Social gaming – pressing buttons
It takes more than a silly name to make it in social gaming. Put another way: less zyng(a), more profits please. Japan’s DeNA and Gree have the names (and Gree…
AstraZeneca signs Nexium deal with Pfizer
AstraZeneca raised its full-year earnings expectations after signing a deal to allow Pfizer the future rights to market an over-the-counter version of its top-selling heartburn medication. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical group…
Kodak extends patent auction
Eastman Kodak said an auction of its patents, due to end on Monday, was still ongoing as discussions continued with bidders. The company is hoping that the sale of 1,100…
Peregrine chief charged on forged accounts
©psgbest.com Russell Wasendorf Sr The founder and chief executive of Peregrine Financial Group, the futures broker that collapsed last month with a $215m shortfall in its customer segregated accounts, has…
JPMorgan in $2.5bn debt issue
JPMorgan returned to the debt markets on Monday, selling $2.5bn worth of bonds to investors in its first such issuance since announcing a multibillion-dollar trading loss in May. The bank…
Groupon revenue miss spooks investors
Groupon exceeded analyst expectations for second-quarter profits, but missed anticipated revenues, sending its stock price down as much as 20 per cent in after-hours trading. Revenue growth also slowed sharply,…
Guggenheim Partners eyes Aviva’s US arm
Guggenheim Partners, the privately owned financial services group, has approached Aviva with a bid for its US operations, people familiar with the matter said. The approach follows a month-long trip…
Growth investing – a case study
If the markets were truly Darwinian, would growth investors exist? They pay up for stocks with strong prospects. That is, they shell out for something that might materialise, in contrast…
Google broadens horizons with Frommer’s deal
Google has struck a deal to buy Frommer’s, the travel guides for the post-backpacking generation, as it looks to boost local search results with trusted reviews. The search group has…
Focus Media receives $3.5bn buyout offer
Focus Media, a Chinese advertising company listed in the US, said it received a $3.5bn offer to take the company private from its chief executive and a group of private…
BP sells California refinery for $2.5bn
BP is to sell a Californian oil refinery to Tesoro of the US for $2.5bn, part of a plan to cut back its downstream business and raise money to cover…
Elan to spin off Neotope Biosciences
Elan is to spin off its experimental medicines arm into a separately quoted company just a week after the failure of its pivotal Alzheimer’s treatment, in a move that could…
Peltz joins board of Ingersoll-Rand
Nelson Peltz, the activist investor, is to join the board of Ingersoll-Rand in a move that could pave the way to a break-up of the industrial conglomerate. Mr Peltz, whose…
US bond issuance set for strong week
US debt issuance was set for another strong week with companies looking to finalise deals ahead of the slowdown in capital markets activity that typifies the latter half of August.…
Ad deconstructed: Apple ‘genius guy’
Client: Apple; Agency: TBWA/Media Arts Lab; Territory: US; Verdict: 1/5 “Dreadful”, “terrible” and “cheesy” are not adjectives usually applied to Apple, but they do sum up the general reaction to…