Monday, November 20, 2006

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Natural gas is falling in NY as speculators trim bets amid record inventories and forecasts for a milder-than-normal winter.
- US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said a thicket of accounting and governance rules may pose a risk to the US economy and he plans to host a conference early next year to sort through the issue.
- Evraz Group SA, a steelmaker partly owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich, agreed to buy Oregon Steel Mills(OS) for $2.3 billion, the biggest-ever purchase in the US by a Russian company.
- Boston Properties(BXP), the real estate trust run by billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, agreed to sell 5 Times Square for about $1.28 billion, a record price for a NYC office tower.
- Bank of America(BAC) will buy US Trust, the private-banking unit of Charles Schwab(SCHW), for $3.3 billion in cash to better compete for wealthy clients against Citigroup(C) and JPMorgan(JPM).
- Nasdaq Stocks Market(NDAQ) renewed its bid for London Stock Exchange Group Plc, sweetening an unsolicited offer that values Europe’s biggest equity market at about $5.1 billion.
- The price of zinc, used to galvanize steel, may fall 14% by 2008 as the market moves into “significant” surplus on rising production, Canaccord Adams said.
- Blackstone Alternative Asset Management will begin seeding hedge funds next year.

Wall Street Journal:
- US Airways Group is seeking to gain backing for its $8.67 billion hostile takeover for bankrupt rival Delta Air Lines from bondholders and other creditors who don’t belong to Delta’s creditors committee.
- Shareholder motions at US company annual meetings aimed at limiting executive pay could double in 2007 from this year.
- Walt Disney(DIS) and Mattel(MAT) are among companies facing toy shortages this holiday season because of stronger-than-expected US consumer demand and labor problems in Chinese toy factories.

NY Times:
- Yahoo! and seven US newspaper groups representing 176 publications have agreed to share content, advertising and technology.

AP:
- Iran has invited Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, to a meeting this weekend in Tehran with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to discuss how to stabilize Iraq.

Aftenposten:
- Statoil ASA, Norway’s largest oil company, will double the number of exploration wells it drills this year to about 40 as it hunts for new oil and gas reserves, the company’s CEO said.

La Tribune:
- The French population is ready to accept overhauls in the labor market and the education and pension systems, citing an Ipsos poll.

al-Awsat:
- Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among Arab Gulf states that want Iran to confirm it’s not enriching uranium to develop nuclear weapons.

Corriere della Sera:
- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the sudden withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq would aggravate tensions in the Middle East.

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