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| Fairfax struggles to raise funds for BlackBerry bid: sources Friday, Nov 01, 2013 04:22 PM PDT  By Soyoung Kim, Nadia Damouni and Nicola Leske NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd is struggling to raise financing for its $4.7 billion bid for BlackBerry Ltd, with several large banks declining to participate on concerns that the smartphone maker will not be able to reverse its fortunes, according to people familiar with the matter. Fairfax, which is run by Canadian financier Prem Watsa, is working with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and BMO Capital Markets to put together a lending syndicate for a deal, but they have been turned down by several large lenders, the sources said. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and BMO both have deep pockets themselves, and it is still possible they will muster the necessary financing for Fairfax to submit a definitive bid. Fairfax, the largest shareholder in BlackBerry with a 10 percent stake, reached a tentative $9-per-share deal with BlackBerry in late September, and has until November 4 to negotiate a definitive agreement. Full Story | Top |
| Bankrupt LightSquared sues Deere & Co, GPS industry titans Friday, Nov 01, 2013 03:52 PM PDT By Nick Brown NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bankrupt LightSquared on Friday sued leaders in the GPS industry, including Deere & Co and Garmin International Inc, saying they kept mum about interference concerns stemming from LightSquared's wireless network until the company had already pumped $4 billion into building it. In a 65-page lawsuit in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, where LightSquared is fighting to keep control of its spectrum, the company alleged that farm equipment maker Deere, and GPS companies Garmin and Trimble Navigation Ltd led it to believe its network would not interfere with global positioning system devices. The complaint comes on the heels of a similar lawsuit against the GPS industry by Phil Falcone's Harbinger Capital, LightSquared's controlling shareholder. Last month, LightSquared received permission from the bankruptcy judge overseeing its Chapter 11 case to pause the Harbinger lawsuit so that LightSquared could decide whether it wanted to join the suit or bring claims of its own. Full Story | Top |
| Some Wall Street brokerages push up Twitter IPO targets Friday, Nov 01, 2013 01:37 PM PDT  By Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Morningstar on Friday joined three other brokerages in setting price targets for Twitter Inc well above its IPO price range, suggesting the stock has room to rise at least 30 percent. The Wall Street brokerage on Friday set a price target of $26 a share, compared to the initial public offering's $17 to $20 indicative range. Last month, Pivotal Research had set its price target for the social media micro-messaging company at $29 a share, SunTrust at $50 and Topeka Capital at $54. Twitter, which is wrapping up its first week of meetings with prospective investors across the United States, will arrive on the New York Stock Exchange with a fraction of the users and revenue - and hype - that accompanied Facebook Inc's much-heralded debut last year. Full Story | Top |
| Google's mystery barges revealed as luxury showrooms with party deck: report Friday, Nov 01, 2013 12:20 PM PDT  By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's mysterious barges, which prompted fevered speculation about everything from offshore data centers to floating research labs, may serve a more prosaic role as upscale party venues and showrooms. The multi-story vessels made out of stacked shipping containers, one moored in the San Francisco Bay and the other at the Portland, Maine harbor, are invitation-only luxury showrooms for Google's Glass wearable computers and other gadgets, according to local San Francisco TV station KPIX. The existence of the floating barges surfaced last week, when technology website CNET theorized that the San Francisco vessel might be a floating data center that would house banks of computers. Google was granted a patent for a water-based data center in 2009. Full Story | Top |
| Analysis - Facebook's ad warning sounds a note of caution for Twitter Friday, Nov 01, 2013 10:11 AM PDT  By Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc's investors and other proponents of the social network like to say that it captures one of the greatest concentrations of human attention on the planet and thus offers a boundless opportunity for advertisers. But Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman on Wednesday cast doubt on those assertions by suggesting that there may be a limit on how many ads Facebook can show users before they get turned off. Ebersman's warning carries far-reaching implications for not only Facebook but also other social media companies including Twitter Inc, which is in the middle of a roadshow to promote its initial public offering to investors. Twitter has yet to turn a profit but it is pitching an advertising business model similar to Facebook's. "It's important for investors to realize that there is a limitation on the mobile ad revenue that can be generated. Full Story | Top |
| Sony suffers TV relapse as Japan peers change channel Friday, Nov 01, 2013 08:25 AM PDT  By Sophie Knight TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp CEO Kazuo Hirai's determination to stick to the consumer electronics that made the company's fame will be put to the test in the months ahead as domestic rivals step up a shift to more profitable industrial technology. Meanwhile Panasonic Corp raised its earnings forecast on strong sales of products like batteries to industry clients, and Sharp Corp bounced to its first quarterly net profit in two years, helped by sales of solar panels. Since Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai took the helm last year, Sony has promised a rebound in hardware with a three-pronged strategy focused on mobile devices, imaging technology and gaming. But the below-expectations performance in the second quarter stirred doubts about how Sony can anchor a turnaround by reviving fervor among consumers who now covet goods like Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy smartphone. Full Story | Top |
| Vodafone rises on report of AT&T takeover interest Friday, Nov 01, 2013 05:03 AM PDT  Shares in Vodafone Group rose on Friday after a media report that U.S. mobile operator AT&T was exploring strategies for a potential takeover of the British telecoms firm. AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson has said there is a "huge opportunity" to invest in mobile broadband in Europe and he would buy wireless assets if they were available at the right price. AT&T is the second-largest mobile provider in the United States after Verizon Wireless. But it is not adding new customers in its home market as fast as Verizon, and it is also ceding market share to much smaller rival T-Mobile US. Full Story | Top |
| Seeing is believing: IMAX to launch $250,000 home theatres in China Friday, Nov 01, 2013 03:48 AM PDT By Matthew Miller BEIJING (Reuters) - China's newly minted rich can now get up close and personal to the movies after mega-screen maker IMAX Corp signed a deal to produce luxury home theaters in the company's second largest market. The fifty-fifty joint venture with Shenzhen-based TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings Ltd will give Chinese the chance to watch IMAX-enhanced Hollywood blockbusters in the comfort of their homes, maybe even on the day of their world premieres. The joint venture is targeting wealthy homeowners in Hong Kong, Russia, and the Middle East, but the main focus, IMAX Chief Executive Richard Gelfond said, is China. "China now is our second largest market in the world, and our fastest growing market," Gelfond told Reuters on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Amazon tries free, on-time delivery to lure India online Friday, Nov 01, 2013 02:19 AM PDT  These are some of the incentives the world's biggest online retailer Amazon.com Inc is using to entice Indians to shop on the web, a sector where growth has been stifled by payment problems, low Internet usage and a challenging logistics environment. Amazon's investors are counting on its international business and expansion to help drive growth and support its $165 billion market value, one of the highest among U.S. firms. India is Amazon's third emerging market investment after Brazil and China, and one Vice President and Country Manager Amit Agarwal said would take time to pay off. Online retail sales in India are forecast to grow more than a hundred-fold to $76 billion by 2021 from just $600 million at the end of 2012, retail consultants Technopak said. Full Story | Top |
| Alibaba restructures Alipay's parent, Jack Ma's share reduced Friday, Nov 01, 2013 12:42 AM PDT  By Matthew Miller BEIJING (Reuters) - The online payment affiliate of China's biggest e-commerce company Alibaba Group Ltd will be restructured to attract new strategic investors, in a move that will reduce the shareholding of Alibaba's founder Jack Ma in the affiliate. Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co Ltd will be restructured as a new company in which 60 percent of its shares will be offered to new strategic investors, Lucy Peng, head of the restructured entity, said in a letter published on its official Weibo microblog account on Friday. Ma will see his shareholding reduced from 80 percent to about 7 percent in the new company, or no greater than his shareholding in Alibaba Group, according to the letter. The restructured company, to be known as Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Services Group, will hold Zhejiang Alibaba's 100 percent stake in unit Alipay, as well as its shareholding in Alibaba's micro-finance unit, Zhongan Insurance, and Tianhong Asset Management Co. Alipay is China's biggest third-party payment platform, providing payment solutions to 460,000 merchants, and with 800 million registered accounts. Full Story | Top |
| Google, Samsung, Huawei sued over Nortel patents Thursday, Oct 31, 2013 09:47 PM PDT  By Dan Levine SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The group that owns thousands of former Nortel patents filed a barrage of patent lawsuits on Thursday against cell phone manufacturers including Google, the company it outbid in the Nortel bankruptcy auction. Rockstar, the consortium that bought the Nortel patents for $4.5 billion, sued Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, HTC Corp, Huawei and four other companies for patent infringement in U.S. District Court in Texas. Full Story | Top |
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