Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with word firm. 33 news.

$450M bid would give British defense firm a U.S. aircraft modernizer.

UNITED States Internet sales rose at the slowest pace on record as discounts cut revenue in the final days of the holiday shopping season. Online spending from November 1 through December 21 increased 19 percent from the same period a year earlier to $26.3 billion, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore Inc said yesterday. Sales trailed last year's 26 percent growth and the research firm's forecast for a 20 percent gain during this year's holidays, Bloomberg News said. Consumers have limited spending growth this year as gasoline and food prices rise and mortgage defaults increase. The Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment for December dropped to 75.5, the lowest since October 2005. "This year will be the year of the discount," Fred Crawford, managing director at AlixPartners LLP, told Bloomberg Television on December 21. AlixPartners is a consulting firm based in Southfield, Michigan. ComScore hasn't recorded growth of less than 20 percent since

Merrill Lynch & Co, the world's biggest brokerage, agreed to sell most of its commercial finance business to General Electric Co's finance arm for an undisclosed price to free up capital after subprime losses. The sale of Merrill Lynch Capital's corporate, equipment, energy and healthcare finance units is expected to be completed in the first-quarter, the companies said yesterday in a Business Wire statement. The deal will add more than US$10 billion in assets to GE Capital. The transaction is part of New York-based Merrill Lynch's "strategic focus on divesting non-core assets," and will release about US$1.3 billion of capital to be redeployed elsewhere, said Chief Executive Officer John Thain in the statement. Merrill, on October 24, announced US$8.4 billion of writedowns on mortgage-related investments and corporate loans. The firm, which ousted Stan O'Neal as CEO in October, may report an additional US$8.6-billion writedown for the fourth quarter, according to David

ASIAN stocks rose for a second day, led by electronics makers, after consumer spending increased more than forecast in the United States, the region's biggest export market. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, maker of iPods for Apple Inc, and Samsung Electronics Co climbed to the highest in more than a week. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced the most in three weeks last Friday after the report on November spending eased concern about recession in the world's biggest economy. "US shares showed firm gains, and we're seeing the influence in shares today (yesterday)," said Kim Jae Dong, who oversees the equivalent of US$8.6 billion at Korea Investment Trust Management Co in Seoul. BHP Billiton Ltd led an increase among miners after metals prices climbed, and a UK regulator set a deadline for a formal takeover bid for Rio Tinto Group. The MSCI Asia Pacific, excluding Japan Index, rose two percent to 524.1 as of 3:38pm in Hong Kong, with all 10 industry groups climbing.

THE management of a second batch of power generating assets owned by State Grid Corp of China has been transferred to electricity producers, paving way for an eventual sale and making the firm a pure distributor as part of an industry reform. As of Sunday, the power-producing companies are responsible for safety operations and management of eight power plants in which State Grid owned a combined equity generating capacity of 6.47 gigawatts. The State Electricity Regulatory Commission said yesterday this marks the completion of the "main work" in the asset disposal. Other areas still to be done include deal signing, transaction and registration. State Grid, China's dominant power distributor, retained certain generating assets in 2002 during the breakup of the former State Power Corp into five national power producers and two grid operators. It had completed the sale of combined 10.8GW in the first phase of the sale in May to 31 companies, raising 18.7 billion yuan

Stocks closed higher Monday afternoon at the end of a half-day of trading on the eve of a Christmas pause, as investors flocked to financial services firms after yet another Wall Street firm announced a big foreign cash investment.

A Citigroup analyst left a lump of coal for Och-Ziff Capital Management, the hedge fund that went public last month. The analyst, Prashant Bhatia, began covering the fund with a “hold” rating, writing in his research note that Och-Ziff might be facing headwinds for the forseeable future. For Mr. Bhatia — who acknowledges that his firm [...]

CGEN's larger competitor Focus Media announced it was buying CGEN in a deal that could ultimately wind up being worth $350 million.

The major source of Merrill Lynch’s $6.2 billion cash infusion, announced Monday, was fairly unsurprising: Singapore. It is just the latest Asian country to invest in a troubled financial firm, following China’s decision to pour $5 billion into Morgan Stanley. Merrill’s other investor, however, was a bit of a dark horse. It was Davis Selected Advisors, a [...]

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Treasurys were slightly lower Monday, pushing up yields, as firm stock prices decreased the appeal of fixed-income assets in extremely thin pre-holiday trading. U.S. bond trading will end early on Monday, and overnight Japanese and German markets were closed Monday for holidays. "With the holiday-shortened week, our expectations for any paradigm shifting events are pretty light," said David Ader, U.S. government bond strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital. "With the bench players now in the field until the New Year, we would err on the side of limited conviction for any moves over the next few trading sessions." The benchmark 10-year Treasury note was down 7/32 at 100 12/32, with a yield of 4.2%. The 30-year bond was down 10/32 at 106 9/32 with a yield of 4.61%. The two-year note was down 2/32 at 99 26/32 with a yield of 3.21%. On Wednesday, the Treasury Department will sell $22 billion in two-year notes, and on Thursday, it will sell $13 billion in five-year notes.

United Rentals ended its merger agreement with Cerberus after a court decision that the private-equity firm wasn't obligated to complete its proposed $4 billion buyout of the construction equipment rental company.

United Rentals said on Monday that it will not appeal a Delaware judge’s ruling Friday that Cerberus Capital Management cannot be forced to complete its $4 billion buyout of the rental equipment operator. United Rentals said that it will terminate the deal and ask the private equity firm to pay the $100 million breakup fee stipulated [...]

The latest from the IT giant firm will offer next-generation automated tools such as mobile billing and smart supply chain management.

News that the Wall Street firm will receive billions to bolster its balance sheet led U.S. equity indexes higher Monday

Is News Corp. becoming a publishing centric media conglomerate? That appears to be a pattern emerging following Saturday's announcement that the company would divest of eight U.S. television stations to private equity firm Oak Hill Partners for about $1.1 billion. The divestiture, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008, follows News Corp.'s deal to acquire print and online publisher Dow Jones and Co. for $5 billion, and moves to liquidate other TV assets, including stakes in DirecTV and Gemstar TV Guide.

In his latest column in The New York Times, Ben Stein, the lawyer, actor and economist, takes another shot at Goldman Sachs for “betraying” its clients’ trust. In a previous column, Mr.Ben Stein accused the firm of “selling fear” to benefit its short positions on mortgage-backed securities, even as it packaged and peddled those same instruments. In [...]

For Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the leading investors in green tech and a partner with Al Gore, it hasn’t exactly been a completely smooth year, CNet News.com says. For one thing, the publication notes, some of the firm’s portfolio companies suffered setbacks. Thin-film solar-panel maker Miasole had to delay production, make significant layoffs [...]

IRISH property investment firm Ailesbury has completed a ?10 million deal with the purchase of a marina in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Just weeks ago, the holiday shopping season seemed headed for disaster. But in the waning hours before Christmas, the nation's retailers got their wish — a last-minute surge of shopping that helped meet their modest sales goals, according to data released late Monday by research firm ShopperTrak RCT Corp.

As a small pharmaceutical firm working on a drug derived from cannabis, some ribbing is to be expected.