Sir Christopher Bland, the former chairman of BT, has been lined up by commercial property group Land Securities to become chairman of Trillium, the outsourcing business which it is planning to demerge or sell. Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 10:13 am
With all of the carnage in the financial sector it would be hard to believe that any other group of stocks could have done worse. The technology sector claims that, for the most part, it has not done badly. Overseas business has helped offset slowing in the US, and almost every large tech company posted significant profits in the last reported quarter. But, tech stocks, as a whole did not do as well as financials based on companies traded as part of the S&P 100. While Citigroup (NYSE: C) was down 29% and Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) was down 26%,...
UBS unveils a further $19bn of writedowns linked to the sub-prime crisis, as its chaiman stands down. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:57 am
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Investment bank Lehman Brothers , computer maker Dell , auto makers such as GM and Ford as well as a key manufacturing gauge are likely stock market focal points on Tuesday.
European shares started the second quarter on an upbeat note on Tuesday, with financials moving higher as investors welcomed moves to draw a line under exposure to the troubled U.S. housing market.
Swiss banking giant UBS reveals a further $19 billion hit from the credit crisis, doubling its write-downs so far, and said it will have to issue around 15 billion Swiss francs ($15.1 billion) in new shares to shore up its capital base.
At UBS (NYSE: UBS) it all hit the fan today. Marcel Ospel, the bank's chairman, is on the way out. The financial firm wrote-off another $19 billion. The company plans to raise $15 billion after a Q1 loss of about $12 billion. The most hopeful take Wall St. can have is that problems at US banks and brokerages are not as bad. But, the truth is that they could be worse. Goldman Sachs recently wrote that total write-offs for subprime and other bad credit will hit the system for $460 billion. Only $120 billion of that has been written off....
Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest lender, today admitted it will be forced to
writedown €2.5 billion (£1.9 billion) worth of assets for the first three
months of the year after warning that trading conditions have become "significantly
more challenging". Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:38 am
Until the recent tempest, Wall Street firms looked like just about the world's best businesses. Year after year they boasted sumptuous profitability, ever-rising share prices, and, if you believed their claims, a new generation of chief executives who had mastered the art and science of risk management. True, it was hard to decipher exactly how they made money. But make it they did, on an epic scale. From 2002 to 2006 the five big independent firms - Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Bros., and Bear Stearns - tripled earnings to more than $30 billion and, at their peak, achieved an average return on equity of 22%, rivaling such royalty as the pharmaceutical and energy industries.
Publishing group Bloomsbury insists it is ready for the post Harry Potter era, after signing a deal with Microsoft to make its entire backlist available online. Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:30 am
The French financial regulator Autorité des Marchés Financiers is to start
insider dealing proceedings against some current and former executives for
Airbus-owner EADS. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:28 am
Germany's unemployment rate falls in March, but retail sales are down, official data shows. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:23 am
LONDON (Reuters) - Bloomsbury Publishing Plc's 2007 profits more than doubled, boosted by the release of the final Harry Potter book, and it was confident a post-Hogwarts pipeline of new titles would keep readers buying.
The French financial market regulator filed a complaint against European Aeronautic, Defense & Space in connection with an inquiry into allegations of market abuses. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:15 am
U.S. stocks looked set to kick off the new quarter with gains Tuesday as investors were soothed by moves financial firms are taking to cushion the blow of the credit crisis.
U.S. stock futures rose on Tuesday, as news that UBS and Lehman Brothers were issuing a combined $18 billion in fresh equity was taken more as a signal that credit-crunch problems were near their worst than of further troubles to come.
TOO bad Hank Paulson didn't wait another 24 hours before announcing his it'll-never-happen plan for changing oversight of the financial industry, and, by the way, permanently altering capitalism. Then... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
THE Economic Stimu lus Package has helped many New York State homeowners by increasing the FNMA & FHA mortgage limits. This is helping borrowers who currently have large (Jumbo) mortgages to obtain... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
Clear Channel Citigroup and other banks sued by Clear Channel Communica tions and its buyers for refusing to fund a $19.5 billion purchase asked a New York judge not to set a quick trial date, saying... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
For a growing number of consumers, the cost of their cellphone bill is turning into a wrong number. A new study by comScore Research finds that 19 percent of wireless subscribers who changed carriers... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
Citigroup named a veteran retail banker yesterday to head its North American consumer banking unit, splitting it off from its credit-card business as Citi struggles to become profitable again after suffering... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
New York's insurance regulator is trying to sway insurers across the US to halt their controversial practice of denying life insurance to people traveling to Israel - particularly at Passover. Many insurance... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
Katherine and Martin T. are a couple from Ami tyville, N.Y. in their early sixties with two children. Lately they began thinking about retirement. That's when they began to worry about their mortgage... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
The amount of defaults and writedowns Americans will likely witness before they emerge at the far side of the bursting credit bubble is $1 trillion, estimates Charles R. Morris in his primer, "The Trillion... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
Just three months into the year, a fierce debate has erupted on Wall Street about the outlook for the retail sector. Industry watchers agreed the housing crisis will continue to hamper shopping through... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:05 am
GCap Media has recommended shareholders accept a £375m cash takeover by Global Radio, the privately owned company chaired by former ITV boss Charles Allen. Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 9:00 am
Reuters - Robert Rubin is not expected to resign
as chair of Citigroup's executive committee even as the
company looks to restructure its board, the Wall Street Journal
reported on Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the matter.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Robert Rubin is not expected to resign as chair of Citigroup's executive committee even as the company looks to restructure its board, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Record immigration levels have had little impact on Britons' economic well-being and should be capped, peers say. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 8:32 am
The pessimism is overdone. The odds are that the current financial crisis is winding down and equity markets will stage a come-back over the remainder of 2008. Here’s why: Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 8:30 am
Banks topped the list of FTSE 100 advancers in London on Tuesday, with Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland gaining as investors took heart from attempts by European rivals to draw a line under exposure to the troubled U.S. housing market.
France's stock-market regulator will bring insider-trading charges related to allegations that executives at EADS sold shares ahead of an announcement that the rollout of the Airbus A380 superjumbo would be delayed.
Deutsche Bank says it expects to write off $3.9bn in the first quarter of 2008 because of the sub-prime crisis. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 8:12 am
France's stock market authority is to launch sanctions proceedings against several present or former executives of the European aerospace group for alleged insider dealing Source: FT.com - US homepage | 1 Apr 2008 | 8:08 am
The California winter has been a tough one on South Dakota beekeepers like Richard Adee. Last fall he sent 155 semitrailer trucks to California loaded with hives containing bees fit... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 8:07 am
More than 20,000 Vietnamese workers have walked off the job at a Taiwanese-owned plant that makes shoes for Nike Inc., demanding higher pay to keep pace with skyrocketing prices,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 8:02 am
Reuters - UBS AG doubled its writedowns from the
subprime crisis, parted company with its chairman and asked
shareholders for more emergency capital on Tuesday in a second
dramatic attempt to reverse its fortunes.
ZURICH (Reuters) - UBS AG doubled its writedowns from the subprime crisis, parted company with its chairman and asked shareholders for more emergency capital on Tuesday in a second dramatic attempt to reverse its fortunes.
According to Reuters, US car sales for March are likely to be off sharply. Reuters writes that Microsoft (MSFT) will not raise its bid for Yahoo! (YHOO) Reuters reports that UBS (UBS) will take a write-down of $19 billion on U.S. real estate and related assets and have a large loss in Q1. Reuters writes that Wal-Mart will offer its own private lable brand of coffee. Reuters reprots that Lehman Brothers (LEH) will raise $3 million. The Wall Street Jounal writes that the chairman of UBS will leave and the bank will raise to $12 billion. The Wall Street Journal...
Kent and Mysti Cope met and fell in love working for one of the nation's top subprime lenders. Now, their life has been turned upside down after the sudden implosion of the subprime mortgage industry.
Harry Potter's final instalment generated an estimated £70 million in sales
for his publisher Bloomsbury in Britain, and English speaking markets
outside the United States, it emerged this morning. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 1 Apr 2008 | 7:45 am
France's stock market regulator says it has uncovered evidence of insider trading at Airbus maker EADS. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 7:40 am
Markets in Asia were mixed The Nikkei rose 1% to 12,656. Sony (SNE) roe 2.3% to 4060. Toshiba rose 3.2% to687. The Hang Seng was up .1% to 22,878. China Netcom (CN) rose 1.1% to 22.65. China Petroleum (SNP) moved up 1.1% to 6.73. The Shanghai Composite fell 4.1% to 3,329. Data from Reuters Douglas A, McIntyre
Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the former Labour science minister and the party's
biggest financial backer, last night transferred £340 million of his shares
in the supermarket group before this week's changes to the capital gains tax
in a move which could save him £27 million. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 1 Apr 2008 | 7:22 am
UK utility National Grid says it has sold its Ravenswood generating station in New York city for $2.9bn. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 7:19 am
Deutsche Bank joined Swiss rival UBS in announcing a fresh write-down on Tuesday, citing a shuttered leveraged-loan market as well as exposure to U.S. mortgage-related securities for a hit of 2.5 billion euros ($3.9 billion).
Marcel Ospel, the chairman of UBS, will not seek re-election at this month's annual meeting following another massive writedown at the Swiss bank and the launch of a second capital raising in two months Source: FT.com - US homepage | 1 Apr 2008 | 7:15 am
UBS has unveiled plans raise 15bn Sfr (£6.5bn) by selling new shares as the Swiss banking giant scrambles to repair a capital base savaged by the sub-prime crisis. Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 7:10 am
Some investors see a silver lining even as the stock market suffers its heaviest losses in more than five years.
The U.S. stock market in the first quarter suffered its heaviest losses in more than five years, but the surprise to many investors may be that things weren't a lot worse.
Though sales rose in the fourth quarter, the Sacramento biofuels company finds itself in a cash squeeze as construction and corn costs rise.
Pacific Ethanol Inc., a California biofuels darling that boasts political connections and an investment from Bill Gates, is short on cash and suffering from higher corn and plant construction costs, which threaten to derail the once-promising biofuels maker.
Sweeping blueprint for restructuring financial oversight stirs criticism for providing no aid for mortgage crisis and economic downturn.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.'s blueprint for regulatory reform, officially unveiled Monday, sets the stage for a confrontation with Congress by offering no relief for troubled homeowners and in many instances advocating less, not more, federal supervision of the nation's financial system.
The USDA estimates farmers will grow 8% less of the grain, which will affect food prices.
The U.S. Agriculture Department sent shudders through much of the food industry Monday when it released estimates that showed farmers would plant 8% less corn this year.
The Treasury chief's bid to reshape financial oversight has an uphill climb ahead of it -- and reflects his Wall Street pedigree.
When Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. unveiled his proposal to overhaul federal financial regulation Monday, President Bush was airborne, speeding out of Washington on Air Force One.
The Virgin Group founder unveils a new carrier, V Australia, whose fares will be hundreds less than the competition.
One of the more popular but most expensive routes in the world is getting some competition, and that means cheaper air fares for Southern California travelers.
The company, with its eye on a new potential franchise, is using its array of media tools to boost exposure of the band.
The alley behind the theater erupted into shrieks Wed- nesday night after band members stepped out of the stage door and walked to their cars. A crush of girls pressed up against the razor-wire fence; some lobbed roses and stuffed animals over the barrier. Then the screaming mob dashed into the street for one last glimpse as the police-escorted motorcade drove off. ¶ A scene from "A Hard Day's Night"? ¶ Nope. This is Jonas mania, not Beatlemania. ¶ The Jonas Brothers are the youthful heartthrobs whose self-titled album has gone platinum. They are the latest beneficiaries of Walt Disney Co.'s tween-targeted star machine and could be the company's next creative franchise -- in the mold of "High School Musical" or "Hannah Montana." ¶ Disney Radio and the Disney Channel helped propel the musical careers of the brothers Jonas -- Nick, 15, Joe, 18, and Kevin, 20 -- before the band was even signed in December 2006 by the parent company's label, Hollywood Records.
SEOUL (Reuters) - Hyundai Motor Co , South Korea's top automaker, is set to raise money at home to fund building an overseas factory as global financial markets grapple with a credit crunch.
SEOUL (Reuters) - Hyundai Motor Co , South Korea's top automaker, is set to raise money at home to fund building an overseas factory as global financial markets grapple with a credit... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 6:58 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - RadioShack Corp said on Tuesday that it teamed up with Western Union Co and wireless company Trumpet Mobile to offer a service that lets people wire money... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 6:47 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - RadioShack Corp said on
Tuesday that it teamed up with Western Union Co and
wireless company Trumpet Mobile to offer a service that lets
people wire money through their cellphones.
UBS chairman Marcel Ospel fell on his sword this morning as the Swiss banking
giant announced a humiliating SwFr15 billion (£7.57 billion) rights issue to
shore up its crumbling balance sheet. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 1 Apr 2008 | 6:41 am
Publisher Bloomsbury says profits tripled in 2007, the year of its last Harry Potter novel. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 6:36 am
UBS has unveiled plans raise 15bn Sfr (£6.5bn) by selling new shares as the Swiss banking giant scrambles to repair a capital base savaged by the sub-prime crisis. Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 6:35 am
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp sees no reason to increase its bid for Yahoo Inc , two months after it made a $44.6 billion offer to buy the Internet company, people... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 6:32 am
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp sees no
reason to increase its bid for Yahoo Inc , two months
after it made a $44.6 billion offer to buy the Internet
company, people familiar with Microsoft's plans said on Monday.
Reuters - Microsoft Corp sees no
reason to increase its bid for Yahoo Inc , two months
after it made a $44.6 billion offer to buy the Internet
company, people familiar with Microsoft's plans said on Monday.
Swiss bank UBS AG says it expects to post first quarter net losses of $12 billion and to seek $15 billion in new capital. Switzerland's largest bank also said in a statement Tuesday... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 5:46 am
ZURICH (Reuters) - UBS AG wrote down an additional $19 billion on assets on Tuesday, causing a net loss of 12 billion Swiss francs ($12.03 billion) in the first quarter, and said it would... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 5:43 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc , looking to capitalize on consumers' growing interest in sustainable coffees, is rolling out its own line of organic, Rainforest Alliance and fair trade certified coffees.
Reuters - Major automakers are expected to report
lower U.S. vehicle sales for March on Tuesday, ending the first
quarter on a weak note and adding to evidence that the housing
slump and tighter credit have crimped demand.
DETROIT (Reuters) - Major automakers are expected to report lower U.S. vehicle sales for March on Tuesday, ending the first quarter on a weak note and adding to evidence that the housing... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 5:25 am
DETROIT (Reuters) - Major automakers are expected to report lower U.S. vehicle sales for March on Tuesday, ending the first quarter on a weak note and adding to evidence that the housing slump and tighter credit have crimped demand.
Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc , looking
to capitalize on consumers' growing interest in sustainable
coffees, is rolling out its own line of organic, Rainforest
Alliance and fair trade certified coffees.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc , looking to capitalize on consumers' growing interest in sustainable coffees, is rolling out its own line of organic, Rainforest Alliance and fair... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 5:08 am
East Asian nations must act promptly to ease the burden of mounting food and fuel prices on the region's poor, the World Bank said Tuesday. Inflation poses a greater challenge to the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 1 Apr 2008 | 5:05 am
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Asian stocks traded mixed Tuesday, with Nikon Corp. fronting advances in Japanese technology stocks, while Samsung Electronic Co. led South Korean stocks higher after the technology giant said it was seeking to raise wholesale prices for its random-access memory chips in April. Markets in Shanghai retreated following comments by the People's Bank of China yesterday indicating a more hawkish stance on monetary policy.
AP - Confidence at major Japanese manufacturers fell to its lowest level in more than four years as the plunging dollar, soaring fuel prices and fears of a U.S. slowdown weighed on the economy. Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 4:50 am
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- The Reserve Bank of Australia left a key short-term interest rate unchanged at 7.25% Tuesday, as widely expected, taking stock of waning consumer and business confidence and an expected slowdown in the global economy this year.
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The next-generation wireless technology, known as WiMax, is full of potential to drive cheaper, high-speed wireless data, voice and video communications, or a dismal failure, depending on who you talk to.
Farmers in Argentina promise to continue a crippling strike over taxes after rejecting government concessions. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 3:37 am
Livestock Improvement Corporation is reporting a 15.9 per cent increase in operating revenue to $89 million for the six months to the end of November.
The surplus before income tax increased by 15.1 per cent to $28.5 million.
The... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 2:45 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, an investment bank beset by rumors of not having enough funding, said it plans to raise $3 billion of capital to quash questions about its stability.
It seems many investors are shying away from the sharemarket these days.
The total value of shares traded on the NZX in March was $2.258 billion, a 27 per cent decrease on the same period last year.
The average daily value of... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 12:56 am
The Indian government blocks the sale of non-basmati rice in a bid to ease spiralling domestic food costs. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 1 Apr 2008 | 12:20 am
Argentina's government unveiled a package of measures to help small farmers in a bid to defuse a 19-day strike over a new export tariff regime that has sparked the worst political crisis in five years Source: FT.com - US homepage | 1 Apr 2008 | 12:08 am
St Ives, the UK's largest printing group, has put its Dutch CD and DVD business under review as digital music sales drive down demand for physical products. Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
Friends Provident has rejected out of hand a £3.5bn indicative takeover offer from New York buyout firm JC Flowers, saying the proposal "significantly" undervalued the company. Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
Banks are "extremely likely" to be saddled with far tougher rules on managing their balance sheets in the wake of the credit crunch, the Bank of England Governor has warned Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
Michael Sherwood, Goldman Sachs' UK co-chief executive, has joined the elite group of bankers who earned a bonus of more than £10m. Source: Telegraph Business | 1 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
AP - Wall Street managed a moderate gain in the final session of a dismal first quarter Monday, but stock prices and the major indexes still ended the first three months of 2008 with massive losses, the casualties of the still continuing credit crisis. The Standard & Poor's 500 index, the benchmark for many widely held investments such as mutual funds, suffered a loss for the quarter of nearly 10 percent.
Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary, conceded it could take "many years" to overhaul US financial regulation as congressional critics took aim at his new plan to revamp a system dating back to the Great Depression Source: FT.com - US homepage | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:36 pm
Emirates Airlines attained its 100th global destination last night with the addition of Cape Town to its flight schedules.
The daily non-stop flights between Dubai and Cape Town connect in each direction with all of Emirates' flights... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:30 pm
Business confidence has taken another lurch lower in the National Bank's March survey.
Thirty per cent of firms expect their own activity to fall over the coming year and only 24 per cent expect it to increase.
The net 6 per... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:15 pm
Many people's skills and time are being wasted in the wrong job, often due to poor careers advice, a poll suggests. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:03 pm
A little over a year ago Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, set about
the task of designing much-needed reforms in the US financial system. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:00 pm
Plays on an appreciating euro don't come much purer than Shanks Group. The
£600 million waste management specialist must be alone among British-based
constituents of the FTSE 350 in drawing virtually all its operating profits
in the currency - a reflection of the nascent state of its British business,
at which earnings are largely offset by central costs, and Shanks's
extensive operations in Belgium and the Netherlands. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:00 pm
FirstRand Limited, South Africa's second-biggest bank by market value, is
standing behind its London-based “best” traders, who lost Rand Merchant
Bank, the outfit's investment-banking unit, more than $200 million ($£102
million) in the final six months of last year. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:00 pm
Global Radio, the owner of Heart 106.2, has agreed to buy Capital Radio-owner
GCap for £375 million. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:00 pm
It should come as no surprise that Goldman Sachs's top banker in London
received a hefty pay packet for 2007. In comparison with its peers, the
American bank sustained scant injury in the sub-prime mortgage debacle and
went on to announce its fourth successive record full-year profit, with net
income for 2007 hitting $11.6 billion ($£5.8 billion). Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:00 pm
Candidates need to pay more attention to their personal image during job interviews if they want to be successful, says a leading recruiter.
Megan Alexander, senior manager at Robert Half, says failing to research the company and... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:00 pm
Telecom has appointed its new chief financial officer (CFO).
He is Russ Houlden, who was previously finance director for an international legal firm, following a career with telecommunications giant BT.
He is taking over the... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:00 pm
Finance company Marac said all major banks in New Zealand supported an increase in its banking facility that will improve its liquidity.
Marac is a subsidiary of Pyne Gould Corporation. It said its retail deposit reinvestment rate... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 31 Mar 2008 | 11:00 pm
Lehman Brothers said it would sell at least $3bn worth of convertible preferred shares to help bolster its balance sheet and dispel rumours that it could face capital problems similar to those that sank Bear Stearns Source: FT.com - US homepage | 31 Mar 2008 | 10:50 pm
The largest losers among the big companies in the S&P 500 for the first quarter were: Microsoft (MSFT) down 21.6%, Google (GOOG) down 36.7%, Apple (AAPL) down 27.8%, Intel (INTC) down 22%, Citigroup (C) down 29.3%, AIG (AIG) down 26.6%, Verizon (VZ) down 17.9%, Schering-Plough (SGP) down 22.1%, Merck (MRK) down 23.4%, Wachovia ((WB) down 31.7%, United Health (UNH) down 40.9%, Merrill Lynch (MER) down 26.3%, Marathon Oil (MRO) down 23.6%, EMC (EMC) down 22.8%, Amazon (AMZN) down 24.7%, Valero (VLO) down 30.1%, Fannie Mae (FNM) down 34.9%, CME Group (CME) down 30.1%, WellPoint (WLP) down 50.7%, Motorola (MOT) down...
The sharemarket started the new financial year on a positive note after Wall Street rallied and there was no sign of it being an April Fool's joke.
The NZSX-50 benchmark index rose 9.851 points to 3480.28 after posting a 22.93... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 31 Mar 2008 | 10:40 pm
Record high milk product prices helped lift revenue at state-owned enterprise Landcorp to $76.8 million for the half year to the end of December.
Revenue from milk rose to $39.5m in the six month period, from $21.6m in the corresponding... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 31 Mar 2008 | 10:30 pm
AP - Gas prices at the pump surged to a new record over the weekend, while crude oil accelerated its slide Monday amid a broad-based commodities sell-off.
In today's New York Times an article on The Huffington Post says that the company is looking for a valuation of $200 million. That would be $53 per unique visitor based on Nielsen figures of 3.7 million for February. The paper mentions that if the Huffington internal numbers of 14 million unique visitors is used, the valuation per unique visitor is closer to $15. The $15 seems much more reasonable, but so does using outside figures like those Nielsen supplies. That would give Huffington a value of $56 million. The 24/7 Wall St. valuation for the company is $70 million....
The investment bank said it plans to raise $3 billion through a convertible preferred stock offering. It did not include details of the terms or who the investors will be. If there is sufficient demand for the offering, it could raise an additional $450 million by issuing more shares. Reuters reports that the shares are expected to pay a dividend of between 7 and 7.5 percent and a conversion premium of 30 to 35 percent.
In a statement, Lehman chief financial officer Erin Callan said that the bank expects the challenging market environment to continue for the rest of the year and the time was right to raise more money. "We also felt this was the right time as there was a window of opportunity in the market, as we have received significant interest from several key institutional investors who have been strong supporters of the firm over time," she said.
Lehman has tried desperately to quell the rumor mill ever since Bear Stearns was rescued from bankruptcy by J.P. Morgan Chase and the Federal Reserve two weeks ago. It sought to reassure investors that its liquidity position was stable, but that didn't stop some detractors, including Condé Nast Portfolio's Jesse Eisinger, from throwing cold water on its balance sheet.
In fact, Callan herself essentially admitted that this stock offering is little more than an attempt to boost confidence and try to solve the perception problem that Lehman could suffer the same fate as Bear Stearns. Less than two weeks ago, she told investors that Lehman had nearly $100 billion in cash and cash equivalents in addition to access to the Federal Reserve loans.
"We still maintain that we don't need capital, but we've realized that perception is the dominant issue in today's markets,'' she told Bloomberg in an interview. "This is an endorsement of our balance sheet by investors.''
To be sure, it is a good sign that Lehman does have the investor interest for a $3 billion capital infusion. Other Wall Street firms, including Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, have issued similar offerings in recent months to sovereign wealth funds and other large institutional investors.
Shares of Lehman, which have lost nearly a third of their value so far this year, fell another 3 percent in after-hours trading.
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has announced additional actions in its previous restructuring in its attempt to smooth its operating model, rationalize its operations and improve profitability and cash flow. In short, costs are coming down and many high-paid Austin workers are going to be out on the street. Michael Dell has called this a $3 billion annualized savings opportunity over the next three years to drive both productivity and efficiency. The actions will occur during Fiscal 2009 and beyond and are meant to accelerate growth in five focus areas: global consumer, enterprise, notebooks, small and medium enterprise and emerging countries,...
Radical strategies to fight the credit crisis, including temporary suspension of capital requirements, are being actively discussed by governments and central banks Source: FT.com - US homepage | 31 Mar 2008 | 9:14 pm
Hedge funds are having their worst start to the year on record after March turned into one of the ugliest months for popular strategies and several funds imploded Source: FT.com - US homepage | 31 Mar 2008 | 9:01 pm
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH) has just announced that it has "responded to investor interest" with the intent to offer to offer 3,000,000 shares of Non-Cumulative Perpetual Convertible Preferred Stock with a $1,000 per share offer. That's $3 Billion. It also expects to grant an overallotment option to purchase up to 450,000 additional shares of the Preferred Stock to the extent the underwriter sells more than 3,000,000 shares of the Preferred Stock in the offering. The proceeds from this offering are designated as being used to bolster its capital and increase financial flexibility. The non-cumulative dividend rate, conversion rate...
Cell Genesys, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEGE) has announced a global alliance with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited in Japan. The companies will develop and commercialize Cell Genesys' GVAX immunotherapy for prostate cancer, which is the company's lead product candidate. It is also currently in Phase 3 clinical development studies. For exclusive worldwide commercial rights to for prostate cancer, Takeda is paying Cell Genesys $50 million upfront with additional milestone payments totaling up to $270 million. The additional payments relate to regulatory approval and commercialization for prostate cancer in the U.s., E.U., and in Japan. Takeda will pay tiered double-digit royalties based on...
Wall Street stocks rose, breaking a four day losing streak as markets broadly welcomed the US Treasury's plans to shake up the regulatory framework of the American financial system Source: FT.com - US homepage | 31 Mar 2008 | 8:38 pm
"The upfronts" -- the events where TV networks tell advertisers what's on and advertisers plunk down billions to buy time -- are going to be a bit different this year, beginning this week. Joe Adalian, the TV editor at Variety, explains to Kai Ryssdal. Source: Marketplace | 31 Mar 2008 | 8:32 pm
The amount of cargo being shipped by train has dropped as the U.S. economy has slowed and imports have declined. But the freight-train business still hasn't gone off the rails. Jeff Tyler reports. Source: Marketplace | 31 Mar 2008 | 8:32 pm
Traders dumped shares of Merck and Schering-Plough today on news that cholesterol-lowering medications the companies made and marketed didn't do much for other symptoms of heart disease -- and might make them worse. Nancy Marshall Genzer reports. Source: Marketplace | 31 Mar 2008 | 8:32 pm
An Agriculture Department report says farmers are planning to plant more soybeans than last year. As they're getting ready for the planting season, those farmers are trying to navigate some complicated finances. Adriene Hill reports. Source: Marketplace | 31 Mar 2008 | 8:32 pm
Treasury Secy. Paulson admits that, this being a presidential election year, nothing much is going to happen with his announced regulation plan anytime soon. Kai Ryssal talks about it with Joe Grundfest, who used to sit on the Securities and Exchange Commission. Source: Marketplace | 31 Mar 2008 | 8:32 pm
Treasury Secy. Henry Paulson Jr. uses the word stability 21 times as he announces the administration's proposal for new financial market rules and regulations. John Dimsdale reports. Source: Marketplace | 31 Mar 2008 | 8:32 pm
There are many things the Treasury secretary's plan won't do -- like rein in the loosely regulated hedge fund industry, or crack down on things like mortgage-backed securities or credit-default swaps. Amy Scott reports on what Henry Paulson didn't say. Source: Marketplace | 31 Mar 2008 | 8:32 pm
The next time a hedge fund manager pitches you on his strategy to invest most of his portfolio in automakers and airlines, you might want to take a pass.
Of course, for investors in Pardus Capital Management, it's too late for that little gem of advice. The hedge fund, which launched in 2005 and now has $2 billion under management, said today that it has suspended investor redemptions "to protect the funds and their investors from external short-term pressure and to focus on realizing value on our portfolio companies for investors over an extended period of time." It wants to let the fund's portfolio companies know that they won't be forced to dump their holdings to meet capital requirements.
It's worth noting that Pardus, an activist fund, is not the latest victim of the credit crisis. In fact, the fund uses no leverage to back its equity portfolio. It simply made bad stock picks—but picks it believes still have the potential to turn around.
A person close to the fund said that the options it had to deal with redemption requests were to sell its holdings or add leverage to its balance sheet. It didn't want to do either, so instead it chose option No. 3: to lock investors in.
In November, Pardus made headlines when it wrote to the management of Delta Airlines asking it to pursue a merger with United Airlines. Merger discussions were not exactly a novel idea to the troubled airline industry, however. Delta continues to consider its merger opportunities, but now it's focused on Northwest Airlines as a potential partner.
Shares of Delta have dropped from $21 last summer, when it emerged from bankruptcy, to around $8 today. Shares of UAL, parent of United, reached $51 last fall when Pardus made the merger demands. Today, it trades for less than half of that.
Pardus also has a hankering for auto stocks. It owns substantial numbers of shares of General Motors and the auto-parts maker Visteon. Until late last year, it also owned a big chunk of Ford Motor.
How are those stocks faring? Losers. G.M. reached $42 in October, and it now is worth less than $20. Visteon's shares have dropped from $10 to $3.80.
Perhaps to "diversify" a bit, Pardus took stakes in certain media and technology stocks as well. As of the end of December, it owned several million shares of ICO Global Communications, a satellite company worth about $3 per share today, down from $4.50 in November.
Shares of Virgin Media, another Pardus portfolio company, have fallen from $29 last summer to $14 today.
And the seventh and final holding in Pardus' fund as of the end of 2007? SunCom Wireless. It's the only stock chart that looks remotely pleasing to an investor's eye: Last summer, it jumped from $15 to $26 in a very short order, and it continues to trade at nearly $27.
But a closer look at Pardus' filings shows that the fund didn't capitalize on that climb after all. It got into the stock sometime during the third quarter of 2007, when it had already reached its new highs.
Of course, if all of Pardus' recent bets have turned up on the losing side, Senator Barack Obama's supporters should be happy to know that the fund's founder, Karim Samii, is a supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton.
Schering-Plough (SGP) Bad news on key cholesterol drug marketed with Merck. Shares fall to $14 from 52-week high of $33.81. Merck (MRK) Pulled down for the same reason. Sells off to $36.82 from 52-week high of $61.62. Altria Group (MO) Stock down because of spin-out of international unit. Falls to $21.95 from 52-week high of $87.81. Ampex Corp (AMPX) Files Chapter 11. Drops to $.38 from 52-week high of $20.83. Secure Computing (SCUR) Brokerage firm downgrade. Moves off to $6.27 from 52-week high of $10.54. Citrix (CTXS) Companies like this and VMWare (VMW) suffering from concerns about growth of vitualiztion...
Retail mogul Solomon Lew has put up a A$898 million ($1.04 billion) takeover offer for clothing company Just Group, confirming long-held speculation the billionaire investor had designs on the clothing firm.
Lew's Premier Investments... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 31 Mar 2008 | 7:30 pm
As one cabinet secretary proposed regulatory changes to recover from the bursting of a housing-market bubble, the cabinet member responsible for housing policy said he would step down to "attend more diligently to personal and family matters."
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson told President Bush he would step down April 18.
Jackson announced his decision 10 days after two senior Democrats in the Senate—Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Patty Murray of Washington—called for Jackson's resignation.
They told the White House that Jackson could no longer effectively lead the agency because he had refused to answer questions about whether he tried to help a business friend obtain some valuable government-owned property.
The allegation came in a federal lawsuit filed by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. The lawsuit alleges that Jackson injected himself into a dispute between the housing authority and property developer Kenny Gamble.
At one point, the lawsuit alleges, Jackson's assistant secretaries warned that H.U.D. would find the housing authority in violation of a federal contract if it didn't give the property, valued at $2 million, to Gamble.
After the housing authority's director, Carl R. Greene, refused, H.U.D. found the city agency in violation of a separate, larger agreement and took steps to withdraw $50 million in federal funds.
H.U.D. officials have said they were not pressing a deal on Gamble's behalf, just trying to get the city to accelerate a long-delayed housing project. But when Congress started to look into the matter, Jackson declined to discuss what role, if any, he'd played in it.
Earlier, The New York Timesreported that authorities were investigating allegations that Jackson had steered other federal contracts—involving the Virgin Islands housing authority and post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding work—to friends. H.U.D. officials declined to comment on those allegations.
Jackson announced his plan to retire as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was outlining an overhaul of how the government regulates financial institutions. The plan is in response to the effects of the mortgage-market meltdown that has already claimed one bank, Bear Stearns, and cost billions of losses at others.
Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to generate mass sums of cash for his creator's heirs: Superman—and the goldmine industry he spawned—will again benefit the heirs of co-creator Jerome Siegel.
In 1938, Siegel and his co-creator, Joseph Shuster, sold the copyright to the superhero for just $130—about $1,858.94 in today's dollars. Time Warner has owned those rights. But a federal judge ruled last week that Siegel's heirs—his wife, Joanne, who served as the original sketch model for Lois Lane, and a daughter, Laura—are entitled to share in them.
The Superman business, which is fueled by avid Superman fans of all ages and encompasses movies, comics, books, merchandise, and more, is worth as much as $1 billion, according to Marc Toberoff, the plaintiff's lawyers, who spoke to Condé Nast Portfolio for an October article on the Siegels' lawsuit.
Just how much money the Siegel family will claim from this ruling is unclear, but it's likely to be a windfall. The next phase of the legal proceedings will be to divvy up Time Warner's Superman-related profits and explore whether the family is entitled to even more profits from the corporate siblings of D.C. Comics.
In the meantime, though, Superman fans are up in arms, and the message boards on fan websites are lighting up, some siding with the co-creator's family and others bemoaning the fact that the ruling and impending cost to Time Warner's film unit, Warner Brothers, might threaten the production of future Superman flicks.
"This god-awful display of greed from Jerry Siegel's heirs is downright ludicrous. Enough of this!" wrote a commenter known by the moniker batmansgirl on the fan site Supermanhomepage.com.
Other site members seem to agree.
"For Superman fans, this is not good news. It means that 1) Superman films will become riskier for film companies to produce do (sic) to less profits after paying out the heirs... 2) Superman publications (i.e., comics & books) will either become more expensive...or less numerous," wrote PScottMorgan, another commenter.
At least a few commenters sympathized with the Siegels. "Can we not be so selfish and worry about where our next Superman fix is coming from? That's considerably less important than seeing the S&S families get their due," wrote a commenter called Jeffreak.
Superman's physical appearance has changed over the years, but the Siegels are probably happy with his current incarnation: moneymaker.
In the sweeping proposal to overhaul the regulatory structure of the financial markets, where is the plan for oversight of hedge funds and private equity?
The answer is nowhere.
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson delivered remarks about his blueprint for regulatory change during a press conference this morning, and the subject never came up. In the 212-page plan the Treasury Department released today, the term hedge fund appears only twice and private equity just once. In the Q&A with Paulson published by the Wall Street Journal this weekend, there is no mention of how the new regulatory regime would impact the use of alternative investment vehicles.
Paulson spoke about the great changes that our financial system has undergone since the current regulatory structure was implemented. And yet one of the biggest agents of change—the emergence of hedge funds and private equity funds—gets little attention. Although there has been a lot of discussion in Washington over the regulation of them, hedge funds and private equity funds remain lightly regulated.
And judging by the language in the blueprint, Paulson's plan would essentially keep it that way. According to the executive summary, the funds would fall under the purview of a new regulator to oversee business conduct across all financial firms. They would also be subject to information-reporting requirements from the Federal Reserve, but that information would only be used broadly when systemic risks in the market emerge.
Indeed, in a footnote, the Treasury Department seems to fall back on its existing statements on regulation of the investment funds. It cites the set of principles and guidelines for hedge funds and other private pools of capital released by the President's Working Group in February 2007 as evidence that "market discipline is the most effective tool to limit systemic risk."
In terms of disclosure and transparency, then, the new regulatory proposal seems to say that status quo in the world of private pools of capital is sufficient.
The business-conduct regulator would essentially be the consumer advocate in the financial services industry, which would include hedge funds and private equity. The agency would set standards, license firms, and ensure that compliance needs are being met.
But considering that hedge funds and private equity firms don't currently market their products to consumers, it's unclear what role this would play for them. Also, the plan clearly calls for continued enforcement functions by their self-regulatory organizations. Because the hedge fund and private equity industries do not operate in an S.R.O. model, it's unclear where the enforcement of them would fall.
Of course, the timing of Paulson's announcement is a curiosity in and of itself. If November's election results in a Democratic president and Congress, we may look back at this sweeping plan as little more than a last-ditch effort by an outgoing administration to leave a favorable legacy.
In the New York Times' news analysis of the plans yesterday, Nelson Schwartz and Floyd Norris mention the "light touch" the regulation would have on hedge funds, but they didn't delve deeper into the outcome of that. However, they do end the piece with a quote from Richard Baker, the former Republican head of the House Financial Services Committee, who is now the hedge fund industry's chief lobbyist: “The general tone is positive, and moving toward a consolidated regulatory structure is reasonable,” he said.
Forget the iPhone: Your next cellphone will probably resemble Nokia's N95. This upstart smartphone features sexy touches like a 5-megapixel camera -- with flash -- and a dual keypad that can slide in multiple directions. But it's the extra internal components, like high-speed internet access, integrated GPS and an open source platform, that make the N95 the target every handset maker will be aiming for this year.
While Apple's so-called "Jesus phone" will have a significant effect on the handset market in 2008, many phone manufacturers will be looking to distance themselves from Apple by enticing customers with smart offerings in multimedia applications and entertainment features -- not hardware features like touchscreens and megapixels. And there will be no better place to see this than at the annual CTIA Wireless conference running from April 1 to April 3 in Las Vegas.
Don't get us wrong, there will be tons of handsets clearly mimicking the iPhone at the show -- even more than at last year's show.
"The first generation of products that were influenced by the iPhone were products that were already scheduled for the market," explains Avi Greengart, a research director at Current Analysis. "But now, we're definitely starting to see phones that are beginning to look at user interface on a touchscreen to provide a different experience."
Greengart cites Sony Ericsson's upcoming Experia X1 as one example of an iPhone-inspired handset. Other iClones are expected from Samsung and LG.
iClones aside, possibly the most hyped item at CTIA won't be a phone or an application or even an innovative piece of software, but an operating system. The Google-backed, open source Android operating system, first unveiled in November 2007, is still under development. Some ambitious manufacturers showed early prototypes of Android phones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this February -- but behind closed doors. Those prototypes were little more than circuit boards sprouting wires, LCD screens and keypads, so with luck, CTIA will feature some slightly more refined Android prototypes.
Carriers next week will also be touting massive amounts of content available for their devices. AT&T has announced full-length television content comprising sports, news and prime time shows. It remains to be seen, though, how AT&T hopes to deploy this media with its slow-as-frozen-molasses EDGE network.
Wishful thinking is one thing, but there are some concrete things we do know will be released at CTIA. To stoke your gadget lust, here are some quick hits on what the major manufacturers will be up to.
Nokia Despite producing smart, powerful products (hello, N95), Nokia suffers from horrid sales and brand presence within the United States. The rumor mill, however, is rife with conjecture that the handset manufacturer will make an announcement at CTIA introducing a CDMA-enabled device for either Sprint, Verizon or both. A Sprint/Nokia pairing would make sense considering Nokia's top-notch web browsing abilities and Sprint's high-speed data network (the fastest of any carrier).
Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson will be heavily hyping its Experia X1. This iClone-like device sports a touchscreen, but it's no wizard of OS. Under its alluring 3-inch VGA screen lies a homely Windows Mobile operating system. Sony Ericsson touts the Experia X1 as a mobile solution for business and entertainment.
Google We're just as excited as anyone to play with a phone equipped with Android. But if you're expecting a big announcement, then dream on. Greengart says, "I don't think you'll see any specific product announcements. Android phones probably won't be available until the fourth quarter, and I certainly don't expect Android phones to be launched at CTIA."
Motorola Virtually anything Motorola announces will be overshadowed by the splitting of its cellphone division from the rest of the company. But that hasn't stopped photos of what could be a ROKR E8 music phone from popping up. There are also rumors of a Kodak-engineered 5-megapixel camera phone from Moto.
Samsung and LG These two companies like to use the shotgun approach to product releases. CTIA will be no exception. "Samsung and LG … typically throw a whole bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Expect to see more touchscreen devices from both companies," Greengart says.
Farmers will plant less corn and more soybeans and wheat this spring, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports.
Less corn will only bolster already-high prices as demand to produce ethanol continues to grow. Nearly a third of the corn crop is used to make ethanol.
And that will have a ripple effect throughout the food chain, particularly on meat. Corn, the biggest American crop, is also used by beef and pork producers as feed for their livestock.
Corn plantings are forecast to decline 8 percent from 2007, to 86 million acres. Even with strong prices, farmers are shifting acreage away from corn because fertilizer costs have risen sharply. Corn is more costly to plant than soybeans or wheat.
The U.S.D.A. said, "Despite the decrease, corn acreage is expected to remain at historically high levels as the corn-price outlook remains strong, due in part to the continued expansion in ethanol production."
Soybean plantings are expected to increase 18 percent from last year, but 1 percent below the record acreage in 2006. Wheat plantings are forecast to rise 6 percent.
Pernod Ricard of France won a hard-fought auction to acquire Vin & Sprit Group, the owner of Absolut vodka-but this morning its chief executive, Patrick Ricard, may already feel a hangover coming on.
V&S, which is owned by the Swedish government, fetched nearly $9 billion at auction, well above the $7 billion some predicted.
Pernod said that the purchase would "generate significant value creation for Pernod Ricard's shareholders," but the shareholders didn't seem to think so, sending the stock down 4.9 percent to 64.66 euros by early afternoon in Paris. Shares of Pernod Ricard have underperformed the sector this year, falling over 18 percent since the beginning of January.
Absolut will be a feather in Pernod Ricard's cap to be sure. It is the No. 1 premium vodka brand by volume and the third-largest premium liquor brand (after Diageo PLC's Smirnoff vodka and Bacardi rum). The acquisition vaults Pernod Ricard into the top global position in premium spirits and co-leadership in wines and spirits worldwide, alongside Diageo.
Premium vodka has been the fastest-growing segment of the liquor industry in recent years, and Absolut is an especially prized brand because of its strong global positioning.
And Pernod Ricard has been keen to patch the vodka-shaped hole in its brand lineup, which includes Chivas, Glenlivet, Jameson, Beefeater, Malibu, Mumm, and Perrier-Joüet.
Perhaps a little too keen. According to Pernod, the deal valued V&S at 20.8 times 2007 gross operating profit — a multiple which may represent the top of the cycle, Cantor Fitzgerald senior analyst Stephen Surpless told Reuters
In the battle for V&S, Pernod Ricard beat out Fortune Brands, which already distributes Absolut in the United States, partly by promoting the potential for its global distribution network to create cost synergies with V&S. Those savings will certainly be necessary to offset the penalty they will have to pay for breaking up the distribution agreement with Fortune Brands.
The acquisition, the latest in the consolidation trend within the liquor industry, will be watched closely by dealmakers.
Pernod Ricard said it will pay $8.9 billion in total for V&S, which also has $546.8 million of outstanding debt.
Some $19 billion in financing will be provided by a consortium of no less than six banks, including BNP Paribas, Calyon, J.P. Morgan Chase, Natixis, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and Société Générale. That sum will finance the deal as well as refinance the company's existing debt.
In addition to Absolut, the V&S acquisition also brings brands such as Cruzan Rum and Level, the No. 4 brand in the superpremium vodka category in the United States.
The administration that does not believe in regulating business is trying to reinvent how finance is regulated.
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has outlined a 218-page proposal to overhaul the regulation of financial institutions. Details of the plan emerged late Friday and center on giving the Federal Reserve new powers as a "market-stability regulator."
Introducing the proposal, Paulson said:
"Our current regulatory structure was not built to address the modern financial system with its diversity of market participants, innovation, complexity of financial instruments, convergence of financial intermediaries and trading platforms, global integration and interconnectedness among financial institutions, investors and markets. Moreover, our major financial services companies are becoming larger, more complex, and more difficult to manage. Much of our current regulatory system was developed after the Great Depression, and it has developed through reaction—a pattern of creating regulators as a response to market innovations or to market stress."
Under the proposal, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would be merged into the Securities and Exchange Commission, although the S.E.C. would adopt some of the C.F.T.C.'s "principles-based" approach to regulating. In addition, the elimination of a separate charter for savings institutions would be abolished, as well as its regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision.
The proposal also calls for a federal commission that while leaving the regulation of mortgage brokers to the states, would create minimal licensing standards and review the states' efforts.
The proposal's new model would have three regulators:
"Our work led us to recommend a regulatory model based on objectives, to more closely link the regulatory structure to the reasons why we regulate. This model would have three regulators: a regulator focused solely on market stability across the entire financial sector; a regulator focused on safety and soundness of those institutions supported by a federal guarantee; and a regulator focused on protecting consumers and investors. A major advantage of this structure is its timelessness and its flexibility. It can more easily respond and adapt to the ever-changing marketplace because it is organized by regulatory objective rather than by financial institution category."
The plan is a conceptual leap for Washington, uprooting the previous petty wars over turf that have been the mark of most financial regulatory battles. The approach is fitting coming from someone who was chief executive of Goldman Sachs—bold, yet ultimately light on the regulatory hand.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said that the "Treasury has delivered a thoughtful and sweeping plan which should provoke intense discussion, debate, and potential legislative changes."
But Jay Baris, a financial services partner at the law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, noted: "The Treasury Department seeks to balance the goals of stabilizing our financial markets while encouraging innovation. These may be hopelessly incompatible."
And it is unclear who will support this proposal. It is too broad to find fans on Wall Street, and it is not deep or aggressive enough to win over Democrats in Congress—or indeed anyone appalled by the hands-off approach that the Bush administration has taken in the crisis until this point.
As Nelson Schwartz and Floyd Norris of the New York Timesput it in an analysis on Sunday: "The regulatory umbrella created in the 1930s would grow wider, with power concentrated in fewer agencies. But that authority would be limited, doing virtually nothing to regulate the many new financial products whose unwise use has been a culprit in the current financial crisis."
Paulson's proposal is an opening salvo in a debate that will probably go on for some years. With the number of home foreclosures rising and the markets still nervous despite the rescue of Bear Stearns, the question is whether this is a debate that should be a priority for the administration.
"It's probably a bad idea to spend too much time debating the organization of the fire department while the fire is still burning," Larry Summers, the former Clinton administration Treasury Secretary, told the Wall Street Journal.
Reuters - Robert Rubin is not expected to resign
as chair of Citigroup's executive committee even as the
company looks to restructure its board, the Wall Street Journal
reported on Tuesday, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Reuters - UBS AG doubled its writedowns from the
subprime crisis, parted company with its chairman and asked
shareholders for more emergency capital on Tuesday in a second
dramatic attempt to reverse its fortunes.
Reuters - Microsoft Corp sees no
reason to increase its bid for Yahoo Inc , two months
after it made a $44.6 billion offer to buy the Internet
company, people familiar with Microsoft's plans said on Monday.
Reuters - Major automakers are expected to report
lower U.S. vehicle sales for March on Tuesday, ending the first
quarter on a weak note and adding to evidence that the housing
slump and tighter credit have crimped demand.
Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc , looking
to capitalize on consumers' growing interest in sustainable
coffees, is rolling out its own line of organic, Rainforest
Alliance and fair trade certified coffees.
AP - Wall Street managed a moderate gain in the final session of a dismal first quarter Monday, but stock prices and the major indexes still ended the first three months of 2008 with massive losses, the casualties of the still continuing credit crisis. The Standard & Poor's 500 index, the benchmark for many widely held investments such as mutual funds, suffered a loss for the quarter of nearly 10 percent.
AP - Gas prices at the pump surged to a new record over the weekend, while crude oil accelerated its slide Monday amid a broad-based commodities sell-off.