Negotiations between France and Germany about a massive bailout fund for the EU’s financially weak nations continue to be unstable. The lack of an agreement this week is likely to sharply increase the chances of a Greek default. Germany wants the region’s banks to take larger write-offs on Greek debt than was planned in July. Banks, led by Deutsche Bank, have balked.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is in talks with private equity interests about a purchase of Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) Google has the financial reserves to make a premium bid that would probably push out other PE firms and probably an offer from Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce operation. Yahoo! owns 40% of Alibaba. An offer by Google would leave Microsoft as the only company with the capital to make a counter-offer.
T-Mobile has began an aggressive campaign to get low income customers through no-contract cellphone wireless plans. The action may be the carrier’s action to prepare for the failure of a buyout by AT&T (NYSE: T) which has been blocked by federal regulators. T-Mobile is the No.4 carrier in the US with about 35 million subscribers. Many of these customers have probably already considered migration to Verizon Wireless and Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S). That will leave T-Mobile orphaned
A pitched battle between Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) and its creditors has begun. Wall St. is concerned that Kodak will have to declare Chapter 11 before it can sell of license its patent portfolio.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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