The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- AT&T drops $39 bln bid to buy T-Mobile USA
- Apple wins U.S. trade body patent ruling vs. HTC
- Bank of America shares close below $5
| AT&T drops $39 bln bid to buy T-Mobile USA Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:24 PM PST NEW YORK REUTERS - AT&T said it had agreed with Deutsche Telekom to drop its $39 billion bid to buy the German company's U.S. wireless unit amid increasing regulatory obstacles to the planned deal. AT&T said in a statement on Monday that it will enter a roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom. AT&T's plan to buy T-Mobile USA, first announced in March, has met with opposition from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. In late November AT&T said it would take a $4 billion charge in case the deal collapsed, including a $1 billion book value for the spectrum AT&T would have to give to T-Mobile USA. The charge is part of a break-up fee agreement, giving Deutsche Telekom a cash payment of $3 billion, roaming services agreement and a package of mobile licences for T-Mobile USA. Deutsche Telekom said it will return to reporting T-Mobile USA as part of its continuing operations and that its group forecast for 2011 of an expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of around 19.1 billion euros would remained unchanged. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Apple wins U.S. trade body patent ruling vs. HTC Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:21 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc scored a narrow victory against Taiwan's HTC Corp in their smartphone patents battle, after the International Trade Commission found HTC infringed on one of Apple's patents. The U.S. trade agency imposed a formal import ban on Monday on any HTC phones that infringe on the patent, starting April 19, 2012. Experts say however that the ITC's decision would not hurt the Asian phone giant because the ruling covered just one patent that HTC has time to work around. The company said on Monday it planned to completely remove technology linked to the patent - which it called a "small user-interface experience" - from its phones. The patent in question -'647 - relates to technology that helps users clicking on phone numbers and other types of data in a document, such as an email, to either dial directly or click on the data to bring up more information. HTC said it was "gratified" that the judge reversed some of the earlier decisions of an administrative law judge, who ruled in July that HTC infringed two Apple patents in making its Android smartphones. "We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the '647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon," Grace Lei, HTC's General Counsel said in a statement. An Apple spokeswoman could not be immediately reached. Given the import ban only starts April 19, HTC has time to design a fix around the patent. "It's a limited victory for a variety of reasons," said Peter Toren, intellectual property litigator and partner with Shulman Rogers, who added the ruling does not stop HTC from importing as many phone as it likes until April. "It gives HTC plenty of time to implement a design-around, which I understand they are already working on," he said. "The order does in fact take effect in April, but the practical impact won't be felt for some months after that." Smartphone technology has spawned a wealth of patent litigation. Apple has filed complaints against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which also uses Android software. Apple recently settled a case against Nokia Microsoft Corp Apple initially accused HTC of infringing 10 patents, but six were dropped from the case. The ITC judge had then ruled that HTC infringed two of the remaining four. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Bank of America shares close below $5 Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:19 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp The stock closed at $4.99, down 4 percent, after dropping as low as $4.92. The shares have not closed below $5 since March 11, 2009. In recent months, the shares of financial institutions have declined on worries about the global economy and possible exposure to sovereign defaults in Europe. "It's more of the same," said Joe Gordon, managing partner at North Carolina-based Gordon Asset Management, which manages about $525 million for investors. "The news keeps getting more sobering." Bank of America, in particular, faces concerns about whether it has enough capital to absorb mortgage-related losses and meet new international standards. The Federal Reserve is expected to release a proposal this week for how it will oversee the largest U.S. banks, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. The proposal will include new capital and liquidity requirements. When the bank's shares were last below $5 in March 2009, they were on their way up from a financial crisis low of $3.14 earlier in the month. The bank's shares have fallen about 63 percent in 2011, compared with a 30 percent drop in the KBW Bank Index. Bank of America now has a market capitalization slightly above $50 billion, making it less valuable than Amgen Inc Investors are worried about steeper capital requirements because that will mean banks will have less capital for loans, said Gary Townsend, chief executive of Maryland-based Hill-Townsend Capital, which invests in financial stocks. "We have a fragile financial system, especially in Europe and we continue to treat our financial institutions roughly," he said. Considering Bank of America's tangible book value per share is $13, the stock may be oversold and could rebound, Townsend said. But Gordon of Gordon Asset Management said many investors are uncertain about the true value of bank's assets because of uncertainty about real estate prices. Despite the fall in the share price, Bob Weisse, director of research at Heritage Financial Services Inc, said he is not selling out of the funds he owns that have large holdings in Bank of America. Specifically, $15 million of Heritage's $650 million in assets under management is invested in Bruce Berkowitz's Fairholme Funds Inc "It's an uncomfortable holding in the near term, but I do think looking out five years from now the stock will be much higher," Weisse said. "It's just a tough market right now." Bruce Berkowitz declined to comment about Bank of America's stock slide. Some mutual funds may have charters that restrict holding stocks below $5, but the extent of such charters may not be significant enough to be a huge market factor. When Bank of America's shares were struggling in August, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc When the investment became public on August 25, the shares jumped more than 9 percent to $7.65. Since then, the stock has mostly sagged. Buffett's investment also included the right to buy 700 million shares of Bank of America's common stock at $7.14 per share, but those warrants are currently under water. Bank of America chief executive officer Brian Moynihan was part of a panel discussion on the economy on Monday in Charlotte, North Carolina, but did not address his bank's stock price. In his remarks, he said the bank's customers have shown "modestly encouraging" signs this month, spending 5 percent more so far in December than in the same period last year. The bank expects U.S. gross domestic product growth in 2012 of 2.1 percent, he said. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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