Hedge fund legend Leon Cooperman charged with insider trading

• Rachael Levy
 

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Leon Cooperman, CEO of Omega Advisors. Thomson Reuters

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors with insider trading.

The trading involves Atlas Pipeline Partners, according to the SEC complaint.

Cooperman is a hedge fund industry legend and manages Omega, an iconic New York fund with about $5.5 billion in assets.

Here's what the SEC's charges are:

• Cooperman used his status as one of Atlas' largest shareholders to "gain access to the executive and obtain confidential details about the sale of this substantial company asset."
• He and Omega Advisors bought Atlas shares despite explicitly agreeing not to use the information for trading purposes. When Atlas publicly announced the asset sale, its stock price jumped more than 31%.
• Cooperman tried to cover his tracks, contacting the executive "to fabricate a story to tell if questioned about this trading activity."

Earlier this year, following notice that Omega was under investigation, Cooperman said he didn't believe his firm had violated any securities laws.

"In short, I don't believe the government investigations will have a meaningful impact on our ability to serve you," Cooperman said during a call with investors in March. "Were I to reach a contrary conclusion, I'd close up shop and give you back your money." He said at the time he had no plans to do so.

Cooperman is considered a legend in the hedge fund industry and has a rags-to-riches story, growing up in the Bronx as the son of a plumber. Today he is worth $3.1 billion, according to Forbes.

Cooperman wrote a letter to investors on Wednesday, defending himself and saying he had not engaged in improper conduct.

CNBC reports that the SEC reached out to Cooperman for a settlement but he turned it down.

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Dominic Chu 

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Per @ScottWapnerCNBC, Leon Cooperman says the SEC offered a settlement to him & Omega Advisors, but he turned it down

8:12 AM - 21 Sep 2016

 
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Here is the SEC's statement:

"The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged hedge fund manager Leon G. Cooperman and his firm Omega Advisors with insider trading based on material nonpublic information he learned in confidence from a corporate executive.

"The SEC alleges that Cooperman generated substantial illicit profits by purchasing securities in Atlas Pipeline Partners (APL) in advance of the sale of its natural gas processing facility in Elk City, Oklahoma. Cooperman allegedly used his status as one of APL's largest shareholders to gain access to the executive and obtain confidential details about the sale of this substantial company asset. Cooperman and Omega Advisors allegedly accumulated APL securities despite explicitly agreeing not to use the material nonpublic information for trading purposes, and when APL publicly announced the asset sale its stock price jumped more than 31 percent.

"According to the SEC's complaint, when Omega Advisors received a subpoena nearly a year-and-half later about its trading in APL securities, Cooperman contacted the executive and tried to fabricate a story to tell if questioned about this trading activity. The executive was shocked and angered when he learned that Cooperman traded in advance of the public announcement.

"'We allege that hedge fund manager Cooperman, who as a large APL shareholder obtained access to confidential corporate information, abused that access by trading on this information,' said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement. 'By doing so, he allegedly undermined the public confidence in the securities markets and took advantage of other investors who did not have this information.'

"The SEC's complaint further charges Cooperman with failing to timely report information about holdings and transactions in securities of publicly-traded companies that he beneficially owned, alleging that he violated federal securities laws more than 40 times in this regard.

"The SEC's complaint was filed in federal district court in Philadelphia and seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest, penalties, and permanent injunctions against Cooperman and Omega Advisors as well as an officer-and-director bar against Cooperman.

"The SEC's investigation was conducted by Brendan P. McGlynn, Oreste P. McClung, Patrick A. McCluskey, and Polly A. Hayes of the Philadelphia Regional Office, and supervised by G. Jeffrey Boujoukos. The litigation will be led by David L. Axelrod and Mark R. Sylvester. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority."

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Yahoo is getting ready to confirm a historic hack affecting 200 million users

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Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.Getty/Kimberly White

Yahoo  $44.76

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Disclaimer

Yahoo is getting ready to confirm a huge, historic hack affecting 200 million users, Recode reports.

Back in August, Motherboard's Joseph Cox reported that 200 million apparent Yahoo user credentials were being sold on the dark web. At the time, the company's response was only that it was "aware of [the] claim."

But now Kara Swisher, one of the tech industry's most respected journalists, is reporting for Recode that Yahoo sources tell her the company is preparing to publicly confirm the hack. (Her sources did not confirm its exact size, only that it was "widespread and serious.")

Yahoo did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Motherboard was told by the hacker who held the data (and was selling it for 3 bitcoins, worth $1,860 at the time) that the breach was carried out in 2012 — and was never made public. Data included usernames, encrypted passwords, date-of-births, and some email addresses.

A spate of historic data breaches affecting millions of users have recently been coming to light, affecting companies including LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tumblr. If user passwords are unencrypted (or not encrypted properly), hackers can then use this login data to break into individual user accounts — and often, because people reuse passwords across multiple sites, the hackers can use the information to break into accounts on other sites as well.

We saw multiple high-profile demonstrations of this problem this summer, as celebrities and public figures including Mark Zuckerberg and Drake had their Twitter accounts broken into. Twitter wasn't hacked — but the victims had reused passwords that were also used on hacked websites.

This new attention on the alleged breach comes at an awkward time for Yahoo. The tech company is selling its core business to Verizon for $4.8 billion (£3.7 billion) after years of flagging fortunes.

There's nothing ordinary users can do to prevent these kinds of breaches, but using a strong, unique password on each website or service you have an account on (managing those passwords with a password-manager app if necessary) will help limit the damage.

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UnitedHealth trims drug coverage, including Sanofi insulin

A packet of diabetes drug Lantus SoloStar passes along the production line at a manufacturing site of French drugmaker Sanofi in Frankfurt June 5, 2013. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N), the largest U.S. health insurer, will stop covering several brand-name drugs as of next year, reinforcing a trend of payers steering prescriptions to lower-priced options.

In a bulletin seeking client feedback by Sept. 28, UnitedHealth said it is changing reimbursement terms for long-acting insulins and will no longer cover Lantus, the main insulin drug sold by Sanofi (SASY.PA).

The insurer said Basaglar, a cheaper biosimilar insulin sold by Eli Lilly (LLY.N) would be covered as "Tier 1," meaning the lowest out-of-pocket costs for members. Levemir, produced by Novo Nordisk (NOVOb.CO), will move from Tier 1 to Tier 2.

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CVS Health (CVS.N) made a similar move last month to drop Lantus in favor of Lilly's new biosimilar.

Analysts at Jefferies said the sales impact of the United exclusion should be less than that from the CVS move, because the United plan covers around 15 million people while CVS covers 19 million.

Sanofi shares fell more than 1 percent on Thursday after the news but had recovered by 1200 GMT, while Novo was down 1.3 percent.

Sanofi reaffirmed its sales expectations despite the latest exclusion. A spokeswoman said the company was still targeting a decline in diabetes drug sales of 4 to 8 percent a year until 2018.

"We are disappointed with the decision. For Sanofi, it is a pity not to leave doctors a choice," she said. "We had anticipated this kind of decision but we are holding discussions with other organisations in the United States to have them keep Lantus on their lists."

Biosimilars are cheaper copies of protein-based biotech drugs such as Lantus, which are no longer protected by patents. They cannot be precisely replicated like conventional chemical drugs but have been shown to be equivalent in terms of efficacy and side effects.

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United also said it will exclude from coverage Amgen's (AMGN.O) white blood cell-boosting drug Neupogen, in favor of Zarxio, a biosimilar sold by Novartis (NOVN.S).

UnitedHealth last year bought Catamaran for $12.8 billion, making it the nation's No. 3 pharmacy benefit manager after Express Scripts Holding (ESRX.O) and Caremark, which is owned by CVS.

(Reporting by Deena Beasley, Ben Hirschler and Noelle Mennella; Editing by Ruth Pitchford and Elaine Hardcastle)

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Hanjin Shipping shares rally 28 percent after Korean Air approves lending

• Reuters

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Container vessel Hanjin Rome sits in the eastern anchorage area in Singapore Thomson Reuters

SEOUL (Reuters) - Hanjin Shipping shares surged as much as 28 percent in morning trade on Thursday after the board of Korean Air Lines , its biggest shareholder, approved lending 60 billion won ($53.96 million) to the troubled container carrier.

Shares of Korean Air climbed 5 percent.

Korean Air's board decided late on Wednesday to provide the funds to help offload cargo that has been stranded on Hanjin ships, using Hanjin's accounts receivable as collateral, a spokesman for the airline said.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Paul Tait)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2016. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

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Oil extends rise after surprise U.S. crude stock draw

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A car is filled with gasoline at a gas station pump in CarlsbadThomson Reuters

By Henning Gloystein

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices extended gains from the previous session in Asian trading on Thursday after a surprise third consecutive weekly U.S. crude inventory draw tightened the market.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were trading at $45.59 per barrel at 0045 GMT, up 25 cents from their previous close. The contract had already gained as much as 3 percent the day before.

Prices jumped after the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) surprised the market with a 6.2 million barrel fall in crude oil inventories last week to 504.6 million barrels. Forecasters in a Reuters poll had expected a 3.4 million-barrel build. [EIA/S]

"Oil prices rose after EIA data showed U.S. crude inventories declined to the lowest level since February," ANZ bank said in a note on Thursday.

International benchmark Brent crude futures were also up, gaining 27 cents from their last close to $47.10 per barrel.

Brent was lifted by an oil workers' strike in Norway, which threatened to cut North Sea crude output.

A weaker dollar <.dxy> after the Federal Reserve left U.S. interest rates unchanged also supported oil prices as it makes dollar-traded fuel imports cheaper for countries using other currencies.</.dxy>

Despite recent gains, analysts said that oil prices would likely remain range-bound at relatively low levels, putting pressure on oil producers.

"In a world of continued (U.S.) shale productivity gains that cause other oil producing regions around the world to become highly focused on cost competitiveness, we believe investors and companies should prepare for an environment of range bound oil prices," Goldman Sachs said in a note to investors published late on Wednesday.

In a clear illustration of the impact on the ground of the oil industry's cost cutting and reduced exploration activity, the waters around Singapore have become the dumping ground for hundreds of drilling and offshore oil support vessels that have become surplus to requirement in the current era of cheap oil.

(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Ed Davies)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2016. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

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Wall Street banks want Theresa May to delay Brexit for as long as possible

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Banks want Britain to give them a 'long runway' to Brexit.Flickr/Peter O'Connor aka anemoneprojectors

Wall Street chiefs and US business leaders are reportedly asking Britain's prime minister Theresa May for a "long runway" to prepare for Brexit.

In other words, they want her to delay triggering Article 50, and therefore a Brexit, for as long as possible.

The Financial Times reports that at a meeting in New York earlier this week banks asked for a "long lead time" of up to two years to prepare for Brexit and a period of transition for them to adjust to the new world.

May told National Public Radio in the US, as per The Sun, that: "One of the purposes of my meeting with US investors, and that included US banks, was to hear from them what their concerns are and what their key issues are as we go forward with our negotiations.

"I hope the message they took was that I recognise the importance of financial services and the City of London as an important international financial centre."

May also signalled in that interview that Article 50, which officially begins the process of Britain leaving the European Union, would be triggered by a letter.

Once Article 50 is triggered, Britain will have a two-year window to negotiate its exit. It is unclear if this will satisfy the bank's calls for a "long runway" to prepare.

Financial institutions are concerned Britain will lose its passporting rights, which allow them to operate across the European Union using a single British licence.

The EU has said that Britain must accept free movement of people if it wants to keep passporting rights but Theresa May has signalled she is determined to curb migration, saying as much to Wall Street chiefs according to the FT.

The European Union is signalling it won't cut a special deal with the City of London if the UK leaves the European single market and banks such as JPMorgan and UBS have already warned of potential post-Brexit job losses. Deutsche Bank has also prepared a secret briefing paper looking at where banks may want to relocated to, obtained by Business Insider.

The Financial Conduct Authority revealed earlier this week that 5,500 companies in Britain with a collective revenue of £9 billion ($11.7 billion) that benefit from passporting rights.

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