Post by Sapphire Capital on Jul 22, 2008 1:44:08 GMT 4
Jul 21, 2008 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) --
BUYINS.NET, www.buyins.net, announced today that responding to the growing need for short sale compliance tools, a group led by former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt is creating a new electronic surveillance system to help brokers and hedge funds comply with new short selling requirements. The company is RegSHO.com and the new technology-based compliance platform can be found at www.regsho.com. A partial list of the securities currently affected by an SEC emergency order on naked short selling is: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH), Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER), Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: MFG), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), UBS AG (NYSE: UBS).
On July 15, 2008, The Securities and Exchange Commission issued an emergency order, www.sec.gov/rules/other/2008/34-58166.pdf to enhance investor protections against "naked" short selling in the securities of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and primary dealers at commercial and investment banks.
The SEC's order will require that anyone effecting a short sale in these securities arrange beforehand to borrow the securities and deliver them at settlement. The order will take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday, July 21. In addition to this emergency order, the SEC will undertake a rulemaking to address these issues across the entire market.
"The SEC's mission to protect investors, maintain orderly markets, and promote capital formation is more important now than it has ever been," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox." The Commission's action aims to stop unlawful manipulation through 'naked' short selling that threatens the stability of financial institutions.
The SEC's order will require that anyone, other than Market Makers, effecting a short sale in these securities, be required to Pre-Borrow shares, prior to executing a Short Sale. In Response to this specific mandate that market participants Pre-Borrow shares, RegSHO.com announces today the introduction of the "LocateLock" product. Developed jointly with Locatestock.com the LocateLock offers hedge funds and traders instantaneous, real-time, electronic, hard to borrow liquidity, to ensure that they are not Naked Short. The "LocateLock" product creates an electronic record with all the critical data required to meet the mandate of the Emergency Ruling.
RegSHO.com aims to help enforce SEC rules against "naked shorting" - an illegal version of short selling where traders sell shares without first borrowing them. Short sellers try to profit on a stock's decline. Short sellers borrow shares from others in order to meet their delivery requirements. Eventually they buy shares back and return the shares that they borrowed.
RegSHO.com will allow traders to locate shares in illiquid, hard-to-borrow stocks, provide enhanced tools to assure short sale compliance and publish real-time availability of borrowed shares. It also will offer needed assistance to mid-sized brokerage firms that allow retail investors to earn income by lending their shares.
"Short selling helps create market liquidity, and offsets irrational exuberance in our securities markets," said Pitt, CEO of Kalorama Partners, LLC. "But naked short sales hurt companies and investors. RegSHO.com is aimed at promoting the beneficial role of short selling, while curbing abuses."
Pitt noted that current SEC Chairman Christopher Cox recently called for technological solutions to "abusive naked short selling."
Pitt's firm, Kalorama Partners, has teamed with John Tabacco Jr., CEO of Locatestock.com, an electronic marketplace for borrowing and lending shares, and Tom Ronk, CEO of Buyins.net, a company whose software identifies the demand for borrowed shares.
"Recent SEC efforts to close loopholes in antiquated short-selling rules will increase the demand for hard-to-borrow stocks," Tabacco said, "making RegSHO.com the right product at the right time."
The nation's 5,200 brokerage firms need a securities-lending program. There are over $700 billion equities on loan in the U.S. and the appetite to borrow keeps growing as hedge fund assets grow. RegSHO.com hopes its automated platform will help brokerage firms as competition to borrow stocks heats up.
Once the new SEC rule changes take effect, short positions previously grandfathered from compliance must be closed out within 35 days, pushing brokers and hedge funds to lock up borrows before they enter into transactions-known as a locate.
"Delivery failures, often a sign of naked short selling, continue for about 53% of hard-to-borrow stocks," Ronk said, citing SEC statistics. "RegSHO.com should help address the growing need for transparency and liquidity in the short sale market place.
Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. through its subsidiaries, provides various financial services to corporations, governments and municipalities, institutions, and high-net-worth individuals worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Capital Markets, Investment Banking, and Investment Management. The Capital Markets segment represents institutional customer flow activities, including secondary trading, financing, mortgage origination and securitization, prime brokerage, and research activities in fixed income and equity products. These products include a range of cash, derivative, secured financing, and structured instruments and investments. It also offers equity and fixed income products, including U.S., European, and Asian equities; government and agency securities; money market products; corporate high grade securities; high yield and emerging market securities; mortgage- and asset-backed securities; preferred stock; municipal securities; bank loans; foreign exchange; and financing and derivative products. In addition, this segment invests in real estate, private equity, and other long-term investments. The Investment Banking segment provides advice to corporate, institutional, and government clients on mergers, acquisitions, and other financial matters. It also raises capital for clients by underwriting public and private offerings of debt and equity instruments. The Investment Management segment consists of private investment management, which provides investment, wealth advisory, and capital markets execution services to high net worth and middle market institutional clients; and asset management that provide customized investment management services for high net worth clients, mutual funds, and other small and middle market institutional investors. Lehman Brothers Holdings was founded in 1850 and is headquartered in New York, New York with regional headquarters in London, the United Kingdom and Tokyo, Japan.
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. together with its subsidiaries, provides investment, financing, insurance, and related services to individuals and institutions worldwide. Its Global Markets and Investment Banking segment offers various global market services, which facilitate client transactions and markets in securities, derivatives, currencies, commodities, and other financial instruments for clients; provides financing, securities clearing, settlement, and custody services; and engages in principal and private equity investing and proprietary trading activities. This segment also provides a range of investment banking services, such as securities origination services for issuer clients, including underwriting and placement of public and private equity, debt, and related securities, as well as lending and other financing activities; and advises clients on strategic issues, valuation, mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings. It primarily serves corporations, financial institutions, institutional investors, and governments. The company's Global Wealth Management segment offers global private client services primarily delivered by its financial advisors; commission and fee-based investment accounts; and banking, cash management, and credit services, including consumer and small business lending and visa cards. This segment also provides trust and generational planning, retirement services, and insurance products. In addition, it offers global investment management services, which creates and manages hedge funds and other alternative investment products for various clients. This segment serves clients, such as individuals, small- to mid-size businesses, and employee benefit plans. Further, Merrill Lynch & Co. provides research services focusing on fundamental equity research, fixed income and equity-linked research, economics and foreign exchange research, and investment strategy research. The company was founded in 1820 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. through its subsidiary banks, provides various financial services, including banking, securities, and trust and asset management services in Japan and internationally. The company offers commercial banking services, foreign exchange transaction services, advisory services, capital markets financing services, syndicated loan services, and leverage and structure finance services. It also provides securities and investment banking services, such as underwriting and trading of bonds and equities. In addition, Mizuho Financial Group offers banking products and services, including housing and personal loans, credit cards, deposits, investment products, and consulting services, as well as offer products and services related to private banking, and trust and custody services. It offers its products and services primarily to individuals, small and medium sized enterprises, financial institutions, public sector entities, middle-market corporations, Japanese corporations, and foreign corporations. As of March 31, 2007, the company had 378 branches throughout Japan. Mizuho Financial Group is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
Morgan Stanley through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides various financial products and services to corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Institutional Securities, Global Wealth Management Group, and Asset Management. The Institutional Securities segment engages in various activities, including capital raising; provision of financial advisory services principally on mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense strategies, joint ventures, privatizations, recapitalizations, spin-offs, corporate restructurings, shareholder relations, tender offers, exchange offers, and leveraged buyouts; corporate lending; sales, trading, financing, and market-making activities on securities and futures exchanges; equity and proprietary trading; benchmark indices and risk management; research; and investment. The Global Wealth Management Group provides brokerage and investment advisory services covering various investment alternatives; financial and wealth planning services; annuity and insurance products; credit and other lending products; banking and cash management services; retirement services; and trust and fiduciary services. The Asset Management segment provides asset management products and services in equity, fixed income, and alternative investments, which include hedge funds, fund of funds, real estate, private equity, and infrastructure to institutional and retail clients through proprietary and third party retail distribution channels, intermediaries, and the company's institutional distribution channel. This segment also engages in investment activities. Morgan Stanley has a strategic alliance with Avenue Capital Group. The company was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
UBS AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of financial products and services worldwide. The company's wealth management and business banking operations include the provision of a range of products and services for high net worth and affluent individuals. These services range from asset management to estate planning and from corporate finance to art banking. Its retail and corporate banking business provides a set of banking and securities services for individual and corporate clients in Switzerland. UBS' asset management business includes the provision of traditional and alternative, and real estate investment solutions to private, institutional, and corporate clients. Its investment banking and securities businesses offer a range of securities products and services to corporate and institutional clients, governments, financial intermediaries, and alternative asset managers. These services include advice and execution, as well as working with financial sponsors and hedge funds, and serving private investors through the company's wealth management business and other private banks; distributing, trading, financing, and clearing cash equity and equity-linked products, as well as structuring, originating, and distributing new equity and equity-linked issues; and providing research on companies, industry sectors, and geographical markets. The company's investment banking operations also comprise researching in equities, fixed income, rates, foreign exchange, energy, and metals; and providing a range of advisory and execution services to corporations, financial sponsors, and hedge funds in various aspects of a transaction, including negotiations, structuring, coordination of due diligence processes, company valuations, and drafting of internal and external communications materials. In addition, UBS offers retail banking products and services. The company was founded in 1862 and is based in Zurich, Switzerland.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
MEDIA CONTACT: Thor Valdmanis The Dilenschneider Group Work (212) 922 0900 Cell (917) 774 5471 Email tvaldmanis@dgi-nyc.com
BROKERS AND HEDGE FUNDS CONTACT: RegSHO.com's toll free number: 866 943 7625
ABOUT KALORAMA PARTNERS: Kalorama Partners is a strategic consulting firm founded in 2003 by Harvey Pitt, the 26th Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Kalorama offers a unique combination of pragmatic business, regulatory, accounting and economic expertise to assist global businesses in forming and implementing their strategies.
ABOUT LOCATESTOCK.COM: LocateStock.com, the premier electronic securities lending company, provides real time, hard to borrow liquidity and market data, to hedge funds and professional traders seeking short sale transparency and liquidity. The LocateStock.com suite of products includes two proprietary software platforms, "The Matador" and "The New York Short Sale Exchange Trader." Both electronic platforms provide transparency, liquidity and price discovery, allowing previously underserved traders access to a wide array of U.S. domestic securities, in a fully compliant environment meeting all the requirements of Regulation SHO. Today, Locatestock.com has over 85 hedge fund and broker dealer clients and over 2,300 registered end users.
ABOUT BUYINS.NET: Buyins.net is a service designed to help brokerage firms, institutional investors, management and shareholders of publicly traded US companies respond to naked short selling. The service has built a proprietary database that uses Threshold List feeds from NASDAQ, AMEX and NYSE. For the first time, actual trade by trade data is available to the public that shows the size, price and dollar value of short sales in stocks that have been legally shorted, as well as, naked shorted. The Buyins.net database collects, analyzes and publishes a proprietary volume weighted average short price for each stock that has been shorted, including nearly 2 billion short sale transactions going back to January 1, 2005 when the data was first available.
CONTACT: Thomas Ronk, CEO, BUYINS.NET Tel: +1 800 715 9999 e-mail: Tom@buyins.net WWW: www.buyins.net
BUYINS.NET, www.buyins.net, announced today that responding to the growing need for short sale compliance tools, a group led by former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt is creating a new electronic surveillance system to help brokers and hedge funds comply with new short selling requirements. The company is RegSHO.com and the new technology-based compliance platform can be found at www.regsho.com. A partial list of the securities currently affected by an SEC emergency order on naked short selling is: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH), Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER), Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: MFG), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), UBS AG (NYSE: UBS).
On July 15, 2008, The Securities and Exchange Commission issued an emergency order, www.sec.gov/rules/other/2008/34-58166.pdf to enhance investor protections against "naked" short selling in the securities of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and primary dealers at commercial and investment banks.
The SEC's order will require that anyone effecting a short sale in these securities arrange beforehand to borrow the securities and deliver them at settlement. The order will take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday, July 21. In addition to this emergency order, the SEC will undertake a rulemaking to address these issues across the entire market.
"The SEC's mission to protect investors, maintain orderly markets, and promote capital formation is more important now than it has ever been," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox." The Commission's action aims to stop unlawful manipulation through 'naked' short selling that threatens the stability of financial institutions.
The SEC's order will require that anyone, other than Market Makers, effecting a short sale in these securities, be required to Pre-Borrow shares, prior to executing a Short Sale. In Response to this specific mandate that market participants Pre-Borrow shares, RegSHO.com announces today the introduction of the "LocateLock" product. Developed jointly with Locatestock.com the LocateLock offers hedge funds and traders instantaneous, real-time, electronic, hard to borrow liquidity, to ensure that they are not Naked Short. The "LocateLock" product creates an electronic record with all the critical data required to meet the mandate of the Emergency Ruling.
RegSHO.com aims to help enforce SEC rules against "naked shorting" - an illegal version of short selling where traders sell shares without first borrowing them. Short sellers try to profit on a stock's decline. Short sellers borrow shares from others in order to meet their delivery requirements. Eventually they buy shares back and return the shares that they borrowed.
RegSHO.com will allow traders to locate shares in illiquid, hard-to-borrow stocks, provide enhanced tools to assure short sale compliance and publish real-time availability of borrowed shares. It also will offer needed assistance to mid-sized brokerage firms that allow retail investors to earn income by lending their shares.
"Short selling helps create market liquidity, and offsets irrational exuberance in our securities markets," said Pitt, CEO of Kalorama Partners, LLC. "But naked short sales hurt companies and investors. RegSHO.com is aimed at promoting the beneficial role of short selling, while curbing abuses."
Pitt noted that current SEC Chairman Christopher Cox recently called for technological solutions to "abusive naked short selling."
Pitt's firm, Kalorama Partners, has teamed with John Tabacco Jr., CEO of Locatestock.com, an electronic marketplace for borrowing and lending shares, and Tom Ronk, CEO of Buyins.net, a company whose software identifies the demand for borrowed shares.
"Recent SEC efforts to close loopholes in antiquated short-selling rules will increase the demand for hard-to-borrow stocks," Tabacco said, "making RegSHO.com the right product at the right time."
The nation's 5,200 brokerage firms need a securities-lending program. There are over $700 billion equities on loan in the U.S. and the appetite to borrow keeps growing as hedge fund assets grow. RegSHO.com hopes its automated platform will help brokerage firms as competition to borrow stocks heats up.
Once the new SEC rule changes take effect, short positions previously grandfathered from compliance must be closed out within 35 days, pushing brokers and hedge funds to lock up borrows before they enter into transactions-known as a locate.
"Delivery failures, often a sign of naked short selling, continue for about 53% of hard-to-borrow stocks," Ronk said, citing SEC statistics. "RegSHO.com should help address the growing need for transparency and liquidity in the short sale market place.
Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. through its subsidiaries, provides various financial services to corporations, governments and municipalities, institutions, and high-net-worth individuals worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Capital Markets, Investment Banking, and Investment Management. The Capital Markets segment represents institutional customer flow activities, including secondary trading, financing, mortgage origination and securitization, prime brokerage, and research activities in fixed income and equity products. These products include a range of cash, derivative, secured financing, and structured instruments and investments. It also offers equity and fixed income products, including U.S., European, and Asian equities; government and agency securities; money market products; corporate high grade securities; high yield and emerging market securities; mortgage- and asset-backed securities; preferred stock; municipal securities; bank loans; foreign exchange; and financing and derivative products. In addition, this segment invests in real estate, private equity, and other long-term investments. The Investment Banking segment provides advice to corporate, institutional, and government clients on mergers, acquisitions, and other financial matters. It also raises capital for clients by underwriting public and private offerings of debt and equity instruments. The Investment Management segment consists of private investment management, which provides investment, wealth advisory, and capital markets execution services to high net worth and middle market institutional clients; and asset management that provide customized investment management services for high net worth clients, mutual funds, and other small and middle market institutional investors. Lehman Brothers Holdings was founded in 1850 and is headquartered in New York, New York with regional headquarters in London, the United Kingdom and Tokyo, Japan.
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. together with its subsidiaries, provides investment, financing, insurance, and related services to individuals and institutions worldwide. Its Global Markets and Investment Banking segment offers various global market services, which facilitate client transactions and markets in securities, derivatives, currencies, commodities, and other financial instruments for clients; provides financing, securities clearing, settlement, and custody services; and engages in principal and private equity investing and proprietary trading activities. This segment also provides a range of investment banking services, such as securities origination services for issuer clients, including underwriting and placement of public and private equity, debt, and related securities, as well as lending and other financing activities; and advises clients on strategic issues, valuation, mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings. It primarily serves corporations, financial institutions, institutional investors, and governments. The company's Global Wealth Management segment offers global private client services primarily delivered by its financial advisors; commission and fee-based investment accounts; and banking, cash management, and credit services, including consumer and small business lending and visa cards. This segment also provides trust and generational planning, retirement services, and insurance products. In addition, it offers global investment management services, which creates and manages hedge funds and other alternative investment products for various clients. This segment serves clients, such as individuals, small- to mid-size businesses, and employee benefit plans. Further, Merrill Lynch & Co. provides research services focusing on fundamental equity research, fixed income and equity-linked research, economics and foreign exchange research, and investment strategy research. The company was founded in 1820 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. through its subsidiary banks, provides various financial services, including banking, securities, and trust and asset management services in Japan and internationally. The company offers commercial banking services, foreign exchange transaction services, advisory services, capital markets financing services, syndicated loan services, and leverage and structure finance services. It also provides securities and investment banking services, such as underwriting and trading of bonds and equities. In addition, Mizuho Financial Group offers banking products and services, including housing and personal loans, credit cards, deposits, investment products, and consulting services, as well as offer products and services related to private banking, and trust and custody services. It offers its products and services primarily to individuals, small and medium sized enterprises, financial institutions, public sector entities, middle-market corporations, Japanese corporations, and foreign corporations. As of March 31, 2007, the company had 378 branches throughout Japan. Mizuho Financial Group is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
Morgan Stanley through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides various financial products and services to corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Institutional Securities, Global Wealth Management Group, and Asset Management. The Institutional Securities segment engages in various activities, including capital raising; provision of financial advisory services principally on mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense strategies, joint ventures, privatizations, recapitalizations, spin-offs, corporate restructurings, shareholder relations, tender offers, exchange offers, and leveraged buyouts; corporate lending; sales, trading, financing, and market-making activities on securities and futures exchanges; equity and proprietary trading; benchmark indices and risk management; research; and investment. The Global Wealth Management Group provides brokerage and investment advisory services covering various investment alternatives; financial and wealth planning services; annuity and insurance products; credit and other lending products; banking and cash management services; retirement services; and trust and fiduciary services. The Asset Management segment provides asset management products and services in equity, fixed income, and alternative investments, which include hedge funds, fund of funds, real estate, private equity, and infrastructure to institutional and retail clients through proprietary and third party retail distribution channels, intermediaries, and the company's institutional distribution channel. This segment also engages in investment activities. Morgan Stanley has a strategic alliance with Avenue Capital Group. The company was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
UBS AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of financial products and services worldwide. The company's wealth management and business banking operations include the provision of a range of products and services for high net worth and affluent individuals. These services range from asset management to estate planning and from corporate finance to art banking. Its retail and corporate banking business provides a set of banking and securities services for individual and corporate clients in Switzerland. UBS' asset management business includes the provision of traditional and alternative, and real estate investment solutions to private, institutional, and corporate clients. Its investment banking and securities businesses offer a range of securities products and services to corporate and institutional clients, governments, financial intermediaries, and alternative asset managers. These services include advice and execution, as well as working with financial sponsors and hedge funds, and serving private investors through the company's wealth management business and other private banks; distributing, trading, financing, and clearing cash equity and equity-linked products, as well as structuring, originating, and distributing new equity and equity-linked issues; and providing research on companies, industry sectors, and geographical markets. The company's investment banking operations also comprise researching in equities, fixed income, rates, foreign exchange, energy, and metals; and providing a range of advisory and execution services to corporations, financial sponsors, and hedge funds in various aspects of a transaction, including negotiations, structuring, coordination of due diligence processes, company valuations, and drafting of internal and external communications materials. In addition, UBS offers retail banking products and services. The company was founded in 1862 and is based in Zurich, Switzerland.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
MEDIA CONTACT: Thor Valdmanis The Dilenschneider Group Work (212) 922 0900 Cell (917) 774 5471 Email tvaldmanis@dgi-nyc.com
BROKERS AND HEDGE FUNDS CONTACT: RegSHO.com's toll free number: 866 943 7625
ABOUT KALORAMA PARTNERS: Kalorama Partners is a strategic consulting firm founded in 2003 by Harvey Pitt, the 26th Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Kalorama offers a unique combination of pragmatic business, regulatory, accounting and economic expertise to assist global businesses in forming and implementing their strategies.
ABOUT LOCATESTOCK.COM: LocateStock.com, the premier electronic securities lending company, provides real time, hard to borrow liquidity and market data, to hedge funds and professional traders seeking short sale transparency and liquidity. The LocateStock.com suite of products includes two proprietary software platforms, "The Matador" and "The New York Short Sale Exchange Trader." Both electronic platforms provide transparency, liquidity and price discovery, allowing previously underserved traders access to a wide array of U.S. domestic securities, in a fully compliant environment meeting all the requirements of Regulation SHO. Today, Locatestock.com has over 85 hedge fund and broker dealer clients and over 2,300 registered end users.
ABOUT BUYINS.NET: Buyins.net is a service designed to help brokerage firms, institutional investors, management and shareholders of publicly traded US companies respond to naked short selling. The service has built a proprietary database that uses Threshold List feeds from NASDAQ, AMEX and NYSE. For the first time, actual trade by trade data is available to the public that shows the size, price and dollar value of short sales in stocks that have been legally shorted, as well as, naked shorted. The Buyins.net database collects, analyzes and publishes a proprietary volume weighted average short price for each stock that has been shorted, including nearly 2 billion short sale transactions going back to January 1, 2005 when the data was first available.
CONTACT: Thomas Ronk, CEO, BUYINS.NET Tel: +1 800 715 9999 e-mail: Tom@buyins.net WWW: www.buyins.net