Google and Time Warner poised to strike deal on AOL
New York: Google has agreed to buy a 5 per cent stake for US$1bn in AOL, Time Warner's troubled Internet business.

As per the understanding, the world's leading search engine will be given minority shareholders rights that protect its position, allowing it to exit, should Time Warner change its strategy or if AOL should run into trouble. Further details are expected to be announced later in the day, after Time Warner's board meets to formally approve the transaction, which will also see a transformation of Google's simple search strategy.

Time Warner has been holding talks with a group of search engine providers as part of an attempt to extract value from, and drive traffic to, AOL. Last week it opted to do a deal with Google instead of Microsoft.

AOL already uses Google's technology to provide internet search, and may be generating as much as US$500mn in annual revenues for the search engine by some estimates.

As a radical departure from earlier practise, Google is expected to introduce banner ads on its web site for the first time. The ads, to be branded by AOL, will be a major shift for a company that has built its business on a simple home page and low-key advertising which was always easy for surfers to download.

The move has already drawn some criticism, alleging that it may affect the perceived objectivity of the search engine.
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Tokyo Stock Exchange chief quits after series of blunders
Tokyo: Takuo Tsurushima, president of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, resigned yesterday after a series of embarrassing systems errors hitting the exchange, culminating in a botched sell order earlier this month that cost a securities firm an estimated 40bn yen (£200mn).

TSE board members decided to replace Tsurushima, 67, with the chairman, Taizo Nishimuro, who vowed to put his "heart and soul" into rescuing the severely damaged reputation of the exchange.
A series of systems errors have damaged global confidence in the TSE, the world's second-biggest bourse.

On November 1, trading in Tokyo was suspended for all but 90 minutes due to a computer error. The same week another error delayed the opening of the Nagoya exchange. The decisive blow came on December 8 when a trader working for Mizuho Securities mistakenly sold 610,000 shares in the recruiting firm J-Com for ¥1 each.

The firm had meant to sell a single share for ¥610,000. It turned out that the trader tried three times to cancel the sale but was prevented from doing so by a fault in the computer system. As the trade created a trigger effect on the bourse, and around the world, the TSE insisted it was not to blame but later admitted that its computer system had malfunctioned.

Sadao Yoshino, who is responsible for the exchange's computer system, and the TSE's managing director and executive officer, Tomio Amano, will also step down as part of a management shake up.
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Energy company Nexen reports large oil find in Gulf of Mexico
Houston: A consortium of oil companies has reported one of the larger discoveries in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday.

The discovery, known as "Knotty Head", raises hopes in the region for future discoveries in neighboring deepwater plays.

Calgary-based Nexen Energy Inc operates the prospect, located about 170 miles southwest of New Orleans. However, Chevron Corp. led the drilling, while Anadarko Petroleum Corp and BHP Billiton are participants in the project.

Knotty Head could have as much as 450 million barrels of oil, analysts say. The biggest discovery ever in the Gulf is BP Plc 'Thunder Horse', with 1 billion barrels of oil.

The well, which starts 3,500 feet underwater, reached a total depth of 34,189 feet, a record for the Gulf of Mexico. Analysis points to "high quality crude oil in good quality reservoir sands," according to a news release by Nexen, which plans an appraisal well in the first quarter of 2006. A Chevron spokesman said the play was a "significant discovery."

Knotty Head is near another Chevron field, Tahiti, which has about 500 million barrels of oil equivalent, according to a Pickering report.
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