DealBook: Former Enron Prosecutor Expected to Be Named to Justice Dept. Post

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Joseph Ripp Named New Head of Time Inc.

His appointment comes as Time Inc., the publishing division of Time Warner with titles like Time, People, Sports Illustrated and InStyle, is being spun off into a separate company later this year.

Mr. Ripp worked at Time Warner for nearly 20 years before leaving in 2004 to pursue a career outside of the company. He had been with OneSource since only 2012, when the investment company he worked for acquired it. OneSource provides digitally focused marketing and information to businesses.

The chief executive job at Time Inc. has been difficult to fill in part because the challenges confronting the newly created publishing company are expected to be substantial. The magazine industry has been under intense financial pressure as advertisers have migrated to other media platforms.

Like other large media companies, including News Corporation and Tribune Company, Time Warner is choosing to separate its publishing components from its more lucrative film and television assets. Time Inc.'s first-quarter revenue dropped 5 percent, to $737 million, as circulation revenue fell 11 percent. In January the company laid off about 500 employees, or 6 percent of its total staff

But unlike the publishing division of News Corporation that was recently spun off, the new Time Inc. company is expected to be laden with heavy debt.

An earlier head of the division, Jack Griffin, was forced out of the job after less than six months in early 2011. He was replaced after a nine-month search by Laura Lang, whose background was in digital advertising. Time Inc.'s titles continued to struggle, however, and when Time Warner announced the publishing spinoff, Ms. Lang announced she would be stepping down. Mr. Ripp will replace her in September, the company said.

Another executive who was widely considered a leading candidate was Michael Klingensmith, chief executive of Star Tribune Media Company in Minneapolis.

Two Named to Fill Vacancies on U.S. Middle District Court

President Obama has nominated Matthew Brann and Malachy Mannion for the two vacant seats on the bench in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

DealBook: Admiral Mullen Named to Sprint’s Board

Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto AgencyAdm. Mike Mullen, the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a Senate panel in 2011.

Sprint announced Friday that Adm. Mike Mullen would join the company’s board after its proposed $20.1 billion sale to SoftBank of Japan closes.

Admiral Mullen, 66, who had served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 2007 to September 2011, would serve as an independent director as well as the company’s security director. He is also on the board of General Motors. His appointment would satisfy one of the concessions that the companies agreed to to win government approval for the merger.

“Admiral Mullen is an admired leader with an impeccable record,” Dan Hesse, Sprint’s chief executive, said in a statement. “We are fortunate that a person with his experience, accomplishments and reputation will be a member of our new board.”

Sprint and SoftBank have been working for months to ease fears of government agencies and lawmakers over national security issues. Some Congressional leaders have expressed concerned about SoftBank’s ties to Chinese telecommunications equipment makers. In addition, Dish Network, which is seeking to wrest Sprint away from SoftBank with a $25.5 billion offer, has mounted an effort to fan worries about a foreign takeover of a major American telecommunications company.

The two companies, however, have been gradually winning the necessary approvals. A special government panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, signed off on the deal in late May after both SoftBank and Sprint agreed to a number of concessions, including the appointment of an independent board member responsible for overseeing compliance with national security.

Sprint shareholders must also approve the SoftBank bid. A vote on the transaction is currently scheduled for June 12. The biggest of the proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services, has said it supports the proposed sale.

The deal is also subject to a review by the Federal Communications Commission.

Haruhiko Kuroda Expected to Be Named Head of Bank of Japan

Haruhiko Kuroda, the current head of the Asian Development Bank, will be nominated to take over next month as the Japanese central bank’s governor, according to a governing-party lawmaker with knowledge of the plans.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has instructed officials of the governing Liberal Democratic Party to start negotiating with opposition parties to clear the way for Mr. Kuroda’s appointment, which must be approved by a divided Parliament, the lawmaker said. Mr. Abe is expected to submit his nomination to Parliament by the end of the week.

“This is a critical time for Japan’s economy, and we must avoid, at all costs, a failure to gain parliamentary approval for this appointment,” Mr. Abe told executives of the governing party Monday morning, according to NHK, the public broadcaster.

With Mr. Kuroda at its helm, the bank could take much bolder steps to kick-start economic growth. Mr. Kuroda, 68, has for years publicly criticized the Bank of Japan, saying it has not gone far enough to fight deflation and has urged the bank to adopt inflation targets and expand an asset-buying program to pump more funds into the economy.

Mr. Abe argues that aggressive monetary easing could make all the difference for Japan, which has struggled to grow amid persistent deflation, the damaging across-the-board decline in prices that has eroded profits, incomes, investment and consumption for almost two decades.

Expectations of moderate inflation — the government and the Bank of Japan have already made a joint commitment to aim for 2 percent — could encourage businesses to invest and consumers to spend, instead of hoarding cash. Mr. Abe’s government has also promised to promote growth through heavy government spending on infrastructure and other public works projects.

Mr. Kuroda would agree. In an interview with NHK this month, Mr. Kuroda blamed lack of an effective monetary policy for much of the country’s recent economic trouble.

“Japan alone has experienced deflation for 15 years, and whatever the causes, the main responsibility lies with the central bank,” Mr. Kuroda said. “It is not good for the global economy for Japan to remain mired in deflation and stagnation. It is imperative that we beat deflation and bolster economic growth.”

Still, the biggest fallout by far from adding money to the Japanese economy could be its effect on the yen. The currency has weakened more than 10 percent in the past three months as Mr. Abe has laid out his monetary agenda, prompting cries from some nations of currency manipulation.

Mr. Kuroda’s global experience could help Tokyo navigate that foreign criticism. From 1999 to 2003, Mr. Kuroda was Japan’s top currency diplomat as vice minister for international affairs at the powerful Japanese Finance Ministry. Since 2005, he has been president of the Asian Development Bank, an organization based in Manila with functions similar to those of the International Monetary Fund.

After news of Mr. Kuroda’s likely nomination, the yen again weakened and Tokyo stocks surged to their highest levels in more than four years, led by shares in export-focused companies.

Mr. Abe received a strong mandate to push a new economic agenda for Japan with a big electoral victory in December, which returned his party to power and gave him a second shot at the office of prime minister after a stint in 2006-7. Since then, his government has twisted the central bank’s arm to get it to set an inflation target and expand its purchases of assets from banks and other financial institutions.

The departing central bank governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, had argued that such policies would drive up government spending and exacerbate Japan’s public debt burden; the debt already amounts to more than twice the size of the economy. But Mr. Shirakawa and his supporters have been largely silenced by Mr. Abe’s electoral mandate. This month, Mr. Shirakawa said he would leave his post three weeks early, on March 19.

For economists and historians, Mr. Shirakawa leaves behind a less-than-noble legacy.

“Tolerating damaging deflation for so long was a crime,” Nicholas Smith, Japan strategist for CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, said in a note.

Mr. Kuroda, a graduate of Tokyo University’s department of law, a training ground for top Japanese politicians and bureaucrats, has a master’s degree in economics from Oxford University and speaks fluent English. Despite his being a lifetime bureaucrat, he has been unusual in publicly voicing criticism of Japanese monetary policies, much which he lays out in his 2005 book, “Success and Failure in Fiscal and Monetary Policy.”

He beat out a fellow former senior Finance Ministry official, Toshiro Muto, who had strong backing among both bureaucrats and local politicians but lacks Mr. Kuroda’s top-level global contacts. Mr. Muto was also viewed as being more cautious than Mr. Kuroda on monetary policy.

Kikuo Iwata, a professor at Gakushuin University in Tokyo and another vocal critic of the central bank, is set to be tapped for one of the two deputy governor spots, according to local news reports. Mr. Iwata is also the author of several books criticizing the central bank, including “Stop Deflation, Now” and “Is the Bank of Japan Really Trustworthy?”

Hiroshi Nakaso, currently the Bank of Japan’s executive director for international affairs, is set to be promoted to the second deputy governor spot, according to NHK. Mr. Nakaso, who worked with his counterparts in other countries on contingency plans like currency swap agreements during the global financial crisis, has since maintained that the yen is overvalued.

Two Named to Fill Vacancies on U.S. Middle District Court

President Obama has nominated Matthew Brann and Malachy Mannion for the two vacant seats on the bench in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Two Named to Fill Vacancies on U.S. Middle District Court

President Obama has nominated Matthew Brann and Malachy Mannion for the two vacant seats on the bench in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Two Named to Fill Vacancies on U.S. Middle District Court

President Obama has nominated Matthew Brann and Malachy Mannion for the two vacant seats on the bench in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Two Named to Fill Vacancies on U.S. Middle District Court

President Obama has nominated Matthew Brann and Malachy Mannion for the two vacant seats on the bench in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Two Named to Fill Vacancies on U.S. Middle District Court

President Obama has nominated Matthew Brann and Malachy Mannion for the two vacant seats on the bench in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.