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BOSTON — Banco Santander, the Spanish company that owns a minority stake in Sovereign Bancorp Inc., has reached an agreement to buy the rest of Sovereign that it doesn’t already own in a deal valued at $1.9 billion.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the U.S. is ready to pump capital into and purchase equity stakes in banks, investment houses and mortgage lenders if that is needed to help stabilize markets, rescue banks and ease clogged credit flows. “We are developing strategies to use the authority to purchase and insure mortgage assets and to purchase equity in financial institutions, as deemed necessary to promote financial market stability,” Paulson said Friday after meeting with finance ministers from the G7 industrialized countries. “As we develop plans to purchase equity, as in the approach we are taking to broad mortgage-asset purchases,...

My Friends, We are in the greatest financial crisis of our lifetimes. Congressional inaction has put every American and the entire economy at the gravest risk. Yesterday the country and the world looked to Washington for leadership, and Congress once again came up empty-handed. I am disappointed at the lack of resolve and bipartisan good will among members of both parties to fix this problem. Bipartisanship is a tough thing; never more so when you're trying to take necessary but publicly unpopular action. But inaction is not an option. If we do nothing, many businesses may fail. Sonic Corporation, a...

Many observers blame the current financial crisis on a breakdown of private markets. A more careful look shows that government policy, step by step, led to the current crisis. First, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created to help provide mortgages for people who didn’t qualify for conventional mortgages. As government-sponsored enterprises (GSE), they rapidly grew to where their debt was nearly half the size of the federal government’s debt.

House Republicans, who've been swamped with your phone calls demanding that they reject President George Bush's historically huge $700 billion bailout of Wall Street and bad mortgage bankers, have come up with another idea:

On Main Street, insurance protects people from the effects of catastrophes. But on Wall Street, specialized insurance known as a credit default swaps are turning a bad situation into a catastrophe. When historians write about the current crisis, much of the blame will go to the slump in the housing and mortgage markets, which triggered the losses, layoffs and liquidations sweeping the financial industry. But credit default swaps -- complex derivatives originally designed to protect banks from deadbeat borrowers -- are adding to the turmoil. . . . The rest of the article is here and is well worth reading...

(IsraelNN.com) First it was Citibank. Now it's Barclay's and New York City's Chrysler Building skyscraper. Muslim Arabs are buying out collapsing Western banks and businesses and gaining growing international power, but some Arab investors are worried their investments may go down the drain with the American economy. The current financial crisis in the United States has spread to other countries because of a massive debt that was not backed by enough real and liquid collateral. Banks and businesses gasping for financial breath are up for sale at basement prices, but no one is certain if the basement is the bottom....

"If the Fed can extend $30 billion to help Bear Stearns address their financial crisis," Hillary Rodham Clinton argued, "the federal government should provide at least that much emergency help to families and communities to address theirs." That's a savvy appeal to Americans' strong sense of fundamental fairness - that if goodies go to Wall Street, then they also should go to Main Street. Voters, like buyers, should beware. You might think that Democrats oppose the $30 billion Bear Stearns bonanza, because it's a big government bailout that rewards bad business practices. Wrong. Like Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Clinton...

NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Monday a subordinated note and a loan in a takeover offer by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) of Bear Stearns Cos (BSC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will have a term of 10 years, and will be renewable by the New York Fed. The rate due on the loan is the primary credit rate, which currently stands at 2.50 percent and fluctuates with the discount rate, the New York Fed said. The term on the subordinated note is the primary credit rate plus 475...

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has sponsored an unusual provision at the urging of the nation's banks granting them immunity against an active patent lawsuit, potentially saving them billions of dollars. The federal government would have to pay $1 billion to the owner, DataTreasury, over 10 years as compensation ....... The provision, passed without dissent by the Senate Judiciary Committee in July and inserted into legislation scheduled for a vote by the full Senate this month ....... Political action committees of financial institutions were the largest single category of industry donors to Sessions, with $52,300 in the current election cycle, the...

Ford also wants to close the books this year on 11 former Visteon Corp. plants that it took back from its former parts-making arm, which was spun off as a separate company in 2000. About 5,200 workers at the plants are eligible to take jobs at factories that Ford plans to keep, although Ford is offering incentives for them to stay with the new owners. Ford plans to sell or close the plants -- 10 in the U.S. and one in Mexico -- by the end of the year.

Chrysler LLC said on Monday it is offering buyouts of up to $100,000 each to hourly workers at 12 of its Detroit-area facilities as part of its November plan to eliminate up to 10,000 unionized jobs. The offer will be extended to about 14,000 workers represented by the United Auto Workers union at the plants which make cars, engines, axles and other parts, Chrysler spokeswoman Michele Tinson said. About 4,600 can opt for a more attractive retirement package. The buyouts could be extended to a 13th plant in Warren, Michigan, which was idled this week, and the automaker is in...

Six gulf states control sovereign wealth fund assets of some $1.7 trillion. Here are the men who manage these funds The men who manage the so-called sovereign wealth funds of the Persian Gulf for their governments are quickly becoming some of the world's most powerful money managers. They are using billions from Persian Gulf oil revenues to change the face of global finance by buying big chunks of blue chip companies, partnering with private equity firms to do buyouts, and increasingly snapping up companies on their own. As the credit crisis deepens, investment banks and buyout firms are stepping back...

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. will extend buyouts and early retirement incentives to its entire U.S. hourly work force as the automaker expects sales to fall this year in a rapidly weakening economy. The corporation will offer all of the automaker's 78,000 workers some type of buyout, GM spokesman Dan Flores said. GM's 40,800 workers now eligible for retirement will receive special incentives next month to leave the company by April. Another 5,200 workers already were offered retirement packages to leave by March. It's not known how many of the 735 hourly workers at GM's Saginaw Metal Casting Operations, 1629...

Microsoft is weighing up taking a stake in Facebook in a move that could value the social networking site at $10 billion (£5 billion) and trigger a bidding war. It is understood that the world’s largest software developer is considering paying between $300 million (£149 million) and $500 million for a 5 per cent stake in Facebook. A move by Microsoft would almost certainly trigger counter interest from a clutch of rivals including Google, the leader in search advertising, and Viacom, the media giant. Talks between Microsoft and Facebook are thought to be at an early stage and Facebook is...

A century of Bancroft-family ownership at Dow Jones & Co. is over. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. sealed a $5 billion agreement to purchase the publisher of The Wall Street Journal after three months of drama in the controlling family and public debate about journalistic values. The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies, which met separately over the past few hours, according to people familiar with the situation. The two companies are expected to sign a merger agreement and issue statements in the next few hours. One of the oldest and best-known franchises in the newspaper industry,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal antitrust regulators have cleared Cerberus Capital Management's $7 billion purchase of Chrysler, two people close to the deal said Tuesday. The Federal Trade Commission made its decision before the end of a standard 30-day review, according to two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Early termination of an FTC review typically signifies there will be no conditions placed on the deal.

NEWPORT NEWS -- The Daily Press has announced that it will buy out 25 veteran employees with at least 10 years experience, including some names familiar to longtime readers. Most will leave their jobs within the next few weeks. Some will be replaced and others will not. The move is part of an effort to cut $1 million worth of annual expenses. Some of these savings will be invested in new areas as the newspaper tries to diversify its sagging core business. Like newspapers nationwide, the Daily Press has seen its circulation drop because of competition on the Internet --...

Tribune Co. said Friday that its $34-a-share tender offer for up to 126 million of its shares was heavily oversubscribed, and as a result the Chicago media holding company will buy a prorated portion of the shares tendered. Tribune said investors had tendered 224 million shares, representing 92 percent of the company's outstanding shares. The company didn't say what the pro rata percentage will be, noting that the count of tendered shares is preliminary. [Snip] The oversubscription was hardly a surprise, given the fact that investors were essentially being offered the option of receiving $34 for their shares now or...

...the average monthly page views at The Drudge Report have been 250 million. EconomicPolicyMonitor.com (EPM) calculates that traffic of this size results in multi-millions in monthly revenue for Drudge...Given that the average price to earnings ratio in the, slowly declining circulation, newspaper industry is 23, a value on the internet driven revenue stream of Drudge can easily justify a near billion dollar value for the site, maybe more...

Forty-three newsroom employees at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution have opted to take buyouts offered by the paper as part of a restructuring, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. The changes come as the Atlanta paper, like other newspapers, adjusts to major shifts in news consumption and advertising spending on the Internet. There were up to 80 staffers among the 475 full-time newsroom employees at Georgia's largest newspaper who were offered the buyouts in February. Most of those who have accepted the buyout will leave the newspaper on June 30, but some may be asked to stay longer to help provide continuity for the...

Dow Chemical denies buyout talk; shares slip Mon Apr 9, 2007 9:54 PM BST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dow Chemical Co. (DOW.N: Quote, Profile , Research), responding to a British newspaper report that a consortium was preparing a $50 billion bid for the company, said on Monday it has had no discussion about a leveraged buyout. The statement sent Dow shares down 1.1 percent to $46.10 in after-hours trading, after they had risen 4.9 percent to $46.63 during trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Analysts, meanwhile, expressed skepticism about a possible buyout, saying a strategic joint venture was more...

The rumor about the leveraged buy out bid for Dow Chemical is not a good thing for Michigan or our country. The idea that over half of the money being used to take over Dow Chemical is coming from the Middle East ought to be turning heads at many levels. Yet, I hear nothing from the governor of Michigan nor from Congress nor from the President. Why? For Michigan, it will be the loss of a major business player. The city of Midland in Michigan will be devastated by such a take over bid. This bid includes the break up...

Daimler Chrysler AG's Chrysler Group will offer all 49,600 blue-collar workers in the United States up to $100,000 (U.S.) apiece to leave the company as part of a recovery plan announced earlier this month. The company, which lost $1.47-billion in 2006 and said it expects losses to continue through 2007, said on Feb. 14 that it would cut 13,000 jobs, including 11,000 hourly positions and 2,000 salaried, as it tries to further shrink itself to match reduced demand for its products. A company document obtained by Associated Press outlines an early retirement program for those near retirement age and a...

In what will be the largest leveraged buyout of all time, the private equity firms of KKR and Texas Pacific Group are close to announcing a more than $40 billion purchase of TXU. The giant Texas utility that is the largest producer of power in that state, CNBC's David Faber has learned. TXU's board is expected to vote on the deal this weekend and an announcement is likely on Monday morning, people familiar with the situation told Faber.TXU, KKR and Texas Pacific officials declined comment.The exact price KKR will pay is unclear, Faber said. TXU's current market cap is $27.5...

LAS VEGAS - Harrah's Entertainment Inc., the world's largest casino company, has agreed to a $90 per share buyout offer from two private equity groups, said a person with knowledge of the negotiations. The agreement with Apollo Management Group and Texas Pacific Group came late last week but lawyers for both sides have been working out the details, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. An official announcement on the deal could come as early as Tuesday, the person said Monday. A Harrah's spokesman declined to comment. The company owns the...

Can not link to the Detroit papers here, but this is just breaking. See the Detroit News or Free Press for information. No link on any national websites that I can find yet.

The Reader’s Digest Association, the company responsible for publishing some of the world’s best-read magazines, agreed to a $1.6 billion takeover offer yesterday, the latest whitecap atop a growing wave of private media takeovers. Reader’s Digest, an 84-year-old company that publishes the pint-size magazine; the largest-selling North American food magazine Taste of Home; and the fast-growing Everyday With Rachael Ray, agreed to be acquired for $1.6 billion by investors led by Ripplewood Holdings. The offer is a 43 percent premium over the company’s August stock price, when shares bottomed at $11.83. [Snip] Ripplewood hopes to cut costs at Reader’s Digest...

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Hospital operator HCA Inc. is in advanced talks to sell itself to an investor group in a transaction that would rank among the largest buyouts ever, according to a media report Sunday. The proposed deal, valued at $21 billion, not including the value of HCA's debt, could be announced as early as Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition citing unnamed people familiar with the talks. See Wall Street Journal story (subscription required). Factoring in HCA's debt load of $10.6 billion, the deal would narrowly top the record-setting leveraged buyout of...

I attended a recent Investment in China and India Summit hosted by Financial Research Associates. I will use this forum to share some of insights that were given at this summit for the benefit of those hoping/thinking/planning on investing in an Asian country -- China, India, or Japan. Growth Capital- Dominant type of fund in Asia by number, especially in country-focused funds; focused on backing firms that are already established but are looking for capital to support strong growth. Buyouts- True control buyouts are a more recent phenomenon in Asia. Most funds focused on buyouts are larger Pan-Asian funds or...

By Dale Russakoff Updated: 12:30 a.m. ET March 26, 2006 DETROIT - The signs in the parking lot of United Auto Workers Local 22 still blare the defiant 1980s warning, "Union Made American and Canadian Cars Only." But inside the hall, the conversation has turned strikingly philosophical. In the wake of General Motors' buyout and retirement offers last week to its entire unionized workforce in America, workers and their local leaders spoke with jarring realism about the global forces converging on them. "In ways, we brought it on ourselves," said George McGregor, vice president of Local 22, which proudly advertises...

MOSCOW - Dutch beer giant Heineken is preparing to buy one of Russia's last major brewers under local control, the country's anti-monopoly watchdog said Thursday. Heineken filed for permission to buy St. Petersburg-based brewery Stepan Razin on June 24, said Irina Kashunina, spokeswoman for the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service. She declined to give further details. Heineken's request comes at a time when foreign brewing giants are moving swiftly to consolidate the remains of Russia's booming beer market.

The Far East: Some may cry "sellout," but President Bush and the leader of Vietnam had good reasons to celebrate 10 years of normal relations in the aftermath of a bitter war. And one of those reasons is China. The U.S. and Vietnam are drawing closer for the same reasons that Victor Davis Hanson, in a column that ran on this page Thursday, cited for warmer ties between the U.S. and Japan. China's Wal-Mart earnings may be a generally good thing in helping build its private sector, but they're also strengthening that regime beyond its borders. Year after year of...

New York, NY, May. 25 (UPI) -- A $4 billion plan for control of the National Hockey League reportedly would split the league's 30 teams into three tiers based on market value. The plan has been offered by private-equity firms Bain Capital LLC and Game Plan LLC, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday quoting a person familiar with the proposal. It comes at a time when team owners and players are yet to resolve a labor dispute that canceled the 2004-05 hockey season.

There is a new interview with CU Regent Michael Carrigan about Ward Churchill at Colorado newspaper site. The university is ready to pay Churchill off. "Any settlement or buyout of Churchill now seems dead. Do you now oppose a buyout or settlement with Churchill? Can you shed a little light on why? Carrigan: There is no easy answer to this situation. We need to look at this an opportunity to move forward. It’s hard to imagine we can move constructively forward if we have to go through what is a lengthy tenure process, and then probably a court process. I...

The obvious satisfaction The Denver Post is taking at the breakdown in buyout negotiations between Churchill and CU is hilarious in the extreme. The paper taunts the Regents for every perceived setback and snidely charts out the dismal future. It's obvious The Post thinks CU should buy Churchill out, just pay him to go away. After all, it's the responsible thing to do.Obviously, The Post's management got too many time-outs, and too few, if any, cuffs upside the head. Buying Churchill out of his tenured professorship is exactly the irresponsible thing to do. Beside the fact that it guarantees an easy,...

Any proceedings begun against the fiery professor would be protracted By Dave Curtin Denver Post Staff Writer With negotiations for a university-funded early retirement buyout of Ward Churchill's contract all but dead and prospects for a privately funded settlement dim, it appears increasingly likely that the incendiary professor will be on campus for the foreseeable future. Short of early retirement, any other options will trigger protracted proceedings that could easily take the 57-year-old professor into his retirement years at age 62. "Ward Churchill likes his job. He's not going anywhere," Churchill's attorney, David Lane, said Monday. CU on Monday confirmed...

By Kevin Vaughan And Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News March 15, 2005 The University of Colorado's governing Board of Regents has retained a $350-per-hour public relations consultant as they continue to deal with the fallout from a football recruiting scandal and the ongoing saga surrounding controversial professor Ward Churchill. The regents signed the contract with Christopher Simpson, of Williamsburg, Va., on Feb. 28, just hours before a TV report aired based on a leaked copy of a grand jury report that criticized university leaders and raised allegations that female trainers were subjected to sexual harassment and sexual assault. The contract...

By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News March 15, 2005 The University of Colorado Foundation does not intend to fund a buyout of controversial professor Ward Churchill's contract, the head of the private nonprofit fund-raising group said Monday. "We do not anticipate that there would be a situation where the foundation would be involved in any kind of financial settlement at all," said Michael Byram, chief executive officer and president of the CU Foundation. Byram's remarks came one day after a majority of the CU Board of Regents rejected a plan to use university funds to entice Churchill to taken...

The release of a preliminary report investigating embattled CU ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill was delayed again Monday. CU interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano plans to release the report on March 28, two weeks later than anticipated, according to a CU press release. "It's imminent. This isn't going to be sitting there getting dust on itself," CU Regent Steve Bosley told the Colorado Daily on Monday. An administrative team led by DiStefano is investigating Churchill's scholarship. Churchill drew the ire of many by comparing some victims of the World Trade Center attacks to Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann in an essay he...

A report from a three-person committee investigating the scholarship of University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill is not expected as scheduled today and could be pushed back as much as two weeks, university sources said Sunday night. The delay raises the possibility of restarting negotiations to buy out Churchill's contract, this time using private rather than university funds, say sources close to the university. "There is the exploration of a private donor - if we settle at all - so there wouldn't be any tax dollars involved at all," said one source close to negotiations. Churchill's attorney, David Lane, said...

Dear Tenured University of Colorado Faculty Member: Are you tired of lecturing to kids more interested in cellphones than scholarship? Did the last round of state budget cuts leave you with classes the size of a Sudanese refugee camp? Worry no more. As your board of regents contemplates paying your obnoxious colleague Ward Churchill hundreds of thousands of dollars to leave his CU job, Roasted Chickens Press announces its opening. For a mere 15 percent of your settlement, the insult-happy crew at Roasted Chickens will create and publish works bearing your name that are guaranteed to offend as surely as...

NEW YORK, March 14 (Reuters) - Independent power producer Calpine Corp. (CPN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it planned to scrap its anti-takeover poison pill and eliminate the staggered election of its board members. The San Jose, California-based company said its board unanimously agreed to amend its shareholder rights agreement -- the so-called poison pill -- to allow early termination by May 1. Calpine gave no other details on the move and officials at the company were not immediately available for comment. Its board also adopted a resolution to eliminate the classification of its directors, meaning the election of...

By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News March 14, 2005 A majority of CU regents said Sunday they oppose any financial settlement with Ward Churchill, aborting an attempted buyout of the controversial professor's contract. "I'm almost certain there's not going to be a settlement," said Steve Bosley, one of five on the nine-member board who has decided to oppose a deal. Two others said any chance of their supporting a buyout was extremely slim. The opposition represents a reversal by the board, which voted 7-2 in a closed session last month to authorize interim University of Colorado Chancellor Phil DiStefano...

Settlement negotiations between the University of Colorado and professor Ward Churchill stalled Friday because of renewed opposition by groups that want to see him fired even if it takes a court fight to make him go away. "The ball is in CU's court," said Churchill attorney David Lane, who confirmed negotiations have hit a wall. Late Thursday, a settlement was all but done after lawyers for Churchill and the university agreed on financial terms. But when revelations arose Friday about a plagiarism complaint against Churchill, regents balked. Churchill critics, including former state Senate President John Andrews, and private citizens across...

Allegations that University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill plagiarized and threatened a professor in Canada scuttled negotiations Friday for a financial settlement that would have ended Churchill's employment at CU. Churchill and the university were close to an agreement that would have required the professor to give up his tenured position in exchange for a substantial payment, but several sources said a report in Friday's Rocky Mountain News disrupted those talks. The News has also learned that a prominent American Indian artist told law enforcement authorities in New Mexico that Churchill threatened violence against him. The Friday story detailed accusations...

9Wants to Know: Churchill settlement stalled written by: Paula Woodward (9Wants to Know Reporter) Created: 3/11/2005 9:06 AM MST - Updated: 3/11/2005 4:28 PM MST BOULDER - The deal on a buy-out between University of Colorado Prof. Ward Churchill and CU is stalled. A buy-out was believed imminent, but Churchill attorney David Lane tells 9Wants to Know, "Negotiations are now stalled. I'm hopeful they will resume again." Lane says he was notified by the attorney for CU Friday afternoon that the Board of Regents need more time to consider whether they want a buy-out deal. "Basically, the position we're taking...

Embattled University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill has reached an agreement with the school on the dollar terms of a buyout proposal - now both sides have to decide whether they can accept the implications of making a deal, according to sources familiar with the talks. Three people close to the negotiations between lawyers for Churchill and CU said the sides had agreed to a dollar figure "much less" than $1 million and, perhaps, less than $500,000. But in addition to the money, Churchill wants to make sure his reputation isn't impugned as he leaves CU and that the university...

According to KHOW-AM talk radio host Peter Boyles, a very reliable media source has informed him that Ward Churchill's attorney, David Lane, has stated that CU will offer Ward Churchill a buy-out so generous that Churchill will never have to work another day in his life. Numerous other media sources in Colorado, including the daily newspapers, have confirmed that CU is negotiating a buy-out with Churchill. If these reports are accurate, CU President Betsy Hoffman's decision earlier this week to resign was well-timed, because the Churchill buy-out, which may be announced on Monday, would have ignited a firestorm of demands...

The University of Colorado’s attorneys are attempting to negotiate with embattled professor Ward Churchill’s attorney over a retirement settlement that could head off an expensive legal battle. CU Regent Michael Carrigan confirmed Wednesday that a settlement is one of the options "on the table." Churchill's attorney, David Lane, has said the professor would consider retiring for the right price. Wednesday evening, Churchill said there was "nothing to report" on a buyout. A source close to the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that if CU fired Churchill, the court challenge that would inevitably ensue would cost the...