Tampa Bay Sports and Entertainment LLC is officially the new owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Jeff Vinik, a Boston-based asset manager, avid hockey fan, and minority owner of the Boston Red Sox, controls the company.
Terms of the deal that closed Wednesday were not disclosed. The purchase also includes the lease to the St. Pete Times Forum and ownership of adjacent real estate, the club said in a release.
Vinik becomes the Chairman of the Lightning and the club’s Governor on the National Hockey League’s Board of Governors. Earlier Wednesday, the NHL Board of Governors approved the acquisition of the team unanimously. A purchase agreement to buy the team on Feb. 4, 2010
“The Lightning is a great franchise in a terrific community,” said Vinik in a prepared statement. “We thank [former owner] Oren Koules and his partners for beginning the turn-around of the Lightning hockey club. Our goal now is to build a world-class organization, on and off the ice.”
Vinik, 50, is the founder and chairman of Vinik Asset Management free credit score online. Prior to forming Vinik Asset Management, he managed Fidelity’s Magellan Fund, at that time the world’s largest equities mutual fund. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering and Economics, Vinik went on to earn his Masters of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Business School.
The team has scheduled a press conference March 5 to discuss the sale.
The Lightning was founded in 1990 by NHL Hall of Famer Phil Esposito and began play in 1992. The team won the Stanley Cup in 2004. Previous owners of the Lightning include Kokusai Green Ltd (1992-1998), Art Williams (1998-99), Palace Sports & Entertainment (1999-2008) and Lightning Enterprises LP (2008-2010).
The team currently has 20 games remaining in the 2009-10 regular season and it sits in 11th position in Eastern Conference, just two points removed from a playoff position.
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Mexico’s economy may expand more than expected in 2010 as the nation recovers from last year’s global slump, central bank Deputy Governor Manuel Sanchez Gonzalez said in an interview yesterday.
“Everything points towards the direction of a recovery,” Sanchez said in Sydney. While the central bank forecasts growth of 3.2 percent to 4.2 percent this year, “I’m ready to be surprised as to the results of the economic recovery,” he said.
Mexico’s $1.09 trillion economy was the worst performer in Latin America last year, shrinking 10.1 percent in the second quarter and 6.2 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier. Gross domestic product may expand “slightly” more than the government’s current 3 percent estimate this year, Deputy Finance Minister Alejandro Werner said Feb. 5.
Sanchez is among policy makers visiting Sydney this week to attend a symposium organized by the Reserve Bank of Australia to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements is also hosting a meeting of central bank officials in Sydney.
Global policy makers have to be “very careful” about how quickly they withdraw stimulus measures after cutting interest rates and boosting public spending to counter the deepest global recession since World War II, Sanchez said yesterday.
“There is a tradeoff between sustaining the stimulus measures and having some risks as to maintaining those,” he said. “You have a risk of withdrawing too quickly, of leaving those measures too rapidly, so that this recovery may be interrupted. You want to be very careful to maintain those stimulus measures for the right time.”
Inflation Outlook
Central banks also have to remain watchful of inflation and maintain price stability, he said.
“Every country has different situations as to the inflation prospects, but I’m confident also that the inflation pressures will continue to be relatively subdued in the near future,” Sanchez said.
Mexico’s inflation in December was 3.57 percent, the slowest since 2006.
The central bank kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4.5 percent in January for a fifth straight meeting and warned that higher costs for state-controlled goods such as gasoline may fuel broader price increases. The latest monetary policy position is consistent with the central bank’s growth forecasts, Sanchez said.
The region’s second-largest economy probably shrank about 7 percent in 2009, the most since 1932, the central bank estimates.
“I’m very optimistic about the prospects of the Mexican economy in the short term and long term,” Sanchez said. “We had a very harsh recession last year. We’re going to have a very important improvement relative to the base we had last year.”
The fourth quarter probably showed “very good dynamism of economic activity” and the unemployment rate has declined, Sanchez said.
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DETROIT — As Toyota dealers across the country work to repair the defective gas pedals in millions of vehicles, they also are trying to repair the automaker’s reputation by extending hours, making house calls and offering other services.
Toyota Motor Corp. recalled eight vehicles Jan. 21 and stopped selling those vehicles five days later because their accelerator pedals could stick in a depressed position. Toyota is sending dealers a piece of steel about the size of a postage stamp that can be inserted into the accelerator mechanism and eliminate the friction that causes the problem.
Kent Newbold, president of Newbold Toyota in O’Fallon, Ill., said Wednesday that he was even offering customers free tickets to a movie at the nearby O’Fallon 15 Cine while repairs are made to their recalled vehicles.
Nobody had taken him up on that offer, but he said it would remain until all of the recalled vehicles were fixed. "They’re our customers and we’re going to take care of them. … I was even tempted to sneak out and see ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks 2′ myself," Newbold said.
Jim White Toyota, a dealership in Toledo, Ohio, received about 350 steel pieces, or shims, and began repairs Wednesday morning. By mid-afternoon, about 25 cars were fixed, said Terry Treter, service manager.
Repairs were going smoothly and a little faster than the half-hour Toyota estimated, he said. Technicians do a test drive as part of the repair.
Dealers said they would extend service hours as needed to make repairs at the convenience of their customers. "The main thing the dealers want to do is to get the cars repaired and back on the road," said John S. Poppell, president of Twin City Toyota in Herculaneum.
Tom Seeger, owner of Seeger Toyota in Creve Coeur, added, "We’re going to get this done as seamlessly and comfortably for our customers as possible."
Dealers said customers had been calm despite a warning early Wednesday from U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who said owners of recalled Toyotas should stop driving them. LaHood later said he misspoke and told owners to get their cars repaired.
"There was an (increase in) concerned calls five minutes after Ray LaHood made his first comment, but people calmed down after he later explained himself," Seeger said.
Toyota is giving U.S. dealers payments of up to $75,000 to help them offer extra measures such as house calls. The automaker also suggested other steps, such as additional hires to help with recall repairs, dedicated recall service lanes and complimentary oil changes.
Toyota is sending checks this week based on the number of cars each dealer sold in 2009. Dealers who sold fewer than 500 cars will get $7,500. Dealers who sold more than 4,000 will get $75,000.
Robert Kelly of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said Friday it had stronger advertising sales in November and expects declines in revenue to ease for the company’s fiscal first quarter ending Dec. 27.
"Based on trends through early December, we’re hopeful that the turnaround has begun," Mary Junck, chairman and CEO, said in a news release. "Although it’s premature to guess when year-over-year revenue comparisons will turn positive, we expect our aggressive cost reductions will enable meaningful earnings growth when they do."
Among the cost reductions were increases in premium cost-sharing for some participants in retiree medical plans and elimination of retiree health care coverage for other participants. Lee said these changes will reduce annual retiree medical costs beginning in 2010 and will cut benefit obligation liability by up to $30 million.
Lee said it expects operating revenue for the quarter ending Dec paydayloans. 27 to fall 14 percent to 15 percent compared to the same period in 2008. Revenue declined an average of 20 percent in the last three quarters of fiscal 2009.
The company also said that debt refinancing, adequate liquidity and improving business conditions allowed its accounting firm, KPMG LLP, to drop from this year’s annual report an explanatory paragraph in 2008’s annual report that raised doubt about Lee’s ability to continue as a going concern. Lee filed the 2009 report Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Lee, based in Davenport, Iowa, owns 49 newspapers and has a joint interest in four others. It also has online sites and nearly 300 specialty publications in 23 states.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said a “strong case” can be made for keeping the central bank involved in bank supervision, and subjecting interest rate policy to congressional audits may undermine confidence in monetary policy. “There is a strong case for a continued role for the Federal Reserve in bank supervision,” the Fed Chairman said in a commentary released today on the Web site of the Washington Post. “Because of our role in making monetary policy, the Fed brings unparalleled economic and financial expertise to its oversight of banks.”
Bernanke has presided over the most expansive use of Fed powers since the Great Depression. While the 55-year-old Fed chairman has said he averted a financial meltdown, lawmakers have voiced concern about potential taxpayer losses and proposed the most sweeping dismantlement of Fed authority since the creation of the institution in 1913.
The Fed chairman said legislation under consideration in Congress would impair the ability of the central bank to fulfill its basic functions.
“A number of the legislative proposals being circulated would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions,” he said. “Now more than ever, America needs a strong, nonpolitical and independent central bank with the tools to promote financial stability and to help steer our economy to recovery without inflation.”
Lax Supervision
Senate Banking Committee Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, has criticized the central bank for lax supervision and introduced legislation this month that would strip bank oversight from the Fed and create a single bank regulator. Dodd would also limit the central bank’s ability to loan to individual companies.
“Congress has a lot of public support for an attack on the Fed,” Allan Meltzer, a Fed historian and professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said in an interview Nov. 23. “They bailed out everybody in sight.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slid 1.7 percent to 1,091.49 in New York while two-year Treasury yields fell to the lowest level since December.
Dodd and Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, want to take away the Fed’s rule- writing power on consumer financial products and give it to a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
“The Federal Reserve, like other regulators around the world, did not do all that it could have to constrain excessive risk-taking in the financial sector in the period leading up to the crisis,” Bernanke said. The Fed has reviewed its performance and “moved aggressively to fix the problems,” he added easy payday loans.
Trigger Losses
As the subprime mortgage crisis began to trigger losses in bank portfolios, Bernanke used emergency authority last year to purchase securities from Bear Stearns Cos. and facilitate its merger with JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Bernanke also pushed the Fed’s backstop lending beyond banks, setting up programs to support the commercial paper and asset-backed securities markets. The Fed Board approved the bank holding company applications of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, giving them access to the Fed’s loan window.
Under Bernanke, the Fed has more than doubled its assets to $2.21 trillion and become the lender of last resort to government bond dealers, banks, Wall Street firms and U.S. corporations. The central bank has also propped up markets for mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities that support credit to consumers, small businesses and commercial real estate.
Reform Bill
A financial regulatory reform bill proposed by Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, would limit Fed emergency lending to broadly available credit programs. The Frank bill preserves the Obama administration’s proposal to make the Fed the lead regulator of risk across the financial system.
The central bank’s independence is also under fire from both chambers of Congress. Frank’s committee advanced a proposal this month to remove a three-decade ban on congressional audits of Fed interest-rate decisions. The proposal was offered by Representative Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas, and based on a bill with more than 300 co-sponsors.
Bernanke said studies show that central banks independent of political influence tend to keep inflation and interest rates lower than their less independent counterparts.
“The general repeal of that exemption would serve only to increase the perceived influence of Congress on monetary policy decisions, which would undermine the confidence the public and the markets have in the Fed to act in the long-term economic interest of the nation,” Bernanke said.
Under the proposal by Dodd, commercial banks would lose their power to appoint directors of the 12 regional Fed banks. Instead, directors would be chosen by the Fed’s Senate-confirmed governors, and each board chairman would be appointed by the president of the United States and subject to Senate approval.
The proposal would create political oversight of the Fed bank presidents, who are among the most vocal proponents on the Federal Open Market Committee for keeping inflation low.
A spate of attacks in Pakistan’s Punjab as Islamic militants work more closely with the Taliban has raised business concern in the province that generates more than half of the country’s economic growth.
Forty-two people were killed last month in Punjab, home to Pakistan’s largest bank and companies producing clothing for retailers Levi Strauss & Co. and Gap Inc. Recent increases in surveillance and arrests are unlikely to reverse the violence that killed more than 220 people in the province in the first 10 months of this year, 20 percent more than 2008, said Ayesha Siddiqa, a Punjabi researcher on military and security issues.
The Karachi Stock Exchange 100 Index fell 2 percent last month, the most since January and only the third negative month this year, as bombings and militant assaults in major cities nationwide hurt investor confidence.
“The implications of this war spreading to Punjab are pretty severe,” said Standard Chartered Plc economist Sayem Ali in Karachi. Punjab represents 55 percent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product, he said. With foreign direct investment down by 60 percent in the three months to September, “our domestic security problems cloud companies’ strategies for coming back into Pakistan any time soon.”
Since the army began its biggest anti-Taliban offensive on Oct. 17 near the border with Afghanistan, bombings have killed about 350 people nationwide, mostly civilians.
Cricket Ambush
While Punjab has seen fewer terrorist attacks than Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun northwest, guerrillas in Lahore attacked three police headquarters last month and ambushed the Sri Lankan national cricket team’s bus in March. Militants last month raided the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, also in Punjab. The province is home to about half of the country’s 180 million people.
The government must continue to stand up to the guerrillas or “the violence will continue to spread and investors will not feel safe anywhere” in Pakistan, said Habib-ur-Rehman, who manages $48 million of stocks and bonds at Karachi-based Atlas Asset Management Ltd.
Punjab is home to much of Pakistan’s textile sector and the nation’s largest bank by market value, MCB Bank Ltd. Textiles account for two-thirds of the country’s exports in a $165- billion economy.
Pakistan’s overseas direct investment fell 58 percent to $463 million in the three months ended Sept. 30, from $1.1 billion a year ago, according to data from the central bank.
Surveillance Cameras
“We have to keep so many security guards, set up surveillance cameras at the factories,” said Raza Mansha, chief executive of D.G. Khan Cement Ltd., Pakistan’s second-biggest cement maker, based in Lahore, Punjab’s capital and the country’s second-largest city. It “adds to our non-productive expenses and gives foreign visitors a bad impression guaranteed online payday loans.”
D.G. Khan Cement and MCB Bank are part of the Nishat Group, Pakistan’s largest industrial group. D.G. Khan shares fell 16 percent in October and have risen 4.3 percent this month. MCB was down 4 percent in October and is up 7 percent this month.
The benchmark share index has gained 56 percent this year after losing 59 percent in 2008. It rose 2.6 percent yesterday.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters last month that at least two Punjab-based groups — Jaish-e-Muhammad (Soldiers of Muhammad) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (the Army of Jhang, a southern Punjab city) — were operating jointly with the Taliban and al-Qaeda to attack the Pakistani state.
Limited Crackdown
Still, Pakistan’s crackdown on jihadist groups in the province has been limited, and won’t reverse the decades of growth that have made the militant groups a durable part of the political landscape, said Siddiqa.
“The state’s response really has been business-as-usual — selective pressure” rather than a systematic campaign against Islamic radicalism, Islamabad-based Siddiqa said in a phone interview.
For Umer Mansha, chief executive officer of Lahore-based Nishat Mills Ltd., that’s a worrying message. His company produces garments for San Francisco-based Levi-Strauss, the closely held maker of blue jeans and Dockers pants, and Gap, based in the same U.S. city and operator of the Old Navy and Banana Republic chains.
“Textile buyers like to come, see and feel the product,” Mansha, whose company is also part of the Nishat Group, said in an interview Nov. 12. “Buyers are simply not willing to come here. It’s very hard to get new clients.”
More Than Last Year
More than 10,000 Pakistanis — civilians, security forces and militants — have died in the country’s violence this year, a rate 75 percent higher than last year’s record, according to the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management.
“The tactics used in recent attacks in Punjab, plus the literature recovered by police in making arrests, shows that there is more coordination and contact now between Punjab militants and the Arabs of al-Qaeda,” said Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Islamabad-based Pak Institute for Peace Studies.
Punjab Home Ministry and police officials didn’t respond to phone calls and e-mail messages asking how many alleged perpetrators have been detained in the province.
The “poverty of southern Punjab in particular, and the covert support and funds that militants have had” from Arab donors and Pakistan’s military, “have let them build durable organizations,” said security researcher Siddiqa. “Militancy in Punjab is now a fixture.”
Activision Blizzard Inc’s hugely anticipated “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ video game went on sale early Tuesday morning, welcomed by eager fans who lined up hours in advance of the release.
The first-person shooter game is set to be one of the biggest and fastest-selling titles in history, challenging records set by blockbuster releases from the “Grand Theft Auto” series.
This despite a dicey economic climate that is pinching consumer spending. Video game industry revenue in the United States, the world’s largest market, is down 13 percent this year, according to industry tracker NPD.
But Call of Duty arrives amid high expectations and plenty of hype. Activision partnered with retailers including GameStop Corp and Best Buy Co for more than 10,000 midnight store openings in North America.
At the GameStop store near Union Square in New York City, around 80 mainly young people were lined up Monday night ahead of the launch, some for two hours.
“This is the only game I’m probably going to do this for,” said Paola Altamirano, 21, who was waiting in the queue. She said she planned to play Call of Duty against another friend online later that night.
With what Activision called a record level of preorders, there was little doubt about the strong demand for a game.
“Gamers are enthusiastic about picking this stuff up at midnight,” said Paul Swiderski, who works at the Union Square Gamestop online payday advance.
Analysts’ sales estimates for the $60 game range from 11-13 million units by the end of 2009. Call of Duty is likely to account for a sizable chunk of Activision’s profits in the fourth quarter, analysts say, so there is plenty at stake in the launch.
HARD-CORE AUDIENCE
The audience for the latest Call of Duty — the sixth installment in the franchise — is primarily younger men, the gaming demographic that makes up the core of the estimated $50 billion global industry.
John Paneto, 20, was lined up outside a Best Buy store in San Francisco with about 10 others at around 10 P.M. Monday. He said he played a number of the other games in the Call of Duty franchise.
“I’m going to be up all night playing it, until I crash,” he said.
Analysts say so-called hard-core gamers are unlikely to be dissuaded from buying a big-name title by economic concerns, as some casual gamers are.
But Call of Duty will have to turn in an impressive performance to top that of last year’s mega-hit from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc, “Grand Theft Auto IV.” The title sold 3.6 million units on the first day, and 6 million in its first week or more than $500 million in sales.
Germany’s Lufthansa and the airline industry’s representative body provided a gloomy outlook for the sector as carriers around the world struggled to make a profit amid a fierce battle for business.
“Initial signs of a stabilization in volumes are far away from making up for the enormous and unrelenting pressure stemming from the massive fall in price levels,” the German flagship carrier said on Thursday.
Industry body IATA echoed Lufthansa’s warning, saying it was still too early to talk about a recovery. IATA has said it sees the world’s airlines losing $11 billion this year as consumers tightened their purse strings and companies cut travel budgets.
“The worst may be over in terms of the fall in demand, but yields continue to be a disaster and costs are rising,” IATA said.
Airlines around the world have been crippled by a toxic mixture of reduced spending on travel, a drop in global trade and rising oil prices. To cut their bloated cost bases, many have grounded planes and canceled or deferred plane orders.
Lufthansa has rescheduled some aircraft deliveries to save 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) over the next three years. Plane makers Boeing and Airbus are headed for their worst annual order tally in at least 15 years.
Demand has suffered especially this year in the highly profitable business class segment as companies ask staff to book cheaper seats.
Finnish national carrier Finnair said earlier that it saw third-quarter sales fall sharply due to declining demand for business travel, adding it would continue to make losses during the rest of the year cash till payday advance.
Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot said its first-half net profit fell five-fold to $14.4 million as lower passenger numbers hit revenue, which fell 30 percent to $1.46 billion. The airline said lower jet fuel prices pushed up its margins on pretax earnings to 12 percent from 10 percent.
Aeroflot gave no outlook for the second half but analysts said they expected performance to improve only slightly as better sales from renewed passenger growth at the airline is offset by rising fuel costs.
Air cargo is in even worse shape than passenger demand as global trade remains at low levels, IATA said. Lufthansa, which operates Europe’s biggest air cargo fleet, said revenue in the sector was still falling steeply due to declining prices.
Lufthansa ended the session up 2.6 percent, while Finnair was down 1.3 percent and Aeroflot was up 0.26 percent.
CASH IS KING
“What we have seen so far does not indicate at all that the tough times for the airline industry will be over soon. The environment will remain challenging for some time and we still do not expect significant positive newsflow in the short term,” said MM Warburg analyst Michael Bahlmann.
Japan Airlines, Asia’s largest airline by revenue, is asking the government for a “huge” bailout as it heads for its fourth annual loss in five years, weighed down by $15 billion in debt and crippling pension costs.
Commercial real estate company Capmark Financial filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday, weighed on by declines in the sector and a heavy debt load related to its leveraged buyout.
Capmark, which was created out of the commercial real estate assets of General Motors’ finance arm GMAC in March of 2006, had indicated earlier this year that it might file for bankruptcy.
It had said that it was negotiating with lenders, bondholders and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Its creditors include banks Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.
The move wipes out the private equity investments of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, Goldman Sachs Group’s Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Five Mile Capital, which bought Capmark for $1.5 billion in cash and more than $7 billion in debt.
According to the bankruptcy filing, the group owned 75.4 percent of the company while GMAC, or the General Motors Acceptance Corp, owned 21.3 percent. Employees and directors owned most of the remaining stock. Equity investors are typically wiped out in bankruptcy.
KKR already wrote down its investment in Capmark to zero earlier this year. KKR has had other failed equity investments this year, including its 2005 purchase of doormaker Masonite, which filed for bankruptcy in March and has since emerged from court.
In order to raise cash, the company signed a deal in September to sell its loan servicing and mortgage business to Berkshire Hathaway and Leucadia National for $490 million. That deal can still take place in bankruptcy.
Capmark listed $20.1 billion in assets and $21 billion in liabilities as of June 30, 2009 in the bankruptcy filing, which was made in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.
(Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Richard Chang)
eBay Inc. may be trying to unload its Skype Internet phone business, but the division’s 29% revenue growth helped bolster the company’s third quarter results.
Overall, the company said revenue grew 6% to $2.24 billion, which trounced analysts’ expectations of $2.14 billion.
"The year-over-year revenue growth was driven primarily by the continued growth in PayPal, Skype, the company’s classifieds business as well as growth in eBay’s fixed-price format," the company said. .
Shares of eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500) fell more than 5% in after-hours trading, however, as the commerce company also announced that its profits for the quarter fell 29% from last year to $350 million.
eBay said it earned 27 cents per share in the quarter ended Sept. 30, lackluster compared to the 37 center per share that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected.
The company said the drop was due to a decrease in operating margins for the quarter caused primarily by the recently acquired payment system Bill Me Later.
But eBay’s chief executive John Donahoe remained optimistic. "These are strong results for a strong company getting stronger," Donahoe said during a conference call with investors. "And our eBay strategies are beginning to work."
The positive results were the outcome of changes eBay has been implementing since 2008, said Sandeep Aggarwal, a senior Internet research analyst at Collins Stewart. The modifications include altered fees for merchants to encourage fixed-price sales and an improved search engine.
The marketplace unit, which includes eBay’s core auction business, posted $1.4 billion in revenue, down 1% since last year. But the total amount of goods that eBay sold, excluding vehicles, also known as GMV, rose 7% to $12.2 billion in the quarter.
"The single biggest thing we found most positive was that GMV is showing signs of growth acceleration. Even if you include auto sales, it was still up 2% on a year-to-year basis," said Aggarwal, who expected the figure to decline by 1%.
The company’s PayPal business also grew, and the company’s efforts to expand the online payment unit to merchant stores has been successful, according to Aggarwal.
The PayPal business reported $668.1 million in revenue, up 15% compared to last year, and the number of active registered accounts grew 19% in the quarter.
In September, eBay announced that it will sell 65% of its Skype Internet phone business to a group of private investors for $2.75 billion, but the deal is pending a lawsuit against Skype’s founders.
The exiting segment added 40.3 million users in the quarter and contributed $185.2 million in revenue, representing 29% growth compared to last year.
eBay is forecasting fourth-quarter revenues between $2.20 billion and $2.30 billion, in line with analysts’ expectations of $2.26 billion, but higher than the $2.04 billion revenue posted in the fourth quarter of 2008.
But the revenue outlook assumes the sales of Skype in the middle of the fourth-quarter.
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