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

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch & Co Inc (MER.N) has rehired Jeffrey Kronthal, a fixed-income executive who left the company last year, to help sort through its subprime mortgage problems, the brokerage told employees on Monday.

Scottish & Newcastle said it expected Carlsberg and Heineken to make a higher offer for the UK brewer as the UK's Takeover Panel told the continental consortium it had a month to launch a formal bid for S&N or walk away

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,

AUCKLAND International Airport Ltd, New Zealand's busiest, told shareholders they should reject the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's NZ$1.8 billion (US$1.4 billion) bid for 40 percent of the company because it is too low. The offer, equivalent to NZ$3.66 a share and 34 percent more than the airport's stock price, doesn't fully reflect the value of the company, Chairman Tony Frankham said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday, according to Bloomberg News. Canada Pension's bid follows the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan's purchase of four container terminals last year as fund managers seek infrastructure companies with stable earnings. Auckland Airport, with 70 percent of New Zealand's international tourist traffic, favors an investor that will pay more and has expertise in the industry. "There's still plenty of time until the offer closes and in the meantime there's the possibility they'll get a better cornerstone investor," said Alan Moore, who helps

Metro Atlanta still has a lot to offer companies looking to relocate, but the region's advantages are increasingly outweighed by its horrendous congestion, a top site selection consultant told business leaders Monday. (BAC) (SNE) (UPS)

A BP refinery polluted Neodesha, Kan., and the company broke promises to clean it up, a lawyer for the city and its residents told jurors Tuesday at the close of a trial.

John A. Thain may be new to the top seat at Merrill Lynch, but if a Bloomberg News report is to be believed, he’s making his mark on the firm quickly. In the wake of the firm’s $2.24 billion third-quarter loss, stemming from trading losses, Mr. Thain has told fixed-income managers to cut 2007 bonuses by [...]

Some big investors are taking McDonald's Corp. off their value menus. Deutsche Bank A.G. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. were among firms that, all told, sold more than 63.8 million shares of McDonald's stock during the third quarter. Earlier this month, activist investor William Ackman unloaded his ...

INVESTMENT GROUP Olivant has been told it will have to put an extra ?200-300 million (?280-420m) into its takeover bid for ailing bank Northern Rock, according to a report yesterday.

[Beverages] Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketers Insights, says it is a first among the big four, Bud, Bud Lite, Coors Lite and Miller Lite. "It'll be an interesting test," he says. "This is the first of any of the big brands to get a craft halo." In fact, Steinman says a Miller VP recently told him the company hopes to put the "halo of craft beers on mainstream brands."

A researcher says he regrets not resisting when Merck and Schering-Plough told him of plans to alter analysis of a drug trial.

When accountants and lawyers told Legacy Health Care LLC President Rick Zacher that his company probably wouldn't survive, he dug in with both heels and engineered a turnaround.