Burger King said Thursday that it has agreed to be acquired by investment firm 3G Capital in a deal valued at $4 billion. New York-based 3G Capital will buy the fast food chain for $24 a share. That marks a 46% premium over Burger King’s closing price of $16.45 on Tuesday, the day before news [...]
U.S. companies issued risky “junk” bonds at a record clip this week, taking advantage of keen investor appetite for returns amid declining interest rates and tepid stock markets. The borrowing binge comes as the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates near zero and yields on U.S. government debt are near record lows. Those low rates have [...]
Goldman Sachs paid $550 Million to settle charges of defrauding investors in a sale of securities tied to subprime mortgages, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday. Goldman (GS, Fortune 500) shares jumped almost 8% in after-hours trading on the announcement, as many predicted the company would be forced to pay $1 Billion to settle [...]
Nearly two years after major banks brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse, triggering a steep economic decline and crisis-levels of unemployment, Congress passed its Wall Street reform package, 60-39, with only three Republicans joining every Democrat (but one). The president will sign it into law next week. The bill became stronger [...]
With many of their rivals on the ropes, Canada’s major banks are nicely positioned to catapult into the top tier of U.S. financial institutions — for the first time ever. The main reason is that the country’s banks famously skated through the subprime and derivatives meltdown of 2008 with no government bailouts and comparatively few [...]
Like a California Wildfire, populist rage burns over bloated executive compensation and unrepentant avarice on Wall Street. Deserving as these targets may or may not be, most Americans have ignored at their own peril a far bigger pocket of privilege — the lush pensions that the 23 million active and retired state and local public [...]
Forbes magazine released its annual list of the world’s richest people Wednesday, and for only the second time since 1995, Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ name was not at the top. This year, the title of “World’s Richest” went to Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim, with a net worth of $53.5 billion. Slim, whose holding company [...]
More than 700 banks, or nearly one out of every 11, are at risk of going under, according to a government report published Tuesday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said that the number of banks on its so-called “problem list” climbed to 702, its highest level since June 1993. The number of banks under scrutiny [...]
On Friday, millions of Americans will for the first time own a piece of Warren Buffett. Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., whose multi-thousand-dollar share price made it a thinly traded luxury of wealthy investors and institutions, is going mainstream as it joins the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. More than $1 trillion of investor money [...]
The Senate confirmed Ben Bernanke to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman on Thursday after a furious lobbying effort from the administration and threats from leading Democrats and Wall Street investors that the market would tank if Bernanke was turned back. Seventy seven senators voted to end a filibuster, but when the final vote [...]
President Obama has proposed imposing a fee on big Wall Street banks to reimburse taxpayers up to $117 Billion for the 2008 financial bailout. Lambasting bankers for their “massive profits and obscene bonuses”, President Obama vowed on Thursday to “recover every single dime” the government spent rescuing the financial sector from its worst crisis since [...]
When the Canadian dollar topped 95 cents (U.S.) last week, approaching a three-week high toward the end of a year that has seen the currency gain 16 per cent against the U.S. dollar, it deftly illustrated the biggest influence on what will be Mark Carney’s most crucial decision of 2010. As economists and investors debate [...]
CIT Group Inc., one of the nation’s leading funders of small and medium-sized businesses, filed for the fifth largest bankruptcy by assets in U.S. history Sunday as part of a reorganization plan that has the support of an overwhelming majority of debtholders. In a statement, the company said it is asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court [...]
The U.S. government said on Thursday that China did not manipulate its currency against the U.S. dollar during the first half of 2009. In its Semi-Annual Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday that “no major trading partner of the United States” met the standards [...]
The US senate finance committee has voted to approve a healthcare package, boosting attempts by Barack Obama, the US president, to overhaul the present system. The Democratic-controlled senate finance committee voted 14 to nine in favour of the proposal on Tuesday, with Olympia Snowe becoming the first Republican in congress to back a healthcare reform bill. Snowe [...]
The present signs of revival in the global economy should not be confused with the financial crisis being over and all countries should be ready with policies to sustain the recovery, said an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official here on Saturday. “The current numbers should not fool governments into thinking that the crisis is over,” [...]
California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Thursday he will launch an investigation of the major credit rating agencies for the role they played in the financial crisis. The three top agencies — McGraw-Hill’s (MHP) Standard & Poor’s (S&P), Moody’s Investors Service (MCO) and the Fitch unit of France’s Fimalac — raked in huge fees in exchange [...]
Tang Jun, the former Microsoft China chief executive officer and the only known Chinese victim in the Bernard Madoff scandal, has decided that Chinese private banks are a much safer place to invest his assets. Tang consigned his investments abroad to four U.S. and Swiss professional financial companies, which entrusted large parts of their portfolios [...]
Image via Wikipedia Warren Buffett’s investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway, reports a profit of $3.3 Billion for the months of April through June 2009. That so called “profit” is actually the result of U.S. government bailouts of every company that Buffett had invested in. Without the government bailout’s Buffett would be bankrupt today.
Image by jpellgen via Flickr The Attorney General for the State of New York published at 22-page report entitled “No Rhyme Or Reason: The Heads I Win, Tales You Lose Bank Bonus Culture”.
Bangladesh Anthrax Spreads, Public Panics
Top Police Official In Siberia Accused Of Taking $450,000 In Bribes
Russian Banker Shot Dead In Moscow
Russian Performers Drop Fish-Eating Circus Act
Taliban Chief Says Victory Imminent
North Korea Marks 62nd Founding Day
Fear Of Fresh Violence In Nigeria
Rachel Corrie Trial: During War There Are No Civilians
Egypt’s Leprosy Colony Lives On, VIDEO
US Soldiers ‘Kept Afghan Body Parts’
China’s Blind Activist Lawyer Released From Prison
9th Circuit Throws Out CIA Torture Lawsuit For National Security Reasons
Mexican Mayor Gunned Down Inside Own Office
Giant Rats Put Noses To Work On Africa’s Land Mine Epidemic
Fidel: ‘Cuban Model Doesn’t Even Work For Us Anymore’
Vitamin B Halts Memory Loss In Breakthrough British Trial
Bremner: ‘I Represent Seattle Police, You Can’t Arrest Me’
Russian Rokot Carrier With Three Satellites Blasts Off From Plesetsk Space Center
Police In Kamchatka Seize Poached Caviar Worth $1 Million
Europe Raids File-Sharing Groups Including Sweden
Kabul Bank Freezes Assets of Directors And Major Borrowers
Meeting The Taliban In Baghlan, VIDEO
United Nations ‘Failed’ Congo Rape Victims
California Regulators Seek Up To $9.9 Billion In Fines From PacifiCare
18 Murdered In Shoe Factory Shooting In Honduras
The Amazing World Of The Praying Mantis
9/11 Koran Burning Would Put US Troops’ In Danger, Petraeus Warns
Dozens Of Homes Burn Across Detroit, VIDEO
John Lennon’s Killer Denied Parole For The 6th Time
Belize Mob Torches Americans’ Animal Sanctuary
Pastor Wonders If It’s Wise To Burn Qurans Amid U.S. Warnings, VIDEO
Italian Crime Fighting Mayor Is Killed In Mafia-Style Execution
With A Little Help From My Friends
In Russia, No Kasha Creates Political Tension
Thieves Steal 3 Ancient Icons From Moscow Region Church
George Soros Donates $100 Million To Human Rights Watch
Congolese Poachers Destroy Protected Birds
French Unions Stage Nationwide Strike
Oracle Hires Former HP’s Mark Hurd
LAPD Kills Unarmed Migrant, Community Protests
El Salvador: 3rd Migrant Survived Mexico Massacre
Mexican Soldiers Open Fire On Family’s Car At Checkpoint, Killing 15-Year-Old And Father
U.S. Considers Boosting Funds For Mexico Drug War
California’s Union Jobs Take Hit From Recession
Israeli Minister: Speed Up Building, A Promise Is A Promise
Miners Seeking Gold Destroy Suriname Ecosystem
Little Rock Nine Member, Jefferson Thomas
Putin Compares Himself To Roosevelt As He Hints At Third Term
Condoleezza Rice ‘Ordered Bush To Stay Out Of Washington’ After 9/11
Stone Mason Sparks Cathedral Row With ‘Muslim’ Gargoyle
John Travolta Drops Charges In Extortion Case
150 Arrested In Mozambique Following Deadly Protests
U.S. Investors Sue For Payback For Pre-World War II German Bonds
Saad al-Hariri Retracts Charge That Syria Killed His Father
North Korea Plans Succession Meeting
The Arrest And Trial Of Human Rights Activist Shiva Nazar-Ahari
Arsenic Scare Hits Argentina, VIDEO
President Obama Unveils $50 Billion Infrastructure Plan
Cockroach Immune To Deadly Super-Bacteria
Gulf Residents Test Positive For Oil In Blood
