P2JW014000-6-A00100-1--------NS CMYK Composite NY BP,CK TODAY IN PERSONAL JOURNAL Get to Sleep Faster TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2014 ~ VOL. CCLXIII NO. 11 ****** NASDAQ 4113.30 g 1.5% i STOXX 600 330.72 À 0.2% 10-YR. TREAS. À 9/32 , yield 2.827% OIL $91.80 g $0.92 GOLD $1,250.90 À $4.20 i Business & Finance S untory agreed to buy U.S. bourbon maker Beam in a $13.6 billion deal that would make the Japanese company the world’s No. 3 liquor firm. A1 The Assad regime is gaining ground as it takes advantage of infighting between Syrian opposition groups, in a sign of how the rise of extremists could tip the balance in the three-year-old civil war. n Charter went public with a $37.4 billion offer for Time Warner Cable that its larger rival had privately rebuffed. B3 n EU regulators launched a probe of European pay-TV channels and U.S. film studios over licensing deals. B4 n Growth is set to pick up in most large economies in the first half, with the exception of India, the OECD forecast. A10 n U.S. financial regulators are close to issuing a rule to let banks hold some CDOs. C3 n Pizza chain Sbarro has tapped restructuring advisers amid business struggles. B3 n The FAA is probing how a Southwest jet landed at the wrong Missouri airport. B4 n Lululemon warned of weak quarterly sales, pushing its shares down over 16%. B3 i i i World-Wide n Congressional negotiators unveiled a compromise $1.012 trillion spending bill for this fiscal year that restores some domestic funding cuts. A2 n One-third of enrollees in new health-insurance exchanges are 55 or older, a figure that could threaten coverage at current premiums. A1 n The Syrian regime is being bolstered by infighting between moderate rebels and extremists, with Assad’s forces consolidating gains. A1 n Tribal sheiks and al Qaedalinked militants huddled in Fallujah in a bid to end a siege of the Iraqi city. A8 n The FBI doesn’t plan to file criminal charges over the IRS’s heightened scrutiny of conservative groups. A4 n The Supreme Court suggested the practice of “recess appointments” has exceeded constitutional limits. A6 n The justices rejected an Arizona effort to revive a state law that bans most abortions after 20 weeks. A6 n Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey formed two panels to probe bridge-lane closures by Gov. Christie’s aides. A4, A17 n Kentucky and Ohio were preparing for a chemical plume drifting down the Ohio River after the West Virginia spill. A3 n Foundations pledged $330 million to try to prevent a fire sale of Detroit’s art trove. A2 n Probiotics seem to reduce the chance of newborns developing colic, a study said. A3 n Died: Burton R. Lifland, 84, bankruptcy-court judge. B2 CONTENTS CFO Journal................. B6 Corporate News... B2-4 Global Finance............ C3 Health & Wellness D2-4 Heard on the Street C8 In the Markets........... C4 Leisure & Arts............ D5 Markets Dashboard C5 Opinion.................. A13-15 Sports.............................. D6 U.S. News................. A2-6 Weather Watch........ B6 World News......... A8-12 > s Copyright 2014 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved Jack Kurtz/Zuma Press UP IN ARMS: Antigovernment protesters took to the streets of Bangkok on Monday to shut down much of the Thai capital. Activists seeking to drive Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office threatened to escalate their protests to include seizing Thailand’s stock exchange. A10 Health Sign-Ups Skew Older, Raising Fears of Higher Costs BY LOUISE RADNOFSKY AND CHRISTOPHER WEAVER One-third of health plan enrollees in new insurance marketplaces are 55 or older, the Obama administration said Monday, a figure that insurers said makes the pool older than they would need to sustain their coverage at current premiums. Administration officials said they are pushing to enroll more Bourbon Buzz Fuels Deal for Jim Beam The world is developing a fresh taste for Kentucky bourbon. In a $13.6 billion all-cash deal, Osaka, Japan-based beer and soft-drinks maker Suntory Holdings Ltd. agreed Monday to buy Beam Inc., the owner of Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark and Knob Creek bourbons and the secondlargest maker of American whiskey behind Brown-Forman Corp. By Mike Esterl in Atlanta and Hiroyuki Kachi in Tokyo The acquisition would catapult family-owned Suntory from No. 15 in global liquor dollar sales to No. 3, behind only U.K.-based Diageo PLC and France’s Pernod Ricard SA, according to alcohol industry tracker IWSR. Beam, based in Deerfield, Ill., currently is No. 4 globally. Beam is positioned squarely in a part of the liquor business experiencing a powerful global upswing: bourbon whiskey. The traditional American spirit is made mostly from corn, aged in charred oak barrels and typically hails from Kentucky. Its popularity is building as some consumers grow tired of vodka, the top-selling U.S. spirit. Long in the doldrums, U.S. bourbon has made a comeback in the past decade and production in 2012 rose above one million barrels for the first time since 1973. Distillers have invested roughly $300 million to boost capacity since 2011. North American whiskey—including bourbon, Tennessee and Canadian whiskeys—accounted for more than half of the total growth in the $21 billion U.S. spirits market in the 52 weeks ended Oct. 12, 2013, according to store tracker Nielsen. Unlike vodka, a popular Please turn to the next page  Heard on the Street.................... C8 Composite n U.S. and state officials are expanding an investigation of for-profit colleges and their student-lending practices. C3 By Sam Dagher in Beirut and Maria Abi-Habib in Istanbul young people before a March 31 deadline for most people to get coverage for this year, and some cushions built into the law mean it won’t necessarily face trouble right away even if the 2014 pool of enrollees skews older. Still, the release of the data, showing for the first time the age breakdown of people who had signed up for coverage through December, highlighted the challenge in persuading younger peo- ple who may not have a pressing need for health coverage to sign up for policies that can cost about $200 a month before subsidies. “This is concerning to us that we’re seeing this portion come in so old,” said Marty Anderson, marketing director for the Wisconsin-based Security Health Plan, which serves rural counties in the state. Just under a quarter of the roughly 2.2 million people who signed up for private plans nationwide by Dec. 28 were between the ages of 18 and 34, while one-third were in the 55to-64 range, just short of the age at which most qualify for Medicare, the federal government program for the elderly. Kaiser Family Foundation, a health-policy Please turn to page A4  House, Senate negotiators unveil compromise spending bill........ A2 ‘AMAZON OF NIGERIA’ Germany Seeds Web Shopping In the Developing World BY ANTON TROIANOVSKI LAGOS, Nigeria—The message from his boss on the phone from Germany was straightforward, recalls Hendrik Harren, a former website manager in Africa: “I want you to build the Amazon of Nigeria for me.” The caller was Oliver Samwer, an Internet tycoon in Berlin who had already cloned American ecommerce businesses for Europe’s market. By 2012, his focus was shifting to the developing world. Mr. Harren found his new assignment daunting. “I had never founded an Amazon,” he says. Two years after the call, Nigerian men on motorbikes ply the streets of the chaotic megacity of Lagos delivering toothpaste, English soccer jerseys and women’s wigs in a small and unprofitable, but growing, online shopping business. They are the vanguard in a race to hook the developing world on American-style e-commerce. It is a contest in which the U.S. companies that largely created the business are less dominant than they are in the West. Playing a major role, instead, are businesses with roots in Germany, an economy that has excelled at refining and exporting 20thcentury technologies rather than digital innovation. The most-aggressive player is Rocket Internet GmbH, majority owned by Mr. Samwer and his two brothers. The three gained a measure of notoriety Please turn to page A12 Helping Hands Cut Through D.C.’s Political Jargon i i i In Sign of the Times, Interpreters for Deaf Get Creative; ‘OK!OK!OK!’ BY ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON tor whose gigs run the gamut from court hearings and testiAt the annual National Econo- mony to political fundraisers and mists’ Club dinner in November, the White House Easter Egg Roll. Ben Bernanke suggested that the At all these events Mr. Painter foltarget for the federal-funds rate lows several general signing would remain near zero for a con- rules—and many more specific to siderable time. A man named Tra- D.C.’s dialect. vis Painter, standing Federal Reserve onstage, simultaneChairman Ben Berously relayed the nanke’s use of the Federal Reserve term “forward guidchairman’s words. ance” is one thing. Mr. Painter is a But what about insign-language interterpreting “nuclear preter for the deaf, option,” “fiscal cliff,” a job that is no“not his first rodeo” where more soughtand “that dog don’t after and difficult hunt?” than in acronym- Mr. Painter explaining “I absolutely just the fiscal cliff and-jargon-filled love my field,” says Washington, D.C. Mr. Painter, an im“Terps,” as they call themselves, posingly tall 25-year-old with are charged with re-creating in slender fingers. “I am stumped, crystal clarity speeches often every day.” known for nuance, importance When lost in a minefield of jarand opacity. gon, the rule is “Spell, and you’re Please turn to page A6 Today, Mr. Painter is a contrac- Pro-regime forces have consolidated recent gains in and around the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s economic hub. These forces are also geared up to recapture more territory around the city, in a potential major setback for rebels after 18 months of battles to oust the regime from parts of the city that have remained under its control. In one area, moderate rebels late last week succeeded in forcing extremists from Naqareen, northeast of the city. That withdrawal enabled pro-regime forces to move in against a weakened rebel contingent on Sunday. Pro-regime forces are also preparing for an assault on rebels in the nearby Sheikh Najjar area—a sprawling industrial district, said a resident and opposition activists. If regime forces were to capture the area, it would cut off rebels inside the city from those in the surrounding countryside. Opposition activists and anaPlease turn to page A8 Star of the Show FAST LANE: New GM CEO Mary Barra stole the spotlight at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Monday. B1 Looking for a smoother ride? iShares Minimum Volatility ETFs are designed to give you access to stocks while seeking to minimize the market’s ups and downs. Ask your ﬁnancial advisor. Visit iShares.com/minvol International Stocks US Stocks Call 1-800-iShares for a prospectus, which includes investment objectives, risks, fees, expenses and other information that you should read and consider carefully before investing. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. There is no guarantee that minimum volatility ETFs will reduce volatility, especially during extreme market conditions. Funds distributed by BlackRock Investments, LLC. ©2014 BlackRock, Inc. All rights reserved. iS-11422-0114 P2JW014000-6-A00100-1--------NS n The Dow suffered its fourth straight drop, shedding 179.11 points. Goldman warned about lofty stock valuations. C4 YEN 103.00 Opposition Fights Extremist Group n Google is buying Nest Labs, a closely held maker of “smart” thermostats and smoke alarms, for $3.2 billion. B1 n The Justice Department charged three former Rabobank traders with fraud for alleged Libor manipulation. C1 EURO $1.3672 Clashes Bolster Syrian Regime Protests in Thailand Escalate, With Threat to Stock Exchange What’s News i NIKKEI Closed (15912.06) HHHH $2.00 WSJ.com Associated Press DJIA 16257.94 g 179.11 1.1% Getty Images PLUS Tailored Treatment for Cancer MAGENTA BLACK CYAN YELLOW