News on Yacktman Svc Fund (YACKX)

By Chris Witkowsky NEW YORK, March 8 (Reuters-peHUB) - The auction of JP Morgan Chase's private equity business, One Equity Partners, in the market since at least November, has hit an impasse, according to three people with knowledge of the situation. A spokesperson for JP Morgan Chase declined to comment. The bank announced last July it was spinning off One Equity, its last remaining private equity operation, because the unit was not core. JP Morgan Chase was not under regulatory pressure to sell: One Equity would not be affected by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which restricts the ability of bank holding companies to own and operate private equity groups, sister news service Reuters reported last year.

That bet has helped equities shrug off bearish data and geopolitical uncertainties in Ukraine, taking the S&P 500 to a series of record highs. "We're hoping the payroll report means we're on a stronger footing going ahead and that we can get more robust growth going forward," said Michael Mullaney, chief investment officer of Fiduciary Trust Co in Boston.

By Alwyn Scott and Tim Hepher NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing Co said on Friday that "hairline cracks" had been discovered in the wings of about 40 787 Dreamliners that are in production, marking another setback for the company's newest jet. The cracks have not been found on planes that are in use by airlines and therefore pose no safety risk, Boeing said, adding the problem also will not alter Boeing's plans to deliver 110 787s this year. However, Boeing said the cracks, which also occurred on the larger 787-9 model currently undergoing flight tests, could delay by a few weeks the date when airlines can take delivery of their new planes. The disclosure raised questions about repair costs and a possible minor increase in the weight of the plane, but did not seem to spell major trouble for Boeing, industry experts said.

By Kevin Yao and Adam Rose BEIJING (Reuters) - China's exports unexpectedly tumbled in February, swinging the trade balance into deficit and adding to fears of a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy despite the Lunar New Year holidays being blamed for the slide. A resilient Chinese economy is good news for the world, particularly for major commodity exporters such as Australia.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange has secured approvals from regulators to set up an international trading center in the free-trade zone, the chairman of the bourse said on Saturday. The move could pave the way for more foreign investors to tap the world's fourth-largest stock market by capitalization and also for foreign companies to issue shares in the world's second-largest economy. Gui Minjie, chairman of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, said significant progress has been made in recent years allowing Chinese firms to list on overseas markets. However, no foreign companies are allowed to issue shares on Chinese bourses.

A committee of board directors at Vivendi met on Saturday to review rival offers for telecoms unit SFR and prepare a meeting of the supervisory council possibly at the end of the week, sources close to the matter said. Vivendi is weighing options on how to split its telecoms from its media activities and has given itself until the end of the month to choose between selling the telecoms operator or spinning it off through a flotation as initially planned, sources have told Reuters previously. Another stems from French cable operator Numericable with 11 billion euros in cash and would grant Vivendi a 32 percent stake in the new company, sources said earlier. Vivendi declined to comment.

Greece and its international lenders will miss a self-imposed March 10 deadline to clinch a deal that will release the next tranche of the country's rescue loans, three senior Greek government sources said late on Friday. Greece and representatives of the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had hoped to conclude the latest review of the country's reform progress under the terms of its international bailout by Monday, when euro zone finance ministers meet in Brussels.

By Richard Weizel NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (Reuters) - A federal jury on Friday found former Jefferies Group Inc trader Jesse Litvak guilty of defrauding clients on mortgage bond trades made after the financial crisis. Litvak, 39, was convicted on all 15 counts he faced, including 10 of securities fraud. He faced up to 20 years in prison on each securities fraud count. Prosecutors accused Litvak of cheating clients out of more than $2 million between 2009 and 2011 by inflating bond prices, lying about how much Jefferies paid for them and inventing sellers.

By Barani Krishnan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Famed oil bull Andy Hall's hedge fund rose nearly 8 percent in February in its biggest monthly gain in 2-1/2 years, boosted by a rally in crude oil that could help Occidental Petroleum's chances of selling its stake in the fund. Occidental , which acquired a 20 percent stake in Hall's Connecticut-based Astenbeck fund and trading house Phibro in 2009, said last month it wanted to reduce proprietary trading activities. Oxy, as it is known, has not said anything specific about selling Astenbeck or Phibro, which does some of its proprietary trading, mainly in crude oil and select commodities such as natural gas, platinum and corn.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Two large oil slicks spotted by the Vietnamese air force offered the first sign that a jetliner carrying 239 people had crashed into the ocean after vanishing from radar without sending a single distress call.

NEW YORK (AP) — The most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles above the earth.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Job growth in the United States has proved surprisingly consistent.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Who is bitcoin's real creator? The bitcoin community is reacting to that burning question with a collective ho-hum.

TOKYO (AP) — There is something surprising in the radioactive wreck that is the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: opportunity. To clean it up, Japan will have to develop technology and expertise that any nation with a nuclear reactor will one day need.

BEIJING (AP) — China's exports plunged by an unexpectedly large 18 percent in February, possibly denting hopes trade will help drive the slowing economy while communist leaders push ambitious promised reforms.

FAIR OAKS, Ind. (AP) — Pigs cluster around a food stall like Black Friday shoppers waiting for the store to open. One pushes impatiently against the locked door with her snout, waiting for the sow inside to finish eating so she can take her turn.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four Central European nations are urging the United States to boost natural gas exports to Europe as a hedge against the possibility that Russia could cut off its supply of gas to Ukraine.

NEW YORK (AP) — A mystery man. A splashy reveal. A media frenzy. Newsweek staked its return from the dead on a story it knew would get attention. A cover story claiming it had uncovered "the face behind bitcoin," the world's most popular digital currency.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto said Thursday that he is not the creator of bitcoin, adding further mystery to the story of how the world's most popular digital currency came to be.

Counterproductive gender biases keep gender equality stagnating: women lead only 4.2 percent of our largest pubic corporations, make up only 14 percent of top officers in corporate America and fill a measly 18 percent of board seats.

Bank of America is offering you the chance to pay a fee for a service you may not know you already have. The bank on Thursday launched a new kind of account, known as the "SafeBalance" account, which costs $4.95 a month and comes with no paper checks.

Years ago, when I worked in the check processing department of a now defunct Philadelphia bank, I dreamt of one day becoming my own boss while working at home. The bank was an unusually strict sort of workplace. In my case I worked in a small room with my back to a low-level supervisor, an elderly woman, Miss Stiff, who wore a white Mennonite bonnet. Another employee sat a side desk, although he was rarely present. Usually it was just me and Miss Stiff, which meant no talking ever, and no unnecessary breaks or staying out too long for lunch.

Ellen's selfie stunt produced the most retweeted image of all time! Whether you like the fact that it was a staged product placement is not the point because it was brilliant. What I think is even more brilliant was LG's real time content marketing response suggesting a G2 would have enabled Ellen to take the selfie herself.

"Exodus on the Parkway," a new 36-page paper on the impact of tax rates on New Jersey's economic health begins by noting that it "does not provide proof or hard evidence that high income or high net worth residents are leaving New Jersey because of high tax rates." (Emphasis added.) It's odd, then, that the report goes on to build a case counter to that finding, implying that New Jersey's wealthy are frequently signing mortgage documents and hiring moving vans in order to pay less in taxes.

People from multinational corporations head off and volunteer for weeks or months in another country, leaving their work behind for others to do. Building a better world is good for business.

It is now clear that while Governor Christie is embroiled in 'bridgegate', which is about clogging and blocking of traffic movement over a bridge, another scandal is brewing.

In general, that maxim may be true. However, if you're in competition with someone who is using authority marketing strategies, you'll find yourself at a huge disadvantage. In this specific case, all things are not equal.

There is one law in the media industries today from which all others derive: Attention is the currency of our culture. With attention, you can move markets. Without it, you blip and fade -- at best.

It would be Ayn Rand's dream come true: separate states for rich people and poor people. A proposal to split California into six states, introduced by billionaire investor Tim Draper in December, would formally create state lines between the haves and the have-nots. "You'd be creating one exceptionally wealthy state and others with dire poverty," Corey Cook, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco, said to The Huffington Post. "You'd create massive inequality. ...

When 1 in 5 owners saying they've had to lay off employees, it's time to sit up and take notice.

It's the latest craze, the emerging brand-sponsored content site where companies pump out content off of their corporate website with the hopes of connecting to their target consumer in a way that doesn't feel "Salesy."

How do you go about creating content that's not only good, but also catches people's attention and makes them want to learn more?

One of the saddest truths about the so-called economic recovery is that the middle-class jobs lost in the recession are being replaced by low-paying ones. But the even sadder truth is that the situation isn't going to improve for a while. Over the next decade, a significant number of the fastest-growing jobs in America will be in low-wage sectors, according to projections by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. ...

Could San Francisco's economy make a case for Obama's proposed minimum wage hike? New research suggests that the city's decision to raise the minimum wage above federal standards a decade ago has paid off and may be a model for change at the federal level. Published as a book by University of California, Berkeley economists in January, "When Mandates Work: Raising Labor Standards at the Local Level" takes aim at one of the main arguments levied against raising the national minimum wage from $7.25 to Obama's proposed $10. ...