Colombia's Argos wants fair price for Andino unit

(Reuters) - It is the first time that the Chavez government has
nationalized a Colombian company as part of the president's
self-styled socialist revolution.




"We hope to to get a fair price from the Venezuelan
government," a statement from Argos said.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

US STOCKS-Wall St tumbles on credit worries after Bear talks

(Reuters) - NEW YORK, Aug 3 - U.S. stocks slid sharply on
Friday after Bear Stearns said credit markets were in their
worst shape in two decades, while jobs data aroused further
concerns about weakness in the economy.




Bear Stearns Cos. stock fell 6 percent after the
comments from its chief financial officer, which exacerbated
mortgage jitters and drove the three major indexes down more
than 2 percent in a broad market sell-off.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

US STOCKS-Indexes end down sharply on credit fears

(Reuters) - All three indexes dropped more than 2 percent. For the
week, the Dow was down 0.7 percent, the S&P 500 was down 1.8
percent and the Nasdaq was down 2 percent.




Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones
industrial average fell 284.84 points, or 2.12 percent,
to unofficially end at 13,178.49. The Standard & Poor's 500
Index was down 39.39 points, or 2.68 percent, to finish
unofficially at 1,432.81. The Nasdaq Composite Index
was down 64.73 points, or 2.51 percent, to close unofficially
at 2,511.25.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Berkshire Hathaway 2nd-qtr profit rises 33 pct

(Reuters) - Operating profit, excluding gains from investments and derivatives, rose 22 percent to $2.51 billion, or $1,625 per share, from $2.05 billion, or $1,331.




Analysts on average had expected profit of $1,460 per share, according to Reuters Estimates.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Chicago bidder for Cubs has powerful group-sources

(Reuters) - John Canning Jr., chairman of Madison Dearborn Partners and
owner of an 11 percent stake in the Milwaukee Brewers baseball
team, has formed a bidding group of which he would be a
controlling partner, the sources said.




The Cubs are being sold by media group Tribune Co
and analysts have said a deal for the club, Wrigley Field and
cable assets could top $1 billion.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

Citigroup muni chief to serve as next MSRB chairman

(Reuters) - Chin has headed Citigroup's public finance department since
1993. He will succeed John Lawlor, who runs the municipal
markets group at Merrill Lynch & Co. .




O'Brien has been a national syndicate manager at Morgan
Stanley's tax-exempt department since 1996. He will succeed
James Rogers, chief operating officer of J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L.
Lyons, Inc.


Read more at Reuters.com Government Filings News

Death toll rises from Minneapolis bridge collapse

(Reuters) - Rescuers spent an entire day extracting the fifth fatality
from under mounds of debris, Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack
said. He said another victim had died in a hospital, but the
local coroner did not confirm either death.




"It took 20 people all day to get the person out. There was
tons of debris," Clack said.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

US STOCKS-Mortgage fallout, economic data weigh on Wall St

(Reuters) - NEW YORK, Aug 3 - U.S. stocks fell on Friday, as
worries about mortgage losses deepened after a ratings agency
cut its outlook on investment bank Bear Stearns Cos.'
debt, and data suggested weakness in the economy.




Standard & Poor's said it changed its ratings outlook on
Bear Stearns, the biggest U.S. underwriter of mortgage bonds,
to "negative" from "stable," indicating there is a better
chance of a downgrade over the next two years. For details,
see [ID:nN03300207].


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

US credit derivative index wider in nervous market

(Reuters) - "Headlines are driving the market; it still feels very
jittery, very nervous," said Arthur Tetyevsky, chief U.S.
credit strategist at HSBC in New York.




"We're still substantially wider than where we were a
couple of weeks back but the chaotic trading we saw early on in
the week seems to be fading a little bit," Tetyevsky said.
"We've really recovered a lot of the widening this week and
it's been a rollercoaster week."


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

US STOCKS-Rising fears of mortgage losses drive indexes down

(Reuters) - NEW YORK, Aug 3 - U.S. stocks slid sharply on
Friday, with fears about mortgage losses intensifying after
Bear Stearns' chief financial officer said
fixed-income market turmoil was worse than the Internet
bubble, and as jobs data suggested weakness in the economy.




Bear Stearns' shares fell 6 percent as mortgage jitters
drove a sell-off among financial shares. Earlier, Standard &
Poor's changed its ratings outlook on the investment bank, the
biggest U.S. underwriter of mortgage bonds, to "negative" from
"stable."


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

KDP expands research offerings into leveraged loans

(Reuters) - But the leveraged loan market is not going away and
investors will now be hungrier for information about the
quality of these securities, KDP President Kingman Penniman
said.




"The loan market since 2003 has quadrupled almost every
year and is now the same size as the high-yield bond market,"
Penniman said. "There's a lot of paper out there and will
continue to be."


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Charter, Ditech, Health Management, Washington Post: U.S. Equity Movers

(Bloomberg) -- The following is a list of companies
whose shares are having unusual price changes in U.S. exchanges
today. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names.
Share prices are as of 2:40 p.m. in New York.

Alkermes Inc. (ALKS US) rose the most since August 2004,
climbing $2.21, or 15 percent, to $16.99. The maker of a once-
monthly injection to treat alcoholism reported profit of 8 cents
a share in the fiscal first quarter. That beat the 4-cent average
estimate from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.


Read more at Bloomberg Stocks News

Telcos pick up pace of video expansion

(Reuters) - NEW YORK, Aug 3 - Top U.S. telecom carriers are attracting more subscribers to their nascent video services, with Verizon Communications Inc. finally gaining a critical mass to compete against cable rivals. While still losing customers to cable companies -- which made a head start in offering all-in-one "bundles" of video, Internet and phone services -- AT&T Inc. and Verizon are fighting back, the latest quarterly earnings reports showed. Verizon added 167,000 subscribers to its FiOS TV service in the second quarter, taking the total to 515,000, according to its quarterly report on Monday. That compared with 141,000 additions in the first quarter and showed that the roll-out, which began in September 2005, was picking up momentum.



"They're gaining a critical mass of subscribers," said A.G. Edwards analyst Kent Custer, adding that investors were more supportive now of the high cost of the all-fiber-optic network that Verizon is building. "The proof is in the pudding now."


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

Wells Fargo, Wachovia Reduce Home-Mortgage Lending Amid `Credit Crunch'

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. mortgage lenders including Wells
Fargo & Co. and Wachovia Corp. are raising rates and imposing
stricter standards on some of their most creditworthy borrowers as
slumping demand in the mortgage bond market chokes off funding.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, the second-biggest U.S. home
lender, stopped issuing Alt-A loans through brokers, made to
borrowers with near-prime credit ratings or prime borrowers who
don't document income. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia,
the fourth-largest U.S. bank, also stopped making Alt-A loans
through brokers and smaller lenders and curtailed some adjustable
rate mortgages, spokeswoman Christy Phillips-Brown said.


Read more at Bloomberg Bonds News

MBK Offers to Buy C&M for $3.2 Billion in Korea's Biggest LBO, Bankers Say

(Bloomberg) -- MBK Partners Ltd., the South Korean
private equity group founded by former Carlyle Group executives,
offered 3 trillion won ($3.2 billion) for cable-TV operator C&M,
said two bankers who were asked to provide financing.

The Seoul-based buyout company wants to borrow as much as 2
trillion won to pay for closely held C&M, South Korea's second-
biggest cable-TV operator, said the bankers, who declined to be
identified because the bid hasn't been disclosed. The purchase
would include New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s 30.5
percent stake, they said.


Read more at Bloomberg Bonds News

PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - Aug 3

(Reuters) - * China's high-profile investment in the Blackstone Group
LP has produced an unusual backlash within China as
shares in the equity firm have dropped steeply since it went
public in June.




* Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. , the video
game publisher, said on Thursday that it was postponing the
release of the latest game in its wildly popular Grand Theft
Auto series. The delay is likely to have ripple effects on the
broader video game industry during its crucial holiday selling
season.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

Investors Bancorp, Summit Federal announce merger deal

(Reuters) - This will be followed by the merger of Summit Federal
Savings Bank into Investors Savings Bank, with Investors
Savings Bank surviving.





Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

REFILE-UPDATE 2-Bear Stearns, brokers debt protection costs rise

(Reuters) - NEW YORK, Aug 3 - The cost to insure the debt of
Bear Stearns Cos. jumped on Friday after Standard &
Poor's changed its outlook on the investment bank's debt to
negative, indicating it is more likely to be cut over the next
one to two years.




Recent developments, including problems at some of Bear
Stearns' managed hedge funds, have the potential to hurt the
company's performance for an "extended period," S&P said in a
statement. For details, see [ID:nN03300207]


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

Telus to abandon BCE pursuit: report

(Reuters) - BCE, which is Canada's largest telecommunications group, has accepted an offer worth C$34.8 billion from a group including the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.




Since pulling out of bidding, Telus had been lobbying regulators and meeting the Canadian Competition Bureau, hoping to get some guidance before BCE held its shareholder vote, the paper reported, citing unnamed sources.


Read more at Reuters.com Government Filings News

IKB subprime shockwaves continue to rattle Germany

(Reuters) - German commercial property financier Hypo Real Estate struggled to calm jittery investors by insisting it would be unaffected by the U.S. subprime fallout.




Its shares skidded more than 6 percent while Commerzbank -- which owns a property financier -- saw its stock fall over 4 percent.


Read more at Reuters.com Government Filings News

Dollar tumbles on credit worries

(Reuters) - The slowest rate of job growth since February and a deterioration in a U.S. service sector index for July triggered the dollar's sell-off, while declines in equities led by financial stocks took the greenback further south.




"It's a sell U.S. day today," said Brian Dolan, director of currency research at Forex.com in Bedminster, New Jersey.


Read more at Reuters.com Hot Stocks News

Bear Stearns says S&P outlook change unwarranted

(Reuters) - "S&P's specific concerns over issues relating to certain hedge funds managed by are unwarranted as these were isolated incidents and are by no means an indication of broader issues at Bear Stearns," the company said.




S&P earlier on Friday changed its outlook on Bear's debt to "negative" from "stable," which means it is more likely to cut Bear's ratings over the next year or two.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

Brazilian company to rebuild crucial Angola dam

(Reuters) - Brazilian company Odebrecht is set to rebuild a crucial hydroelectric dam in Angola, raising hopes that foreign investment will boost an electricity industry battered by civil war, a state official said on Thursday.

The $158 million, 20-month project approved by the Angolan cabinet on Wednesday, has raised hopes that businesses in the southern region stand to benefit from investment.


Read more at Reuters Africa

S.Africa's c.bank governor says household debt costs to bite

(Reuters) - South Africa's central bank Governor Tito Mboweni warned on Friday that rising debt services costs were going to bite, and repeated calls for consumers to be careful about acquiring credit.

Official data last week showed growth in demand for credit by South Africa's private sector quicked to 24.92 percent year-on-year in June from 24.84 percent, hardening the case for higher interest rates later this month.


Read more at Reuters Africa

India Tata Steel to buy 35 pct in Mozambique project

(Reuters) - India's top private steel maker Tata Steel Ltd. said on Friday it would spend A$100 million to buy a 35 percent stake in a Mozambique coal project run by Australia's Riversdale Mining Ltd..

Tata Steel, which bought Anglo-Dutch Corus for $12.9 billion this year to become the world's sixth-largest steel maker, said it would source coking coal from the project for Corus' plants in the U.K. and Europe, and for Tata's Indian units.


Read more at Reuters Africa

S.Africa artisans' union gets coal strike permission

(Reuters) - South African union Solidarity has received a certificate that allows it to launch a strike in the coal mining industry, the union said on Friday.

South African coal industry sources said that because Solidarity represents artisans or skilled workers, a strike by Solidarity would be likely to have more impact on coal production than that by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) which represents mostly unskilled workers.


Read more at Reuters Africa

July job growth slowest since February

(Reuters) - In another sign of slowing growth, the Institute for Supply Management reported signs of a weakening service sector as its index of July activity fell to 55.8 from 60.7 in June. Any reading over 50 indicates growth.




Problems in the housing sector, where lenders are encountering difficulties with rising mortgage defaults and prices are declining in many metro markets, appeared to spread into hiring as construction businesses cut jobs.


Read more at Reuters.com Economic News

Toyota profit jumps on sales rise

(Reuters) - Toyota, the world's biggest and most profitable automaker, left its cautious annual forecasts unchanged, as expected.




The Japanese firm, valued at $215 billion -- more than 10 times the market capitalization of U.S. rival General Motors Corp. -- is on its way to a seventh straight year of record earnings, powered by a rapid expansion into developing markets such as China and Russia.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

RBS profits up 11 percent

(Reuters) - The bank said income grew 8 percent to 14.7 billion pounds and costs as a percentage of revenue improved to 41.4 percent from 41.9 percent.




Profits in its U.S. banking arm Citizens fell 7 percent in sterling terms to 752 million pounds, but operating profit was up 2 percent before the impact of the weak dollar.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

Jean Coutu reports fourth-quarter loss

(Reuters) - TORONTO, Aug 3 - Canadian drug store chain Jean Coutu Group reported a loss for its fourth quarter on Friday as charges related to the sale of its U.S. network to Rite Aid Corp. hurt results. The company said it had a loss of $6.9 million, or 3 cents a share, in the quarter. That is down from a profit of $30.3 million, or 12 cents a share, in the same period last year.



Jean Coutu closed the sale of its U.S. Brooks and Eckerd chains to Rite Aid in early June for $2.36 billion in cash and and 250 million shares of Rite Aid.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

UPDATE 1-Fortis EPS hurt by Terasen purchase

(Reuters) - The company said it earned C$41.5 million ,
or 27 Canadian cents a share diluted, for the quarter ended
June 30, compared with C$37.9 million, or 35 Canadian cents a
share, for the same quarter last year.




The company said its May acquisition of British
Columbia-based natural gas distributor Terasen, which it funded
partially with a C$1.15 billion common share issue, diluted its
profit on an earnings per share basis.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

UPDATE 2-Costs, charges drag Telus profit down 29 pct

(Reuters) - TORONTO, Aug 3 - Telus Corp. , Canada's No.
2 phone company, said on Friday that second-quarter profit sank
29 percent as costs of a new billing system, the introduction
of wireless number portability and the failed launch of the
Amp'd Mobile service combined to hurt results.




Net earnings declined to C$253.1 million ,
or 75 Canadian cents a diluted share, from a profit of C$356.6
million, or C$1.02 a share, a year earlier.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

Asian Fish, Tainted With Drugs, Slip Past U.S. Inspectors, States Discover

(Bloomberg) -- Joseph Basile, an Alabama state
scientist, drops a frozen catfish filet into an industrial food
processor and pulverizes it into a fluffy white powder.

The grinding in a laboratory in Montgomery is part of a test
of imported seafood for drugs that U.S. regulators say can cause
cancer or increase resistance to antibiotics. Alabama officials
have reported finding banned medicines missed by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration in seafood from China, Vietnam and other
Asian countries.


Read more at Bloomberg Exclusive News

Polish Zloty Set for Weekly Gain as Investors' Appetite for Risk Revives

(Bloomberg) -- The Polish zloty was poised for a
weekly gain, advancing to an eight-day high against the euro as
investors regained their appetite for emerging-market assets.

Investors resumed buying stocks and higher-yielding
currencies such as the zloty, the Turkish lira and the South
African rand as concern abated that losses on U.S. subprime
mortgages would slow global economic growth.


Read more at Bloomberg Currencies News

Democrats Split U.S. Power Industry in Drive to Promote Renewable Energy

(Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has split
the nation's largest utilities such as American Electric Power
Co. from their government-owned counterparts in a drive for votes
to mandate more renewable energy.

The Democratic proposal to force publicly traded power
companies to get 15 percent of their supplies from wind, solar
and other renewable sources by 2020 is likely to have only a
narrow margin if it succeeds. The House may vote on the plan as
soon as today. A similar measure that failed in the Senate in
June included municipal utilities, rural cooperatives and
government power agencies that are excluded from the new bill.


Read more at Bloomberg Energy News

Gazprom, Belarus still in gas talks as deadline slips

(Reuters) - If the dispute escalates further, it has the potential to
disrupt gas supplies to Europe.




"Beltransgas's delegation arrived for talks yesterday, the
talks were held in the night and are still continuing. Gazprom
will give information on the first results at around 1100 ," a Gazprom spokesman told Reuters.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Futures turn negative on employment report

(Reuters) - Investors were bracing for data on the vast U.S. services sector at 10 a.m. ET.




Financial companies' shares were dragging after American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. said it plans to close most operations on Friday and lay off nearly 7,000 employees.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

TREASURIES-Bonds rise as jobs come in on the soft side

(Reuters) - Benchmark 10-year notes rose 3/32 in price for
a yield of 4.76 percent from 4.77 percent late Thursday.




Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

GLOBAL MARKETS-US jobs data hit stocks, dollar, boost bonds

(Reuters) - LONDON, Aug 3 - Stocks and the dollar fell while
safe-haven government bonds rallied on Friday after
weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs data fanned concerns about a U.S.
economy already struggling with credit liquidity fears.




U.S. stock futures pointed to a weaker open on Wall Street
while European stocks moved deeper in negative territory
after data showed U.S. employers boosted payrolls in July at the
slowest pace since February, adding 92,000 jobs.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Germany's DAX Falls; Hypo Real Estate, Depfa Drop; Deutsche Post Advances

(Bloomberg) -- German stocks fell, led by Hypo Real
Estate Holding AG, on speculation the commercial property lender
may be affected by losses in the U.S. subprime mortgage market.

Deutsche Post AG advanced after the company reported
earnings that beat analyst estimates.


Read more at Bloomberg Stocks News