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Capital One To Acquire Discover Financial Services
2:05 PM – Monday, February 19, 2024
Credit card issuer and Warren Buffet-backed consumer bank Capital One, will acquire the credit card lender Discover Financial Services, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The reported move is expected to be finalized on Tuesday as Capital One has been working with advisers to negotiate a deal to buy Discover. Bloomberg reported on Monday that Capital One was considering making an offer for Discover.
“Discover has done a better job of bringing in a lot of deposits and [has] access to a lot of institutions to run the debit card network and provide service. So it gives them a lot of deposit gathering ability, which particularly in the current market is enormously important,” said David Schiff, West Monroe’s head of consumer retail and banking.
Discover has a market value of roughly $28 billion and The Wall Street Journal reported that an acquisition would be expected to value it at above the $28 billion. Meanwhile, Capital One’s market value is just over $52 billion.
Additionally, in January, Discover and Capital One reported declines in fourth-quarter profits of 62% and 43%, with bank declines resulting from bad loans as rising interest rates have caused consumers to default on credit card debt and mortgages at a higher rate.
Capital One uses Visa and Mastercard but plans to also offer some of its cards through the Discover Network, according to the report. The company also bought digital concierge service Velocity Black, which is a premium credit card and luxury market platform, in June of last year.
“It’s a good example of the risk we’re seeing in the market, where the competing interests from regulators for increased control and rigor balance against the competitive demands that are being made quite clearly, in terms of the overall market,” Schiff said.
The latest merger would be one of the biggest deals announced so far this year. Synopsys bought Ansys for $35 billion in January and Diamondback Energy’s $26 billion deal to buy privately held oil and gas producer Endeavor Energy was announced last week.
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/report-capital-one-to-acquire-discover-financial-services/
FBI launches investigation into Napa Valley's most famous wineries and subpoenas documents relating to 40 high-profile individuals including former Dallas Cowboys owner and onetime US ambassador to Austria
UPDATED: 16:29 EST, 19 February 2024
The FBI has launched an investigation into Napa Valley's most famous wineries and subpoenaed documents related to 40 high-profile individuals.
Billionaire and former part owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Craig Hall and his wife Kathryn Walt Hall, the onetime US ambassador to Austria, were among those named in the legal documents, along with their winery, Hall Hundred Acre.
Other people who were named in the documents were Dave Phinney, the entrepreneur who created the wine brand Prisoner, and Chuck Wagner, the owner of Caymus Vineyards.
The reason for the investigation is still unknown, but many of the vintners and wineries named in the subpoena have direct links to Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Pedroza has long been entangled in land controversies and though he has not been listed or charged, the subpoenas included the names of people and companies that completed the Atlas Peak land deal, including the supervisor's father-in-law, the Napa Valley Register reported.
DailyMail.com contacted the FBI for more information on the federal investigation but did not receive a response.
In response to the investigation, Wagner told the San Francisco Chronicle he was 'mad as hell' that his name was listed.
'I'm baffled. It's (about) the county, they shouldn't be naming individuals- unless I've done something wrong that I don't know about,' Wagner added.
The subpoena ordered a representative of the county to appear before a federal grand jury in San Francisco on Wednesday with 'any and all documents' related to those who were named.
Napa County's deputy county executive communications officer, Holly Dawson, said that the county doesn't 'know anything more than what's in the subpoena.'
Dawson added the county will provide the requested documents and that no one is expected to testify.
Kathryn Hall said that she knew there was an 'ongoing investigation' but that she was unaware of the 'scope or details' and that it would 'inappropriate for us to speculate.'
Kathryn and Craig own five certified organic wineries in Helena and Rutherford, Napa Valley. They have not been accused of any wrongdoings.
Craig purchased an ownership interest in the Dallas Cowboys in 1984 and has gone on to create the Hall Group, a family of assorted companies from wineries, to financial buildings and art.
Kathryn served as the former US Ambassador to Austria from 1997 to 2001 under then-President Bill Clinton, and has gone on to work as an attorney.
According to the winery's website, the couple are 'lifelong art collectors' that enjoy sharing their love of art and wine to the world.
Pedroza was caught up in a messy land battle that involved the Walt Ranch, a piece of land that was set to become a vineyard, but the plan failed last year.
The Hall's purchased the Walt Ranch in 2005 for $8million with similar plans to build a vineyard on it.
In 2022, a resident, Beth Nelson, found out that Pedroza's father-in-law had acquired a stake in property near Walt Ranch. Pedroza voted in favor of the ranch, but did not disclose his father's stake.
Others have claimed that Pedroza and his family could have financially benefited from the vineyard and worried that it's placement would hike up the prices of nearby properties.
His father-in-law, Esteban Llamas, is listed on the subpoena, along with Vinedos AP, LLC, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Pedroza, who is not named in the subpoenas, told the Napa Valley Register: 'I encourage the county, as it always does, to cooperate fully with all other branches of federal and state government.'
'There is no reason here to do otherwise,' he added.
Grant Long, the owner of Revierie and Aonair in Helena, California, was also listed in the subpoena and said that the news 'came as quite a big surprise' to him.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Wagner, Phinney and Hall are all top donors of Pedroza's, who have donated large amounts of money to the supervisor's campaigns. It is unclear if this is related to the investigation.
The documents requested in the subpoena included permits, plans, contracts and correspondence that date to January 1, 2016- the year Pedroza was first elected to Napa County's Board of Supervisors.
Other business owners such James Peter Read, who previously owned the Grocery Outlet, and three of his other businesses were listed in the subpoenas.
Records revealed that Read's Circle R. Ranch, LLC has donated at least $9,900 to Pedroza's campaigns as well.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13101639/FBI-wineries-napa-valley-investigation-california.html
Scientists Create Lab-Grown Testicles
Feb 19, 2024 at 4:04 PM EST
Apair of tiny artificial testicles have been created in a lab, which scientists hope will provide solutions to male infertility and improve our understanding of testicular development and function.
Roughly 1 in 12 men of reproductive age in the United States have experienced problems with infertility. But while male infertility can be easily identified, we know very little about the actual causes behind this condition.
"Artificial testicles are a promising model for basic research on testicle development and function, which can be translated into therapeutic applications for disorders of sexual development and infertility," Nitzan Gonen, a senior lecturer at the Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and the Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said in a statement.
In a recent study, published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences, Gonan's lab successfully created tiny artificial organs called organoids resembling the tubular structures of a natural testicle. Organoids are tiny, artificially grown masses of cells that resemble natural organs and offer novel insights into organ development and disease.
To create these artificial organ-like structures, Gonen and colleagues collected and cultured immature testicular cells from newborn mice. The cells were grown in the lab for nine weeks, which is theoretically long enough for them to complete the process of sperm production and hormone secretion.
The team does not yet know if their artificial testicles can produce sperm, but they did notice signs of early sperm cell production. These structures also resembled the tubular structures present in a natural testicle, where sperm is produced.
This level of maturity is unusual for organoids as most organoids produced to date are made to resemble the embryonic stages of an organ. However, Gonen's team was able to create environmental conditions that allowed the organoids to mature and grow clear sperm tubes.
While mice can provide a useful model for organ development, Gonen hopes in the future to produce these organoids from human samples.
"Development of cancer in pre-pubertal boys followed by chemotherapy and radiation treatments leads to 1 in 3 boys remaining infertile," the authors write. "With 85 percent of young cancer patients surviving to adulthood, this poses a major health concern that needs to be addressed. Currently, no treatments are available to restore male fertility in such patients.
"In this study we developed testicular organoids from mice, but it is highly possible that similar settings could be applied to generate testicular organoids from pre-pubertal boys."
https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-creat-lab-grown-testicles-1871324