News money 2008-07-12 Andanh.com

Dow will buy Rohm and Haas Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:31:00 EST
Dow Chemical Co. has agreed to buy rival Rohm and Haas Co. for more than $15.2 billion in cash in a deal that Dow hopes will fuel its growth in a more lucrative wing of the chemical-making business.

Release of downtown arena bids sought Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:02:00 EST
A Louisville construction company that failed to land a contract on the city's downtown arena claims project leaders have flip-flopped on a promise to make subcontractor bids open to the public.

New regulatory tools sought Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:21:00 EST
The top U.S. economic officials urged Congress yesterday to give them new regulatory tools to better protect the country from economic and financial havoc if a major Wall Street firm were to fail.

Toyota makes changes to meet demand shift Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:26:00 EST
Toyota, the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that saw its U.S. sales double in the last decade, has come back to earth.

Report: Churchill Downs spring handle off 11.5 percent Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:02:00 EST
Total handle for Churchill Downs' spring meeting, which ended Sunday, dropped 11.5 percent from 2007, according to a report on The Blood-Horse's Web site.

Q: If there was a violent crime at a house, does the seller have to tell the buyer? Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:29:00 EST
A: Only if the buyer asks, the Kentucky Real Estate Commission says. But, "as a seller, you must determine whether a murder, suicide, violent crime or ghost in your property has created a stigma and therefore a defect.

Business People Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:21:00 EST
Financial services, telecommunications and award announcements are in today's Business People. Submit new items at courier-journal.com/businesspeople Sign up for the daily Business People newsletter at courier-journal.com/newsletters.

Wagoner rules out bankruptcy for GM Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:27:00 EST
The chief executive of General Motors dismissed speculation yesterday that the largest U.S. automaker might soon seek bankruptcy protection.

Dawahare's closing sales likely to begin July 18 Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:07 EDT

A .global settlement. reached Friday between Dawahare's of Lexington LLC and its creditors clears the way for the clothing retailer's going-out-of-business sale to begin as early as July 18 and end about Aug. 31.

Earlier, Lexington-based Dawahare's announced that the sale would begin Monday, but that plan was derailed by objections from creditors that were filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Lexington, where Dawahare's is in reorganization.

A definite start date will be set next week if the court approves a liquidator for the remaining 22 Dawahare's stores that are spread across Kentucky. The liquidator will be chosen in an informal auction Tuesday.

By starting the final sale in July, there is .a high probability. that enough cash will be raised to pay off Dawahare's largest creditor, Fifth Third Bank, Dawahare's bankruptcy attorney, W. Thomas Bunch, told the court Friday.

Chemical company Ashland to acquire Hercules Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:24 EDT
Ashland Inc. announced Friday it will acquire Wilmington-based specialty chemicals maker Hercules Inc. in a $2.6 billion cash-and-stock deal.

Under the agreement, Covington, Ky.-based Ashland will acquire all the outstanding shares of Hercules for $18.60 per share in cash and .093 shares of Ashland common stock for each share of Hercules common stock, which represents a 38 percent premium over Hercules' Thursday's closing price.

The companies value the deal at $3.3 billion, including the assumption of $700 million of Hercules debt. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2008.

The deal was announced the day after Dow Chemical Co. agreed to Rohm and Haas Co. at a steep premium for more than $15 billion in cash, but Buckingham Research Group analyst John Robert said he doesn't think the Hercules acquisition is part of a broader industry consolidation.

"These were two acquirers with substantial cash windfalls that were known to be looking for deals," Roberts said. "The only other company we know looking for a major chemical acquisition is BASF, and not necessarily a U.S. acquisition."

Stocks end lower amid worries on Fannie, Freddie Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:00 EDT
Wall Street's angst over the ongoing fallout from the credit crisis made for a turbulent end to a volatile week Friday - stocks tumbled, soared and then turned south again as investors tried to assess the dangers faced by the country's biggest mortgage financiers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Dow Jones industrial average, which traded down more than 250 points in the session, briefly moved into positive territory Friday before ending down more than 128 points. The blue chips also traded below 11,000 for the first time in two years. And all the major indexes ended with another losing week.

A new high for oil prices above $147 a barrel also weighed on stocks.

The fate of the government-chartered companies was a focus of trading Friday as it had been earlier in the week. Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fell sharply over several sessions on concerns about their stability. Wall Street is worried that a collapse of the two financiers would cause further shock to the financial system, and trigger more losses to banks and brokerages with significant holdings of mortgage-backed securities.

The well-being of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is crucial because they hold or guarantee about $5 trillion worth of mortgages, or about half the outstanding mortgages in the United States. Their troubles are just the latest depressing turn in a year-old credit crisis that shows no sign of ending, disappointing some stock traders who thought just months ago that the worst was perhaps over.

Business Notes Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:47 EDT

national

Dow Chemical to buy rival Rohm and Haas in cash deal

Dow Chemical Co. has agreed to buy rival Rohm and Haas Co. for more than $15 billion in cash in a deal that Dow hopes will fuel its growth in a more lucrative wing of the chemical manufacturing business.

.The addition of Rohm and Haas' portfolio is game-changing for Dow,. Chairman and Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said Thursday in a statement announcing the deal.

GE wants to dump consumer, industrial unit Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:47 EDT

NEW HAVEN, Conn. . General Electric Co. said Thursday that it wants to spin off its iconic lighting and appliance businesses, the latest aggressive move by one of the world's largest companies to reshape its portfolio to focus on faster growth businesses.

The consumer and industrial businesses have 50,000 of GE's 300,000 employees, sales of $13.3 billion and a profit of slightly more than $1 billion last year.

Connecticut-based GE said in May that it planned to sell or spin off its appliance business, but now says it is looking to spin off the entire unit, which includes household appliances such as dishwashers and clothes dryers as well as lighting, motors and electrical distribution.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said the state will be willing to provide incentives to get any spinoff company to locate its headquarters in Louisville, where GE's appliance business is based.

Prius to be built at new Mississippi plant Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:47 EDT

Toyota Motor of Japan said Thursday that it would build its popular gas-electric hybrid sedan, the Prius, in the United States for the first time as it tries to meet surging demand and struggles with falling sales of big trucks.

Starting in 2010, Toyota plans to make the Prius at a new factory in Blue Springs, Miss., that was originally intended to assemble sport-utility vehicles. Toyota said that shifting production to the Blue Springs plant, which is under construction, will help it alleviate shortages of the Prius, which gets an average of 46 mpg and has months-long waiting lists at most dealers.

Toyota also said it would stop building its two largest vehicles, the Tundra pickup and the Sequoia sport-utility vehicle, for three months before permanently halting production of the Tundra next spring at one of two plants that make it.

The strategy shift will have no effect on production at the Georgetown plant, Toyota spokesman Rick Hesterberg said Thursday. The Kentucky plant makes the Camry, the Camry hybrid and the Avalon and this fall will replace the Solara with the crossover Venza model.

Software problems bug Apple's launch of new iPhone Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:29 EDT
The launch of Apple Inc.'s much-anticipated new iPhone turned into an information-technology meltdown on Friday, as customers were unable to get their phones working.

"It's such grief and aggravation," said Frederick Smalls, an insurance broker in Whitman, Mass., after spending two hours on the phone with Apple and AT&T Inc., trying to get his new iPhone to work.

In stores, people waited at counters to get the phones activated, as lines built behind them. Many of the customers had already camped out for several hours in line to become among the first with the new phone, which updates the one launched a year ago by speeding up Internet access and adding a navigation chip.

A spokesman for AT&T, the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., said there was a global problem with Apple's iTunes servers that prevented the phones from being fully activated in-store, as had been planned.

Instead, employees are telling buyers to go home and perform the last step by connecting their phones to their own computers, spokesman Michael Coe said.

Dollar flat against the euro, pound Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:43 EDT
The dollar was flat against the euro and the British pound on Friday as fears stirred in the U.S. that the worst of the housing crisis may not be over.

The 15-nation euro bought $1.5780 in morning European trading, down slightly from the $1.5783 it bought in New York late Thursday.

The British pound bought $1.9782, edging higher from the $1.9775 it bought late Thursday.

Fears that the U.S. government may be forced to rescue government-chartered mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac appeared to weigh on the dollar, analysts said.

Shares of the finance giants plummeted Thursday and are trading at levels last seen in the early 1990s. If the prices don't recover, it will be harder for the two companies to raise more money through stock sales to compensate for losses from the housing bust.

Citi sells German retail banking for $7.7 billion Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:14 EDT
Citigroup will sell its German retail banking operation to France's Credit Mutuel for $7.7 billion in cash.

In a statement released Friday, Citigroup said the deal includes its Duesseldorf-based Citibank Privatkunden AG & Co. KGaA, along with some affiliates. The sale is expected to close in the fourth quarter if approved by regulators.

Citibank Germany earned 365 million euros ($573.3 million) in 2007 and had net assets of 944 million euros ($1.5 billion). Citigroup said the deal would result in a post-tax gain of $4 billion.

Credit Mutuel said the deal "affirms its European development strategy, particularly in retail banking, insurance and international financial services."

The acquisition broadens an expansion in the past decade into Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Home foreclosures down in Kentucky Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:03 EDT

Home foreclosure filings declined nearly 2 percent in Kentucky and 3 percent nationwide in June, RealtyTrac said Thursday.

As a result, Kentucky improved to 39th from 38th among the states in the California firm's monthly national rankings of the states, from highest percentage of foreclosures to lowest.

Compared with June 2007, Kentucky foreclosures were down 9.2 percent last month, RealtyTrac said, but the national total was up 53.3 percent.

With 252,363 new filings, .June was the second straight month with more than a quarter-million properties nationwide receiving foreclosure filings,. said RealtyTrac CEO James J. Saccacio.

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