VENEZUELA
Wednesday, May 2, 2007; Page D08
VENEZUELA
Last Private Oil Fields Seized
President Hugo Ch?vez's government took over Venezuela's last privately run oil fields, intensifying a power struggle with international companies over the world's largest known petroleum deposit.
  The Venezuelan government's seizure of the country's last private oil fields intensifies a power struggle over the world's largest known petroleum deposit. (By Fernando Llano -- Associated Press) |
While the state takeover had been planned, BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, France's Total and Norway's Statoil remain at odds with Ch?vez's government over the terms under which they will stay on as minority partners.
LEGAL
Countrywide Agrees to Offer
Countrywide, Britain's largest real estate brokerage, said it agreed to an improved buyout offer from private-equity firm Apollo Management that values the business at $2.2 billion.
The company said it had received another offer from an unidentified bidder. But the Polygon hedge fund, one of Countrywide's largest shareholders with about a 30 percent stake, said it would accept Apollo's proposal.
The acquisition of Countrywide will give New York-based Apollo about 1,200 agencies across Britain and the country's largest valuations and property surveying business at a time of fast-rising house prices.
AUTOMOTIVE
Parts Maker in Union Talks
Magna International, the Canadian auto parts maker considering a bid for Chrysler, is in talks with Canadian and U.S. auto unions that could add as many as 30,000 members to their ranks, the Canadian union's leader said.
The negotiations would make the United Auto Workers and the Canadian Auto Workers the sole bargaining agents for Magna's hourly employees in those countries, said Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian union.
LEGAL
ABN Investor Files Suit
An ABN Amro Holding shareholder sued to stop the bank's $88 billion takeover by Barclays, saying chief executive Rijkman Groenink and other company executives breached their duty to investors.
The proposed class action, filed April 27 by Halpert Enterprises in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, came as ABN, the biggest Dutch bank, asked a group led by Royal Bank of Scotland Group how it plans to finance a proposed $98.5 billion counter-offer.
Halpert accuses Groenink and other executives of breaching their duty by arranging the sale of ABN's LaSalle Bank of Chicago to Bank of America for $21 billion in an effort to discourage competing bids, including from the Royal Bank group.
Compiled from reports by Washington Post staff writers, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News.
