AP Features, August 1st, 2007
The companies said early Wednesday morning that they signed a definitive agreement after the deal won sufficient support to pass from a deeply divided Bancroft family, which has controlled the storied newspaper publisher for generations.
Murdoch is getting one of the great trophies of U.S. journalism and a newspaper that is considered required reading among the business and power elite.
The deal will also expand Murdoch's already massive global media and entertainment empire News Corp., which owns the Fox broadcast network, Fox News Channel, the Twentieth Century Fox movie and TV studio, the social networking site MySpace, newspapers in Australia and the U.K., and several satellite TV broadcasters.
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NEW YORK (AP) _ Wall Street shot higher in a last-minute advance Wednesday after careening through a session made turbulent by ongoing concerns about U.S. home loans and the credit market.
Stocks zigzagged for much of the session, with the Dow Jones industrials continually moving from positive to negative territory and back again before rallying to a gain of 150 points on bargain hunting during the last 20 minutes of trading. It was clear that any advance could be punctured by further bad news about soured subprime home loans, those made to borrowers with poor credit.
Wednesday's trading further revealed the fractious nature of the stock market after a series of triple-digit swings in the Dow Jones industrials over the past week. On Tuesday, Wall Street gave back a big early gain and resumed the sharp slide it began last week, as concerns about home loan defaults and their fallout re-emerged when American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. reported troubles with its credit lines.
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DETROIT (AP) _ The Detroit automakers' share of the U.S. market dropped below 50 percent in July for the first time in history, according to an analyst who tracks industry numbers.
Jesse Toprak, senior analyst for the Edmunds.com automotive Web site, said that with 95 percent of the manufacturers reporting data, the market share controlled by Chrysler Group, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. dropped to 49.7 percent for the month.
The automakers who have yet to report data are small and would not push the three back over 50 percent, Toprak said Wednesday.
The Detroit automakers' share was as high as 77.4 percent in 1984, according to Autodata Corp., which has tracked auto sales since 1980.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Profit at The Walt Disney Co. increased 5 percent in the third quarter on increased attendance at its theme parks, higher ad and subscription income from its TV channels and the sale of Disney merchandise, the company said Wednesday.
The company also said Wednesday it had acquired the online virtual world Club Penguin for $350 million.
The Burbank-based media conglomerate reported net income of $1.178 billion, or 57 cents per share, for the quarter ended June 30, compared to $1.125 billion, or 53 cents per share, in the same period last year.
Revenue climbed to $9.045 billion from $8.474 billion in the year-ago period.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had expected profit of 55 cents per share on revenue of $9 billion.
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NEW YORK (AP) _ Investors in two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds took action against the company Wednesday for allegedly misleading them about the extent of the investment bank's exposure to risky mortgage-backed securities, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said.
The move comes as the two funds filed for bankruptcy protection, two weeks after the company told investors one was essentially worthless and the other had lost more than 90 percent of its value.
As the fate of those two funds moves into court, Bear Stearns said it moved late Tuesday to prevent investors from pulling money out of a third hedge fund, which had $850 million invested in highly rated mortgage-backed securities.
The company told investors the Asset-Backed Securities fund was not near collapse, but that it froze redemptions to prevent from being forced to sell assets to a market with little appetite for mortgage-related securities.
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NEW YORK (AP) _ Oil prices retreated after jumping to a new record Wednesday on the government's report of a steep drop in crude inventories and surge in refinery activity.
Crude prices initially rose after the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reported that oil inventories fell by 6.5 million barrels last week, far more than expected. But gas futures fell on word that refiners ramped up their operations much quicker than expected. As the slide in gas futures prices accelerated, oil prices had little choice but to follow, said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.
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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) _ Advanced Medical Optics Inc. on Wednesday withdrew its $4.2 billion buyout bid for rival eye care products maker Bausch & Lomb Inc., clearing the way for Bausch & Lomb to be acquired by private equity firm Warburg Pincus for $3.67 billion.
In a letter to Bausch & Lomb's board members, Advanced Medical's chief executive, James Mazzo, said he had concluded they "remain intent on delivering Bausch & Lomb to Warburg Pincus at $65 per share" in cash versus his Santa Ana, Calif.-based company's cash-and-stock offer of $75 a share.
Mazzo described the Warburg deal as inferior "both in terms of value and the ability for the Bausch & Lomb shareholders to participate in the significant synergies that combining AMO and Bausch & Lomb would create.
Shares of Bausch & Lomb fell $1.39, or 2.2 percent, to $62.54 Wednesday. They have traded within a 52-week range of $43.97 and $77.
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UNDATED (AP) _ Strength in cable TV helped Time Warner Inc. increase second-quarter earnings 5 percent, beating analyst forecasts Wednesday, though the results were clouded by a new set of issues in the AOL Internet unit.
The New York-based media conglomerate, which owns CNN, HBO and the Time Inc. publications, said that from April to June it earned $1.07 billion, 28 cents per share, ahead of last year's profit of $1.01 billion and 24 cents per share. Revenue rose 6 percent to just under $11 billion.
Excluding discontinued operations and gains from an accounting change, Time Warner said it would have earned 25 cents a share. On that basis, analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting 21 cents per share. The revenue forecast had been $11.1 billion, slightly higher than what was achieved.
Although Time Warner also announced a new $5 billion stock buyback plan, shares fell 62 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $18.64 Wednesday.
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NEW YORK (AP) _ While the U.S. manufacturing sector grew for the sixth consecutive month in July, expansion was the slowest since March, a survey said Wednesday, indicating that the economy is plodding along at a tepid pace.
The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index, which reflects the opinions of purchasing managers at factories, plants and utilities, registered 53.8 in July, down from 56.0 in June.
Wall Street expected the manufacturing index to remain unchanged from June, according to the consensus estimate of Wall Street economists polled by Thomson/IFR.
A reading above 50 indicates growth while a reading below 50 indicates contraction.
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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is now investigating whether top college athletic departments nationwide _ including those at Auburn University, Ohio University and Texas Christian University _ steered athletes and other students to education lenders in exchange for kickbacks.
Cuomo said Wednesday that he served 39 universities with subpoenas and requests for documents about deals between athletic departments and Student Financial Services Inc., which operates as University Financial Services. He said he's looking at how team names, mascots and colors were used to suggest the company was the college's preferred lender.
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By The Associated Press
The Dow rose 150.38, or 1.14 percent, to 13,362.37.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 10.54, or 0.72 percent, to 1,465.81, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 7.60, or 0.30 percent, to 2,553.87.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $1.68 to settle at $76.53 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising as high as $78.77 earlier.
September gasoline futures fell 7.63 cents to settle at $2.0296 a gallon on the Nymex.
Nymex heating oil futures fell by 5.38 cents to settle at $2.0694 a gallon.
Nymex natural gas futures gained 16.1 cents to settle at $6.352 per 1,000 cubic feet on news that a tropical storm system is developing in the Atlantic.
In London, September Brent crude fell $1.70 to settle at $75.35 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
