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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/TKiPHNixzmQ/'Zero Dark Thirty' Star
The CRAZIEST Part of Navy SEAL Training Was ...
Exclusive Video
Pratt -- who also stars on "Parks & Recreation" -- was out in NY yesterday when we talked about the legendary obstacle course at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado near San Diego.
"I barely touched the tip of what these guys have to go through," Pratt says ... explaining that the REAL training program "helps to boil down the toughest mofos on the planet."
So, what task was the toughest for Pratt? Check out the clip.
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Mike Doyle and Erin Cummings
Mike Doyle has snagged the starring role in The Last Word, a paranormal thriller being directed by Simon Rumley (Red White & Blue).
Erin Cummings and Sean Patrick Flanery are also joining the project as leads.
A7SLE Films principals Peter Facinelli and Rob DeFranco, along with Eric Gores and Frank Mancuso Jr. of Boss Media, are producing the project, which began shooting in Shreveport, La., this week.
Based on true events, Word centers on the strange and tragic aftermath endured by the participants in the trial of a young man in Texas who was wrongly convicted and executed for the rape and murder of a nun.
In the Ben Ketai-written movie, a convicted man is executed for his crimes, but not before cursing those who sent him to his death. Soon enough, the people involved in the case, from witnesses to jurors, begin dying. When one juror's son's life in threatened, the man sets out to prove that the wrong person was convicted and reverse the curse.
Doyle will play the juror and father while Flanery will portray the district attorney. Cummings will play Doyle's wife.
Doyle, repped by Gersh and Untitled Entertainment, just days ago wrapped Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of Jersey Boys, in which he plays noted record producer Bob Crewe. He also has You’re Not You, with Emmy Rossum and Hilary Swank, in postproduction.
Cummings appeared in the TV series Spartacus: War of the Damned as well as cult movie Bitch Slap, and more recently appeared in The Iceman, the well-regarded drama starring Michael Shannon. She also has Cold Comes the Night, a thriller starring Bryan Cranston and Alice Eve, in the can. She is repped by Paradigm, Untitled and Del Shaw.
Flanery is coming off an extended gig on Dexter’s last season and is repped by APA, Inphenate and Morris Yorn.
Rome (AFP) - Italy contacted Germany on Wednesday over what to do with the body of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke who has caused outrage even after his death in Rome at the age of 100 last week.
The furore comes at a particularly sensitive time on the day that Italy commemorates the 70th anniversary of the decimation of Rome's historic Jewish community after a raid by Nazi troops.
"We are in contact with Germany," Rome's prefect Giuseppe Pecoraro told reporters.
German foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said there had been "informal contacts" but no "official request from the Italian side" for the body to be sent back to Priebke's native land.
Schaefer said it was up to Priebke's family to decide what to do with the body, which is currently at a military airport near Rome.
Media reports said it would likely be kept there overnight despite earlier statements from officials that a solution would be found Wednesday.
Under Italian law, decisions on what to do with the body have to be taken by direct heirs but the ANSA news agency reported that neither of Priebke's two sons have travelled to Italy or contacted Italian authorities about their wishes.
Clashes erupted in a town near Rome on Tuesday as a Catholic ultra-conservative sect tried to hold a funeral for the unrepentant former SS officer who took part in a 1944 massacre of 335 civilians.
The funeral was cancelled by a police order after some neo-Nazi sympathisers broke into the seminary in Albano Laziale and tried to stage a rally as hundreds of protesters outside shouted "Assassin!"
Police detained two far-right activists, some of whom were seen fighting with bottles and chains against groups of leftist protesters.
The coffin was then driven out in a van in the night as a rock was thrown at the windscreen.
Protesters had earlier kicked and spat on the hearse as it arrived for the start of the funeral.
The Holocaust denier died on Friday and the Vatican issued an unprecedented order forbidding any Catholic church in Rome from holding a funeral.
The possibility of him being buried in a German military cemetery in Italy was mooted but then rejected because Priebke did not die in wartime.
His lawyer, Paolo Giachini, said one possibility would be "cremation with a Catholic rite".
Priebke had been living under house arrest in the Italian capital after being extradited in 1998 from Argentina, where he had fled with a Vatican travel document soon after World War II.
Priebke had wanted to be buried in Argentina next to his wife but the government there earlier said it would not accept the body.
Jewish groups and relatives of the people he executed said he should be cremated and his ashes scattered to erase every trace.
There is concern that a burial could create a pilgrimage point for neo-Nazi sympathisers.
In any case a spokesman for the mayor of Priebke's birthplace of Hennigsdorf, near Berlin, told Germany's Rbb radio the town would refuse the body.
The row coincides with the anniversary of the round-up of the Jews from the Rome Ghetto on October 16, 1943.
More than 1,000 Jews were taken away to concentration camps and only 16 returned.
As Rome held a day of remembrance, mayor Ignazio Marino said the city "could not accept the funeral of a man who actively took part in the massacre of 335 people, shooting them in the back of the neck."
Nazi German occupiers ordered the mass killing in the Ardeatine caves near Rome as retaliation for a partisan attack which had killed 33 German soldiers.
They shot 10 Italians for every dead German, and five more who were brought to the caves by mistake.
There were 75 Jews among the victims.
President Giorgio Napolitano, wearing a white kippah skullcap, attended a synagogue ceremony with Holocaust survivors, as the head of Rome's Jewish community urged Italy not to forget.
"The Italy which gave birth to Fascism has a duty to nurture memories, for itself and Europe," Riccardo Pacifici told hundreds gathered.
He later unveiled a plaque at Rome's Tiburtina station, where -- six days after the round-up -- 1,024 Jews were put on trains for the camps.
A woman walks by an advertisement of LG Electronics' smartphone G2 in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. The G2 and the G Pad 8.3, the flagship smartphone and tablet from LG Electronics Inc., are great mobile devices that have fantastic screens, top-end cameras and ample processing power. But making solid devices is not enough to stand apart from the crowd in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, which probably pushed LG to make some bold design decisions in a bid to differentiate its G series from Samsung’s Galaxy line and Apple’s iPad mini. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A woman walks by an advertisement of LG Electronics' smartphone G2 in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. The G2 and the G Pad 8.3, the flagship smartphone and tablet from LG Electronics Inc., are great mobile devices that have fantastic screens, top-end cameras and ample processing power. But making solid devices is not enough to stand apart from the crowd in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, which probably pushed LG to make some bold design decisions in a bid to differentiate its G series from Samsung’s Galaxy line and Apple’s iPad mini. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A man touches an LG Electronics' G Pad 8.3 tablet in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. The G2 and the G Pad 8.3, the flagship smartphone and tablet from LG Electronics Inc., are great mobile devices that have fantastic screens, top-end cameras and ample processing power. But making solid devices is not enough to stand apart from the crowd in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, which probably pushed LG to make some bold design decisions in a bid to differentiate its G series from Samsung’s Galaxy line and Apple’s iPad mini. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The G2 and the G Pad 8.3, the flagship smartphone and tablet from LG Electronics Inc., are great mobile devices that have fantastic screens, top-end cameras and ample processing power.
But making an impressive device is not enough to stand apart from the crowd in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, which probably pushed LG to make some bold design decisions in a bid to differentiate its G series from Samsung's Galaxy line and Apple's iPad mini.
For the G2, which was released last month in the U.S., LG moved the power and volume controls to the back of the phone. For the G Pad, which goes on sale in the U.S. next week, LG added a full HD screen, a rarity in 8-inch tablet computers.
While these design choices set the G2 and the G Pad apart from 'me too' devices trying to catch up with Samsung and Apple, they might also limit their appeal.
Not everyone will be pleased with having to change the basic habits of smartphone operation. They will scratch their heads looking for those buttons just like I did. The full HD screen display makes the G Pad a couple of hundred dollars more expensive than other 8-inch tablets.
It took a couple of days before my index finger ceased pressing a volume key when I intended to press a power key. But after that, I realized having a power button on the back makes it easier to use a big handset with one hand. The G2 has a 5.2-inch screen.
LG came up with a double-tap gesture to activate the phone. I found it easier and quicker than pressing a home button and then sliding to unlock as with my iPhone 4S. This double-tap to start also applies to the G Pad.
LG removed the physical home button on the front for the G2 and the G Pad. Instead, virtual buttons for back, home and menu actions appear when the screen is activated. I preferred these virtual buttons over physical ones because I could touch them with the same gesture and pressure I applied to the touchscreen. One downside of Samsung's Galaxy devices is that the touchscreen and the three buttons for home, back and menu options all need a different level of pressure to be activated.
LG's virtual buttons rotated with the screen when I tilted the G2 or the G Pad to a landscape mode. That made them easy to access when I watched a movie in the landscape mode with the G Pad. Removing the physical home button also gives the screen more space in the phone.
But the design elements that make the G2 and the G Pad different from rivals stopped there.
LG has packed the G2 with other features but many of them were no better than what is already available. For example, a feature called Task Slider allows multitasking by swiping the screen with three fingers to hide or reopen an application. But Android users are familiar with an extended press of the home button to bring up a list of applications in use, which is quick and more intuitive.
The G2 will be a great choice but only for people who don't mind re-learning how to use a smartphone. In the U.S., the G2 smartphone is available at $200 with a two-year contract or $600 without a contract from a carrier.
For people who are willing to pay a premium for the 8.3-inch tablet's full HD screen, the G Pad will also be a decent choice. While the U.S. price is yet to be announced, in South Korea the tablet is offered at 550,000 won ($515).
___
Follow Youkyung Lee on Twitter: www.twitter.com/YKLeeAP
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-16-Digital%20Life-Tech%20Test-LG%20Smartphone/id-6837c9a98aa4430a967f136335afafa1FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Two members of a notorious family that authorities say once tried to set up a whites-only nation in America were arrested this week in Arizona on federal firearms charges after a raid on a sprawling ranch where dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were seized.
Kirby Kehoe and his 37-year-old son, Cheyne, had an initial court appearance Tuesday in Flagstaff. Cheyne Kehoe's attorney declined to discuss the case, while a lawyer for Kirby Kehoe did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Authorities received a tip that Kirby Kehoe had weapons on his 40-acre property near Ash Fork, about 140 miles north of Phoenix, said Tom Mangan, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Both men have previous felony convictions and are banned from possessing firearms.
The Kehoe family has been well-known to law enforcement since the 1990s when authorities say they provided weapons to various white supremacists who committed robberies across the Midwest. Authorities also said the family was involved in a plot to overthrow the federal government and establish the Aryan Peoples Republic in the Pacific Northwest.
Another son, Chevie Kehoe, is serving a life sentence in federal prison for his role in the 1996 killings of an Arkansas gun dealer, his wife and their 8-year-old daughter as part of the plot.
Cheyne Kehoe was sentenced in 1998 to more than 24 years in prison for his role in a shootout with Ohio police during a traffic stop about 40 miles northeast of Cincinnati. His sentence later was reduced to 11 years. No officers were injured in the gun battle, but a passer-by was wounded by a bullet fragment.
The family patriarch, Kirby Kehoe, was sentenced in 1999 to nearly four years in prison for racketeering and possession of illegal weapons in a case related to the plot aimed at overthrowing the government. The elder Kehoe, however, has maintained he was never involved in his sons' efforts to establish a whites-only nation and that he isn't a racist.
Mangan said due to the violent nature of the family's past, authorities planned the Monday raid carefully, first setting up surveillance on the property before moving in with search warrants, heavily armed tactical teams and armored vehicles.
He said the raid was conducted in cooperation with law enforcement from around the country and was planned to avoid the potential for a violent confrontation.
"The reason and rationale for having executed the warrant on the property in that manner was driven by public safety, just based on the past history of this individual and the sons," Mangan said Tuesday. "When a traffic stop was being conducted in Ohio, it turned into a nationwide manhunt, and we obviously didn't want to revisit that issue."
Kirby Kehoe is due back in court Thursday for a preliminary and detention hearing. Cheyne Kehoe's next court appearance is set for Oct. 22.
___
Skoloff reported from Phoenix
Pitbull is one of a growing list of celebrities who have opened their wallets or given their names to charter schools.
Pitbull is one of a growing list of celebrities who have opened their wallets or given their names to charter schools.
Rapper Pitbull (Armando Christian Pérez) is the latest in a long list of celebrities lending their star power to the flourishing charter school movement. Alicia Keyes, Denzel Washington, Shakira, Oprah — all support or sponsor charter schools.
The Sports Leadership And Management Academy (SLAM), Pitbull's new public charter school for students in grades six through 12, opened this fall in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. Pitbull says SLAM's sports theme has a vocational bent as a way to hook kids for whom school is boring.
"If sports is what you love, one way or another, it's a business you can get involved with ... whether you're a therapist, an attorney, a broadcaster," he says. "They're already labeling me 'Mr. Education.' "
It's an interesting twist, considering that at the last school Pitbull attended, the principal couldn't wait to get rid of him. "He literally told me, 'I don't want you in my school ... gonna give you your diploma ... get out of here.' "
Pitbull's parting words were: "Thank you."
Seventeen-year-old Austin Rivera says he transferred to SLAM after Pitbull spoke at his previous school. "He came from nothing and became something huge. ... It shows like not a lot of people are handed everything," Austin says.
"[A] lot of these kids are so creative ... but no one believes in them. ... No one motives them," Pitbull says. "I relate to them ... but then I give it to them raw."
The rapper's parents fled Cuba and settled in Miami, where they struggled. His father went to jail for dealing drugs. And at 16, Pitbull began dealing, too — and rapping. He chose the name "Pitbull" because, he says, pit bulls are too stupid to lose. The name and the "outlaw" image stuck.
Pitbull's breakthrough hit came in 2004 with a song titled "Culo," a vulgar word in Spanish and "booty" in the rap vernacular.
It wasn't long before Pitbull was making millions, touring with rappers Eminem and 50 Cent. Pitbull's problems with drugs and alcohol, his womanizing and his profanity-laced lyrics didn't exactly qualify him for opening a charter school. Surprisingly, parents and educators at SLAM didn't think that should disqualify him, either.
Critics say Pitbull is not the issue. It's the school itself that they find objectionable.
"[I] don't know if it's going to provide something useful at the end of the day," says Raquel Regalado, who is on the Miami-Dade County Public Schools' school board. "I guess you can expect Pitbull to show up every now and then, and that's cool if you're a Pitbull fan ... [but] how does that translate into academic achievement? That's the difficult part of this that parents don't understand. ... I think it's a marketing ploy, honestly."
Nina Reese, who heads the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says she's not about to apologize for supporting the rapper's school.
"Whether it's Pitbull or Meryl Streep in Rhode Island or Sandra Bullock in Louisiana," she says, "charters do benefit from celebrities because public schools, they do have to market themselves to families because these are schools of choice."
Reese says she has no problem with Pitbull's music, either.
"We're not endorsing his music, but welcoming him as an investor," Reese says. Besides, she adds, everybody is entitled to their own tastes. "I admit that I'm a fan of his music."
Three of Pitbull's six children attend charter schools.
"I'm not just a charter school advocate. ... I'm a charter school parent," Pitbull said when talking at this year's National Charter School Conference in D.C. "And that makes me one of you."
The celebrity dating rumors are constantly changing (and rarely true), and now Jamie Foxx and Katie Holmes have found themselves at the center of the latest high-profile headline.
On Tuesday (October 15), In Touch published an article claiming that the "Dawson's Creek" actress and the "White House Down" hunk were romantically linked after being spotted dancing together at a party in August.
However, Jamie decided to nip this rumor in the bud by dishing the truth to "Entertainment Tonight," stating, "[The rumors] are one hundred percent not true.”
Explaining more on the specific mentioned situation, Foxx adds, “In fact, it’s quite hilarious because we simply danced at a charity event along with a lot of other people.”
Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie.
Christopher Reeve in Superman: The Movie.
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle, a documentary in three hour-long segments that will premiere back to back (to back) tonight on many PBS stations, begins with a curious image: Vincent Zurzolo of Metropolis Comics explains that a recent copy of Action Comics #1, which contained the first appearance of Superman, recently sold for over $2 million. He shows us Action Comics #1, and then ... he locks it in a safe.
It makes all the sense in the world: it's worth a couple million dollars. You lock it up. But locking it in a safe is an interesting image in part because it underscores what makes comics — and, more specifically, superheroes — a complex cultural phenomenon for a lot of people. As they've become more collectible, as they've become fetish objects, as they've become obsessions for their most ardent fans, they've become harder and more imposing for other people to wrap their minds around. And that's too bad, because comics — and, more specifically superheroes — make a marvelous lens through which to look at American popular culture more generally, even if you're not an enthusiast.
That's what Superheroes does well. None of what's here is going to be a big surprise to people who follow comics closely, but it's a fine three-hour tour of superheroes as an example for other people of the way popular culture is always in a dialogue with the other things that are going on around it.
In the evolution of superheroes over these three hours, you see the markings of immigration, World War II, the civil rights movement, the Space Age, censorship, feminism, corporatization of media, the evolution of print and the rise of digital, and the eternal nature of merchandising. You don't learn about superheroes just to understand how superheroes work; you learn about superheroes because it helps explain how everything in entertainment works and has worked for almost a hundred years. (This is also a recurring theme of Monkey See comics blogger Glen Weldon's book about Superman, by the way.)
There's a nice balance in the documentary between good and thoughtful placing of culture in context on one hand, and colorful stories on the other. Maybe you've heard all of Stan Lee's stories, but if you haven't, he's fun to listen to. The same goes for Jim Steranko, an artist who has maybe the best hair you'll see on PBS this year. (And that includes Downton Abbey.) And they speak pretty candidly at times — it's fascinating to hear one of the artists say he was always a pacifist, he always considered himself pro-civil-rights, but that when feminism came along, his first thought was that he should support it, rather than that he did entirely understand it.
You can't really understand current entertainment culture without comics and superheroes — for good or for ill — and while Superheroes isn't news to the ardent fan, it's a good and entertaining backgrounder for the curious, which is always to be appreciated.
A London newspaper stand.
A London newspaper stand.
(Editor's Note: Starting this week, we're introducing a weekday feature of headlines from newspapers around the world.)
Britain's Guardian reports on former minister David Maclean, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party, saying Britain's spy agencies may be operating outside the law in the mass surveillance of the Internet. His remarks come amid revelations about surveillance programs unveiled by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
In the Middle East, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reports on negotiations between Western nations and Iran in Geneva over the Islamic republic's nuclear program. It says the U.S. will continue to pressure Tehran until it has taken major steps to halt the program.
Lebanon's Daily Star reports that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said an international conference to set up a transitional government in Syria must be organized soon.
South Africa's Cape Times says a veteran member of the African National Congress lodged a complaint against a fellow party official for making allegedly anti-Semitic comments in Cape Town last week.
The China Daily reports on Britain's plan to make it easier for Chinese tourists and investors to visit the country.
India's Hindu newspaper says three senior officials were suspended in the wake of the deadly stampede near a temple in the town of Ratangarh in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. More than 100 people were killed in the stampede on a bridge that people feared was near collapse.
Singing Machine Introduces Home, the World's First Smart Bluetooth Speaker that Turns into a Party-Starting Karaoke Machine
The elegantly designed Home delivers soulful, room-filling sound as a Bluetooth speaker by day, and turns up the fun at night by transforming into a Singing Machine with instant access to more than 8,000 songs
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 10, 2013 -- Singing Machine, one of the first companies to bring karaoke into American homes, today announced the Singing Machine Home™, an elegant speaker that pumps out room-filling sound and wirelessly connects to any Bluetooth-enabled device including smartphones, tablets, laptops and more. When the mood is right, Home turns into an on-demand, Wi-Fi-enabled karaoke machine. It plugs into your TV via HDMI and connects to the cloud wirelessly. With one click, you have instant access to Singing Machine Play™, a platform that streams more than 8,000 HD karaoke music videos.
Singing Machine Home comes with a hybrid Mic-Remote that makes it easy to navigate the Play platform on your TV to queue up a playlist and even pick avatars for you and your friends so that you know when it's your turn to sing. Rolling out to BestBuy.com and Best Buy stores in late October, Singing Machine Home allows you to fully experience your music, whether you are listening to a classical mix on a lazy Sunday afternoon or belting your favorite jam into the mic on Friday night with friends.
"With the Singing Machine Home, we've created a sleek Bluetooth speaker and karaoke machine in one that earns its place as a centerpiece in your home," says Singing Machine CEO Gary Atkinson. "This is the first karaoke machine to have a truly streamlined, grown-up style and versatile technology so that it is used every day. The Home is about experiencing music, delivering great sound and creating fun memories with friends and family."
Founded more than 30 years ago, the Singing Machine company has sold millions of karaoke machines, evolving as music technology changed from cassettes to digital audio files. Now, with the Home, the company is breaking preconceived notions of what karaoke machines should look like and is turning the industry on its head.
"At-home karaoke is still wildly popular but many companies in our industry are slow to change. The latest models are big and boxy with lots of knobs, and get put in the basement or a closet when they're not being used. Access to music has also been a major challenge, with machine owners needing to buy tons of CDs or download individual karaoke songs for a dollar each just to make a playlist," says Atkinson. "Home solves these problems with its modern design, simple set up, access to one of the world's largest libraries of karaoke videos, and versatility so it can be used every day. On top of that, we've integrated the latest Bluetooth, streaming, Wi-Fi and cloud-based technology because we know this is how people want to interact with their devices today."
Soulful Wireless Audio
Designed with carefully engineered acoustics, Singing Machine Home is packed with 2.1 omnidirectional sound, two tweeters and a pumping subwoofer for a full range of superior high and low notes. Home easily fills any room with sound and makes sharing your music simple. It connects to any Bluetooth-enabled device to play your music whether you stream from Pandora or Spotify, or have your own curated collection of songs. Plus with a range up to 33 feet, you can roam the room with your smartphone, tablet or MP3 player, and play DJ without needing to walk back to the speaker to control your music. The speaker's minimalistic yet distinctive design includes a reflective bottom cabinet that mirrors its surroundings, making it fit perfectly into any interior.
Mega Karaoke Library
When it's time to turn up the fun, Home is ready. Plugged into your TV, Home connects to Singing Machine Play via Wi-Fi and transforms into a searchable vault of your favorite karaoke videos. Powered by The KARAOKE Channel (owned by the Stingray Digital Media Group), Play offers one of the largest, licensed, libraries of HD karaoke videos in the world with more than 8,000 videos hosted in the cloud. Three subscription levels provide convenient, affordable options to meet your streaming needs whether you want access for an impromptu party or your weekly karaoke night. A free trial lets you try before subscribing.
Intelligent Wireless Mic-Remote
Singing Machine Home comes with a wireless microphone that works double-time as a remote to browse or search Play's karaoke library by artist, song, decade or popularity. The smart mic has auto mute and unmute functionality, and allows you to select songs in advance to queue up a video playlist. You can also select your own avatar to see who is up next. Home will play from day to night without interruption; no music management required. When the party is over, Home stays put, and is your wireless speaker again.
Availability & Pricing
Singing Machine Home will be available for $299 and is rolling out to BestBuy.com and Best Buy stores in late October.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity firm KKR & Co LP
KKR and other small shareholders will receive new convertible preferred equity in First Data in return for their $300 million cash investment, First Data said in a statement on Monday.
The cash will be used, along with $1.4 billion in new senior payable-in-kind (PIK) notes with a 14.5 percent coupon due 2019, to retire most of First Data's $2 billion of 11.5 percent senior PIK notes due 2016.
Frank Bisignano, a former co-chief operating officer for JPMorgan Chase & Co
"While the company has successfully extended the maturities for some $21 billion of debt through the second quarter of this year, this agreement allows us to address the junior-most of the debt structure and an element that has been of interest to investors," Bisignano said in the statement.
One of the mega leveraged buyouts that came to epitomize the credit binge that preceded that 2008 financial crisis, First Data has proved to be a challenging investment for KKR, which valued it at 70 cents on the dollar as of the end of June.
KKR and its co-investors invested $7.2 billion as equity in the company in 2007, according to regulatory filings.
"Fitch believes this refinancing is a modest positive for the credit by opening up a path to further extend the company's capital structure... The end result is essentially a viable five-year-plus runway for the company to grow out of its currently highly levered capital structure," the credit rating agency said in a note on Monday.
Since he was named CEO of First Data in April, Bisignano has taken a number of steps to improve profitability, including boosting the proportion of employee compensation that is paid out in stock, a move that Fitch expects to save the company about $60 million in the first year.
First Data's biggest challenge is increasing its cashflow to significantly pay down debt. Before bringing Bisignano onboard, the company explored selling its financial services business to raise cash, but then dropped the idea, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Carol Bishopric)
Continue reading Sneak attack?? Google will supposedly launch the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 next Tuesday at BGR
Source: http://mobilitybeat.com/the-boy-genius-report/140205/sneak-attack-google-will-supposedly-launch-the-nexus-5-and-android-44-next-tuesday/