Helen of Troy: Could Weakness Lure Suitors? (WSJ)
Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ:HELE) -9.79% spooked investors Wednesday morning. The consumer products company slashed its 2015 earnings guidance and admitted to weakness in its personal-care business. Shares sank more than 10% after the company’s announcement. But it may not have scared potential buyers away. …Activist investors have been circling Helen of Troy for much of this year. In February, Sachem Head Capital Management, a $1.6 billion hedge fund, urged the company to consider a sale.
Key prosecutor in SAC probe to join law firm Milbank (Reuters)
A lead prosecutor in the U.S. government’s insider trading investigation of hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors has left the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office to join the law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Antonia Apps, who helped secure a $1.2 billion criminal plea deal from Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital last year and the December conviction of SAC portfolio manager Michael Steinberg, will join Milbank as a partner, the New York firm announced Wednesday.
Cliffs Natural Resources Inc Moves Toward Asset Sales (Benzinga)
Cliffs Natural Resources Inc (NYSE:CLF) spiked Wednesday on news that it hired investment bankers to help it sell non-core assets. The Cleveland-based iron and coal-mining company will put its Appalachian coal assets and Australian iron mines on the block, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE:DB) was hired to sell the coal assets and Jefferies Group LLC to sell its Australian assets, according to the report. Insiders at Cliffs last month lost a proxy battle with hedge fund Casablanca Capital LP, which wants the company to divest everything but its core U.S. iron ore operations — five mines in Minnesota and Michigan.
Laval firm mooted to supply Tesla Motors’ gigafactory (TheSuburban)
American multimillionaire author Jim Rogers has singled out Laval-headquartered mining firm Maison Graphite as the logical choice to supply the US $5 billion gigafactory that Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) plans to build. The gigafactory will permit Tesla to ramp up its battery production and achieve its goal to sell 500,000 electric cars a year by 2020. Customers line up to buy Tesla’s Model S electric-only sports car, which Car and Driver named car-of-the-year, and there’s already a long waiting list for its yet-to-be-released Model X electric sport utility vehicle (see our hedge fund investor letters group).
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