Connie Loizos is a contributor to PE Hub, a Thomson Reuters publication. This story originally appeared here.

Entrepreneur Peter Yared doesn’t mince words. In April, after TechCrunch misreported some of the circumstances around a Facebook employee’s termination, Yared wrote a widely read post titled “Why TechCrunch is Over” in which he called its founder, Michael Arrington, “insane,” adding that it “must be hard to live amidst a rapidly declining site.”

In more recent posts, Yared has called Twitter “primarily a broadcasting platform with very few active users” and unusable for “normal people.” He has also suggested that if he were to start a company today with either entrepreneurs Mark Pincus, Evan Williams, or Mark Zuckerberg, he’d go with Pincus “given what we now know” about Williams and Zuckerberg. (Both have been accused of elbowing their early co-founders out of the picture.)

It’s no surprise then that Yared — who has founded and sold four companies, including to Sun Microsystems, VMWare, and Webtrends — is very fun to chat up.

Full Article…

How to overcome debt; it is not simple, it takes guts and it is a difficult time to get through, but anyone can do it. Credit card problems are the main concern when it comes to money worries and the amount of financial stress these little plastic guys can cause is unbelievable. You can easily become blacklisted by not paying your credit card installments and having a bad credit record is not something you want now, or any time in the future. It is a nightmare to live with and your life will honestly not be the same once you are blacklisted.

There are counsellors that will help you deal with the financial stress when you are trying to overcome debt; have a session with a counsellor that specializes in this field and you will feel a lot better. You might need more than one session, but that’s fine; have as many as you need. Your money worries won’t go away unless something drastic happens like you get an unexpected inheritance or win the Lotto, but it does get easier to deal with, especially so if there are good counsellors involved in the process.

Full Article…

The Serious Fraud Office has closed its investigation into two of the now bankrupt Christchurch property developer David Henderson’s companies saying it finds no basis for further investigation.

Both companies, Property Ventures Ltd. and Cashel Ventures Ltd., were associated with developing the Hotel So in Christchurch and Henderson was the sole director of both.

Property Ventures went into receivership in May last year while Cashel Ventures went into liquidation in December.

In May, SFO director Adam Feeley said his organisation had started to investigate allegations the two companies may have made misrepresentations to South Canterbury Finance and Dominion Finance Group, both of which are in receivership, in order to secure funding.

Today, Feeley said while the SFO was satisfied the complaint it received was made in good faith and there was sufficient evidence to initiate an inquiry, there was not material evidence beyond the initial information to take the matter further.

“The SFO recognises the importance of every investigation coming to a timely conclusion.

Full Article…

Volatility-linked exchange traded funds rallied Friday as signs the European debt crisis is worsening contributed to a nearly 10% rise in the CBOE Volatility Index.

The iPath Long Enhanced S&P 500 VIX Mid-Term Futures ETN rose 7%. Exchange traded notes and products are designed to track VIX futures rather than the spot price, so their performance differs.

The VIX this month has pushed above its 200-day moving average for the first time since the March wipeout in stocks. The Dow fell more than 100 points on Friday while ETFs tracking Italy and Spain were down sharply on debt concerns.

Over the past week, the VIX itself has been volatile, bouncing in a range between roughly 18 and 25. The “fear index” closed above 21 on Friday.

It seems some options traders have been caught on the wrong foot as the VIX rises.

Full Article…