Business news for Mon, 17 Dec 2007 & with word corporate. 12 news.

AUSTRALIA'S corporate regulators remain "watchful and alert" to lingering fallout from the US sub-prime market crisis, federal Treasurer Wayne Swan says.

MERRILL Lynch & Co, the securities firm that reported a record US$2.24-billion third-quarter loss, told fixed-income managers to cut 2007 bonuses by an average of 40 percent, according to two people briefed on the matter. Payments may fall by as much as 80 percent for traders who specialize in the mortgage bonds and collateralized debt obligations that posted the steepest losses, said the people, who declined to be named because the decisions aren't public. Bonuses may drop 20 percent for interest-rate traders and 60 percent in the New York-based firm's corporate bond unit, the sources said, according to Bloomberg News. Chief Executive Officer John Thain, who took over from Stan O'Neal on December 1, said he will reward good performers while cutting payouts for people who caused losses. He has to placate investors by trimming wages while making sure the most valuable employees don't leave, said Russ Gerson, head of New York-based recruiting firm Gerson Group. On Wall Street,

Enterprise IT departments increasingly value green strategies, equipment and energy savings, Forrester Research finds.

After notching a record $2.7 trillion of mergers and acquisitions worldwide in the first half of 2007, cooler heads — or at sentiments — are now prevailing. Nine percent of dealmakers are calling the M&A environment “excellent,” versus 49 percent in midyear, according to research from the Association for Corporate Growth and Thomson Financial. The groups’ biannual [...]

Shares in Collins Stewart, the broking and corporate finance group chaired by Terry Smith, rose as much as 5pc after the Daily Telegraph revealed that Japanese banking giant Nomura is interested in buying the British company.

This week's data on investment bank earnings, the housing downturn and inflation will help investors decide how the economy and corporate America are faring as they head into the new year.

The former CEO of the late 1990s-era Intranets.com is back. And he's treading familiar ground as he leads a new venture to build online communities within companies -- this time with a twist: opening corporate intranets and wikis to the larger web community, where better knowledge may exist.

RALEIGH - Even as state lawmakers begin tallying up the multibillion-dollar cost of corporate incentives now in play, a six-term legislator has launched a campaign to stop cutthroat business recruiting practices among states.

We asked leaders of SEO / web marketing industry this question and recieved their answers.

The UK retailer is considering making Mike Ashley into executive chairman in a move that would renew criticisms of corporate governance at the struggling company

The regulator will warn that the credibility of companies' accounts is at risk following the market turmoil as it is set to issue guidance for corporate reporting

Held early-stage talks with a company interested in buying the broking and corporate finance group chaired by Terry Smith.