darden's plans to spin-off its red lobster chain hits a boiling point with a major investor. jeffrey smith's starboard value holds a 5.5% stake in darden and is intent on stopping the move. in an sec filing starboard questioned the motive behind the spin-off and said it was the wrong move for investors. red lobster is darden restautrant group's weakest link -- sales fell 8.7% in the latest quarter. and, this one takes the cake...in response to customer feedback, starbucks is bringing back its cake slices. the coffee chain tried to replace them with little loaves that cost 20-cents more than the slices. but savvy customers said the loaves were smaller than the slices and that didn't cut it. so starbucks is back to selling slices...at the higher price. qq still to come: record run ... how the average "bear" is reacting to this market. plus...can junk food junkies learn to love kale? the man who is betting big on clean eating. and... what the fbi may uncover as it digs into high frequency traders... first business continues, after this! high speed traders highlighted in a 60 min

darden shares closed up 3% yesterday. earnings give stocks a push. united technologies tops wall street's expectations, and raises its full year profit outlook.the stock closed up 80 cents at 119 dollars. at comcast -- the cable company says it's adding subscribers helping it's revenue gain 13%. yum brands did not deliver. profits from the owner of kfc and pizza hut fell short of analyst expectations, though sales in china -- a key market -- were up 11%. investors took that as a good sign... the stock rose more than 2% in after hours trading. and, solid sales of gilead sciences' hepatitis c drug heped push profits higher last quarter. revenue nearly doubled. home sharing site air-b-n-b is pulling thousands of listings in new york city. it's in response to a subpeona from new york attorney general eric schniederman, who argues that two thirds of users in new york city are illegally renting out their apartments. airbnb says it is taking the listings down on its own, not because of the subpeona. the popular site secured nearly a half billion dollars in

so look darden is a terrific company. a lot of value at darden. as proposed could really harm that value in multiple ways. we need to stop it. it's not a great idea. >> what are the multiple ways you talk about when you say it's a terrible idea? >> spinning off red lobster as stand-alone company we believe could destroy as much as $800 million in value. it also will track about $800 million worth of darden's real estate. you have to put those two together and you're talking about pretty large delta in terms of potential value, but more importantly than that it's just not the right operational idea. so if you're going to spin off a business, look, we're in favor of spinoffs if you have a large conglomerate which darden is, spinning off one of the assets or several of the assets could make a lot of sense to get operational focus, but to do that with a struggling business, red lobster is a terrific franchise, it's a terrific concept, but it's struggling right now. high seafood prices and the operational performance hasn't been good. traffic patterns

so again, remember, darden has retained goldman sachs as an advisor. the board itself has retained morgan stanley so this battle continues. back over to you. >> yeah. it's actually interesting, i got that starboard presentation late, late, late last night from a source and i went in basically, they're saying darden, you got a lot of money in real estate. if you split off red lobster, you will trap the real estate, potentially losing $850 million in shareholder equity. it's a lobster fight. an olive garden lobster fight. thank you very much. >>> still ahead, we are just minutes away from general motors ceo mary barra's opening remarks on capitol hill. what did they know and when? we will take that as soon as it begins. in my world, wall isn't a street... ...return on investment isn't the only return i'm looking forward to... for some, every dollar is earned with sweat, sacrifice, courage. which is why usaa is honored to help our members with everything from investing for retirement to saving for college. our commitment to current and former military mem

should investors be more concerned with darden's future and lesser known restaurants such as yard housend capital grill? or more concerned with the spineoff to come? >> thank you for that question. what they have to be concerned about is management seeming not knowing what they're doing because the real problem is red lobster. and olive garden's not that great either. got to get management to fix it, not break it off or spin it off. let's go to jason in new jersey. jason? >> caller: hey, jim, how are you? >> how are you, jason? >> caller: good. watching your shows at the end of the crazy trading days lately is the only thing that relieves my stress. >> i have to tell you, that's good, because it's about as stressful as ever to do this show. thank you very much. >> caller: it's crazy. the old days all over again. and today's stress is groupon. just when i think it made a base at 740, 730, boom, it's the ugly girl at the dance. what is going on? >> groupon, actually, did not make the quarter, missed the quarter. typically, it would snap back in the old market. in the new market, when some

we've seen that from retailers such as -- liz: darden. >> bed, bath & beyond. darden restaurants.industrial side we've certainly seen it from companies in the transportation space such as fedex. during fedex's conference call, weather was mentioned 41 times. seems like more of a legitimate issue this earnings season. liz: because our investor audience owns some of these companies we're putting them on the screen. you mentioned fedex. if we look at the actual sectors, industrials, consumer discretionary, is there anything actually looking good here, mr. butters? >> in terms of earnings growth there are a couple sectors expecting growth this quarter. the telecom sector is expecting growth of 24%. liz: telecom. >> utility is expecting growth of 7%, exactly. so those are two sectors expecting solid earnings growth this quarter. isn those two sectors often pay the highest dividends? >> exactly and you know if we look at the negative side of the equation the energy sector is expecting the lowest growth at 7 1/2% and industrial sector we talked about being impacted by weather and is at t

there's a company, i'm sure you've heard of, called darden, which is the world's largest full-serviceestaurant company, they own olive garden, red lobster, capital grille steakhouse. in 2011, they announced the partnership with michelle obama saying that they were going to provide healthy food for kids at the olive garden. well, at that same moment, a server was forced to work with hepatitis a in fayetteville, north carolina olive garden. and with a wage as low as $2.13 an hour, she had to go to work to get those tips. well, 3,000 people were exposed to hepatitis a as a result of that incident, had to get tested by the local county health department, filed a consumer class action against the restaurant, and won. so we ask, how healthy can your food really be for your kids at the olive garden if they're going to be exposed to hepatitis a? >> do these tipped workers get benefits as a matter of practice? >> ninety percent of restaurant workers in america do not have access to healthcare or paid sick days. which means, according to our research, 2/3 of restaurant workers report cooking, p

these are some examples of where they're able to manage that risk, where's bob evans, darden restaurantsally struggling. look at b.j.'s restaurants, really getting crunched on the margins. and guess what, investors have figured this thing out already. you look at the food producers, this year, up about 7% versus the restaurants, down about .8%. at least for now, maybe you just sit tight on the restaurants. food producers are doing ok, but it's going to be hard. there's a lot of food inflation right now. >> thanks so much, adam. indeed, there is. i want to talk about one mover that's sort of related to that. it's in the beverage business, not the food business. it's soda stream. shares are surging the most in almost two years. starbucks is in advance talks to buy a 10% stake in the maker of home beverage carbon asian system, according to an israeli newspaper. ♪ you are watching "bloomberg west," i am emily chang. is selling the iphone growth hurting apple? we will find out if apple is in danger. and the real winner or loser in the apple-samsung patent case, maybe google. check of your top

shares.aurant -- darden we will be "on the markets" again in 30 minutes. >> welcome back to the secondf-hour of "bottom line" bloomberg television. i am a mark crumpton. but start with breaking news -- president and first lady michelle obama had adjusted -- had adjusted gross of $98,169 in 2013. $59,231 to 32ated charities. in 2012, the obamas paid 18.4% in taxes. stay tuned to bloomberg on monday for special programming on everything from the future of the mortgage deduction to how you should handle your bitcoin profits. "taxing america," all day monday on bloomberg television. i will be speaking with a senior research associate at the urban institute and we will focus on pop up tax-preparation stores cheating unsuspecting clients. that is 2:30 p.m. monday on "bottom line." let's check the top stories of this hour. the national transportation safety board is investigating a crash that killed 10 people last night in california. busdex truck slammed into a carrying more than 40 high school students. the chartered bus was shuttling students to humboldt state university for a visit could

. >> danny, right now, there is a big restaurant chain many of us are familiar with, darden, olive gardeny're actually under attack from shareholders who feel they're not doing enough for shareholders. what do you do if you're under attack from shareholders for declining comparable store sales? is it a change in the way you handle employees? or are some methods of restauranteuring old-fashioned? >> i've got confidence we'll figure this out. however, i think a lot of restaurants play in what's been a tough segment these days. the casual restaurant segment has been squeezed. it's been squeezed by the economy. it's been squeezed by fast casual, which has found a way to deliver really good food at much lower prices. and now it's even being squeezed in some senses by what we call fine casual, which is the segment that shake shack plays in. >> right. >> but i think they're going to figure this out. >> i want to thank danny meyer, as always, danny, thank you for your lessons, for your wisdom. >> thanks, jim. >> okay. so are you curious about the performance of the danny meyer hospitality index y

to get in the business if they don't have 25 years of experience or can't bring on a former ceo of darden on to the board o? >> i am giving the keynote address on that topic. >> i did not know that. there is a conference on emerging managers. my topic is precisely that. how in this world of the big getting bigger and the big having all the resources and all the experts and the ability to hire that ex ceo to be on their board of advisors, how do you get that edge? one of the problems is it comes from experience. i have one thing in common. ,ulia roberts and george soros those guys are wildly successful. i am fine now. common.ne thing in they started their businesses right around a 50. i am restarting my business from an allocation business at 50. >> that is very cool. >> at 50 you have relationships and wisdom. a 35-year-old that wants to start a new hedge fund, or getting edge is going to be hard. >> what if you have an idea to build a better mousetrap? >> if you have a better model or , if you have a better mousetrap you can understand eight complex business better than most people. most

>> yes. >> darden, missed quarter, missed quarter, missed quarter, missed quarter. down because of starboard, starboard reveals its game plan for olive garden and red lobster and said it's not about the split into red lobster which they think would be kind of a joke since red lobster is doing so bad -- >> we can talk more about it. >> and clarence otis has been saying, listen, we can make the second km about olive garden which is only minus 5% same store sales. that's a remarkable decline. they think the real estate, starboard thinks the real estate has great value and don't forget they want clarence otis fired. >> it is a complicated transaction, the situation in which by the way, they first have to get consents to call a special meeting to try then. there's no vote on this split. shareholders don't have a voice on it unless you get consents to call a special meeting, then you are in a position to actually say you can't do this and to toss the board, by the way. on the real estate -- >> no one gets to vote on it? hey, let's split the company, what the heck? >> you

companies like darden faced backlash, criticism from democrats in washington and people out in the publicnewspaper editorials criticizing them for cutting back these hours when all they are trying to do they would say is stay in business and provide services at a reasonable price. bill: the democrats pushed back on this. this is jerry connelly from virginia responding to dave camp. >> how about the fact that 7.1 million americans have enrolled in this program you don't like that you want to call a failure? 7.1 million of our fellow americans beg to differ. bill: what they are saying on the other side is republicans are just trying another avenue to tear apart obamacare. >> the president has delayed the employer mandate. what republicans are trying to do is mirror what the white house has done. this is where you find some irony. democrats want to run in 2014 as the party who's going to fix obamacare. when i have serious prove posals to fix obamacare and make a change that would make it easier for businesses to comply and need to less unemployment and lead to people not losing their jobs. d

still some darden the runway at paul avenue and traffic is jan that not only here but on 288 extension in oakland teenager considered for acceptance of the nation's dozen of . he announced he's gonna go to yale. this trace it and says he wants others to know how cable oakland students are he wants to be a role model. he's thinking may be pre law or maybe three premed. he's deftly on his staff will look all these except this is the guy. << coming up when services go pol and a ph.d. of mont-just announced. i'll explain in the next edition of people behaving badly. << we'll be right back with the crime 4 morning news. [sister off screen] so, and i lied to you earlier when i said that...we weren't ready to have a baby, we're actually eight-weeks pregnant. [women] shut up! [brother-in-law off camera] we're pregnant! [woman] you're kidding me! [man] shut up! [woman] shut up! [screams] take the kid,take the kid,take the kid! [woman] oh my god! [everyone laughter,crying] their stanley roberts to found some people behaving badly. << wh sanders cisco police participated in a joint crackdown it's

there's, of course, some issues if you are a stockholder in walmart or darden restaurants or firms that employ a lot of low-wage, uninsured part-timers or potential part-timers, but overall that part's not much of a big deal. what is a much bigger deal, however, is reflected in the datum that there are 50 million lower income people who are getting their insurance in large firms, currently getting as a tax break only the paltry tax exclusion on a $4,000 policy, that'd be about $600, whereas if they could go to an exchange, say, at 200% of the poverty line, they could get a $2500 subsidy. $600 subsidy if i'm the janitor at microsoft, $2500 subsidy if i can somehow get to an exchange and qualify. it seems to me that's a terribly destabilizing thing. from a political point of view, we've already seen the union health and welfare if fund saying, well, why can't our people get the big subsidies when they're low income because, after all, we're not greedy capitalists, we're nice unions, and we're providing insurance coverage so why limit snit there'll be that kind of pressure, and there'll al

and starboard, they're ramping up their case against the planned spinoff of red lobster by darden restaurantsaration could destroy substantial shareholder value. >>> two key economic reports out later this morning, at 10:00 eastern time, investors will be looking at isms. congress looking there for a march reading of 53.9. that would be up from 53.2 in february. those are the numbers to beat. at the same time, the government will be out with february construction spending. as we said earlier, gm's ceo mary barra is getting ready to be grilled by a house subcommittee on the car manufacturer's recall of over 2.5 million cars. cnbc eamon javers joins us now with more an what to expect. >> it was an emotional scene in washington as gm ceo mary barra met with family members of those who had been killed in accidents related to that gm ignition switch issue. we're told she met with 22 different people. it was an emotional scene, tears were shed. some of the family members brought pictures of their loved ones who had died and that gives youen indication of how dramatic today's testimony on capitol hi

can they roll up mom and pops indefinitely or do you need a big deal with darden or mcdonald's? seems small to me. i think these things -- i think it's going to bump along, you know, it's very open table but smaller and it's a sort of a hand -- it's a local battle to get everybody in. and there are so many players in this space. i don't know. i think it's very difficult. it's a very difficult business. good for them. >> they've been quiz tive and they say in s1 they will continue to be, probably using stock. jon, how much of a liability is that? >> i think what's a challenge is that some of their most effective competition is around their size. i mean, their valuation i think is $3 billion now with where it's trade right now. opentable is around 2. yelp is the biggest in the space with $6 billion valuation. acquiring anything sizable is going to be tough. maybe they can do some little stuff. e-24, stuff overseas. but, you know, maybe it's a bigger name that ends up rolling up. i think there's value in the local intelligence that they get going home to home. knowing what people's

it's not easy task to chisel siberians rule or gems into flawless darden's as art is to say found they could square she went to see for herself the hard graft needed to turn a stone into jewelry fit for a lady's finger. fragments of stars tears of the gods and of course a girl's best friend. with the wedding bells just around the corner for me there was nothing more i wanted to do than shop for a little bit of sparkle and of course every bride wants to know when a diamond comes from and the diamond found in the east of siberia is a cut above the rest. of the sense of so many of us you could see in diamonds are valued around the world mainly of just their cotton every type of card has a different number of facets and stones which gives it a special play in the light these are the most expansive and clean stones that every girl dreams about in one of russia's most remote and coldest cities the great treasure lies beneath the a diamond mining for diamonds for a start of fifty years ago just a few weeks ago this stone was deep underground. the process of diamond for duction begins with pur