Archive for the Business Category

Ex-Yahoo executive to join LinkedIn

Jeff Weiner, former senior Yahoo executive, has joined the leading professional social networking site LinkedIn, completing a senior management upheaval that has also seen founder Reid Hoffman return to the chief executive’s chair

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Chrysler to shut all plants for a month

Chrysler said it would shut all 30 of its plants for at least a month in the latest sign of the growing travails of the US auto industry

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Court imposes curfew on Madoff

Bernard Madoff, the New York broker accused of perpetrating an alleged $50bn fraud, was placed under home detention with electronic monitoring by a US judge

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SEC under pressure over crisis detection

In an extraordinary admission, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission is blaming his own agency for missing chances, over a period of at least a decade, to detect what could be the world’s biggest fraud

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Constellation agrees to $4.5bn EDF deal

Constellation Energy opted for the risks of an independent future over the certainty of ownership by US billionaire Warren Buffett after agreeing to sell 50 per cent of its nuclear business to its biggest shareholder, EDF of France, for $4.5bn.

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SEC chief admits to failures in Madoff case

Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has called for an investigation of his own agency, saying there were previous multiple failures to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by Bernard Madoff

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Morgan Stanley posts $2.2bn quarterly loss

A ‘savage’ downturn in markets in November plunged Morgan Stanley into a bigger-than-expected $2.2bn loss in the fourth quarter, as the bank’s trading, advisory and prime brokerage operations were hit hard

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Santander blocks fund website

Santander, Spain’s biggest bank, has blocked public access to the website of its Optimal hedge fund management arm after telling investors in a US equities subfund they face potential losses of €2.33bn ($3.29bn) in the allegedly fraudulent securities operation run by Bernard Madoff in New York.

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Motorola slashes pension benefits

The struggling electronics company’s move adds to a growing list of US companies that have retreated on pension promises as the slumping economy has put pressure on finances

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HSBC’s subprime risk

HSBC has done well to style itself as the great subprime survivor. But the world’s biggest bank is less exceptional than it thinks

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