Winners And Losers: Barclays Gets Blasted; Einhorn Earns Millions

Bob Diamond, former CEO of Barclays PLC (Reuters)

Barclays PLC

Barclays (NYSE: BCS), the U.K.'s second-largest bank by assets, had a miserable week. After settling with authorities for $435 million over manipulating Libor, the British interbank lending rate, chairman Marcus Agius resigned. The next day, Boston-bred CEO Bob Diamond and COO Jerry del Missier followed, leaving the bank virtually leaderless. Barclays stock punged by 16.5 percent during the week to close at $10.27, and both Moody's and Standard & Poor's cut Barclays' outlook to negative. The bank's board now has the difficult task of picking new executives, and British regulators said Friday they would pursue a fraud investigation, which could result in criminal charges.

Bill Johnson Of Duke Energy

Johnson was CEO of Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE: DUK) for only five days, following a $26 billion merger between Duke and Johnson's old firm, Progress Energy Inc. In an unprecedented move, Duke's board removed Johnson despite an agreement that Johnson would be the top executive following the merger. Instead, Jim Rogers, chairman and former CEO of Duke, will retain the top position. John Mullin, the former lead director of Progress, sent a letter to the Wall Street Journal in which he said, I do not believe that a single director of Progress would have voted for this transaction as structured with the knowledge that the CEO of Duke, Jim Rogers, would remain as the CEO of the combined company.

Research In Motion

Research In Motion Ltd. (TSE: RIM), the maker of Blackberry, has been greatly diminished by the rise of Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s iPhone and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG)'s Android devices. After announcing it would cut 5,000 jobs and potentially sell off part of its business, the company's stock by 18.7 percent during the week, although it rebounded on Friday by 5.25 percent to close at $8.22.

The Winners

Anderson Cooper (Reuters)

CNN And Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper came out and made the big announcement that he is gay on Monday, without a lot of surprise from media insiders but to an outpouring of public support. For Cooper, the announcement demonstrates personal integrity to his viewers and will provide him with a strong moral position to report from when covering issues important to the LGBT community. For CNN and parent company Time Warner Inc (NYSE: TWX), the announcement may prove a boon as it could strengthen the image of one of its most important primetime slots.

Carmakers

All the major carmakers reported bumper U.S. sales in June on pent-up demand, contractor purchases of pickup trucks, dropping gasoline prices and strong incentives. The seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of sales drifted back above 14 million after a lackluster showing in May. June was a pivotal month for car sales, and the fact that the auto industry recovered from the difficult month before may indicate sustained growth through the end of the year and possibly on into 2014. The Detroit three, Chrysler Group LLC, a subsidiary of Fiat SpA (Milan: F), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), benefited from strong demand for pickup trucks, small SUVs and fuel efficient cars, while Japan’s largest automakers, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM), Nissan Motor Co. (Tokyo: 7201) and Honda Motor Co. (NYSE: HMC) began to find traction as production and inventory levels continue to recover from last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan and floods in Thailand.

City Year And David Einhorn

Legendary financier David Einhorn, founder and president of Greenlight Capital Inc., stomped all over the amateur and professional competition at the World Series of Poker Big One for One Drop Tournament and placed third with a haul of $4.35 million on a buy-in of $1 million, and a lucky nonprofit won big, too. Einhorn gave his winners to City Year, a national education organization that deploys volunteers at high need schools. It wasn’t Einhorn’s first time in the World Series of Poker, but it was his biggest win, and the winnings went to one of his favorite charities. Bully for him! The tournament overall raised $5.5 million for the nonprofit One Drop.