Hedge Fund Managers Petition SEC to Remove Prohibition on General Solicitation
Under current regulations, issuers of securities in private placements are restricted in how they can solicit potential investors. The Managed Funds Association has petitioned the SEC to eliminate the prohibition on general solicitation and advertising in Regulation D under the Securities Act of 1933 (“Securities Act”) for offerings or sales by private funds. In the petition the MFA points out that the regulations prohibiting general solicitation are vague, and argues that the uncertainty surrounding the vague rules is harmful to business. For an in-depth look at the petition check out Jim Hamilton’s blog.
Executive Compensation: Discovery Channel’s New CFO Gets Paid to Join and to Leave
The Discovery Channel filed their 8-K on the 9th, which details the compensation for Andrew Warren, their new CFO. Warren will be leaving his post as CFO of Liz Claiborne. It appears that Warren has done relatively well for himself as he will receive a $900,000 salary, about a million dollars in stock options, and another million dollars in restricted stock units. The executive agreement was not part of the filing so the vesting period of the restricted units is unknown as of yet. Also the vesting on Warren’s Liz Claiborne stock is being accelerated, so he looks set to make about $3 million from his Claiborne stock.
Rumor: Google, Facebook, Twitter Considering Internet Blackout to Protest SOPA
Can you imagine the Internet without Google, Facebook and Twitter? One day soon you may wake up and find that all these services are down. Time’s technology section is among those reporting rumors that Internet giants are considering “blacking out” the Internet by temporarily pulling the plug on their services as a form of protesting the SOPA and PIPA legislation currently being contemplated in congress. The coordinated disruption of service is meant to show how disastrous the SOPA legislation would be.
Regional News: Washington Governor Proposes $3.6 Billion Plan for Transportation
Governor Gregoire gave her annual state of the state speech before a joint legislature on Tuesday and outlined a $3.6 billion transportation package. The money for the transportation plan could come partially from a fee Gregoire proposed during her speech that would tax oil produced in Washington. Other potential sources of funding are an increase in the gas tax, an increase in the tax on new vehicles purchased in the state, and an increase on fees for car tabs. The transportation package would bolster the state’s infrastructure and create 5,500 jobs annually for 10 years.
The Future of Technology: Koomey’s Law
Okay, so this is a different sort of law, but Koomey’s Law, a new descriptive formulation, was so interesting to me that I thought it deserved a brief mention. Koomey’s law states that the amount of power needed to perform a computing task will fall by half every one and a half years. There are a number of takeaways from this: (1) in the future you won’t have to charge your mobile devices as frequently; (2) engineers can design projects taking this into account, allowing for greater design options; and (3) the curve of power efficiency of computing will help minimize our carbon footprint. The science behind such predictive laws has proven to be a good predictor in the past as Moore’s law, by Intel’s Gorden Moore, predicted back in 1965 that the amount of transistors that can be placed on a microchip doubles every two years. Moore’s law is still relied upon today.
