Archive for July, 2007

 
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Isn’t it amazing the amount of money you can make when you’re allowed to discharge some debt and screw your creditors?

Delta Air Lines Inc., the nation’s third-largest carrier, cited a 5.5 percent gain in sales as it reported Wednesday that it swung to a profit in the second quarter, which saw it emerge from bankruptcy after shaving billions of dollars in costs.

The Atlanta-based company’s results beat Wall Street expectations when one-time items are excluded.

For the three months ending June 30, Delta said it recorded net income of $1.77 billion, or $4.49 a share, compared to a loss of $2.21 billion in the same period a year earlier. The corresponding per-share figure for the year-ago loss was not provided in Delta’s balance sheet.

Excluding reorganization and related one-time items, Delta said it had a profit of $274 million, or 70 cents a share, in the second quarter. On a comparable basis, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting a profit of 59 cents a share.

The reorganization and related one-time items Delta accounted for in the second quarter of this year stemmed from $1.5 billion of income primarily due to the discharge of claims and liabilities in connection with its bankruptcy proceedings and the adoption of fresh-start reporting.

The main reason they made money was “primarily due to the discharge of claims and liabilities”. Just think of all the people out there who got shafted. Wow. At least their flight attendants received new uniforms.

I wish I could adopt “fresh-start reporting”, you know, just stop acknowledging that I owed people money.

Damn, I need to incorporate myself.

It seems the Dow Jones board of directors has accepted Rupert Murdoch’s buyout offer. There is no guarantee the Bancroft family will vote to sell, but it does look good for News Corp.

Dow Jones & Co. Inc.’s board of directors on Tuesday accepted a buyout offer from Rupert Murdoch’s News. Corp. and recommended the Bancroft family, which controls 64% of the voting shares, approve the $5 billion deal, according to a Dow Jones statement.

Two members of the 16-member board, Leslie Hill and Dieter von Holtzbrinck, abstained from the vote and Christopher Bancroft, who has been seeking alternatives to Murdoch, left the meeting early, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition.

The Bancrofts were said to be deeply divided and it was impossible to predict if family members would follow the board’s recommendation and vote to sell Dow Jones, according to media reports.

[Source: MarketWatch]

It’s only been one week since the last release of Stuffr, but I thought it would be best to go ahead and release this latest version because a few people have been waiting for Stuffr to support posting excerpts.

Read the rest of this entry »

While Ford may be dumping one of their car businesses, it looks like they may be picking up another one.

Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F – news) plans to invest 675 million euros ($931 million) in Romanian carmaker Automobile Craiova (AUCSxm.BRQ) if it wins a tender to acquire a majority stake in the company, it said on Monday.

Earlier this month, Ford submitted the sole bid in a tendering for a 72.4 percent stake of the plant in a sale which the centrist government hopes to wrap up by September 1.

“If the Ford bid is successful, the company would commit to investing 675 million euros in the site to upgrade and modernize the plant in line with global Ford Motor Company standards,” Ford said in a statement.

I don’t know, maybe it’s me, but I think I’ve seen many more Volvos on the road than Craiovas. What about you? I didn’t even know they made cars in Romania.

So, is this going to be effective, or is this just last minute noise making?

Christopher Bancroft, part of the family that controls Dow Jones, is trying to block a takeover by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., a source familiar with the situation said on Monday, confirming a story reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Bancroft has recently approached hedge funds and private equity firms, hoping to buy enough voting shares of Dow Jones to give him the power to thwart a sale, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site, citing people familiar with the matter.

Bancroft is trying to buy more “supervoting” shares from other Bancroft heirs who may be ready to sell their stakes but share his distaste for handing the family legacy to Murdoch, the Journal said.

He, his siblings, his neice, and their children control about 1/3 of the Bancroft family shares in Dow Jones. The Bancroft family controls 64% of the company’s voting power. Does he have the resources to pull this off? If so, Murdoch isn’t going to be happy, that’s for sure.

I love blogging. I have been doing it for over ten years, and I love it just as much today as I did ten years ago (especially because the software makes it a hell of a lot easier to do these days).

Blogging has always helped me “relate” to the world outside my door, and now it’s going to help me “relate” to some of the bills that have been stacking up. You see, I have joined Smorty, a service that connects advertisers to bloggers, and I will get paid to blog on the topics I choose to accept from the service.

Don’t worry, the overall content won’t be changing, but I might add a few personal reflections to some of the posts from time to time, if that’s alright with you.

I never knew I could make money blogging or that there would ever come a time when people could blog for money. It’s incredible really. I’ll continue blogging about the business topics I think are interesting to you, and even make a few bucks for coffee and biscotti from time to time.

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It’s all still at the rumor level, but Ford might be dumping Volvo. Although, with this speculation, shares in Volvo went up by five percent, so who knows, right?

Ford Motor Co. is considering selling its Volvo Cars business as it assesses the future of its European operations, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

The review of Volvo was still at a very early stage and may not result in a sale, the source told Reuters, adding that Ford had so far not hired financial advisers for the operation.

“Ford is not in discussions with any company to sell Volvo, however we are continuing to assess options for all our operations,” a London-based spokesman for Ford said, while declining to comment further.

It sounds like Ford is pretty confident with their future. Remember, it was less than a year ago that Ford was offering buyouts to all of their hourly employees.

It seems Energizer is going to purchase Playtex.

Battery and razor maker Energizer Holdings Inc. (NYSE:ENR – PYX – news) in an all-cash deal worth about $1.16 billion to grow Energizer’s personal care product range.

St Louis-based Energizer will pay $18.30 a share — and assume the debt — for Playtex, which makes leading sun-screen products like Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic. Playtex also markets a range of other feminine care and infant care products.

The deal offers shareholders of Playtex a premium of 17.9 percent to Playtex’s closing price of $15.52 on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. The deal value of $1.16 billion is based on 63.46 million shares outstanding as of April 30, according to a recent regulatory filing.

For some reason batteries and female products seem like a really good fit.