Crains New York - June 3, 2013 - (Page 4)

Does your firm fit the bill? Application deadline is July 5 Quick: Are you fast enough to be named a Crain’s Fast 50? Crain’s New York Business will feature the area’s 50 fastest-growing companies in its Oct. 7 issue. Our annual Crain’s Fast 50 will highlight New York’s best and most innovative enterprises with feature stories about wildly successful local companies, their winning business strategies and—most important—their astronomical revenue growth over three consecutive years. Last year’s Fast 50 included organic-baby-food seller Happy Family (three-year growth rate: 1,772%,to nearly $35 million in revenue), online men’s merchandiser 50 Thrillist (982% growth, to $33 million in revenue) and solar-energy systems designer and installer Mercury Solar Systems (661% growth, to almost $85 million in revenue). To be eligible,your company may be either publicly traded or privately held.It must had at least $10 million in 2012 revenue, be at least four years old (Crain’s may consider ex- ceptions to the age rule on a case-bycase basis) and be located in the New York area (defined by Crain’s as the five boroughs of New York City; Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties in New York; and Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Morr is and Union counties in New Jersey). The deadline for applying is July 5. Go to www.crainsnewyork.com /fast50 for more information on eligibility and to read the most frequently asked questions about the process. Anyone at your company can fill out the application, but a top official must certify its accuracy. Crain’s will not publish personal contact information listed on the application. If you have questions about the application, send an email to cnyb-research@crainsnewyork.com, or call (212) 210-0798 or (716) 8122481 before the July 5 deadline. Ⅲ cohnreznick.com/think — The Wall Street Journal March 14, 2013 © 2013 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. What does CohnReznick think? To survive and thrive in today’s challenging business world, you need more than technical accounting expertise. You need industry insight and transformative advice that guides your business forward. Find out what CohnReznick thinks at CohnReznick.com/think. CohnReznick. Where forward thinking creates results. CohnReznick is an independent member of Nexia International 4 | Crain’s New York Business | June 3, 2013 by Aaron Elstein bloomberg news Crain’s to identify NY’s 50 fastest-growing companies IN THE MARKETS The ghost in the machine I t’s understandable if CNBC viewers thought they saw a ghost Friday morning. For the first time in more than a decade, there sat Jack Grubman to chat about the markets. Yes, the same Jack Grubman (above, in 2002) who during the tech-stock bubble era was one of the most powerful market mavens. As telecommunications analyst at Citigroup’s Salomon Smith Barney, his bullish pronouncements about stocks like WorldCom regularly moved markets. He was also the poster child for how dirty the stock-picking game got, because his opinions were based in no small part on how much business a company could generate for Citi’s investment bankers. He was also known to change how he rated a stock to benefit himself personally. In one infamous case, he upped his opinion on AT&T after Citigroup CEO and AT&T director Sandy Weill asked him to take a “fresh look.” Mr. Grubman didn’t like AT&T shares but complied because he had asked Mr. Weill, who also sat on the board of the 92nd Street Y, to help him get his children into its highly selective preschool. The Wall Street Journal called the exchange a “kid pro quo.” Regulators led by then-state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer cracked down, forcing Wall Street firms to agree to a global settlement in 2003 in which they coughed up $1.4 billion in penalties and banned the practice of tying analyst pay to their ability to bring in investmentbanking business. Mr. Grubman paid $15 million in penalties and was barred from the securities industry. Another well-known analyst at the time, Merrill Lynch’s Henry Blodget, paid $4 million in penalties and was also barred for publicly talking up the prospects of dot-com companies that in private emails he called junk. Mr. Blodget has made a comeback as editor of Business Insider.Last month, he argued on the site that Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition of social-media site Tumblr isn’t necessarily a waste of money like its 1999 acquisition of GeoCities because Tumblr has many more visitors. Mr. Grubman, now a telecom- industry consultant, is also gaining renewed attention. In addition to his CNBC appearance, he wrote an analysis last week about Dish Network’s bid for Sprint Nextel in The New York Times’ Dealbook section. Another prominent analyst from yesteryear, Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker, is back in the news. Ms. Meeker,who was never charged with wrongdoing, last week published a lengthy “Internet trends”report from her perch at venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Her lead finding: “Growth continues.” “Here we are years after the grand settlement, and maybe the question to ask is,has anything changed?”Mr. Grubman said last week on CNBC. “I would say not really.” But he said the pressure that drives analysts to rate stocks “buy” even when they know better hasn’t changed. The way analysts attract paying audiences is by ranking highly in a survey of big money managers conducted every year by Institutional Investor magazine, he explained. High rankings tend to be awarded to analysts who tell investment pros what they want to hear: that the stocks they hold are the right ones. “Analysts then, and I guess now, first and foremost had to have a high reputation” in the survey, Mr. Grubman said. Here’s a sign of how little things have changed: In Mr. Grubman’s heyday back in 2000, the percentage of stocks rated “sell” was 2%, according to the Journal. Today, according to Thomson Reuters, the percentage of stocks rated “sell” is 3%. Ⅲ http://www.crainsnewyork.com/fast50 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/fast50 http://www.cohnreznick.com/think http://www.CohnReznick.com/think http://www.CohnReznick.com/think

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - June 3, 2013

Crains New York - June 3, 2013
IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
BUSINESS PEOPLE
REAL ESTATE DEALS
OPINION
GREG DAVID
FOR THE RECORD
TOP ENTREPRENEURS
CLASSIFIEDS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE COFFEE
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - June 3, 2013