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Reuters | Oil giant BP Plc is considering a corporate debt
offering of $5 billion to $10 billion as early as next week, CNBC
reported Thursday.
BP is discussing the offering with five banks, including Goldman Sachs
and Morgan Stanley, CNBC reported. A spokesman for Goldman Sachs
declined comment. Morgan Stanley and BP did not have immediate comment.
Morningstar Europe B/V will pay $15.2 million, plus a share of its first-half 2010 profit, for the 75 percent stake held by Phosphorus, a Danish company.
Reuters via The New York Times | Around the turn of every year, bankers can think of only one thing: the size of their bonuses. Even beyond bonus season, they run different scenarios and assumptions, trying to calculate their number.
This distracts them so much that the bigger the bonus at stake, the worse the performance, according to behavioral economist Dan Ariely, who lays out his theory in his new book “The Upside of Irrationality.”
Get the full story: nytimes.com.
Dow Jones Newswires | BP PLC (BP) said it won’t issue more
dividends this year and agreed to put $20 billion in an independently
administered oil-spill escrow fund to help pay for claims as a result of
the Gulf oil disaster.
BP announced the moves after Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, Chief
Executive Tony Hayward and other company executives met at the White
House with President Barack Obama, who said BP also will set aside $100
million for those workers who lost jobs due to the drilling moratorium.
From The Wall Street Journal | In a letter sent Monday, Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), the ranking minority member on the Senate Finance Committee, asked the SEC to review the agency’s “revolving door,” which shuttles many SEC
staffers into jobs with the companies they once regulated.
Get the full story: wsj.com.
From Bloomberg | Illinois, whose projected deficit equals half its proposed $25.9 billion budget, sold $455.1 million in sales tax-backed bonds yesterday, as investors demanded higher yields from the state.
Get the full story: businessweek.com.
By Becky Yerak | The
private equity firm co-founded in 2005 by former Motorola Inc. Chief
Executive Christopher Galvin has completed the first closing on its
third fund, which it plans to use to buy about $1.8 billion in real
estate assets.
Harrison Street Real Estate Capital LLC has raised $165 million to date
and plans to raise $500 million by year-end. That $500 million equates
to more than $1.75 billion in purchasing power, said Christopher
Merrill, co-founder and chief executive of the Chicago-based real estate
private equity firm.
Get the full story: Report: SEC is probing meeting drugmaker Mylan.
From Crain’s Chicago Business | Wall Street analysts say shares in Walgreen could take a major hit from its split with CVS Caremark. Analysts say investors are underestimating the amount of business the No. 1 pharmacy chain could lose in its decision to leave Caremark’s benefits management business.
Shares of Walgreen were down down 2.2 percent, to $29.30, in late afternoon trading.
Read the full story: chicagobusiness.com
Dow Jones Newswires | More money was pulled from U.S. mutual
funds than added for the first time since March 2009 following fresh
economic worries and a move by investors to cut risk, said Morningstar
Inc.
The investment research firm said in its monthly fund-flows report
Friday the $13.22 billion that left U.S. mutual funds in May was due to
$14.96 billion of outflows from domestic stock funds and $5.99 billion
leaving international ones.
Reuters | Lions Gate Entertainment Corp may be flirting with bankruptcy, according to Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor attempting a hostile takeover of the movie studio.
Associated Press | Personal finance adviser Suze Orman is
resting at a Chicago hotel after having an emergency appendectomy over
the weekend. Spokeswoman Kristin Bouton says the surgery was performed
on Orman on Saturday night at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Associated Press | Caterpillar Inc. said Wednesday that its
board voted to raise the company’s quarterly dividend by 5 percent, as
the world’s largest maker of construction and mining equipment continues
to benefit from the global economic recovery.
The announcement came before the annual meeting. Caterpillar said the
dividend hike reflects improvement in the company’s balance sheet and
cash flow in 2009, as the U.S. and other nations pulled out of the
economic recession. The Wall Street Journal reports that this is the 17th year in a row that
the heavy-equipment maker has raised its dividend.
From the San Francisco Chronicle | BMO Capital Markets said that Bunge Ltd., the world’s second-largest sugar trader, is less likely to revive a bid for Corn Products International Inc. after announcing a plan to buy back as much as $700 million of stock.
Get the full story: sfgate.com.
