GM Puts Brakes on Deal
Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page F02
General Motors, Renault and Nissan called off talks over a possible alliance. GM chief Rick Wagoner said that though a linkup might generate large cost savings, most of the benefit would go to the foreign firms. Carlos Ghosn, chief of Renault and Nissan, rejected GM's demand for billions of dollars in equalization payments. The alliance had been pushed by investor Kirk Kerkorian, who withdrew his lieutenant from the GM board and announced he would buy no additional stock. GM shares fell more than 6 percent Friday.
Charges in HP Spy Case
California's attorney general charged ousted Hewlett-Packard chairman Patricia Dunn and four others with violating privacy rights of reporters and directors while conducting a leak investigation. Also charged with fraud and conspiracy were the company's former chief ethics director and senior lawyer, along with several outside private eyes. Former HP chief executive Carly Fiorina, meanwhile, writes in a new book that there were earlier probes into leaks coming from HP's dysfunctional boardroom.
The New Merger Order
In the latest phase of global merger mania, the little fish are going after the big ones. Ryanair, Ireland's feisty low-cost airline, launched a hostile $1.9 billion bid for the recently privatized national airline, Aer Lingus. The Irish government, which still retains a 28 percent stake in Aer Lingus, was not pleased. And India's Tata Steel, part of the family-run Tata Group, said it was considering a bid for Corus, which was created in 1999 through the merger of the old British Steel and Holland's Hoogovens.
In Russia, Murder and Gas
The chief engineer of BP's Russian joint venture was shot dead while sitting in the sauna of his weekend dacha. The unexplained killing came less than a week after the Russian government threatened to revoke BP's license to develop the giant Kovykta gas fields. Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, and Rosneft, the government-favored oil company, have expressed interest in gaining control of the project. The murder of Enver Ziganshin comes two weeks after the killing of Russia's top banking regulator in Moscow.
U.S. Sweeps Nobel Prizes
The Nobel science prizes were swept by Americans for the first time since 1983. Andrew Fire and Roger Kornberg, of Stanford University, and Craig Mello, of the University of Massachusetts, won for research into the process by which information is transferred -- or not transferred -- from genes to the cells around them. The physics prize went to John Mather, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and George Smoot, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, for confirming the big-bang theory of how the universe began.
U.S. Sweeps Nobel Prizes
The Nobel science prizes were swept by Americans for the first time since 1983. Andrew Fire and Roger Kornberg, of Stanford University, and Craig Mello, of the University of Massachusetts, won for research into the process by which information is transferred -- or not transferred -- from genes to the cells around them. The physics prize went to John Mather, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and George Smoot, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, for confirming the big-bang theory of how the universe began.
