Daily Record Financial News &
Monday, February 15, 2016
Vol. 103, No. 066 • Two Sections
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Fidelity invests in gun maker Colt Fidelity National Financial Inc., known for making a wide variety of investments outside of its main title insurance subsidiary, is now in the gun business. Through its Fidelity National Financial Ventures (FNFV) unit, Fidelity made a $22 million investment in Colt Defense LLC as the historic gun manufacturer emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month. Fidelity revealed the investment during FNFV’s quarterly conference call with analysts Thursday. “It’s an iconic company. It’s one of the best brand names in
Bickett
Even law firms are vulnerable to hackers
that type of industry in the world and the world is a dangerous place right now,” said Fidelity Executive Vice President Brent Bickett. He said the Colt deal is similar to other investments Fidelity has made in distressed companies, which became profitable as the businesses turned around. He said Fidelity partnered with Newport Global Advisors, a firm it has teamed with in the past, to invest in debt securities issued by Colt. “We feel pretty good about the investment, but it’s just a typical value investment that we like to
pursue,” Bickett said. He did not say how much of an interest Fidelity will have in Colt. The company’s Chapter 11 reorganization plan stated the Fidelity-Newport partnership, along with Colt’s previous owner, Sciens Capital Management, will have voting control of Colt. FNFV, which was created as a tracking stock for Fidelity’s
non-real estate investments, also owns interests in a number of restaurants, including a majority stake in a company that owns the Ninety Nine, Village Inn, Baker’s Square and O’Charley’s chains. That company sold off a chain called Max & Erma’s last month, as Fidelity explores options to spin off or sell those businesses. Meanwhile, Fidelity has been buying up shares since late last year of another restaurant company, Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group Inc. In the conference call, Chairman Bill Foley said Fidelity has Basch continued on Page A-6
Loss of a legal legend
Only choice was to pay ransom or lose all files By Max Marbut Staff Writer You might think the data stored on your computer at home or work is relatively safe from theft or even tampering. You would be wrong. No one knows that better than attorney Thomas Brown of The Brown Firm. He left his office one day in late December thinking everything was just fine. When he returned the next morning, Brown realized he was essentially out of business, at least temporarily. Neither he nor his staff could access any of the files on their computers. Not his client files, not his case documents or even the firm’s financial data, including trust accounts and payroll. Brown lets his office manager and legal assistant, Patty Pearson, tell the story of how hackers held his practice for ransom for more than a week. “Everything we do is scanned. Even our Word documents are converted to pdf’s. They (the hackers) somehow got onto our server and decrypted all of our files,” she said. “They were useless. Nothing was compromised. We just couldn’t get to it.” Pearson immediately contacted the firm’s IT services provider. It took nearly two days to determine what happened and what would have to be done before they could open anything other than email. The culprits left behind a digital message: Give them $2,500 and they would provide a key that would open the files. The law firm’s IT people said there were two choices. Either pay the ransom, Pearson said, “or lose everything we had.” The virtual ransom note also contained instructions to pay the ransom in “bitcoin,” a digital asset and payment system. According to a report posted on CNN. Security continued on Page A-7
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Local attorneys recount time with Scalia By Marilyn Young Editor
Former Solicitor General Scott Makar, standing, represented the state in the Graham v. Florida hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Makar is now a judge on the 1st District Court of Appeal. Jacksonville attorney Bryan Gowdy, who represented Terrance Graham, is at Makar’s left.
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As Bryan Gowdy stood before the U.S. Supreme Court in November 2009, he found himself in a bit of a verbal tussle with Justice Antonin Scalia. In the Graham v. Florida case, Gowdy was arguing that sentencing juveniles in non-homicide cases to life without the possibility of parole was both cruel and unusual. Cruel because it gives up on a child early in life. Unusual because, at that point, such a sentence had only been imposed 30 times in six states. (About three dozen states allowed the sentence.) Gowdy felt Scalia was trying to pin him down to say he thought every time something was unusual that it had to be unconstitutional. “That was not our argument,” Gowdy said. The two had a few spirited exchanges on the issue, which didn’t surprise Gowdy, the attorney for Terrance Graham. “I expected him to be tougher with me,” Gowdy said of Scalia. He knew going in Scalia’s stance would be the opposite of his. It also was opposite of what Scalia’s peers ultimately decided several months later in a 6-3 victory for Gowdy’s only appearance before the court. The justice was predictable in that he always stood true to his principles, Gowdy said. It’s one of the well-known attributes of Scalia, who died unexpectedly Saturday at 79 after serving nearly 30 years on Scalia continued on Page A-11
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