Pepsi President John Compton Quits, Zein Abdalla To Succeed/Marketwatch – Wallace Wirtkowski: “PepsiCo. said late Tuesday its current president, John Compton, is leaving the company to head Pilot Flying J Oil Corp. in Knoxville, Tenn. PepsiCo Europe CEO Zein Abdalla succeeds Compton as PepsiCo. president and will now be based in Purchase, N.Y., the company said. PepsiCo executive Enderson Guimaraes will succeed Abdalla as CEO of PepsiCo Europe.”
Ex-Penney executive to join Gap as marketing adviser/Reuters: “Michael Francis, who left J.C. Penney in June, will join Gap Inc as a marketing adviser, the clothing company said on Tuesday. Francis had been with J.C. Penney only eight and a half months before stepping down. Before that, he was with Target Corp working in marketing and merchandising, similar to his role at Target.”
Moody’s Analyst: The Clock Starts Now On Uncle Sam/Geoffrey Rogow: “When the lead U.S. analyst for Moody’s looks at the U.S. debt position this time next year, he better see a meaningful plan or the country is likely to lose its pristine AAA rating.”
Ford's Likely CEO Pick: Fields/WSJ – Mike Ramsey & Joann Lublin: “The directors of Ford Motor Co. meet on Thursday and are expected to discuss one of the most pressing issues facing the auto maker—the retirement of Chief Executive Alan Mulally. The board frequently discusses succession, but in recent months some members have concluded that the company needs to go public with its plan, both to reassure shareholders and to provide promotion opportunities for executives who now report to Mr. Mulally, people familiar with the company's thinking said. The most likely outcome is that Mark Fields, 51 years old and president of Ford's operations in North and South America, will succeed Mr. Mulally, 67, with an overlap period where Mr. Mulally remains at the company and Mr. Fields takes on additional responsibilities, these people said.”
US Treasury Expects $15.1 Billion Profit From AIG Bailout/Reuters: “The U.S. Treasury further reduced its stake in American International Group and said on Tuesday that the United States would now profit $15.1 billion from bailing out the insurer. The underwriters to the Treasury Department's $18 billion AIG stock sale are expected to buy another $2.7 billion worth of the company's shares, boosting the returns on the U.S. government's investment. Combined, the sales reduce the Treasury's stake in AIG to 15.9 percent from 53.4 percent. The Treasury will be left with about 234.2 million shares in AIG when the offering closes."
Peregrine CEO Signs Plea Deal/WSJ: “The founder of an Iowa brokerage has signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in which he admits to carrying out a $200 million fraud and embezzlement scheme that bankrupted his company, prosecutors said Tuesday. Prosecutors said the agreement calls for Mr. Wasendorf, the chief executive of Peregrine Financial Group Inc., to be sentenced to up to 50 years in prison. He had pleaded not guilty last month to 31 charges of lying to regulators about customer funds entrusted to Peregrine.”
Steve Wynn Statement on Joe Francis: Joe Francis represents a new kind of criminal type: the digital assassin. He takes advantage of the protection afforded by the internet to issue intentionally destructive charges against someone’s reputation, knowing full well that in the age of the internet those statements will live forever. His actions present a new challenge to society created by technology and the instantaneous news cycle. The inflammatory information goes up instantly and stays forever, unchallenged and unproven, to the misery and detriment of any citizen that is a victim. The only remedy is a long road, an expensive road, to a trial before 12 fellow citizens. Most citizens don’t have the time or the resources to defend themselves and find the truth in a courtroom before a jury of their peers. In this case, with this unbelievably reckless human being, Joe Francis, I am a surrogate, a stand in, for all the people with any reputation or in any business, or even just a private citizen, who can be wildly attacked. Thank God for the justice system that finally sent a message: if you think you’re taking a cheap shot, it may be a lot more expensive than you had imagined. Therefore, think before you post; think before you speak; hesitate before you start to destroy someone’s character. There may be a day of reckoning.
What the Zuck
Facebook CEO: Stock Performance Has Been Disappointing
Facebook CEO: We're Going to Make More Money on mobile than on desktop
Facebook CEO: We're a mission-driven company
Facebook CEO: Must build a great team that has a mission
Facebook CEO: Building a Mission and Building a Company go Hand-in-Hand
Facebook CEO: Stock Volatility Not First Time Company has Been Scrutinized
Facebook CEO: optimistic on monetization of mobile
Facebook CEO: Mobile Ads have to be more integrated
Facebook CEO: Biggest mistake was betting too much on HTML 5
Facebook CEO: Instagram has an amazing product
Facebook CEO: Our instagram mission is to help them gain more users
Facebook CEO: Building a Facebook Phone Is a Wrong Strategy for Us
Facebook CEO: I Basically Live on My Mobile Device
Facebook CEO: I Wrote My Letter in S-1 Filing on My Phone
Facebook CEO: We See a Big Opportunity in Search
Facebook CEO: Have a team of people working on search features
Facebook CEO: Zynga is fundamentally a strong company
Facebook CEO: Would rather Have People Underestimating Us
Facebook CEO: I believe a bunch of people are underestimating us now
Zuckerberg: Facebook Will Make More Money on Mobile Than Desktop/CNBC – Cadie Thompson: “Facebook is a mobile company and it will make more money from its mobile platform than from its desktop website in the long-term, Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday at a TechCrunch conference in San Francisco.”
'I Think He Did Great': Blodget - “Mark Zuckerberg said a lot of things on Tuesday but according to top Wall Street personality Henry Blodget, only a handful of his comments matter to pros. In order to capture Wall Street's attention, ”He needed to tell the story of what Facebook could become and I think he did that,” says Blodget. … “He acknowledged that he’s disappointed in the stock’s decline. He said look, we care about shareholders." That’s something shareholders want to hear, explains Blodget. That could have a positive impact on sentiment.”
Zuckerberg admits Facebook wasted two years/FT - April Dembosky: “Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook chief executive, admitted the social networking company had “burned two years” betting on the wrong mobile technology, in his first public comments since the company’s poor stock market debut in May. Mr Zuckerberg said one of the company’s “biggest mistakes” was its bet on mobile web-based technology, when it should have built directly on the Apple and the Google smartphone platforms.”
Facebook CEO Acknowledges Missteps/WSJ: Geoffrey Fowler: “Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook Inc.'s future is on mobile phones—but not on ones made by the social network. … Mr. Zuckerberg also dismissed the idea that Facebook—like rival Google Inc. and others—should offer its own smartphones. In the half-hour onstage interview at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference here, he said a mobile phone is "so clearly the wrong strategy for us" in response to repeated questions from TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington.”
Below - Mark Zuckerberg Spoke for 32 minutes at TechCrunch Today. How many time did he say the word “mobile”?
a. 10
b. 18
c. 26
d. 34
Correct answer is D – 34. Calculation by Eli Langer - @ElifromBrooklyn
Economic Data
830 Aug Import Prices
1000 Jul Wholesale Inventories
1300 10-Yr Note Auction
Earnings
After the Bell:
Pall Corp.
Key Guests
Julian Callow, Barclays Chief International Economist (630a)
Steve Case, The Case Foundation Chairman (700a)
Richard Kovacevich, Former Wells Fargo CEO (700a)
Eric Jackson, Ironfire Capital Founder (1000a)
Stephen Joyce, Choice Hotels CEO (1000a)
Dara Khosrowshahi, Expedia CEO (1030a)
Matt MacInnis, Inkling CEO (1100a)
Michael Kors, Designer (1100a)
Joachim Fels, Morgan Stanley Senior Economist (1230p)
Peter Kafka, All Things Digital Senior Editor (100p)
Andrew Puzder, CKE Restaurants CEO (410p)
Dennis Strigl, Former Verizon Communications President (415p)
Martin Feldstein, Harvard University (430p)
Whitney Tilson, T2 Partners Managing Partner (500p)
Divya Narendra, Sum Zero CEO (500p)
Jonathan Geller, Boy Genuis Report (500p)
Frederic Mishkin, Columbia University (700p)
Mark Olson, Treliant Risk Advisors Co-Chairman (700p)
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