News Archive - 14 August 2015

>No terms could be obtained for the deal but The Rohatyn Group, which invests about $5 billion exclusively in emerging market assets, has realized roughly $2 billion in value over the last 12 months, the source said.BNP was not immediately available to comment. The fund has had an internal...

>Spectra Energy Corp (SE.N), an oil and natural gas pipeline company, is bidding for the whole of Williams Companies Inc (WMB.N), even though its market capitalization is about half that of Williams, people familiar with the matter said. Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Williams decided to put itself on the auction...

>NEW YORK Jeffrey Gundlach's DoubleLine Capital is bidding to buy San Francisco-based fund manager RS Investments, in a move that would build the firm's equity offerings, two sources told Reuters on Friday.DoubleLine and Cleveland-based Victory Capital are among a handful of bidders for RS Investments, in a deal that...

>The endorsement could give Clinton a significant boost as she seeks to woo labor, even as her main Democratic rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has eroded her edge in opinion polls and has himself landed the endorsement of National Nurses United, the nation's largest organization of nurses.The union,...

>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson on Friday canceled the state's contracts with Planned Parenthood, making his the third Southern state to do so since anti-abortion activists released a series of videos that they say suggests the organization sells fetal tissue."It is apparent that after the recent revelations...

>WASHINGTON Facing accusations that it cannot adequately protect the White House, the U.S. Secret Service plans to hire 1,100 more officers and agents for an agency besieged by embarrassing scandals and security lapses, two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the plans said.The addition of 700 uniformed...

>Uber Technologies Inc on Thursday won the dismissal of a racketeering lawsuit by 15 Connecticut taxi and limousine companies seeking to stop the ride-sharing company from doing business in the state.U.S. District Judge Alvin Thompson in Hartford said the plaintiffs failed to show that Uber competed unfairly, tried...

>NEW YORK/SEOUL Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) unveiled a new Galaxy Note phablet and a larger version of its curved-screen S6 edge smartphone on Thursday, marking a fresh bid by the South Korean company to revive momentum in its handset business.Samsung is the world's top smartphone maker but...

>SAN FRANCISCO Beginning more than a decade ago, one of the largest security companies in the world, Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, tried to damage rivals in the marketplace by tricking their antivirus software programs into classifying benign files as malicious, according to two former employees.They said the secret campaign targeted...

>SEOUL North Korea on Saturday demanded that the South halt anti-North propaganda broadcasts via loudspeakers along the border or face military action, a day after it denied Seoul's accusation that it planted landmines that wounded two South Korean soldiers.Tension on the Korean peninsula has escalated since the landmine explosion...

>TOKYO Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent an offering to a shrine for war dead on Saturday, the 70th anniversary of Japan's World War Two defeat, but had not made a personal visit to the shrine, seen in China and South Korea as a symbol of Tokyo's wartime militarism.The premier...

>HAVANA U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for political change in Cuba on Friday, telling Cubans they should be free to choose their own leaders, as he watched the U.S. flag fly at the American embassy in Havana for the first time in 54 years. Leading a...

>NEW YORK Equities on world bourses ended the week lower on Friday after China's currency devaluation on Tuesday shook investors, though volatility declined late in the week, suggesting markets had absorbed Beijing's surprising actions.For the week, the MSCI All World Index fell 0.4 percent, its second consecutive weekly...

>WASHINGTON U.S. industrial output advanced at its strongest pace in eight months in July as auto production surged, another bullish sign for third-quarter economic growth that boosts the prospects of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike next month.While other data on Friday showed a dip in consumer sentiment...

>NEW YORK Investors will comb through Wednesday's minutes of the most recent Federal Reserve meeting for indications on how the U.S. central bank will react to the recent yuan devaluation and the further decline in oil prices. The recent outperformance of bank stocks and underperformance of utilities, both on...

>BRUSSELS General Electric (GE.N) is expected to secure EU approval for its proposed 12.4-billion-euro ($13.8 billion) bid for French peer Alstom's (ALSO.PA) power business, its largest ever deal, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday.The green light from the European Commission will come...

>BRUSSELS/ATHENS Euro zone finance ministers agreed on Friday to lend Greece up to 86 billion euros ($96 billion) after Greek lawmakers accepted their stiff conditions despite a revolt by supporters of leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Assuming approval by the German and other parliaments, 13 billion euros should be in...

>U.S. stocks ended a volatile week higher on Friday after upbeat U.S. economic data and as euro zone finance ministers agreed to launch a third bailout program for Greece.All three major indexes also ended the week with slight gains, bouncing back from losses earlier in the week...