–Bloomberg reports, that Facebook’s $11.8 billion initial public offering, will cement the status, of 27-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, as one of the world’s richest men, and put his social network among the highest-valued companies in the United States. Facebook is offering about 337.4 million shares for 28 to 35 dollars each. At the upper end of that range, the co-founder’s stake would be 17.6 billion dollars, making him richer than Microsoft Corporation’s Steve Ballmer, and Russian steel billionaire Vladimir Lisin, who are both twice Zuckerberg’s age. Facebook has become the most popular social-networking site in the world, topping 900 million users, last quarter.
–According to Reuters, Large compensation guarantees maybe to blame for the demise of law-firm Dewey & LeBoeuf. In its race to become one of the world’s biggest law firms, the company doled out rich compensation guarantees to attract and keep top-shelf, legal talent. Now, as the firm bleeds partners and clients, on an hourly basis, these guarantees are being blamed, for the firm’s unraveling. Dewey appears to have taken the practice to an extreme, not only using guarantees to lure new talent, the company also extended them to a shocking number of existing partners. A firm already struggling to stay afloat with heavy debt, seems to be deteriorating rapidly, with more than 27 partners leaving, this week alone. As of Thursday, the firm listed about 700 partners and associates, down from nearly 1,300 lawyers at the time of the 2007 merger, that created the company. It is unclear who at Dewey was making the decisions to offer the financial guarantees, but some former partners believe that the firm’s management wanted to make lenders comfortable, that Dewey’s key revenue generators, would be staying.
–The Wall Street Journal reports that Arianna Huffington’s portfolio at AOL Incorporated, is being scaled back, to include only the Huffington Post, undoing a structure put in place when her website was acquired by AOL, last year. After buying the Huffington Post for $315 million, AOL gave Ms. Huffington editorial oversight of all its properties, including tech-news site TechCrunch, the patch.com network, MovieFone, and MapQuest. In addition, more than 30 AOL properties, such as Politics Daily, were absorbed, by the Huffington Post. The management structure created tensions with staff at some of the properties. Patch management, differed with Ms. Huffington over strategy for the local news sites, and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, quit in a public disagreement with Ms. Huffington. However, The Huffington Post is gearing up for a major international expansion, and the introduction of a streaming video network. This shift will provide her with more control of the Post, going forward.
–Bloomberg reports, that Facebook’s $11.8 billion initial public offering, will cement the status, of 27-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, as one of the world’s richest men, and put his social network among the highest-valued companies in the United States. Facebook is offering about 337.4 million shares for 28 to 35 dollars each. At the upper end of that range, the co-founder’s stake would be 17.6 billion dollars, making him richer than Microsoft Corporation’s Steve Ballmer, and Russian steel billionaire Vladimir Lisin, who are both twice Zuckerberg’s age. Facebook has become the most popular social-networking site in the world, topping 900 million users, last quarter.
–According to Reuters, Large compensation guarantees maybe to blame for the demise of law-firm Dewey & LeBoeuf. In its race to become one of the world’s biggest law firms, the company doled out rich compensation guarantees to attract and keep top-shelf, legal talent. Now, as the firm bleeds partners and clients, on an hourly basis, these guarantees are being blamed, for the firm’s unraveling. Dewey appears to have taken the practice to an extreme, not only using guarantees to lure new talent, the company also extended them to a shocking number of existing partners. A firm already struggling to stay afloat with heavy debt, seems to be deteriorating rapidly, with more than 27 partners leaving, this week alone. As of Thursday, the firm listed about 700 partners and associates, down from nearly 1,300 lawyers at the time of the 2007 merger, that created the company. It is unclear who at Dewey was making the decisions to offer the financial guarantees, but some former partners believe that the firm’s management wanted to make lenders comfortable, that Dewey’s key revenue generators, would be staying.
–The Wall Street Journal reports that Arianna Huffington’s portfolio at AOL Incorporated, is being scaled back, to include only the Huffington Post, undoing a structure put in place when her website was acquired by AOL, last year. After buying the Huffington Post for $315 million, AOL gave Ms. Huffington editorial oversight of all its properties, including tech-news site TechCrunch, the patch.com network, MovieFone, and MapQuest. In addition, more than 30 AOL properties, such as Politics Daily, were absorbed, by the Huffington Post. The management structure created tensions with staff at some of the properties. Patch management, differed with Ms. Huffington over strategy for the local news sites, and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, quit in a public disagreement with Ms. Huffington. However, The Huffington Post is gearing up for a major international expansion, and the introduction of a streaming video network. This shift will provide her with more control of the Post, going forward.