Crains New York - May 28, 2012 - (Page 4)

Mini-M.B.A. program offers IN THE MARKETS classes to fit fashion designers by Aaron Elstein FIT professors will help students hone business skills BY ADRIANNE PASQUARELLI The fashion industry is getting another lift from the city, with the kickoff of Design Entrepreneurs NYC, a business-training program for burgeoning fashion companies put together by the New York City Economic Development Corp. and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Classes begin next month. The EDC invested $60,000 in the mini-M.B.A. program, which runs for three weekends from June 2 through June 17. It’s part of the six initiatives introduced in 2010 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Fashion.NYC.2020 plan. FIT professors will instruct students on business plans,which will later be presented to a panel of industry leaders. The program attracted 165 applicants, of whom 35 were chosen, FIT and the city announced last week. ty,” Seth Pinsky, EDC’s president, said in a statement, noting that the program will allow participants to hone their business skills and develop new techniques. Joyce Brown, president of FIT, noted that designers need more than talent to find success. “A firm understanding of business principles and practices is also a necessary component,” she said in a statement.“This program will help these ‘It’s a great time for me to be learning about how to grow’ designers add business skills to their portfolio.” That’s what Sarah Canner is hoping. Ms. Canner launched her Manhattan-based business, Vespertine Inc., a year ago, after noticing that there weren’t a lot of fashionable yet safe apparel options for women bicyclists. The line, which ranges from $20 pins to $500 coats, Demand for training “The overwhelming interest in Design Entrepreneurs NYC is further proof of the demand for critical business training that exists within New York City’s design communi- Eco-friendly line “It’s a great time for me to be learning about how to grow,” said Ms. Canner, a former actress and screenwriter, noting that she wants to figure out how to appeal to potential partners and investors. Similarly, Nimet Deg, a graduate of the global fashion management program at FIT who now runs womenswear company Soham Dave, is in expansion mode but needs guidance on what comes next. Her eco-friendly line, which is designed locally but manufactured by women artisans in India, was launched three years ago. Depending on the material, dresses range in price from $80 to $300. Though she and her business partner, for whom the label is named, sell at independent boutiques around the country, she wants to break into larger department stores. “We are hoping the program will help us finish our business plan, find us financing and give us valuable advice,” she said. O Maybe Facebook’s unfriendly IPO was missing the human factor ne of the more amusing responses to the Facebook IPO fiasco came last week from George Maragos, the Nassau County comptroller who is trying to unseat Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Calling for millions of Facebook trades to be canceled, he said the company should return the $16 billion in cash raised from its initial public offering and start the whole thing over. Sorry, comptroller, that’s not going to happen. But the Facebook debacle does reveal how messed up the plumbing in our nation’s financial system has become. Trading in the blockbuster IPO was delayed for more than half an hour at the very start because Nasdaq and its supercomputers were overwhelmed by the huge number of buy and sell orders. Even after trading began, Nasdaq continued to experience glitches, and some individual investors learned to their dismay that their “cancel” orders weren’t executed and they were the not-soproud owners of Facebook shares at top-of-the-market prices. With hindsight, Nasdaq officials admitted last week that they should have delayed the world’s most anticipated IPO in years and ironed out the tech troubles first. Now Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld has a whole bunch of angry customers on his hands, including giants like Fidelity Investments. While a Securities and Exchange Commission rule caps Nasdaq’s liability at $3 million, Raymond James analyst Patrick O’Shaugnessy believes the exchange will ultimately cut $100 million in checks to help big-ticket clients like Fidelity and Citadel Securities recover losses. While that plays out, regulators need to take a hard look at why Facebook caused the pipes to back up. The answer lies in reforms dating back about 15 years, when regulators began encouraging investors to execute orders on computer-driven marketplaces like Nasdaq and away from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, where a network of floor traders did business much as they had for 200 years. The NYSE system was anything but cutting edge and was prone to corruption, because some floor traders allegedly used the data sent their way to front-run customers. Several traders were indicted on this matter seven years ago, but charges were later dropped or convictions overturned. But the system did have one benefit: People were in charge of trading, not just mopping up after the damage was done. Had Facebook’s IPO taken place under the old NYSE system, it would have proceeded with an auctioneer called a specialist fielding buy and sell orders until he or she managed to strike a balance and begin trading. In a deal as frenzied as Facebook, that process probably would have taken a lot longer than the 30-minute delay required by Nasdaq’s computers. But waiting so investors don’t get stuck with unwanted shares benefits the markets, capital formation, job creation and all that good stuff, right? Facebook isn’t the only IPO beset by plumbing problems lately. BATS Global Markets, one of the most successful computer-based exchanges to rise up in recent years, had to pull the plug on its public offering in March after technical difficulties caused inaccurate prices to be quoted for its own shares, plus those of Apple and others. It sure sounds like it’s time for regulators to open the Yellow Pages and call a plumber. According to news reports, the NYSE is now trying to persuade Facebook to shift its listing from Nasdaq. It’d be stunning if Facebook de-friended Nasdaq, which has deep ties with Silicon Valley.But you can be sure that the NYSE is giving a full-court charm offensive to executives at other companies planning to do IPOs, reminding them that the old stock exchange still has a few human beings working on its trading floor. $28B 4 | Crain’s New York Business | May 28, 2012 THE DECLINE in Facebook’s market value since its IPO. That is triple the market value of Alcoa, the aluminum giant that’s part of the Dow Jones industrial average. bloomberg news sells at a host of bike shops around the city, including Hudson Urban Bicycles in the West Village and the soon-to-open Bicycle Roots in Brooklyn, but Ms. Canner wants to expand her business even more, especially given the upcoming bikeshare program in the city. http://www.gvccnyc.com http://www.gvccnyc.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - May 28, 2012

Crains New York - May 28, 2012
Contents
Kids’ Lines Behave Badly for Retail Industry
City’s Scarcest Resource These Days? Engineers
Taxi! Follow That Cab’s Fare Increase
Nasdaq Attack the Facebook Fallout in the Markets
Bronx Retail Strip Goes From Famously Bad to Bustling
It’s the Return of the Automat
The Insider
Real Estate Deals
Opinion
For the Record
The Week on the Web
Classifieds
Taking Urban Farming to a New Level
Anne Fisher: Manufacturing Jobs Make a Comeback
Hot Jobs
Movers & Shakers: Russian Banker Shares His u.s.plans
Gael Greene: Fighting the Crowd at Primola
The Week Ahead

Crains New York - May 28, 2012