and an additional $300,000 two days later. Francis made an $800,000 payment later that month, but the rest has yet to be paid, according to court papers filed in Clark County District Court.
“As far as Mr. Francis is concerned, his obligations to the Wynn hotel have been fully lived up to per prior agreements,” said a spokesman for Francis.
A Wynn Las Vegas representative declined comment. Francis is currently free on bail pending his trial on tax evasion charges in Reno.
Ex Oilman T. Boone Pickens has made a water investment in the area of $100 million so far to acquire water rights throughout the Texas panhandle. According to Business Week, Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the country through water rights in the Ogallala aquifer. And Pickens is still acquiring water assets. Clearly, Pickens thinks there is big money in H20.
So why the big interest in water?
Here is Picken’s play:
The land he has acquired has thirsty cities on one side and water on the other. And although Texas’ rivers, lakes, and streams belong to the state, underground water is up for grabs. So Pickens aims to capture water that he calls “surplus” and “stranded” water.
Why is there a need for Pickens’ “stranded water”? Because in parts of Texas, like in many other growing cities in the United States, areas are dealing with a water scarcity issue due to increased usage, drought, climate change and population trends. Simply put, agencies have to go farther away to find that next gallon of water than they had to in the past. The result is a requirement for longer pipelines and more water resources.
First on T. Boone’s list of target cities to supply water to is Dallas. He’s currently working on a deal to build a pipeline from the Texas Panhandle to Big D. But like any potentially lucrative business venture, there are challenges however.
Building a water pipeline to Dallas would require negotiations with hundreds of inconveniently situated landowners. His only hope might be to force land owners to sell him their land . . . like through state-mandated eminent domain! That’s where Pickens’s political savvy dovetails with his inscrutable business interests. Not just anyone can exercise the right of eminent domain. According to BW, Pickens had his lobbyists exert pressure on the Texas legislature to give joint energy and water transmission lines right-of-way. To get the power of eminent domain Pickens formed his own eight-acre water district on his property and now has the power to annex land “for the common good.”
In April Pickens sent 1,100 letters out to landowners along the 250-mile corridor he wants to build on. Pickens is confident he’ll be able to get all the land he needs for about $30 million and plans to start building a $1.5 billion water pipeline with a $2 billion electrical transmission line above.
But Pickens’s lobbying powers aren’t limited to the Lone Star state. Pickens recently testified in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Pickens told Congress to expand the scope of eminent domain and right-of-way, which are currently controlled at the state level, so companies like his Mesa Wind and Water can operate across state lines.
“All I’m doing is selling surplus water,” Pickens tells Business Week.
Bill Gates, the founder and creator of Microsoft, and in many ways the father of computers worldwide is leaving the company he created on Friday. Gates founded the company 33 years ago, and he leaves it in great operating shape. He stepped back a number of years ago to pursue other work, leaving the CEO position to the current chief executive of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer.
Gates has worked mainly with the charity foundation he started with his wife Melinda for the last eight years.
