Halliburton has made a conditional bid of $3.36 billion for Expro International Group PLC, the British oil services firm said Friday.
Halliburton’s all-cash proposal of $30.14 per share is richer than the $28.36 per share offer made in April by a consortium led by Candover Partners Limited, valuing the company at $3.16 billion.
An Expro statement said the Halliburton Co. proposal "does not yet constitute a firm intention to make an offer" and was subject to preconditions.
Halliburton (HAL, Fortune 500), which provides services and equipment to oil and natural gas companies, said it considers Expro’s sub-sea and flow management sector to be an area of potential expansion easy payday loan. Expro’s primary focus is providing services and products to measure and control the flow of oil and gas from wells.
Expro (EXPRF) shares rose 0.4% to $30.57.
OTTAWA – The federal government’s spectrum auction is already having the desired impact of lowering prices in Canada’s cellphone market, Industry Minister Jim Prentice said Tuesday on the first day of a weeks-long process that could introduce new competition.
The government is auctioning 105 megahertz of radio spectrum, which is used to carry the signals of cellphones.
The auction is expected to raise up to $1 billion for the government treasury and draw interest from the big three existing players in the market, Rogers Communications Inc. (TSX: RCI.B), BCE Inc. (TSX: BCE) and Telus Corp. (TSX: T)
But because 40 MHz has been set aside for new entrants, Prentice says he is hopeful it will increase competition in Canada and lead to lower prices.
"Certainly it will have the effect of introducing more competition to the Canadian market place, there’s no doubt about that," said Prentice.
"There are those who would say even to this point it has started to exert downward pressure on prices."
Independent market reports have placed Canada’s cellphone market as among the least competitive and most costly to users in the industrial world.
Prentice said 24 bidders are in the auction, which will be conducted electronically, with the anticipation there will be many rounds free credit reports. The department will table the results of each round on its website.
But a final determination of winners and losers may not be known for a month, he said.
Following the close of the auction, winning bidders will be required to submit ownership and control documentation and to complete various payment transactions within 30 business days, Industry Canada said.
The department will then review the information submitted by each bidder and issue licences as appropriate.
Top contract chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) (2330.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) (TSM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it may raise prices for its higher-end chips as rising costs threaten to squeeze profits.
Semiconductor makers face higher costs to build state-of-the-art chip plants for most cutting-edge chips, and are also feeling the pain of rising inflation.
As the industry’s leading and oldest player, with more than three times the sales of closest rival, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) (2303.TW: Quote, Profile, Research), TSMC has stressed in recent years that its products should command a premium over its peers.
“Average selling prices have been falling and profits have been under pressure, and we have to work together to create value,” Jason Chen, a company vice president in charge of global sales and marketing, told a TSMC technology symposium.
He said price changes would be mostly for chips made by advanced process technology, but would not say how big they would be or when they would occur.
He did not say when TSMC last raised prices.
“We face some structural profit pressure free credit report without a credit card. In the short term, we also face pressure from inflation and oil prices,” Chen said.
Consumer prices in Taiwan, where TSMC is based, rose 3.86 percent in April, with core inflation up 3.1 percent — a nine year high.
Telus Corp (T.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) will likely wait for the dust to settle in the courtroom drama surrounding BCE Inc (BCE.TO: Quote, Profile, Research)(BCE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and its C$34.8-billion ($35.2 billion) privatization before it seriously considers returning with a renewed bid for the company.
Telus, Canada’s No. 2 telephone company, will also want to wait until it sees the outcome of an upcoming auction of Canadian wireless spectrum, which will help it gauge how much more competition is coming to the country’s wireless market.
Analysts say the auction should be wrapped up by mid-July, as should an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada that was launched by BCE after this week’s surprise court ruling that sided with the company’s bondholders and threatened to scuttle the BCE buyout.
The bondholders alleged that the buyout by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and its U.S http://pay-day-home.com. private-equity partners is unfair to them.
There would be no point in Telus bidding before the Supreme Court’s opinion is known. If the court sides with BCE and overturns this week’s ruling, the Teachers’ buyout will triumph.
Teachers’ current C$42.75 a share offer price is too rich to match for Vancouver-based Telus, which was in talks last year to acquire BCE before walking away, citing “inadequacies” in the bidding process.
Credit markets are also tight and Telus shares are down 28 percent from a year ago, making them a less attractive takeover currency.
However, if the Supreme Court sides with the bondholders, the Teachers’ buyout could collapse, taking BCE’s already battered share price with it to C$30 or so.
Closing the biggest leveraged buyout ever just got a little more complicated.
The banks providing financing in the takeover of Bell Canada parent BCE (BCE), are reportedly seeking to renegotiate terms of that deal. Providence Equity Partners, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Madison Dearborn are seeking to take BCE private for roughly $51 billion.
The reason for the financing snafu? Banks are feeling squeezed because of losses from the subprime crisis, and their stomach for financing leveraged buyouts has diminished from even a year ago, when the Bell Canada sale was brokered.
In the end, the BCE buyout will likely happen - but the giant telco may need to take a haircut on its record-setting pricetag.
The banks’ maneuvering is similar to how lenders recently held up closing of the $18 billion buyout of Clear Channel Communications (CCU, Fortune 500). But in the Clear Channel deal, the lenders reportedly worried that the private equity buyers acquiring the company weren’t completely committed to the deal.
In the case of Bell Canada, the buyers - including Providence Equity Partners, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and Madison Dearborn - are, by all accounts, eager to close payday loan cash advance loan. Indeed, Providence CEO Jonathan Nelson said as much in a recent Fortune profile. And Ontario Teachers’ is one of the largest shareholders of BCE stock, and as such stands to benefit from the buyout moving ahead at its original price.
Chances are the deal will move ahead, but at a lower price. The lenders surely will push for it as a way of reducing their risk, and BCE may have little choice but to comply. Why? There aren’t a lot of other would be buyers out there: Private equity firms would be hard-pressed to find financing in the current credit environment. And because local law requires BCE to be majority-owned by Canadians, there aren’t a whole lot of strategic buyers to be found. (Ontario Teachers’ fulfills the Canadian ownership requirement in the pending deal.)
Just how much of a haircut would BCE have to take? Investors are betting it could be more than a trim: BCE shares Monday closed down nearly 6%.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged eight former executives of AOL Time Warner, now known as Time Warner Inc, in a fraudulent scheme that overstated company advertising revenue by more than $1 billion.
Four of the defendants settled with the SEC and the other four are facing fraud-related charges in federal court in New York.
The former executives participated in a scheme from mid-2000 to mid-2002 to artificially inflate the company’s reported online advertising revenue, the SEC said in a statement. Online advertising revenue was a key measure analysts and investors used to evaluate the company.
The scheme involved fraudulent transactions in which AOL Time Warner effectively funded its own advertising revenue by giving purchasers the money to buy online advertising that they did not want or need, the SEC said.
The SEC settled charges with David Colburn, former head of the company’s business affairs unit; Eric Keller, former senior manager in the business affairs unit; James MacGuidwin, former controller; and Jay Rappaport, former senior manager in the business affairs unit http://payday-badcredit.com. The four neither admitted nor denied they were guilty of the charges.
As part of their settlements, Colburn agreed to pay almost $4 million, Keller almost $1 million, MacGuidwin $2.4 million, and Rappaport almost $750,000, the SEC said.
Colburn and MacGuidwin were also barred from serving as officers or directors of a public company for 10 years and seven years, respectively.
John Michael Kelly, former chief financial officer of AOL Time Warner; Steven Rindner, former senior executive in the business affairs unit; Joseph Ripp, former chief financial officer of the company’s AOL division; and Mark Wovsaniker, former head of accounting policy, are facing fraud-related charges, the SEC said.
Congress Wednesday examined a proposed $3.1 billion merger that would create the world’s largest carrier as critics of the deal warned it could drive up the price of air travel.
In his opening statement, committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., said that the merger would have far-reaching ramifications for the global airline industry.
"This should not be and must not be considered as a standalone, individual transaction but rather as the trigger of what will surely be a cascade of subsequent mergers that will consolidate aviation in the United States and around the world into global, mega carriers," he said.
Oberstar said the Delta-Northwest merger would discourage competition at major hubs, reduce service to customers and result in higher fares.
Executive testimony: Delta Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson said that the merger would not limit competition because the carriers primarily serve different geographic regions. Delta focuses domestically on the East and the "mountain" West and internationally on Europe and Latin America, while Northwest’s domestic strengths are in the Midwest and internationally in Asia. The companies only have 12 overlapping markets.
Anderson and Northwest Chief Executive Officer Douglas Steenland testified under direct questioning that they would not be surprised if other airlines considered a merger to compete with their merged airline.
The executives said they would not close any hubs following the proposed merger and would not eliminate any frontline positions, instead realizing savings by trimming management, corporate staff and overhead costs.
"We think it’s procompetitive," Anderson said. "It’s good for small communities and it will be good for our employees."
Witnesses on tap: About a dozen witnesses scheduled to testify before the House Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure were likely to focus on whether a merger between Delta Air Lines (DAL, Fortune 500) and Northwest Airlines (NWA, Fortune 500) would benefit consumers by lowering prices through cost savings, or harm them by reducing competition.
"The … dirty little secret of these megamergers is the permanent end to meaningful competition between the United States and Continental Europe," Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, said in prepared testimony.
Delta announced its plans to acquire Northwest on April 14. The combined carrier, which would operate under the Delta name, would have $35 billion in combined sales, operate more than 800 airplanes and employ 75,000 workers, according to Delta http://payday-faxless.com.
After the merger, Delta would still be headquartered in Atlanta and operate the nine hubs of both airlines in the United States, Europe and Asia, serving 390 destinations in 67 countries.
The airline executives claimed that record fuel prices and increased competition from discount carriers and foreign airlines necessitate the merger, which will create a more profitable combined company that will offer greater choice and competitive fares to travelers.
Monopoly fears: Critics decry such arguments.
"It is my firm belief, and the belief of many others, that airline executives are using a crisis of their own making to justify the establishment of what can only be called a monopoly," Robert Roach, general vice president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said in a prepared statement.
Figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation show that the airline industry was profitable in 2007, with an overall net income of $3.8 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 2006. Record fuel prices in 2008, however, led to a total loss of about $1.7 billion in the first quarter of 2008.
Aviation industry outlook: "Going forward, the outlook for airlines has certainly become cloudy," said Michael Reynolds, acting assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Reynolds did not comment specifically on Delta or Northwest.
Reynolds said fuel prices, a potentially weaker economy and labor-cost pressures pose significant challenges to the aviation industry in 2008.
"Our consideration of aviation economic policy must focus on what is best for both a healthy and competitive industry," Reynolds said. "Our goal must be to strike what is admittedly a very difficult balance in the face of a complex and dynamically changing industry. It must also embrace not just a short-term view of the impact on a particular group of stakeholders, but must consider the longer term, collective impact on all stakeholders."
James O’Connell Jr., deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Vision of the U.S. Department of Justice, said his division takes a special interest in trust issues in the airline industry. The merger will need approval from the Department of Justice in order to proceed. O’Connell declined to comment specifically on the Delta-Northwest merger because of the ongoing evaluation.
The soaring price of gas has convinced New Jersey resident Eric Scott to trade the comfort of his car for a seat on the train every morning after 17 years of driving to the office.
"It’s a huge savings," said Scott., "In today’s economy, you know, every penny counts so I’m just glad I made that switch."
Scott, a Senior Trust Administrator with Merrill Lynch in Hopewell, NJ, is saving more than $300-a-month by taking the train instead of driving the 72-mile roundtrip from his home in Willingboro, NJ. His monthly New Jersey Transit train pass costs $77, less than 1/4 of the $400 he had been spending on gas each month.
"I wish I would have done this sooner, it would have been savings in my pocket," said Scott.
Joanne Ralston, an administrative assistant with a medical management company in Hamilton, NJ is saving more than $200-a-month since she began riding a New Jersey Transit train in February instead of driving to the office.
"What I pay for my monthly pass is probably what I would have spent in about seven days for gas, so it’s a huge savings for me," said Ralston. "It’s an easy ride, no traffic, no stress, it’s much better than driving."
As gas price keep climbing, a growing number of Americans are leaving their cars in the garage and getting on board trains. Commuter train lines around the country are reporting big jumps in first quarter ridership: up 15% in the suburbs of Seattle, 13% in the communities north of Miami, 7% in the region surrounding Minneapolis-St. Paul, and better than 5% in New Jersey.
Commuter bus service is also experiencing strong gains, while increases in urban bus and train ridership are generally more moderate since many city customers always rely on mass transit.
"We’ve really seen a very large increase in the use of public transit and particularly for the services that are longer distance in nature, commuter rail lines or express buses that go far into the suburbs," said William Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association
"It’s been a strong pattern each time the gas prices hit a new plateau, $3 or $3.50, we get increases in the rate that people are trying new services."
As gas prices jumped last year Americans took more than 10-billion rides on public transit, the most in 50 years, according to the American Public Transportation Association low fee cash advance. Now, as the nation’s average gas price approaches $4-a-gallon, a growing number of commuters are listening to the conductor when he says, "ALL ABOARD."
Ridership is at a record on New Jersey Transit, which estimates its average commuter saves $1,200-a-year by taking the train rather than driving to work.
"People can look at riding on the rails as not only saving money, but a much better way to travel," said Richard Sarles, Executive Director of New Jersey Transit.
"They can talk quietly on the cell phone, they can look at movies on their DVD players or i-pod, they can listen to music, in addition to many other things people can do like working or napping on a train that they can’t do when they are driving."
With more people getting on board some commuters are squeezing into standing-room only trains and buses. It’s still better than driving, though, said Marcia McPherson Gunnings as she stood on a NJ Transit train heading out of New York’s Penn Station.
"I can live with that, compared to gas prices. I definitely can live with that," said McPherson Gunnings.
By sacrificing the privacy of their own vehicle mass transit users are also helping the environment, preventing 37 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
Transit officials expect the trend toward growing ridership to continue so major expansion projects are underway. Dallas and Denver are growing their railroads and New Jersey Transit has a plan to build a new tunnel under the Hudson River into Manhattan. "The buzz is, get ready for more passengers. They are coming," said New Jersey Transit’s Richard Sarles.
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At least two major oil companies said late Wednesday they have agreed to settle lawsuits over the use of the gasoline additive MTBE, a potential carcinogen that has been found in drinking water.
Representatives of Valero Energy Corp. (VLO, Fortune 500) and Chevron Corp. (CVS, Fortune 500) said they had joined the settlement, although a number of other oil companies are also named in a memo supporting the deal that was obtained by The Associated Press.
The companies confirmed their involvement after The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site that several oil companies agreed to pay $423 million plus cleanup costs to settle groundwater contamination litigation involving 153 public water providers in 17 states. That would make it the largest settlement to date involving the additive.
"We’ve worked hard to reach a responsible resolution to the cases being settled and are pleased to be moving forward," Chevron spokeswoman Stephanie Price said.
Valero’s agreement "resolves many of the lawsuits" filed against the oil refiner over its prior use of the gasoline additive, company spokesman Bill Day said in a brief statement to the AP.
He said the "settlement agreement is being reviewed by the court and is not yet final." He did not provide details of the agreement and declined to name other companies involved in the deal.
According to the Journal, the other defendants settling include BP PLC’s (BP) BP America Inc., ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500), Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s Shell Oil Co., Marathon Oil Corp (MRO, Fortune 500)., Petroleos de Venezuela SA’s Citgo Petroleum Corp low rates payday advance. and Sunoco Inc.
Those companies were among those listed in the court document obtained by the AP. Messages left with the companies seeking comment were not immediately returned.
At least six companies declined to settle, the largest being ExxonMobil Corp (XOM, Fortune 500)., the Journal said.
Each company’s contribution to the settlement was undisclosed, as was the potential cleanup cost. Past estimates have put the tab to remediate all tainted sites as high as $30 billion, the Journal reported.
The newspaper’s report quoted Scott Summy, an attorney for the plaintiffs, who said covering the cleanup costs for 30 years was a "creative approach" to resolving a matter that involves so many parties. That provision of the settlement removes the threat of litigation over future contaminated wells, he told the Journal.
The AP could not immediately reach the plaintiff’s attorneys for comment.
MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is a chemical added to gasoline to boost its octane level and cut air pollution. It was first added to gasoline in 1979, but its use declined after it was banned in a number of states.
MTBE has been found in ground water, including in some communities’ drinking water supplies. The Environmental Protection Agency said the chemical is a potential human carcinogen at high doses, although it is unclear at what level it poses a health risk.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday the company isn’t pursuing other deals following the withdrawal of its $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo.
He said in Tokyo that the company put "a lot of effort" in the talks with Yahoo and has decided the two should pursue "independent paths."
Over the weekend, Microsoft withdrew its three-month-old unsolicited bid for Yahoo Inc. (YHOO, Fortune 500) after seeing the impasse with Yahoo’s board over a mutually acceptable sales price.
"Now at this point Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) is focused on its independent strategy," Gates told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo.
Those comments seemed to set a different tone than Tuesday in South Korea, where he said the company wasn’t ruling out alternative partnerships after the failure to buy Yahoo.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer had orally offered to pay $33 per share, or $47.5 billion, for Yahoo, up from an initial bid valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share. At the time the negotiations collapsed, the value of Microsoft’s original offer had fallen to $42.3 billion, or $29.40 per share, because half the deal was supposed to be financed with Microsoft’s declining stock.
Yahoo’s board wanted $37 per share — a price that the company’s stock hasn’t reached in more than two years.
Microsoft trails Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) in the online search and advertising markets, and the bid for Yahoo was an attempt at turning that around.
But Gates said that Microsoft was determined to make "advances" in its own search offering and meetings were in the works in Seattle to hammer out more specific plans.
"We will make the advances that give people a great choice there," he said.
Microsoft’s intense pursuit of Yahoo was widely seen as an acknowledgment of weaknesses in Microsoft’s solo Web search and advertising strategy, and the software maker now needs to prove it can innovate without Yahoo as a partner.
Gates makes periodic trips to Asia, and he was in Japan two years ago http://payday-nofax.com. He said he met with business partners in Japan, which he sees as an important market. Talks covered digital broadcast software for Windows-based personal computers and giving free downloads of Microsoft software to Japanese students.
Possible partners for Microsoft in the future might include large Internet companies such as Time Warner Inc.’s (TWX, Fortune 500) AOL and News Corp.’s (NWS, Fortune 500) MySpace and promising startups such as Facebook Inc. and LinkedIn Corp.
Time Warner is the parent company of CNNMoney.com.
Microsoft already owns a 1.6% stake in Facebook, the second-largest social network behind MySpace.
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