| Europe anxiety spurs sharp drop; Wal-Mart slides Posted:  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks slid on Monday as resurgent uncertainty in Europe cast doubts on the bloc's ability to push through measures to end its debt crisis, while Wal-Mart weighed on the Dow after a report it stymied a probe into bribery allegations. After Dutch officials failed to agree on budget cuts, the Dutch prime minister tendered his government's resignation on Monday. Adding to the turmoil was the possibility of a socialist victory in France, which cast doubts on public support for future euro zone austerity measures. ...
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| Kellogg cuts outlook; shares fall 5 percent Posted:  (Reuters) - Kellogg Co cut its full-year outlook on Monday after a disappointing first-quarter performance in Europe and in some product categories in the United States, and its shares fell 5 percent. The world's largest cereal company said it would still invest in future growth. Kellogg now expects operating earnings to fall 2 percent to 4 percent in 2012, from its prior forecast of flat or up slightly. It said sales should rise 2 percent to 3 percent, down from a prior forecast for growth of 4 percent to 5 percent. ...
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| MetLife in $500 million 'Death Master' deal with states Posted: (Reuters) - MetLife Inc, the largest life insurer in the United States, will pay $500 million to settle a multi-state investigation into claims payment practices, the office of California's state controller said on Monday. The investigation related to the use of the Social Security "Death Master" file, which lists those who have recently died. A number of states have accused insurers of using the list to stop making annuity payments to dead customers, but at the same time not using the list to check whether any life insurance policy holders had passed away. ... |
| Nestle wins pricey battle for Pfizer baby food unit Posted:  ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss food group Nestle is to buy drugmaker Pfizer's baby food business for $11.85 billion, beating out French rival Danone in the battle for dominance of fast-growing emerging markets. The world's biggest food company had to dig deeper than expected into its ample pockets to win the high-stakes fight for Pfizer Nutrition, which makes 85 percent of its sales in emerging markets and is Nestle's biggest deal to date. "The price tag is high, however Nestle is securing a high growth/margin business with high exposure in the emerging markets. ...
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| Facebook pays Microsoft $550 million for AOL patents Posted:  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook will pay Microsoft Corp $550 million in cash for hundreds of patents recently sold by AOL, the social networking company's latest move to bulk up its intellectual property in the wake of a lawsuit filed by Yahoo. The deal will give Facebook 650 patents and patent applications, as well as a license to another 275 patents and applications owned by Microsoft. Microsoft trumped Amazon, eBay and other tech giants earlier this month with its more than $1 billion purchase of most of AOL Inc. patent trove. Facebook's deal with Microsoft comes as the world's No. ...
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| ConocoPhillips profit lags Wall Street view Posted:  (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips , which is splitting into two stand-alone companies at the end of the month, reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit, hurt by weak refining margins, and its shares fell in premarket trading. Net profit for the first quarter was $2.9 billion, or $2.27 per share, compared with $3 billion, or $2.09 per share, a year earlier. Excluding $330 million on net special gains, earnings were $2.02 per share. That fell short of the analysts' average forecast of $2.08, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. ...
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| Wal-Mart probe could cost some executives their jobs Posted:  (Reuters) - Allegations that Wal-Mart Stores Inc stymied an internal investigation into extensive bribery at its Mexican subsidiary are likely to lead to years of regulatory scrutiny and could eventually cost some executives their jobs. The New York Times reported on Saturday that in September 2005, a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an email from Sergio Cicero Zapata, a former executive at the company's largest foreign unit, Wal-Mart de Mexico, describing how the subsidiary had paid bribes to obtain permits to build stores in the country. ...
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| Key investor snubs Vodafone's $1.7 billion CWW bid Posted:  LONDON (Reuters) - British mobile operator Vodafone's deal to buy Cable & Wireless Worldwide for an agreed 1.04 billion pounds ($1.7 billion) hit a hurdle on Monday when CWW's top shareholder declined to back a bid it considered too low. The world's biggest mobile phone operator by revenue wants CWW for its fixed-line network, which could be used to relieve the strain on Vodafone's wireless operations from data-hungry smartphone users. ...
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| Painful Greek austerity bit into 2011 budget gap Posted: ATHENS (Reuters) - Battered Greece saw its budget deficit fall to 9.1 percent of gross output last year as severe austerity required to secure international aid bit. More pain is expected after elections next month as the twice bailed out country seeks to dig itself out of a fiscal hole. Since 2009 when its debt crisis emerged, Greece has been unwinding economic imbalances through a deep economic slump and slowly improving competitiveness, a therapy prescribed by its international lenders. ... |
| China premium car sector remains bright spot Posted:  BEIJING (Reuters) - Global car makers such as GM, Daimler, BMW and Peugeot are counting on China to maintain growth in their premium offerings, even as all the signs point to an overall slowing in the world's largest auto market. Even conservative forecasts have China's automobile market surging to 30 million vehicles a year by 2020 from last year's 18 million. Some think volume could even reach 40 million. Executives attending the Beijing autoshow from premium brands like Mercedes, BMW and Audi were bullish about a segment they said still has plenty of room to grow. ...
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| Stronger earnings prove pessimists wrong Posted: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street may have written off corporate America too quickly. In the early stages of the first-quarter reporting season, companies have beaten earnings forecasts at a rate of 81 percent and revenue at a rate of 76 percent, and expectations for overall corporate profit growth have almost doubled in a few short weeks, based on Thomson Reuters data for results through last week. Earnings reports so far show that economic weakness in the euro zone and a slowdown in parts of the Chinese economy have not hurt sales and margins as feared. ... |
| UBS taps private equity chief to boost deals Posted:  NEW YORK (Reuters) - UBS AG , the Swiss bank that this month suffered the departure of some of its most senior dealmakers in the U.S., said on Monday it hired the former head of Bank of America Corp's buyout arm to bolster its deals coverage. UBS said in an internal memo that Jim Forbes, a veteran banker who has raised over $100 billion in financing for companies and advised on over $120 billion of merger and acquisition deals, would join the bank on Monday as vice chairman at UBS Group Americas. ...
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| Thomson Reuters sells healthcare unit to Veritas Posted:  NEW YORK (Reuters) - News and information company Thomson Reuters Corp said on Monday it will sell its healthcare business to private equity firm Veritas Capital for $1.25 billion in cash. Thomson Reuters' Healthcare business provides data, analytics and other services to hospitals, government agencies and healthcare professionals to help them identify savings and improve efficiency. The sale, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the next few months, Thomson Reuters said in a statement. ...
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| Spain and EU deficit calculations add up Posted:  BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Spain's budget deficit was confirmed at 8.5 percent of economic output in 2011 by the EU's statistics office Eurostat on Monday, dispelling doubts about the new Spanish government's reading of its national accounts. The latest flare-up in the euro zone's debt crisis was partly sparked Madrid announcing it had inherited a worse-than-expected deficit from its predecessor. ...
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| Volkswagen to invest $225 million in new Chinese plant Posted:  FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Volkswagen , the world's second largest carmaker, will invest about 170 million euros ($225 million) building a new plant in Urumqi, western China, capable of making 50,000 vehicles annually starting 2015, the company said on Monday. VW's two Chinese joint ventures are investing a total of 14 billion euros by 2016, and the German-based group has said in the past its annual production capacity in China would rise to 3 million cars as early as next year. ...
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| China sees trade with Germany near doubling by 2015 Posted:  HANNOVER, Germany (Reuters) - China and Germany, the world's two biggest exporters, can nearly double their bilateral trade in the next three years, but must also improve their market access and combat protectionism, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Monday. Speaking at a German-Chinese economic forum in the city of Hannover, Wen also pledged that Beijing would protect intellectual property rights - a key concern for German and other Western investors in China - and the voluntary principle of technological transfers. ...
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| Qtel comes calling for $2 billion loan: bankers Posted: LONDON (Reuters) - Qatar Telecom has sent requests for proposals to international lenders for a $2 billion refinancing loan that will mark its return to the market after a two-year gap, bankers close to the deal said. "It is one of the few corporates in Qatar that is able to access the market. It is right that Qtel gets centre stage," one European banker said. Its record as an annual borrower since 2007 -- with the exception of 2011 -- of more than $2 billion should help generate momentum for the deal. ... |
| Repsol warns potential YPF investors of lawsuits Posted:  MADRID (Reuters) - Oil major Repsol warned it could take legal action against companies that invest in YPF after Argentina seized control of the Spanish company's energy unit last week. Argentina expropriated the 51 percent of YPF owned by Repsol, saying that the company needed to invest more to address the South American country's energy shortage. Argentine Planning Minister Julio De Vido approached Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras over investment in YPF last week and plans to contact other foreign oil companies such as Exxon , Chevron and ConocoPhilips . ...
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| Boss of UK's Sky News reprimanded over email hacking Posted:  LONDON (Reuters) - The judge presiding over an inquiry into British press standards on Monday rebuked the head of Sky News, the influential news channel of Rupert Murdoch-controlled BSkyB, for breaking the law by hacking into emails to generate a story. Prime Minister David Cameron ordered judge Brian Leveson to examine standards after Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World tabloid admitted hacking thousands of phones to produce ever-more salacious stories. ...
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| German manufacturing shrinks at fastest pace since 2009: PMI Posted:  BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's manufacturing sector unexpectedly shrank at the fastest pace in nearly three years in April, denting hopes it can drive growth in the euro zone and casting a shadow over upbeat business sentiment surveys. Markit's manufacturing Purchasing Mangers Index (PMI) fell sharply to 46.3 from March's 48.4, according to a flash estimate released on Monday, well below the 50 mark which would sign al growth in activity. ...
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| Insight: Outsider Ren pits Huawei against the world Posted:  (Reuters) - In the 1990s, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei visited the United States several times, hoping to learn from its leaders of industry about how to turn his Chinese telecoms equipment maker into a global company. On one trip in 1992, in the days before China had credit cards, he paid all his bills with cash from a $30,000 stash in his briefcase. Sixteen years later, Ren was listed among Forbes' 400 richest Chinese and Huawei was one of the world's largest telecoms gear vendors, but the United States still treated him as an outsider. ...
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| Painful Greek austerity bit into 2011 budget gap Posted: ATHENS (Reuters) - Battered Greece saw its budget deficit fall to 9.1 percent of gross output last year as severe austerity required to secure international aid bit into spending. Athens managed a 1.2 percentage point fiscal improvement compared with 2010 but its primary budget balance - which excludes debt servicing costs - has yet to move into surplus as a deep economic slump continues. Greece's economy is in its fifth year of recession and could contract by more than 4.8 percent this year. ... |
| SABMiller appoints Alan Clark CEO as of July 2013 Posted:  LONDON (Reuters) - Global brewer SABMiller said its European chief Alan Clark will succeed long-standing Chief Executive Graham Mackay in July 2013 in series of top management changes that will see the 62-year old Mackay take over as chairman. The move appears to fly in the face of the UK corporate governance code which suggests that chief executives should not go on to become chairman of the same group, although the code does say this can be allowed if the company consults its shareholders and sets out clearly the reasons for its decision. ...
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| Analysis: U.S. retailers play catch-up in fashion speed race Posted:  (Reuters) - After years of losing customers to Europe-based retailers that give young shoppers fresh fashions more quickly, U.S. clothes retailers are fighting back. To pick up speed, companies like Gap Inc , American Eagle Outfitters and Macy's Inc are placing smaller orders in more factories, and waiting until the last minute to say what colors and cuts the fabric should take. They are also slashing the time clothes spend in warehouses, industry experts said. ...
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| Hong Kong watchdog punishes underwriter for lax IPO standards Posted: HONG KONG/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Hong Kong's stock market regulator has revoked the license of an underwriter of a troubled 2009 listing and slapped it with a record fine in a warning to investment banks working in one of the world's biggest IPO markets to strengthen their due diligence. Many mainland Chinese firms are tapping capital markets for the first time, but standards have fallen short. The penalties come just as the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) is preparing to toughen listing regulations. ... |
| Europe pressed for action to end debt crisis Posted:  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global finance chiefs pressed Europe in weekend talks to quickly put in place the economic reforms needed to finally extinguish its debt crisis now that newly increased financial buffers have bought some precious time. A day after advanced and emerging countries agreed to double the firepower of the International Monetary Fund to help contain the crisis, the IMF's governing panel said on Saturday that the 17-nation euro area must cut government debt burdens further, push bold economic reforms and stabilize financial systems. ...
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| More companies planning to hire: NABE survey Posted:  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Companies are modestly stepping up hiring plans and increasingly report that wages are rising, according to a survey on Monday that suggested the economic recovery is gaining some traction. The National Association of Business Economics' industry survey found that 39 percent of respondents expect hiring will pick up in their companies and industries during the next six months, up from 27 percent in January. Some 48 percent of respondents expect hiring will hold steady. ...
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| China factory activity stabilizing: HSBC Flash PMI Posted:  BEIJING (Reuters) - China's factories posted their best performance this year as a measure of new business rose from multi-month lows, a private sector purchasing managers survey showed on Monday, though overall activity still contracted for a sixth successive month. Readings for output and export orders also perked up as the HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) painted a picture of a stabilizing factory sector and supported the view that China's growth rate bottomed out in the first quarter of the year. ...
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| China's Sinograin may boost imports of U.S. corn Posted: BEIJING/CHICAGO (Reuters) - China Grain Reserves Corp (Sinograin), which manages the state grain reserves, may have signed deals to import U.S. corn and it is ready boost purchases to replenish depleted reserves if the prices are attractive. Sinograin's interest comes after Chicago Board of Trade corn prices dropped to about $6 a bushel last week, the first time they have breached that level for about three months, but talk of China's buying pushed up prices to a high of $6.28-1/2 per bushel on Friday. ... |
| Philips beats forecasts with Q1 profit gain Posted:  AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Philips Electronics reported better-than-expected first-quarter results on Monday, lifted by one-off gains and a stronger performance at its consumer and healthcare divisions. Net profit jumped 80 percent to 249 million euros ($329 million), as sales climbed 7 percent to 5.608 billion euros. Analysts in a Reuters poll had forecast a first-quarter net profit of 186 million euros on quarterly sales of 5.436 billion euros, up 3.4 percent. ...
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| Are markets afraid France will elect a Socialist? Posted:  France's stock market moved deep into the red Monday and the euro tumbled after the Socialist candidate came out on top in the first round of the country's presidential election, raising questions about whether the markets are nervous about a Francois Hollande victory.
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| German central banker: ECB can't do it all Posted: Germany's top central banker is rejecting calls for the European Central Bank to cut interest rates and offer more support to banks and bond markets. |
| US stocks slide on economic tremors from Europe Posted:  A collection of worrying news out of Europe sent stocks sharply lower on Wall Street Monday.
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| Microsoft sells AOL patents on to Facebook Posted: Microsoft, which just bought patents from AOL for $1 billion, is now turning around and selling most of them to Facebook for $550 million. |
| Sanctions lifting could revive Myanmar industry Posted:  Looking across a sea of young workers perched behind rows of buzzing sewing machines, factory owner Myint Soe has one main hope for Monday's suspension of European sanctions on Myanmar — the restoration of some of the 80,000 garment industry jobs lost here over the past 10 years.
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| Aging workforce strains Social Security, Medicare Posted:  An aging population and an economy that has been slow to rebound are straining the long-term finances of Social Security and Medicare, the government's two largest benefit programs.
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| Iceland ex-PM convicted on 1 of 4 bank charges Posted:  The leader of Iceland's government when the nation's banking system collapsed was convicted Monday of one criminal charge, cleared on three others and faces no punishment, a special court announced.
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| Dutch government quits after austerity talks fail Posted:  The Dutch government, one of the most vocal critics of European countries failing to rein in their budgets, quit Monday after failing to agree on a plan to bring its own deficit in line with EU rules.
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| Starbucks to open on Disney properties Posted:  Starbucks is about to perk up "the happiest place on earth."
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| American makes its case against union contracts Posted: American Airlines argued before a federal bankruptcy judge Monday that its union contracts need to be changed to make the company financially stable. |
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