Intel is showing how serious it is about tackling the big challenges it faces by actively considering outside candidates for the company’s next CEO. If one of them is selected, it would be the first time the world’s largest chip maker has gone with an outsider for its top job.
Carl Icahn popping up in Dell’s stock adds to the growing list of activist campaigns launched against large US companies this year to maximize value or gain board seats. So far, about 34% of targets have market capitalizations of over $1 billion, showing activists are going after bigger fish, according to FactSet data. Only about 24% of activist campaigns last year targeted companies with a $1 billion plus market value, FactSet data showed.
Time Warner apparently really wanted to get rid of its ailing magazines. The company has ended talks to sell its mainly women-oriented publications to Meredith Corp because Meredith didn’t want to take on the flagship titles Time, Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated, according to the New York Times. Instead Time Warner has announced that it will spin off its entire print unit, Time Inc, as a separate business.
Wal-Mart studied buying US bookseller Barnes & Noble in the past, according to people familiar with the matter. Given the troubles the world’s largest retailer has competing with Amazon, maybe Wal-Mart should look again.
Heinz CEO Bill Johnson is lucky his company is not based in Switzerland. He is slated to get a $56 million payout if he is let go once the deal to sell Heinz to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and Brazil’s 3G Capital is completed. The referendum the Swiss held on March 3 eliminates such golden parachutes, and implements other curbs on executive pay, taking the power to make such decisions away from boardrooms.
Online deals site Groupon has to find itself a new CEO after firing Andrew Mason last week. And it will probably look for someone who is well versed in both overseas operations to manage (and probably cut) Groupon’s sprawling international team, and in e-commerce, to focus on the kind of business that probably lies in Groupon’s future.
The agency that polices the national security risks of foreign companies buying US firms may be about to get its wings clipped. Last week a US judge, while dismissing most of a lawsuit brought by Chinese-owned Ralls Corporation against the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), surprisingly allowed one count claiming violation of constitutional due process rights to go forward. If Ralls succeeds on that count, it could curb the powers of CFIUS and force it to become more transparent.
Warren Buffett used his annual letter to shareholders to bemoan a problem that others including Apple’s Tim Cook have also complained about: the lack of big, quality companies to buy. Buffett wrote that one of his disappointments in 2012 was “my inability to make a major acquisition. I pursued a couple of elephants, but came up empty-handed.”
Warren Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are closely analyzed for clues about the future of Berkshire Hathaway, but the Oracle of Omaha assured investors in his latest letter that the company would be left in good hands.
Well, that didn’t take long. Groupon just announced that it replaced CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason just a day after the company reported disappointing earnings that sent its stock into free fall. After falling another 24% today, Groupon’s stock went up by more than 6% in after-market trading immediately after the announcement.
It turns out that, for Barnes & Noble, it’s better to be in the old-school bookstore business than the modern world of selling e-books and the hardware for reading them.
T-Mobile USA reported on Thursday a slight gain in customers, but the growth came from less-profitable prepaid customers, which offset a loss in contract consumers. That meant operating income still fell by about 15% from the last quarter, showing why T-Mobile’s parent company, Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, is desperate for a partner.
The death watch for JC Penney intensified today as the ailing US retailer reported a whopping 31.7% drop in sales last quarter, which included the all-important holiday shopping season. Analysts had already predicted weak sales but the news from JC Penney was worse than expected, sending shares down by more than 10% in after market trading.
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Online coupons site Groupon lost about a quarter of its value in a matter of minutes on Wednesday after the company reported disappointing earnings.
Apple CEO Tim Cook was trying to have it both ways at the company’s annual shareholder meeting today. He did his best to let shareholders know that the company was seriously looking at ways to return cash to investors, while at the same time diminishing hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who has been pushing Apple to pay out more cash, as an annoying but inconsequential gnat.
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Despite bankers complaining about their pay, the New York state comptroller reported today that cash bonuses this year (for performance in 2012) for those in the securities industry are expected to rise by 8% to $20 billion.
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Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio has offered to help save the struggling US bookseller by buying its bookstores. In doing so, he could be signaling that the company is going to stop building its Nook e-reader, which is made by a separate division.
Hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital can claim his first victory in his fight to get some of Apple’s $137 billion cash pile. US District Court Judge Richard Sullivan today granted Einhorn’s motion to prohibit Apple from putting to a vote a shareholder proposal that Einhorn says would restrict Apple’s ability to issue preferred stock.
Hewlett Packard announced an 11% drop in earnings at 82 cents per share, but beat Wall Street estimates, showing possible light at the end of the tunnel for the struggling PC maker. First quarter net revenues were down by 6% at $28.4 billion, which also beat expectations.
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There’s a paradox in the weapons market.
