| » Google shook up the smartphone industry with a deal to buy Motorola Mobility, the former mobile-handsets division of Motorola, which split in two in January. The $12.5 billion purchase is Google's biggest by far and will enable it to integrate its Android operating system better with Motorola's devices, making them more competitive with those of Apple and others. Google also benefits from Motorola's vast portfolio of patents, which Larry Page, Google's chief executive, said would help to "protect Android from anti-competitive threats". » A German court that recently sided with Apple in a patent dispute with Samsung, and issued a temporary injunction to stop Samsung selling its Galaxy tablet computer in most European countries, refined its decision and said it would apply only to Germany for the time being. Meanwhile, Taiwan's HTC filed another lawsuit against Apple in their separate patent dispute. A bitter pill to swallow  » A federal judge in Virginia ruled that a patent held by Pfizer for the active drug in Viagra is valid until 2019, dealing a blow to Teva, an Israeli generic-drugs company that wanted to produce its own version. Sales of Viagra are worth $1 billion a year to Pfizer in the United States alone. » Economic growth both in the euro area and the whole European Union slowed to just 0.2% in the second quarter, according to a first estimate. GDP rose by only 0.1% in Germany and did not grow at all in France, raising more questions about the ability of those countries to back any further potential euro-area bail-outs. » Japan's economy shrank by 0.3% in the second quarter, but this was better than had been expected, largely because personal spending fell by only 0.1%. The government has poured money into reconstruction projects since the earthquake and tsunami in March.
Still a triple-A nation » Fitch held America's sovereign debt rating at AAA and said the outlook was "stable". Standard & Poor's now stands alone among the big ratings agencies in having downgraded American sovereign debt to AA+. Its decision has not led to an increase in the yields on Treasury bonds. » Iceland increased its benchmark interest rate for the first time since its cataclysmic bank crash of 2008. The krona has depreciated against the euro this year, contributing to a rise in inflation. » Warren Buffett raised a few eyebrows by asserting that "a billionaire-friendly Congress" had "coddled" the wealthy for too long and should raise taxes on the rich. The investor, believed to be the world's third-richest man, said his income-tax rate amounted to 17.4% last year, whereas the average burden on others in his offices was 36%. » Bank of America continued to divest its MBNA credit-card business outside the United States, selling its Canadian portfolio to Toronto-Dominion Bank and announcing that it was seeking a buyer for its European (mostly British and Irish) holdings. Brian Moynihan, BofA's chief executive, has come under pressure from investors to boost the bank's share price, which has fallen by half over the past year.
Getting hostile over a beer » SAB Miller took its A$9.5 billion ($10 billion) offer for Fosters directly to shareholders, after two months during which the Australian brewer's board refused to discuss a deal. » Asahi, Japan's biggest beermaker by sales, agreed to buy Independent Liquor, a drinks company based in New Zealand. The NZ$1.5 billion ($1.3 billion) deal gives Asahi control of Independent's ready-to-drink brands, such as Purple Goanna and Vodka Mudshake, which are some of the biggest in the Asian market.  » CCTV, China's main state broadcaster, started a campaign attacking Baidu, China's biggest search engine, alleging that it is easy to commit fraud through its website. It described Baidu, which has around 75% of the market for internet searches in China, as a "monopolist" that abuses its power. Observers noted that CCTV has just launched its own search engine. » Facebook's implied value was estimated at $66.5 billion, after Interpublic, an advertising group, sold half its stake (previously thought to be around 0.4%) in the privately held social-networking website for $133m. It bought its holding in 2006 for $5m. In January Facebook was thought to be worth $50 billion after Goldman Sachs made a big investment in the firm. » It emerged that Manchester United is planning to raise around $1 billion from an initial public offering in Singapore by the end of the year. The English football club has a huge number of fans in Asia. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment