| CATEGORY: INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES |
US paper round-up: Warren Buffett, AIG, Lehman Brothers |
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Tue 17 Nov 2009
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LONDON (SHARECAST) - Billionaire Warren Buffett's company has bought a nearly $60m stake in ExxonMobil, and has cut holdings in oil rival ConocoPhillips. Berkshire Hathaway also nearly doubled its holdings in Wal-Mart Stores during the latest quarter, says USA Today.
Federal Reserve officials made only a passing attempt to negotiate discounts from the creditors of AIG last fall before directing the company to fully pay what it owed on its troubled derivatives contracts, according to a report from the special inspector general overseeing the government's financial rescue program, writes the Washington Post.
Attorneys representing the estate of Lehman Brothers filed a lawsuit yesterday against Barclays Capital, seeking to claw back as much as $10bn that it claims was transferred to the UK bank last year in the frenzied days following Lehman's bankruptcy, reports the FT.
The troubled auto and home lender GMAC Financial Services said Monday that chief executive Alvaro de Molina is stepping down and that Michael A. Carpenter, a member of the company's board of directors, has been named his successor, according to the Washington Post.
US gripes about China's currency policy are now matched by Chinese complaints that the Federal Reserve's low interest rates are inflating new asset bubbles. "Low interest rates for the U.S. certainly do create problems for the rest of the world. ... There's a very strong temptation for money to flow out of the US and into other countries," says economist Eswar Prasad, a former IMF official, says USA Today.
The US Agriculture Department said the number of households that reported struggling to buy enough food in 2008 jumped 31% over the previous year, writes the Wall Street Journal.
Time Warner made it official: On December 9 it will divorce AOL, closing the book on one of the most disastrous mergers in business history. The media giant will spin off the online operation, turning it into a separate publicly traded company, reports the USA Today.
The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, warned on Monday that high unemployment and a continued reluctance by banks to make loans were likely to slow the economic recovery for the next year, according to the NY Times.
The LA Times adds that the Federal Reserve proposed rules that would protect gift card users from fees and other unexpected restrictions. According to the Fed, more than 95% of Americans have received or bought gift cards.
The US government yesterday charged the main food supplier to troops in Iraq - the recipient of more than $8.5bn in contracts - with systematically overcharging for burgers, chicken and crustaceans, among other products. Unsealing a 60-page federal grand jury indictment against the Kuwait-based group the Public Warehousing Company, the US Department of Justice accused it of six counts of conspiracy concerning "multibillion-dollar contracts issued by the Department of Defense for feeding American troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan", writes the FT.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In a memo sent to employees, the CEO of Allen's investment firm says the 56-year-old Allen received the diagnosis this month and has begun chemotherapy, reports USA Today.
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