Holly Thompson's  Instablog

KKR May Purchase $400 Million Stake in Texas Shale From Hilcorp ~ KKR & Co (KKR), the buyout firm run by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, may purchase about $400 million of Texas shale assets from Hilcorp Energy Co., two people with direct knowledge of the talks said. KKR and Hilcorp, a closely held exploration and production company based in Houston, may partner to develop the formation known as Eagle Ford in the southern part of the state, which has unconventional gas deposits, according to one of the people who declined to be identified because the deal is private. KKR’s purchase of a stake may be announced as early as today, the person said.  (Bloomberg)

AT&T Blames iPad Incident on 'Malicious' Hackers ~ AT&T Inc. (T), reaching out to iPad users Sunday to explain why their email addresses were released last week, blamed the incident on "computer hackers" who "maliciously exploited" an attempt by the carrier to speed the process of logging in to its website. The comments were the harshest yet by the carrier, which apologized for the security lapse and said it would cooperate with any efforts to investigate or prosecute the breach."AT&T takes your privacy seriously and does not tolerate unauthorized access to its customers' information or company websites," the company said. group of computer experts calling itself Goatse Security uncovered the flaw and then turned the results over to Gawker Media LLC to be made public last week. Escher Auernheimer, a member of the group, said in a blog post overnight that it acted to protect users and chided AT&T for taking several days to inform customers after becoming aware of the security breach. (WSJ)

Cablevision to Buy Bresnan for $1.3 Billion ~ Cablevision Systems (CVC) plans to buy Bresnan Communications, majority-owned by private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, for about $1.3 billion, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.  The deal is expected to announced on Monday, said the source, who declined to be identified because they were not  authorized to speak with the media. Bresnan, Cablevision and Providence could not be immediately reached for a comment. Bresnan, which was founded in 1984, provides communications services such as high-speed Internet access, high-definition television, video on demand, and digital telephone service to residential and business customers. Bresnan serves more than 320,000 customers in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Utah, according to its website. The company's auction follows last year's death of founder William Bresnan. Cablevision beat out a competitive field of suitors that included six other bidders in the final round last week, the source said. Other suitors included Suddenlink Communications and media mogul John Malone, said the source.  (CNBC)

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan ~ The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.  The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys. The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war. (NYT)



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