PressDisplay.com - Business

Bring it on, declares Packer

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:31:00 GMT

JAMES Packer’s combative demand that Jodee Rich and the special purpose liquidator put up or shut up over the collapse of One.Tel could open another long legal chapter in the saga of the failed telco.
As Mr Rich hit the airwaves claiming victory in his long...

DEAD TRACK WINS THE DAY MSD: I’ve seen flatter wickets

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:14:00 GMT

| Ahmedabad: The unresponsive Motera track held true on the last day, this time frustrating Sri Lanka’s bowlers as Gautam Gambhir (114 off 230 balls) and Sachin Tendulkar (100 not out, 211 balls) stood firm to enable India to escape with a draw in the first Test...

Chinese firm to take 19pc stake

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:57:00 GMT

PGG Wrightson’s $180.7 million capital raising will see upstart Chinese firm Agria Corp take over the top cornerstone position with a 19 per cent stake, pushing ahead of traditional large stake holders.
Agria Corp’s already announced intention to take 13 per...

Ferrero ‘hungers for £5bn Cadbury chewing gum unit’

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:49:00 GMT

ITALIAN chocolate maker Ferrero could be interested in Cadbury’s gum and candy division, a unit worth about £5 billion, in a possible joint takeover bid, business daily Il Sole 24 Ore said today.
Ferrero and Hershey in the US are considering a joint offer for the UK confectioner, which is the target of a £10 billion hostile bid from Kraft Foods...

Giants poised for battle

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:21:00 GMT

The holiday season is coming early for millions of shoppers this year — with massive price cuts on major personal items like Apple’s iPod Touch, Sony’s Blu-Ray disc-players, home accessories and a raft of personal electronic goodies.
And the pressure will be...

Winfrey’s long goodbye

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:36:00 GMT

It’s what made her rich, famous and, if not a kingmaker, then perhaps the maker of a U.S. president.
Now Oprah Winfrey has decided she’s ready to move on from her top-rated daytime program.
Winfrey plans to tell viewers on Friday’s show that she will retire...

Nationwide’s alert on fall in house prices

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:51:00 GMT

BUILDING society Nationwide today forecast a “slow” economic recovery and warned house prices will fall again next year as unemployment rises.
Chief executive Graham Beale said he was “ pleasantly surprised” by the steady rally in house prices since the spring...

Flaherty pushes code of conduct regulations

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:52:00 GMT

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty o n Thurs d ay t h re ate n e d Canada’s big banks and credit card companies with regulations if they don’t get on board a proposed voluntary code of conduct designed to shield merchants from escalating processing fees for electronic payments....

All I want to know is... how big is my bonus?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:49:00 GMT

DURING my 12-year career in the City as a high-ranking stockbroker, there was only one concern that ever entered my twisted brain: just how big was my bonus going to be. This was not just because I was a greedy, materialistic, selfish idiot… though those facts played their role....

Sony bets on online content to revive sales

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:13:00 GMT

TOKYO—As Sony Corp. scrambles to reassert its technological relevance, Chief Executive Howard Stringer is betting on a strategy for the electronics giant that focuses on adding online content to more of its gadgets.
Speaking at the first joint public appearance by Sony’s new management team since a shake-up in February, Mr...

Polishing up Google’s Chrome out to rival Windows

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:45:00 GMT

THIS time next year, disk drives will be a thing of the past; instead, computer users will be pulling in emails, documents, music and photos from the web, and computers will need just a few gigabytes of storage.
At least, that’s Google’s vision. This week the...

Shark-bitten builder bounces back

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:31:00 GMT

WEST Australian boat-builder Austal Ships is close to breaking the hoodoo of its financially disastrous relationship with golfer Greg Norman that caused it to stop building luxury super-yachts for more than four years.
The company has almost completed building...

Crisis grips Japan’s economy as deflation returns

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Japan’s fledgling recovery is under threat from falling prices, the government said yesterday, as it conceded that deflation had returned to the world’s second-biggest economy after a three-year gap.
The finance minister, Hirohisa Fujii, spoke of a “sense of...

Glitch causes widespread US air-travel delays

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:03:00 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) – Air travelers around the United States scrambled to revise their plans Thursday after an FAA computer glitch caused widespread cancellations and delays for the second time in 15 months.
Airports in Europe reported no immediate problems.
The Federal...

Potash sales plummet in Sask.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:41:00 GMT

WINNIPEG — Potash sales in Saskatchewan, one of the world’s richest sources of the crop nutrient, have dropped to their lowest level in 37 years, punching a $1.8-billion hole in its budget.
Saskatchewan was expecting $1.9 billion in potash revenue when it set its 2009-10 budget in March, but slashed that estimate to $637.6 million in mid-August...

AOL offers buyouts to one-third of work force

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:00:00 GMT

AOL LLC, an Internet company struggling to adapt to an advertising-driven economy, is looking to shed as much as 36 per cent of its work force as it prepares to spin off from Time Warner Inc. next month.
Major job cuts had been expected, but the magnitude hadn’t been known until yesterday...

State banks ‘undermining building societies’

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Nationwide Building Society has complained to the regulatory authorities about high savings rates being offered by taxpayer-backed institutions as it revealed its consumers had withdrawn £5.6bn of deposits in the first half of the year.
Britain’s biggest building...

Chance to cut the mortgage

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:34:00 GMT

A large number of homeowners will have rolled off their fixed home loans recently into floating rates, likely dropping from a fixed rate of about 9 per cent to a floating rate of about 5.75 per cent to 6.45 per cent.
What this means is that someone with a $230,000 loan will likely have a drop in mortgage payments by about $472 a month....

Hawks scorch ‘embarrassing’ Flames at Dome Sutter roasts players over accountability

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:52:00 GMT

The Calgary Flames act like victims of post-traumatic stress disorder every time they see the Chicago Blackhawks.
Maybe they can’t exorcise the mental picture of four losses last season to Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and the gang of young stars from the Windy City....

Canadian, U.S. stocks drop

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:02:00 GMT

TORONTO — Canadian stocks dropped on Thursday, as Manulife Financial Corp. got slammed by investors after the country’s biggest life insurance company unveiled a potentially dilutive equity offering on Wednesday.
The S&P/TSX composite index lost 52.39 points, or 0.45 per cent, to 11,600.30, while the TSX venture exchange climbed 6.88 points, or 0.49 per cent, to 1,400.94...