Delphi gets help from five investors
General Motors' largest auto parts supplier and former subsidiary Delphi Corp will receive $3.4 billion from five investment firms to help it emerge from bankruptcy.

The investors, led by Cerberus Capital Management LP and Appaloosa Management LP, may end up with 30 percent to 70 percent of Delphi's common and preferred stock. GM will take a 5.2 percent stake in its former subsidiary.

The agreement sets off a six-week countdown for Delphi, its unions and GM to break a stalemate on wage cuts. GM's chief executive officer Rick Wagoner said resolving the Delphi situation is one of his top priorities.

Harbinger Capital Partners, Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS Securities LLC will also invest, Troy, Michigan-based Delphi said in a statement today.

The accord also helps preserve workers' pension benefits, creates a timetable for leadership changes and prescribes how Delphi's directors will be chosen after the company's planned exit from court protection in mid-2007.

GM's shares rose 4 cents to $29.30 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have risen 51 percent since the start of the year. Delphi shares dropped 64 cents to $2.66 in over-the-counter trading.
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Undersea cables to link China and US directly
Six telecoms operators from China, South Korea and the United States have formed a consortium to jointly lay a new fibre-optic submarine cable costing about $500 million that will directly link China to the United States.

The cable is expected to ease the strain on internet networks caused by rapid growth in the number of users in China and the US.

The new cable will be able to support 62 million simultaneous phone calls, more than 60 times the overall capacity of the existing one linking the US and China.

Under the deal, Chinese mainland operators China Telecom, China Netcom, China Unicom, Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom, Korea Telecom (KT) and Verizon Business in the United States will build the cable called Trans-Pacific Express (TPE).

It will be the first undersea cable directly crossing the Pacific connecting China and the US. Currently, internet data between the two countries has to be routed via Japan, which causes traffic delays.
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Oracle earnings rise less than expected
New York: Oracle has reported income of $967 million, or 18 cents per share, for the second quarter ended Nov. 30. Excluding certain items, earnings were up 18 percent from a year earlier to 22 cents a share. Analysts had expected the company's earnings to rise to 22 cents a share.

However, the company's shares fell nearly 3 percent following the news on expectations that the company would deliver another round of impressive results as it did in the previous quarter.

Fears have surfaced on Wall Street recently that the company's flagship database business is headed for a slowdown. Recently, Oracle stock dipped 5 percent after a Lehman Brothers analyst noted that sales of its database software might miss expectations when the company reported its earnings.
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