The drumbeat of weak economic numbers will likely continue this coming week, topped by awful retail sales figures and depressed consumer sentiment readings.
LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland , Barclays and Citigroup have offered to securitise half of the Bank of England's emergency loan to Northern Rock , The Sunday Telegraph reported, without citing sources.
Chattem Inc. recalled its Icy Hot Heat Therapy products because some consumers reported suffering first-, second- and third-degree burns and irritation from using the devices.
LONDON (Reuters) - HSBC is poised to put hundreds of its French regional retail branches up for sale, a further sign the bank is shifting its focus to emerging markets, according to Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 11:10 am
LONDON (Reuters) - HSBC is poised to put hundreds
of its French regional retail branches up for sale, a further
sign the bank is shifting its focus to emerging markets,
according to media reports on Sunday.
Yahoo's board is reported to be planning to reject Microsoft's unsolicited offer as being too low. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 10 Feb 2008 | 9:48 am
Rescue workers have found the bodies of five workers killed in Thursday’s explosion at an Imperial Sugar Co. refinery and are still searching for three more people who are missing, media reports said.
MUMBAI (Reuters) - U.S. car maker Chrysler LLC's Indian unit has signed a 4 billion rupee ($101 million) contract with a New Delhi-based car seat maker to source seats for its Jeep... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 8:38 am
MUMBAI (Reuters) - U.S. car maker Chrysler LLC's Indian unit has signed a 4 billion rupee ($101 million) contract with a New Delhi-based car seat maker to source seats for its Jeep Wrangler, an Indian newspaper reported on Sunday.
Its board reportedly will say that the $44.6-billion offer is too low. Analysts see merit to that argument, but also wonder if it's a negotiating ploy. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 8:00 am
The firm is back to its aggressive ways in its Yahoo bid. But the real fight is with Google, and it's the underdog. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 8:00 am
SAN FRANCISCO -- Yahoo Inc.'s board will reject Microsoft Corp.'s $44.6 billion takeover bid after concluding the unsolicited offer undervalues the slumping Internet pioneer, according to a person familiar... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 8:00 am
Borrowing money has become cheaper for banks after a series of aggressive rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. So why are many people's credit cards growing more expensive? Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 8:00 am
Regarding the "Work Rules" story ("Challenge authority, if you dare," Feb. 5) in which Sam Zell zinged someone with an expletive when the person was encouraged to ask a question. Mr. Zell sounds like the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 8:00 am
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois swept the Democratic caucuses and primaries Saturday, while former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won on the Republican side to keep his slim hopes alive.
Reuters - The chairman of mining company Rio
Tinto Ltd/Plc wrote to shareholders on Sunday,
urging them to take no action on a bid for the company by rival
miner BHP Billiton .
CANBERRA (Reuters) - The chairman of mining company Rio Tinto Ltd/Plc wrote to shareholders on Sunday, urging them to take no action on a bid for the company by rival miner BHP Billiton . Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 6:20 am
CANBERRA (Reuters) - The chairman of mining company Rio Tinto Ltd/Plc wrote to shareholders on Sunday, urging them to take no action on a bid for the company by rival miner BHP Billiton .
Reuters - The odds of a U.S. recession stand
at nearly 50 percent amid a spate of data showing a weakening
labor market, signs of more credit tightening and turmoil in
the financial markets, the latest Blue Chip Economic forecast
is projecting. Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 5:02 am
Reuters - The odds of a U.S. recession stand
at nearly 50 percent amid a spate of data showing a weakening
labor market, signs of more credit tightening and turmoil in
the financial markets, the latest Blue Chip Economic forecast
is projecting. Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 5:02 am
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The odds of a U.S. recession stand at nearly 50 percent amid a spate of data showing a weakening labor market, signs of more credit tightening and turmoil in the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 5:02 am
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The odds of a U.S. recession stand at nearly 50 percent amid a spate of data showing a weakening labor market, signs of more credit tightening and turmoil in the financial markets, the latest Blue Chip Economic forecast is projecting.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - General Motors Corp will step up consolidation of dealerships handling its three luxury brands in a bid to shore up profitability, the automaker's chief executive Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 4:31 am
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - General Motors Corp will step up consolidation of dealerships handling its three luxury brands in a bid to shore up profitability, the automaker's chief executive said on Saturday.
This is the first in a series of business features by Reuters focusing on some of the world's biggest brands and most innovative companies. Toyota has risen to the top ranks of the world's car makers through its revolutionary production process, cost controls and attention to quality. But as Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told Reuters Asia auto correspondent Chang-Ran Kim: "The moment we let down our guard, the fall could come very fast."
Barack Obama swept Democratic presidential contests in three states on Saturday, striking fresh blows in a bruising back-and-forth battle with Hillary Clinton for the party's nomination Source: FT.com - US homepage | 10 Feb 2008 | 3:49 am
In the uproar that erupted over the planned fee hikes and other policy changes eBay announced last week, one drew particular ire and incredulity: eBay's plan hold payments sent through its PayPal payment service for up to 21 days in certain circumstances.
This is the first in a series of business features by Reuters focusing on some of the world's biggest brands and most innovative companies. Toyota has risen to the top ranks of the world's... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 1:16 am
General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner urged a group of auto dealers Saturday to lobby against individual states trying to set their own limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Wagoner,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:53 am
One of Russia's wealthiest steel magnates is launching a $4bn (£2bn) investment fund based in Britain. Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
The America's Cup has a history of making waves. Alistair Osborne reports on the spat that has left the venerable prize shipwrecked. Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
The troubled Goldfish credit card business has yet another owner - and it comes just weeks after its US owner, Discover Financial Services, wrote off £204m from the value of the business. Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
Mitchells & Butlers, the embattled pubs and bars operator, is to consider asset swaps and a range of property disposals as part of the strategic review initiated in the wake of the company's £275m hedging calamity. Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
Cohort is an attractive business in an ugly industry, providing services to the Ministry of Defence. Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
Hundreds of British patent and trademark lawyers are poised to land a multi-million pound fortune from the sale of Computer Patent Annuities (CPA), a patent management company based in Jersey Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
A recent charity event marked a sea change in the relationship between the Opposition and UK plc, writes Sophie Brodie. Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
Lloyd's of London, the world's largest insurance market, has for a second time missed a self-imposed target to modernise. Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
Investors should prepare for the global credit crisis to get worse before it gets better, the world's leading financial policymakers warned this weekend. Source: Telegraph Business | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:01 am
Hollywood writers got their first look Saturday at details of a tentative agreement with studios that could put the strike-crippled entertainment industry back to work, an offer the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 10 Feb 2008 | 12:00 am
At this point in their lives, Tony Carideo, 57, and his wife Linda, 56, of Bloomington, Minn., thought the financial load of raising their four kids would have become considerably lighter. But so far they haven't noticed much extra cash sloshing around in their bank accounts.
Reuters - The Securities and Exchange
Commission is investigating how banks, credit rating firms and
lenders valued and disclosed complex mortgage-backed securities
that ultimately led to the subprime crisis, a top agency
enforcer said on Saturday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating how banks, credit rating firms and lenders valued and disclosed complex mortgage-backed securities that... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 9 Feb 2008 | 11:28 pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating how banks, credit rating firms and lenders valued and disclosed complex mortgage-backed securities that ultimately led to the subprime crisis, a top agency enforcer said on Saturday.
Airbus' A380 super jumbo, the world's largest passenger aircraft, has encountered problems with its inflatable escape slides, the Internet site of the Germany weekly Stern reported... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 9 Feb 2008 | 10:49 pm
Reuters - Yahoo Inc is set to reject
Microsoft Corp's unsolicited bid, now worth $42
billion, as too low, a source familiar with the situation told
Reuters on Saturday -- the first clear signal the board might
be prepared to negotiate and sell the Internet media giant.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc is set to reject Microsoft Corp's unsolicited bid, now worth $42 billion, as too low, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Saturday -- the first clear signal the board might be prepared to negotiate and sell the Internet media giant.
Chrysler has embarked on an ambitious, four-to-six year plan to bring its operations in line with its shrunken market share and with the changing tastes of American car buyers Source: FT.com - US homepage | 9 Feb 2008 | 8:51 pm
Yahoo intends to reject Microsoft's unsolicited $45.1bn bid, believing the $31 a share on the table massively undervalues the internet company, according to a person close to the situation Source: FT.com - US homepage | 9 Feb 2008 | 8:29 pm
Yahoo's board is close to publicly rejecting Microsoft's $44.6 billion cash-and-stock takeover offer, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing "a person familiar with the situation."
The Journal said the board intends to formally reject the offer Monday in a letter to Microsoft. Yahoo had no official comment as of 3 p.m. Saturday.
Yahoo intends to characterize Microsoft's $31-a-share bid as an attempt to use recent market weakness to "steal" the company, the Journal reported on its website. Yahoo directors plan to say that the current offer "massively undervalues" their company, the newspaper said, quoting its source.
Yahoo's stock price was last above $31 a share for a sustained period in early 2006. The stock closed at $19.18 a share on the day before Microsoft went public with its offer.
Microsoft first approached Yahoo about some sort of cooperating in 2006, but was consistently rebuffed. It kicked off its hostile bid just days after Yahoo said its fourth-quarter profit declined more than 23 percent even as revenue grew. Yahoo blamed higher operating expenses for its disappointing performance.
A big, hostile takeover would be a departure for Microsoft, which previously focused on smaller, friendly acquisitions. But it may feel it has no option if it is to keep pace with its arch-rival, Google.
In his letter to Yahoo making the $31-a-share offer, Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer said his goal is to beef up his company's online advertising business to better compete with the industry leader -- though the stopped short of actually naming Google.
"The market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition," Ballmer wrote. "Together, Microsoft and Yahoo can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers."
With its popular websites, recognizable brand name, and weak management, Yahoo is an "obvious" strategic partner "for Microsoft or any other company seeking to gain scale in Internet advertising," Mark Mahaney, an analyst with Citigroup, said in a note.
Full coverage of Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo can be found here.
Those were the words of the two presidents of the Writer’s Guild of America, who informed their membership early Saturday that their three-month strike appeared to be over.
If approved, production on halted television programs for the current season can resume and the annual batch of awards’ shows (primarily the February 24 Academy Awards show) can take place without fear of a strike line.
Writers were to meet in both New York and Los Angeles on Saturday to discuss the plan. If it gets support from the membership, the guild's board is expected to meet Sunday to ratify the contract. By Monday, writers could well be back at work. The guild represents 12,000 writers, 10,000 of whom were affected by the strike.
How writers would get paid for content distributed on the internet was the main reason writers hit the picket line, soon after the fall 2007-2008 season began.
According to the agreement reached with producers, writers will get beginning with the third year of the contract 2 percent of a distributor’s gross receipts for ad-supported streams of television programs. In the case of permanent content downloads, writers will get .36 percent of a distributor’s gross receipts for the first 50,000 downloads of a feature film and the first 100,000 downloads of a TV show. Once those levels are reached, then writers would get .65 percent and .7 percent, respectively.
The deal is similar to one the Directors Guild of America managed to reach last month. Later this year, the Screen Actors Guild will negotiate new contracts.
“It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery. It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, ‘When they get paid, we get paid,’” the writers guild's presidents—Patic M. Verrone and Michael Winship—said in an email to members.
In New York on Saturday, guild East Coast president Winship said several steps needed to take place before writers returned to work. "It conceivably could be Monday, but there are several different alternative ways that the board and council could determine how this should be dealt with," Winship told reporters before meeting privately with Guild members.
After the meeting, Winship said he was happy with the "lively" discussion. "At the moment, I feel strongly it (the proposed deal) has a strong chance of going through," he said.
Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, told the Associated Press that the agreement was "an historic moment for labor in this country."
On the union's strike website, reaction was mixed.
"A pig dressed up in silk still looks and smells like....a pig," write PJ McIlvaine, whose blogger profile describes her as a writer and "rabble rouser."
But another poster, Chris S, said: "This is a real improvement on the DGA deal. We have made unprecedented strides by securing Gross percentage in the third year and in getting the companies to open their books to us."
The long and bitter Hollywood writer’s strike that has wreaked havoc on television schedules and led to millions of dollars of lost income for the entertainment industry may soon be over.
Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations say the global economy faces risks due to the U.S. housing market, tight credit markets and high oil and commodity prices.
A second man questioned about huge losses at French bank Societe Generale is freed without charge. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 9 Feb 2008 | 4:32 pm
TOKYO (Reuters) - Finance leaders of the world's top industrialized nations put on a show of solidarity on Saturday in the face of an economic slowdown and conceded that things could get even worse because of the crumbling U.S. housing market.
The Turkish parliament approved a divisive and controversial change to the constitution that will ease the ban on the wearing of the Muslim headscarf in universities Source: FT.com - US homepage | 9 Feb 2008 | 2:20 pm
G7 finance ministers warn against downside risks facing the world economy and call for increased oil production to help fight inflation Source: FT.com - US homepage | 9 Feb 2008 | 1:47 pm
Ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy nations pledge action over economic turmoil, but warn it could get worse. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 9 Feb 2008 | 10:44 am
Reuters - The chairman of mining company Rio
Tinto Ltd/Plc wrote to shareholders on Sunday,
urging them to take no action on a bid for the company by rival
miner BHP Billiton .
Reuters - This is the first in a series of business features by
Reuters focusing on some of the world's biggest brands and most
innovative companies.
Reuters - The Securities and Exchange
Commission is investigating how banks, credit rating firms and
lenders valued and disclosed complex mortgage-backed securities
that ultimately led to the subprime crisis, a top agency
enforcer said on Saturday.
Reuters - Yahoo Inc is set to reject
Microsoft Corp's unsolicited bid, now worth $42
billion, as too low, a source familiar with the situation told
Reuters on Saturday -- the first clear signal the board might
be prepared to negotiate and sell the Internet media giant.