TECHNOLOGY NEWS: Starboard offers to take RealD private for $12 per share

(Reuters) - Activist investor Starboard Value LP said on Wednesday it had offered to acquire the remaining shares in RealD Inc RLD.N after raising its stake in the 3D technology licensor.

Starboard offered $12 per share in cash, a premium of 29 percent to RealD stock price as of Wednesday close, valuing the company at about $540 million.

RealD said in an emailed statement that it would review the offer.

RealD's shares rose as much as 26.7 percent in extended trading.

"The time frames and capital requirements needed to support many of the company's growth initiatives appear to be well beyond what the public markets will bear," Starboard said in a letter on Wednesday to RealD's board. (http://1.usa.gov/1rMY8tq)

The activist investor said the company's near-term performance could suffer due to the "challenged" release schedule for 3D films, and it would be better positioned to take advantage of opportunities as a private company.

Starboard's offer comes at a tough time for RealD, which licenses and makes 3D technology.

The company posted a profit in the first quarter after seven straight quarters of losses, mostly due to falling demand for movies and content in 3D. Its stock has traded below its initial public offering price of $16 for more than a year.

Starboard, the third-largest shareholder in the company, also disclosed that it had raised its stake to 9.9 percent from 9.1 percent.

The activist investor said it would finance the deal through a combination of equity and debt.

Starboard recently said it had acquired a "significant" stake in Yahoo Inc YHOO.O and urged the Internet company to explore a merger with AOL Inc AOL.N and quickly "monetize" its Asian assets, which exceed the enterprise value of its actual business.

The activist investor is also pursuing a high visibility proxy battle with Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants Inc DRI.N to shake up the company's board.

As of Wednesday's close, RealD's stock had gained about 9 percent this year.

RealD was not immediately available for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Ramkumar Iyer and Anya George Tharakan in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Richard Chang and Ken Wills)

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT 'BEN Latest News'



'Like us on Facebook'

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BEN-Latest-News/443681719077160



'Follow us on Twitter'

www.twitter.com/benlatestnews



For Advertisment and Partnering with us contact the CEO on:

BEN Latest News™

BB PIN: 260158B5

Skype: cwizard123

Phone: (+234)-807-591-2014

Work: (+234)-903-027-0566

Mobile: (+234)-818-505-0866

BizLine:(+234)-812-595-5300

Email: cwizard123@gmail.com

BLNs: benlatestnews@gmail.com

On: Facebook, Twitter | LinkedIn - cwizard123

Read More

TECHNOLOGY NEWS: PayPal spawn have advanced where PayPal stood still

By Sarah McBride and Deepa Seetharaman

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - PayPal's biggest threat as it prepares to split from eBay (EBAY.O) next year may come from former employees who back a crop of new businesses serving shoppers who increasingly prefer to pay with mobile phones rather than personal computers.

Though none of the new companies have the breadth of services offered by PayPal, which has more than 152 million users and deep ties to merchants like Home Depot both online and off, they are entering areas that the once-nimble online-payments service should own - but doesn't.

Stripe, which helps merchants like Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and car-sharing service Lyft accept payments made by smart phones, is backed by PayPal co-founder and former chief executive Peter Thiel and former chief financial officer Roelof Botha. Thiel co-founded Founders Fund while Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital.

Square, a start-up that lets merchants accept credit-card payments over mobile phones and tablets with smaller fees than they had been paying via traditional credit-card networks, is also backed by Botha. Affirm, founded by Max Levchin, PayPal's former chief technology officer, offers split-second financing to shoppers.

"The reality is that innovation of payments is moving so fast and PayPal is behind the curve on every dimension," said Keith Rabois, a former PayPal vice president who now backs both Stripe and Square through Khosla Ventures and sits on Affirm's board. "I would expect that both (Stripe and Square) could be larger than PayPal."

PayPal's spinoff, announced on Tuesday, comes as Apple prepares to launch its own mobile wallet, Apple Pay, a move that payments experts said may fundamentally shift the payments landscape by letting customers pay for goods in stores by tapping their phones at a compatible point-of-sale system. The payments are authorized by their fingerprint and incorporate some aspects of Stripe.

Ebay said that as an independent company PayPal will be able to compete in all kinds of electronic payments. "PayPal's opportunities have never been greater – it is a rapidly growing global leader in digital payments and the most trusted digital wallet," an eBay spokeswoman said.

Some early PayPal employees, known as the PayPal "mafia" around Silicon Valley, think the company still has some zip.

"Most former senior PayPalians have been predicting some form of independence for a while," said Levchin, adding that PayPal would be a more formidable competitor as a separate company.

Other PayPal mafiosi said the company's upcoming independence won't be enough to overcome its reputation as risk-averse and late to adopt new technology, hampering its ability to recruit top engineers.

"It's a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient step, for PayPal," Rabois said.

The new competitors are poised to overtake PayPal when mobile transactions exceed those made using personal computers, analysts said.

EBay bought payment gateway Braintree last year for about $800 million to bolster its presence on mobile devices, where PayPal has lagged other fast-growing startups. Braintree's Venmo app allows consumers to make payments on their mobile phones and tablets.

The deal may have come too late to compete with Stripe, founded in 2010 and now valued at $1.75 billion, which is now considered the leader in mobile transaction payments. General Catalyst, a venture fund that has backed Stripe since its founding, announced a program Tuesday that makes investments of up to $500,000 in start-ups that are built on top of Stripe, including Baremetrics, a company that helps businesses analyze data they get from Stripe.

These upstarts have taken payment in directions PayPal was slow to try.

Stripe, for example, pioneered a system where the user never leaves the merchant's page to pay, compared with the PayPal method of drawing users temporarily to its own site to log in. Stripe's technology, adopted by companies such as Lyft and delivery service Postmates, is especially effective for companies that use mobile apps.

Stripe is also working with Alipay, the payments unit affiliated with Alibaba Group, the Chinese online juggernaut. Amazon (AMZN.O) and Google (GOOG.O) also beefing up their own payment services.

"They have a lot of ground to make up," John Collison, co-founder of Stripe, said of PayPal. "Maybe they can, maybe they can't."

(Reporting by Sarah McBride and Deepa Seetharaman. Editing by John Pickering)

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT 'BEN Latest News'



'Like us on Facebook'

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BEN-Latest-News/443681719077160



'Follow us on Twitter'

www.twitter.com/benlatestnews



For Advertisment and Partnering with us contact the CEO on:

BEN Latest News™

BB PIN: 260158B5

Skype: cwizard123

Phone: (+234)-807-591-2014

Work: (+234)-903-027-0566

Mobile: (+234)-818-505-0866

BizLine:(+234)-812-595-5300

Email: cwizard123@gmail.com

BLNs: benlatestnews@gmail.com

On: Facebook, Twitter | LinkedIn - cwizard123

Read More

CELEBRITY NEWS: Juliet Ibrahim talks about her failed marriage in new interview

28-year old Ghanaian actress, Juliet Ibrahim has said it's not her fault that her marriage didn't work out and it has nothing to do with being an actress like a lot of people having been suggesting.



The actress said people won't believe her former husband was busier than she was, and somewhere along the line they just missed it.



She also said it could also have been because they didn't study each other well before jumping into marriage. We were both 24 when I got pregnant and we got married, she said. Here's what she told US based Lawyer and Entrepreneur, Uduak Oduoko;



'I call it a failure because I'm someone who likes to go into things and tell myself I have to make it work. I got married at age 24, he was 24 too then we were happy in love but we really didn't get a chance to really know ourselves. He was a sweet person and all, I got pregnant along the line and we continued Not long after family members kept coming in saying "oh no, she's an actress. He's a very soft person so he usually tells me what he hears about me. Along the line, we just grew apart.



On reports that the marriage crashed because of her busy schedules, she said;



'He travels and works more than I do. He's a professional pilot although he has stopped now to handle his father's business. This is something a lot of people don't know, they think because Im an actress. I do have time but he was more of the traveller, going out of Accra every weekend. We grew apart and became more like good friends. I never wanted a divorce but then we realised it wouldn't work out there were so many lies and disappointments. He hurt me in the process because I felt he was going to stand by me all through,' she said.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT 'BEN Latest News'



'Like us on Facebook'

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BEN-Latest-News/443681719077160



'Follow us on Twitter'

www.twitter.com/benlatestnews



For Advertisment and Partnering with us contact the CEO on:

BEN Latest News™

BB PIN: 260158B5

Skype: cwizard123

Phone: (+234)-807-591-2014

Work: (+234)-903-027-0566

Mobile: (+234)-818-505-0866

BizLine:(+234)-812-595-5300

Email: cwizard123@gmail.com

BLNs: benlatestnews@gmail.com

On: Facebook, Twitter | LinkedIn - cwizard123

Read More

HEALTHCARE: First case of Ebola recorded in the US

The US has recorded it's first case of Ebola. The patient was admitted at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that ,an unidentified patient who recently returned from the West Africa area is currently being treated for the deadly virus at a Dallas, Texas hospital.



According to NYDaily news,a press release by the hospital reads..



Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital had admitted a patient Monday into strict isolation "based on the patient's symptoms and recent travel history,"

"The hospital is following all Centers for Disease Control and Texas Department of Heath recommendations to ensure the safety of patients, hospital staff, volunteers, physicians and visitors,"

Zachary Thompson, the director of the Dallas County Health and Human Services, said Tuesday morning that the Dallas County is ready to care for the patient.



"This is not Africa,"We have a great infrastructure to deal with an outbreak.

"

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT 'BEN Latest News'



'Like us on Facebook'

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BEN-Latest-News/443681719077160



'Follow us on Twitter'

www.twitter.com/benlatestnews



For Advertisment and Partnering with us contact the CEO on:

BEN Latest News™

BB PIN: 260158B5

Skype: cwizard123

Phone: (+234)-807-591-2014

Work: (+234)-903-027-0566

Mobile: (+234)-818-505-0866

BizLine:(+234)-812-595-5300

Email: cwizard123@gmail.com

BLNs: benlatestnews@gmail.com

On: Facebook, Twitter | LinkedIn - cwizard123

Read More

CELEBRITY NEWS: Psquare Peter Okoye falls off Stage during concert

The Psquare brothers were on stage last night to perform at Beat 99.9 FM's Triple 9 Concert which held at the Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos when the incident happened. Hopefully, we "won't be seeing" the video soon.



Wishing him a quick recovery too.





FIND OUT MORE ABOUT 'BEN Latest News'



'Like us on Facebook'

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BEN-Latest-News/443681719077160



'Follow us on Twitter'

www.twitter.com/benlatestnews



For Advertisment and Partnering with us contact the CEO on:

BEN Latest News™

BB PIN: 260158B5

Skype: cwizard123

Phone: (+234)-807-591-2014

Work: (+234)-903-027-0566

Mobile: (+234)-818-505-0866

BizLine:(+234)-812-595-5300

Email: cwizard123@gmail.com

BLNs: benlatestnews@gmail.com

On: Facebook, Twitter | LinkedIn - cwizard123

Read More