Common Signs Deal With No I.D. and Def Jam

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After years of being a free agent, Common has found a new label home owned by a dear friend. The Chicago rhymer has inked a deal with No I.D.‘s imprint Artium Records via Def Jam Records.

This partnership marks a collaborative reunion between Common and No I.D., who have previously worked together on Com’s four stellar albums: ‘Can I Borrow a Dollar’ (1992), ‘Resurrection’ (1994), ‘One Day It’ll All Make Sense’ (1997) and ‘The Dreamer/The Believer’ (2011).

The dynamic duo will now work closely together to release ‘Nobody’s Smiling,’ Common’s 10th solo album. The set’s first single is the powerful sociopolitical track ‘Kingdom‘ featuring Vince Staples. On the song, Com and Staples rap about the violence that’s crippling Chicago and the citizen’s spiritual well-being.

“Common and I have a long history of making great music together,” said No I.D. “His rich legacy and robust talent are perfect additions to the Def Jam family. It’s particularly significant that he’s coming under our roof for his 10th album as a matured artist and cultural ambassador. It’s a tremendous boost for the spirit of Def Jam as well as the world of hip-hop.”

True indeed.

For Common, signing with Atrium/Def Jam has become his full-circle moment in hip-hop.

“I’m honored to team up with No I.D. and be a part of the Artium and Def Jam family,” he said. “Creating this album and signing to Def Jam feels like a new beginning for me. I feel like a new artist because I created this album with the purpose to give back to my city and to the culture of hip hop. Def Jam is part of the foundation of hip hop and being able to work with No I.D. was returning to my foundation now with new energy and new hunger.”

Congratulations to Common. We can’t wait to hear his new album, ‘Nobody’s Smiling.’

.@Common Signs To No I.D.'s Artium/Def Jam Recordings http://t.co/D10yuzES8E pic.twitter.com/CqD2kmMxmK

— Def Jam Recordings (@DefJamRecords) June 4, 2014

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Young Thug Signs Record Deal with Cash Money Records

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Since dropping his gritty street bangers ‘Stoner’ and ‘Danny Glover,’ Young Thug has been courted by a few rap labels including Future’s Freebandz imprint. However, it appears that the Atlanta rhymer has signed with one of the biggest rap empires in hip-hop.

According to Mass Appeal, Young Thug has all but confirmed that he’s now an artist on Birdman’s Cash Money Records.

While attending the festivities at NBA All-Star Weekend in New Orleans, YT was asked if he signed with the storied label.

“Yeah. I signed,” he told Mass Appeal journalist Brian Padilla.

Young Thug went on his Facebook page today (Feb. 16) to further confirm his alliance with YMCMB. He posted:

Also, if you look at Birdman’s Instagram page, they are several photos of Young Thug getting cozy with the CEO and hanging out with his fellow labelmates. So it’s plausible that a deal has been finalized but the ink hasn’t dried as of yet.

If the news is true, signing with Cash Money Records sounds like a logical choice for the bubbling artist. Since Nicki Minaj bodied his ‘Danny Glover‘ track, could we see YT and Queen Barbz on a song together?

In the meantime, Young Thug is currently on a promotional tour in support of his latest mixtape ‘Black Portland.’ He’s also catching some slander on his Instagram page for his, uh, unique fashion sense and questionable photos.

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Signs of Rebound as Sony Posts a $35 Million Profit

Sony of Japan posted net income of 3.5 billion yen ($35 million) in the quarter that ended June 30, after a loss of 24.6 billion yen in the period a year earlier. The results were helped by a weaker yen and increased sales of smartphones. Revenue increased 13 percent, to $17.3 billion.

Company executives did not comment on a report in the Nikkei business newspaper that Sony was “leaning toward” rejecting the breakup proposal from Daniel S. Loeb, a New York hedge fund manager whose firm, Third Point, holds a 7 percent stake in Sony. Mr. Loeb wants the company to separate the entertainment unit from the electronics and financial divisions by selling stock in the unit and giving it its own board.

“We are going to discuss this carefully and then come to a solid conclusion,” Masaru Kato, Sony’s chief financial officer, said in a conference call with analysts.

“Improving the profitability of electronics is the biggest priority of Mr. Hirai,” he added, referring to the chief executive, Kazuo Hirai. “At the same time, entertainment and financial services remain core parts of the business.”

Mr. Loeb stepped up his campaign for a breakup this week in a letter to Third Point investors in which he attacked Sony management over the weak performance of Sony’s Hollywood studio business. That unit has been hurt by poor box-office receipts for recent films like “After Earth” and “White House Down.”

In his letter, Mr. Loeb compared those films to the notorious Hollywood flops “Ishtar” and “Waterworld,” and added that the studio business was “characterized by a complete lack of accountability and poor financial controls.”

Sony confirmed the weak performance of the studio business in the quarter, saying sales had fallen 16 percent in constant currency terms.

Later in the day, in Hollywood, the company announced a significant and surprising move in its film operation, saying it would revive its semidormant TriStar unit as a movie and television venture in partnership with Thomas E. Rothman, who this year stepped down as chairman and chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

The new venture promises to bring back a film and television label that until the late 1990s was operated as a fully staffed studio, run in parallel with the Columbia Pictures unit of Sony. Its peak moments included the successes of “Jerry Maguire” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

Mr. Rothman, who expressed support for Sony’s managers, declined to say how much Sony would invest in the studio. He and company executives said Sony was expected to make four films a year, and to split its activities evenly between television and film. Mr. Rothman said he would have an equity stake in the venture and was open to outside investment, though he expected to begin with Sony’s money.

In a statement, Sony Pictures Entertainment said Mr. Rothman would report to Michael Lynton, who is chief executive of that unit, and Amy Pascal, a chairwoman.

Speaking separately on Thursday, Ms. Pascal and Mr. Rothman said negotiations for the TriStar venture, which will be called TriStar Productions, began well in advance of the first round of criticism by Mr. Loeb.

Ms. Pascal said early conversations with Mr. Rothman had centered on a venture that might provide the smaller, artier films for which Mr. Rothman became known when he years ago started Fox Searchlight for the News Corporation and its 20th Century Fox unit. Ultimately, she said, the partnership was drafted to allow for more scope. “We want to make movies that make money,” she said.

In Sony’s earnings report, its electronics business showed clear signs of a turnaround.

Although sales of video cameras and compact digital cameras have been caught up in an industrywide slide, Sony reported a “significant increase” in quarterly sales of smartphones, to 9.6 million from 7.4 million in the period a year earlier. Sony said average selling prices had risen as well, helping the mobile division post a profit of $60 million, after a loss of $28.1 million in the year-ago period.

Although analysts have questioned the value of retaining the broad array of product lines in which the company competes, they said the improved outlook had bolstered the position of Mr. Hirai as he tries to persuade investors of the merits of keeping the company intact.

“It’s very clear that the company is focused on fixing electronics, and these results show that the strategy seems to be working,” said Damian Thong, an analyst at Macquarie Securities.

Eric Pfanner reported from Tokyo and Michael Cieply from Los Angeles.

DealBook: In Dell’s Waning Cash Flows, Signs of Concern

Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesMichael S. Dell and the investment firm Silver Lake have offered to take Dell private in a $24.4 billion deal.

The proposed Dell buyout may be motivated more by fear than greed.

Dell’s founder, Michael S. Dell, and the investment firm Silver Lake are offering to take the company private in a $24.4 billion deal. One interpretation of the offer is that savvy investors, using cheap loans, see a nice opportunity to unlock the value from a company that has fallen out of favor with stock investors. The fact that large shareholders are opposed to the deal, thinking it is priced too low, supports the idea that Dell is a diamond in the rough.

But there is an opposite interpretation: The buyout is a last-ditch effort to revive the company. To some, taking Dell private is what’s necessary to implement the sort of bold measures that could prevent the steady decline of a company that has been left behind in many of its markets. And like many acts of desperation, the risks are high that going private will fail.

This viewpoint starts with Dell’s cash flows. How much actual money a company makes each quarter is always an important metric. It’s especially critical at firms that go private in leveraged buyout deals. Once private, Dell would have a lot more debt – and it would need divert more cash to service it.

Going private may allow the company to slash costs, which preserves cash. But management may also feel liberated to spend more on initiatives it feels enthusiastic about, which would use up cash initially. In a botched buyout, management’s plans fail to produce results and a dangerous cash crunch occurs.

And there are some signs that Dell’s cash flows are weakening going into the deal.

The cash flow metric that matters is called free cash flow, which takes the money generated by Dell’s operations and then subtracts what the company spends on capital expenditures. Through the end of its latest fiscal year, which ended in February, Dell’s free cash flows were $2.77 billion. That is well below the $4.85 billion reported in the prior fiscal year. And the recent cash flows may have gotten a boost from financial moves that might be hard to repeat. In the most recent quarter, Dell generated a lot of cash from taking longer to pay its suppliers.

It’s easy to paint a grim picture from these numbers. A privately held Dell might have an extra $700 million to $1 billion of extra interest a year, which could in theory take annual free cash flows below $2 billion. That provides little margin for safety if Dell’s operations run into serious trouble, even if the company does decide to dip into its large pool of overseas cash.

But there are some reasons to believe this analysis is overly pessimistic.

First, the cash flow numbers probably don’t fully factor in how much cash can be generated by Dell’s recent acquisitions. Just as a couple of items helped bolster cash flows in recent quarters, others used up a lot cash, and may not do so in the future. For instance, Dell had a $450 million cash drain in the last fiscal year just from the “deferred income taxes” line. That could be the result of a one-off action rather than a recurring trend.

With all its acquisitions contributing, optimists might contend that Dell can produce $3.5 billion of free cash flow a year. If investors paid seven times that, the company would be valued at the $24 billion, which is where it is valued today on the stock market. Other shareholders think Dell is worth a lot more than $24 billion, and has the cash flows to justify it.

But right now, Dell’s cash flows are weakening. And if they continue to wane, Mr. Dell may soon have a tough job ahead of him. He may already know that — looking at those cash flows.

The iEconomy: Signs of Changes Taking Hold in Electronics Factories in China

At first, Ms. Pu wondered if someone had made a mistake. But when her bosses walked by, they just nodded curtly. So Ms. Pu gently sat down and leaned back. Her body relaxed.

The rumors were true.

When Ms. Pu was hired at this Foxconn plant a year earlier, she received a short, green plastic stool that left her unsupported back so sore that she could barely sleep at night. Eventually, she was promoted to a wooden chair, but the backrest was much too small to lean against. The managers of this 164,000-employee factory, she surmised, believed that comfort encouraged sloth.

But in March, unbeknown to Ms. Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn’s top executives and a high-ranking Apple official. The companies had committed themselves to a series of wide-ranging reforms. Foxconn, China’s largest private employer, pledged to sharply curtail workers’ hours and significantly increase wages — reforms that, if fully carried out next year as planned, could create a ripple effect that benefits tens of millions of workers across the electronics industry, employment experts say.

Other reforms were more personal. Protective foam sprouted on low stairwell ceilings inside factories. Automatic shut-off devices appeared on whirring machines. Ms. Pu got her chair. This autumn, she even heard that some workers had received cushioned seats.

The changes also extend to California, where Apple is based. Apple, the electronics industry’s behemoth, in the last year has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, has re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, has asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and has reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed.

Executives at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Intel say those shifts have convinced many electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers — often at a cost to their bottom lines, though, analysts say, probably not so much as to affect consumer prices. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and questions during presidential debates, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industry’s reputation was at risk.

“The days of easy globalization are done,” said an Apple executive who, like many people interviewed for this article, requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. “We know that we have to get into the muck now.”

Even with these reforms, chronic problems remain. Many laborers still work illegal overtime and some employees’ safety remains at risk, according to interviews and reports published by advocacy organizations.

But the shifts under way in China may prove as transformative to global manufacturing as the iPhone was to consumer technology, say officials at over a dozen electronics companies, worker advocates and even longtime factory critics.

“This is on the front burner for everyone now,” said Gary Niekerk, a director of corporate social responsibility at Intel, which manufactures semiconductors in China. No one inside Intel “wants to end up in a factory that treats people badly, that ends up on the front page.”

The durability of many transformations, however, depends on where Apple, Foxconn and overseas workers go from here. Interviews with more than 70 Foxconn employees in multiple cities indicate a shift among the people on iPad and iPhone assembly lines. The once-anonymous millions assembling the world’s devices are drawing lessons from the changes occurring around them.

As summer turned to autumn and then winter, Ms. Pu began to sign up for Foxconn’s newly offered courses in knitting and sketching. At 25 and unmarried, she already felt old. But she decided that she should view her high-backed chair as a sign. China’s migrant workers are, in a sense, the nation’s boldest risk-takers, transforming entire industries by leaving their villages for far-off factories to power a manufacturing engine that spans the globe.

Ms. Pu had always felt brave, and as this year progressed and conditions inside her factory improved, she became convinced that a better life was within reach. Her parents had told her that she was free to choose any husband, as long as he was from Sichuan. Then she found someone who seemed ideal, except that he came from another province.

Reclining in her new seat, she decided to ignore her family’s demands, she said. The couple are seeing each other.

“There was a change this year,” she said. “I’m realizing my value.”

An Inspector’s Push

“This is a disgrace!” shouted Terry Gou, founder and chairman of Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer and Apple’s most important industrial partner.

Keith Bradsher reported from Chengdu and Chongqing, and Charles Duhigg from New York. Yadan Ouyang contributed reporting from Chengdu and Chongqing.

Bits Blog: Signs of High Demand for the iPhone 5

Yonhap/European Pressphoto Agency

Did you forget to set the alarm on your iPhone to wake you up with a gentle marimba ringtone at 3 a.m. Eastern time Friday?

If so, your chances of getting the iPhone 5 early got a little dimmer.

In the wee hours of Friday, Apple started letting people order the iPhone 5 from its online store. It took only an hour for Apple’s site to change its shipping estimates for the product to two weeks. By Friday evening, the Apple store had changed the shipping estimate to two to three weeks. People who managed to submit their orders early were told they would receive their phones on Sept. 21, the day the iPhone 5 is officially available.

That change in delivery times is a sign that Apple’s online store burned through its initial inventory quickly, forcing customers who ordered later to wait.

“Pre-orders for iPhone 5 have been incredible,” said Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman. “We’ve been completely blown away by the customer response.”

Supplies at Apple’s wireless carrier partners in the United States seemed to hold up a bit longer, but eventually they, too, began giving customers longer shipping estimates. By Friday evening, AT&T’s online store gave a shipping estimate of two to three weeks, while Verizon promised to deliver the iPhone 5 by Sept. 28, two weeks from Friday. Sprint’s Web site was promising Sept. 21 delivery of the 32-gigabyte and 64-gigabyte iPhone 5 models, though it said the 16-gigabyte phone will not be delivered for up to two weeks.

For people who want the iPhone 5 on its official first day of sale, there’s still the old-fashioned option of queuing up in front of bricks-and-mortar stores. Apple and its wireless partners will start selling the iPhone 5 on Sept. 21 starting at 8 a.m. local time for as long as their supplies last.