Dubai Ports thwarts PSAs bid for P&O with £4bn offer
London, UK: Dubai's DP World came back strongly with a new offer of 520p-a-share, worth £3.92bn, to buy the British ports group P&O last night, trumping a 470p-a-share bid from rival PSA, worth £3.5bn. The new offer found immediate backing from the P&O board which reversed its earlier backing for the PSA offer and backed DP World's new one.

PSA's offer, worth 470p a share, had trumped an earlier agreed bid from DP World pitched at 443p a share last year.

The DP World bid now comes at a hefty 71 per cent premium to the P&O share price and still leaves the possibility of a continued bidding war, as both the companies, DP World and PSA re state-owned entities

P&O, which owns ports around the world, is the last independent player in the sector. The industry is led by Hong Kong's Hutchison, with a 13 per cent market share, followed by PSA with 9 per cent, Denmark's AP Moeller with 7 per cent and P&O with 5 per cent. A takeover of P&O would enable PSA to overtake Hutchison for the top slot. The acquisition of P&O by DP World would, in turn, make it the No 3 player and pose a threat to PSA's ambitions.

P&O has 29 ports, including key assets in the fast-growing Asian economies.
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G.M. reports US$8.6bn loss for 2005 - worst since 1992
Detroit, USA: G.M., on Thursday, reported an US$8.6bn loss for 2005, rounding off one of the worst weeks in the American car manufacturing centre's recent memory. On Monday, Ford Motor had announced it's restructuring plan, which calls for closing 14 plants and eliminating 30,000 jobs in the next six years.

G.M.'s loss, which translated to $15.13 a share, was it's biggest since 1992, when the company's board of directors tossed out its management team and installed new executives, including the current chief, Rick Wagoner.

G.M. shares fell 80 cents on Thursday to close at $23.05.
G.M.'s North American auto business alone lost more than US$5bn last year, hit hard by a slump in sales of the big sport utility vehicles on which G.M. depends heavily. The company sold 150,000 fewer large S.U.V.'s in 2005 than in 2004, cutting deeply into profits. As a result, G.M.'s market share fell to the lowest level since 1925.

Also, despite years of cost-cutting, G.M.'s spending on employee and retiree health care rose in 2005, inspite of an agreement with the United Automobile Workers union aimed at reducing that expense.

Meanwhile, competition from foreign auto companies like Toyota has intensified, who now hold just over 43 per cent of the American market in 2005, their highest share ever. Meanwhile, Toyota has earned US$11bn in the year that ended in March 2005, and it expects to exceed that when it closes its fiscal year in two months.

G.M.'s $4.8 billion loss in the fourth quarter was its fifth consecutive quarterly loss.
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Struggling First Data Corp. to spin off Western Union
Denver: Western Union, a global money transfer business with a history that predates the American Civil War, will be spun off this year by its parent First Data Corp. First Data said Thursday that the move will allow it to focus more on its struggling financial card-issuing and business financial services units. The new Western Union would have revenue of about US$4bn a year with a comfortable profit growth projected in 2006.

The move is expected to create efficiencies by allowing Western Union to focus on consumers and First Data to focus on businesses, the company said.

"We believe a separate Western Union will maximize shareholder value both in the short term and the long term by creating an independent company," First Data chief executive officer Ric Duques told analysts during a conference call.

If the spinoff is accomplished, First Data would be left with three key units: commercial services, with about US$3.8bn in revenue; financial institution services, US$1.9bn in revenue; and international, with nearly US$1bn in revenue.

Western Union was founded as a telegraph company in 1851 and built its first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861. In 1994, Western Union Financial Services was acquired by First Financial Management Corp. which combined with First Data the following year. Duques, 62, was First Data's CEO from 1992 until 2002, and chairman from 1992 until 2003 when he retired.
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Guidant accepts Boston Scientific's offer as J&J opts out
Indianapolis, USA: Guidant, the troubled maker of medical devices, accepted Boston Scientific's offer on Wednesday, ending a fierce and dramatic bidding war between Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson. Boston Scientific's bid topped Johnson & Johnson's final offer of US$24.2bn by about 12 per cent.

But while the offer may fetch it more money, it runs additional risks, because it will take at least until the end of March to finalize, two months longer than the Johnson & Johnson deal, which had been set to close next week. In this period Guidant runs the risk that more problems could surface at its troubled defibrillator and pacemaker division and possibly throw another spanner into the works.

Johnson & Johnson conceded defeat Wednesday morning in its 13-month effort to buy the Indianapolis medical device maker. Facing a midnight Tuesday deadline of responding to Boston Scientific's $80 bid, Johnson & Johnson said it decided not to budge from its final offer of $71 a share because "to do so would not have been in the best interest of its shareholders."

Guidant said its directors unanimously endorsed Boston Scientific's US$80-a-share offer, payable in US$42 cash and US$38 in stock.
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