Posts Tagged Business
Median Pay For Top Executives
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Business, Favourites on Июль 8th, 2011
The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. The earlier study had put the median pay at a none-too-shabby $9.6 million, up 12 percent.
Total C.E.O. pay hasn’t quite returned to its heady, prerecession levels — but it certainly seems headed there. Despite the soft economy, weak home prices and persistently high unemployment, some top executives are already making more than they were before the economy soured.
Pay skyrocketed last year because many companies brought back cash bonuses, says Aaron Boyd, head of research at Equilar. Cash bonuses, as opposed to those awarded in stock options, jumped by an astounding 38 percent, the final numbers show.
Granted, many American corporations did well last year. Profits were up substantially. As a result, many companies are sharing the wealth, at least with their executives. “We’re seeing a lot of that reflected in the pay,” Mr. Boyd says.
And at a time of so much tumult in the media business, it might be surprising that some executives in media and communications were among the most richly rewarded last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Western Union Is Said to Be Nearing $1 Billion Purchase of Travelex Unit
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Business on Июль 5th, 2011
Western Union Co. (WU), the world’s largest money-transfer firm, is in talks to buy a division of Apax Partners LLP’s Travelex foreign-exchange business for about $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Western Union, based in Englewood, Colorado, may announce an agreement to acquire Travelex’s global business-payments unit as early as next week, said the people, who didn’t wish to be named because the talks are private.
A deal would help Western Union Chief Executive Officer Hikmet Ersek, 50, add revenue from corporate transactions overseas. Consumer-to-consumer services provided 84 percent of the firm’s $1.28 billion revenue in the first quarter, according to the company’s financial report. Travelex describes its business-payments unit as the world’s largest non-bank provider of foreign exchange and risk solutions.
“This business does have good margin characteristics,” said James Friedman, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group in New York who has a “positive” rating on Western Union shares. “It certainly has the potential to be more lucrative than the consumer. The fee per transaction is really huge.”
Susquehanna facilitates trading in Western Union shares, which gained 21 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $20.24 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Read the rest of this entry »
G.M. Is Still Hopeful for Payback to Government
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Business on Июнь 7th, 2011
The chief executive of General Motors said on Tuesday that he hoped the federal government would be able to sell its stake in the automaker soon, and expressed concern about the country’s economic recovery.
The executive, Daniel F. Akerson, said that G.M. was working to maximize its payback to taxpayers, but that the government did not make a bad investment even if it did not recover the full amount given to the company.
“At some level, the government’s got to decide: are they an investor or were they trying to save the industry?” Mr. Akerson told reporters ahead of G.M.’s first annual stockholder meeting since its 2009 government-financed bankruptcy.
A report last week by the White House National Economic Council concluded that the government would probably have to write off about $14 billion of the $80 billion spent rescuing the auto industry by the Bush and Obama administrations.
Mr. Akerson said that a G.M. liquidation would have saddled taxpayers with more than $17 billion in pension liabilities. G.M. has cut its pension shortfall in half since 2009, he said, adding that he wanted the plan to be fully financed during his tenure as chief executive. Read the rest of this entry »
Trump’s school faces investigation
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Business on Май 25th, 2011
The New York State attorney general’s office is investigating whether Donald Trump’s for-profit business school, the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative (formerly known as Trump University), is engaging in illegal business practices, the New York Times reports.
Trump’s is not the only company coming under the microscope — the effort is part of a broader inquiry into for-profit education, which is also examining Career Education Corporation, Corinthian Colleges, Lincoln Educational Services, and Bridgepoint Education.
But the school — which is known to charge up to $35,000 a course — has its share of unsatisfied alums. Last year four former students sued the company in a federal court in California, seeking class-action status. New York and Maryland also forced Trump to drop the word “university” from its title, prompting the name change. In 2010, the Better Business Bureau gave it a D-minus, its second lowest score, after getting 23 complaints. That has to hurt.
Recently, the school has suspended new classes in order to revise its curriculum. What could bring academic integrity back to “Trump U”? More of the Donald, obviously. “The one thing is that they really wanted me involved, instead of the teachers,” Trump said in an interview last week. Read the rest of this entry »
Wal-Mart shrinks stores to help grow its business
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Business on Май 16th, 2011
Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) is testing smaller stores in both inner cities and rural settings as it hopes to reach new customers even while trying to stem a slide in sales at existing U.S. stores. Sales at U.S. discount stores open at least a year are expected to have fallen for the eighth consecutive quarter when the world’s largest retailer reports earnings on Tuesday.
Wal-Mart, with roughly 9,030 stores, is best known for huge supercenters filled with everything from food to fishing rods. Now it is trying out a variety of formats, including tests of «Walmart Express» stores that are about 15,000 square feet. The performance of those new stores will show whether the behemoth used to running stores about 10 times that size has the smarts to go small.
«Up to this point the highest-return vehicle has always been that supercenter,» said Morgan, Keegan & Co analyst John Lawrence, who has followed Wal-Mart since the 1980s. «They’re going to put some of these up and then we’ll see how it goes.»
Smaller stores would allow Wal-Mart to reach customers who do not live near one of its 3,809 or so U.S. stores. But drugstores such as Walgreen Co (WAG.N) and low-priced chains such as Dollar General Corp (DG.N) already flood the market, especially in urban locales. Read the rest of this entry »
Wal-Mart Discrimination Case Grapples with Implicit Biases against Women
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 29th, 2011
As the New York Times‘ Adam Liptak reported today, the Supreme Court will decide on Tuesday whether 1.5 million women will be permitted to proceed with their gender discrimination class action against Wal-Mart.
The high court is being asked to decide what role it believes social science research should play in determining whether implicit bias is responsible for women’s underpay and under-representation in Wal-Mart’s management ranks. At the center of the Supreme Court case is the testimony of Sociology Professor William T. Bielby, at University of Illinois at Chicago.
Bielby opined in the lower court that all of the class members were treated unfairly in pay and promotions even though he did not review the individual personnel decisions. In his report to the Court, Bielby opined that “[s]ubjective and discretionary features of the company’s personnel policy and practice ma[d]e decisions about compensation and promotion vulnerable to gender bias.” He also asserted that there were “significant deficiencies in the company’s policies and practices for identifying and eliminating barriers to equal employment opportunity at Wal-Mart.”
When asked in his pre-trial testimony “how regularly stereotypes play a meaningful role in [Wal-Mart's] employment decisions,” Bielby couldn’t “put a number on it.” Prodded further, he admitted that he would be unable to give a range anywhere between “.5 percent of the employment decisions and 99.5%.” Read the rest of this entry »
Facebook Is Overvalued at $50 Billion in Global Poll Signaling Tech Bubble
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Business, Favourites on Февраль 8th, 2011
Facebook Inc. isn’t worth $50 billion, according to a poll of global investors that shows skepticism about Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s recent estimate of the largest social-networking site’s value and concern that a bubble may be forming in the technology sector.
Sixty-nine percent of investors say Facebook is overvalued after Goldman Sachs invested $450 million in a deal that put the company’s worth at $50 billion, according to the quarterly poll of 1,000 Bloomberg customers who are investors, traders or analysts. Only 10 percent of respondents say Facebook’s valuation is appropriate; 4 percent say it’s worth more.
The Bloomberg Global Poll conducted Jan. 21-24 shows that investors disagree with Goldman Sachs’ assessment that Facebook is worth more than Web pioneers such as Yahoo! Inc., the biggest web portal, and EBay Inc., owner of the biggest online retail marketplace. Palo Alto, California-based Facebook surpassed Yahoo! in October as the third most visited website in the world.
“Those investing in Facebook, expecting it to be the next Google, might be in for some bad news along the way,” says poll respondent John J. Lee, a portfolio manager at PGB Trust & Investments in Morristown, New Jersey. Mountain View, California-based Google went public in August 2004 and the shares more than tripled in the first year to $279.99 from $85. The stock price averaged $617.2 this month. Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft Gets `Little Credit’ for Office Unit Gains Amid Windows Concerns
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Февраль 1st, 2011
Microsoft Corp. fell after a report showing a shortfall in Windows revenue raised concerns about demand for the operating system and outshined better-than- predicted second-quarter sales and profit.
Windows sales of $5.05 billion missed the $5.2 billion average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That differed from the 55 percent gain in the Xbox unit, and numbers showing Microsoft’s Office and Server businesses topped projections.
The contrast suggests that Microsoft may be losing sales as customers opt for competing devices, such as Apple Inc.’s iPad or Macintosh computers, rather than a new Windows-based machine, said Tony Ursillo, an analyst at Loomis Sayles & Co. in Boston. As rival operating systems gain ground, Microsoft’s other products, such as Office, may also suffer, he said.
“The execution at this company has actually been pretty good over the last year,” said Ursillo, whose firm manages $150 billion, including Microsoft shares. “The stock has gotten very little credit for it because the market is worried about the continued erosion of the Windows franchise and the potential erosion of the Office franchise.”
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, fell $1.12, or 3.9 percent, $27.75 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares lost 8.4 percent in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
Tax cuts raise expectations for economy in 2011
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Декабрь 23rd, 2010
Expectations for economic growth next year are turning more optimistic now that Americans will have a little more cash in their pockets. A cut in workers’ Social Security taxes and rising consumer spending have led economists to predict a strong start for 2011.
Still, most people won’t feel much better until employers ramp up hiring and people buy more homes. Analysts are predicting economic growth next year will come in next year close to 4 percent. It would mark an improvement from the 2.8 percent growth expected for this year and would be the strongest showing since 2000.
«Looking ahead, circumstances are ripe for the economy to develop additional traction,» said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc. in New York. He is estimating growth for 2011 to be above 3.5 percent.
The economy grew at a moderate pace last summer, reflecting stronger spending by businesses to replenish stockpiles, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter. That’s up from the 2.5 percent pace estimated a month ago. While businesses spent more to build inventories, consumers spent a bit less.
Many analysts predict the economy strengthened in the October-December quarter. They think the economy is growing at a 3.5 percent pace or better mainly because consumers are spending more freely again. Read the rest of this entry »
Interest rates may rise, but won’t be anything dramatic
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Banks on Октябрь 13th, 2010
The U.S. economy is headed for a sustainable recovery, albeit not as robust and previously expected, while the risk of entering into a double-dip scenario remains very small. Moreover, it’s only a matter of time before interest rates start rising again.
Robert J. Ostrowski, chief investment officer for the taxable fixed income group at Federated Investors, said any rate hikes will not be dramatic.
“It is unlikely growth will be strong to ignite inflationary pressures that heretofore have been drenched to the core,” he said. “Thus we believe rates will remain range-bound for the next three months.”
Although the recession ended about a year ago, many Americans remain waiting for a real recovery.
Indeed, outside of manufacturing, Ostrowski noted, corporate earnings and cash-flushed corporate balance sheets, the economic data continues to be soft to mixed, with housing bouncing around a bottom, employment growth almost nonexistent and consumer spending so-so.
“A lot of damage was done by the longest and deepest recession of the post-World War II era, and fixing it is going to take time,” he cautioned. “It doesn’t help that the political environment has turned so toxic that there’s nothing close to a consensus on what to do. Business and the markets hate uncertainty and lack of clarity.” Read the rest of this entry »
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