Sunday, 18 April 2010
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Jailed HealthSouth boss testifies in $2.6 billion suit
(Reuters) - The jailed former boss of HealthSouth (HLS.N), Richard Scrushy, told a court on Tuesday he knew nothing about a criminal fraud at the company that has resulted in a $2.6 billion stockholder suit against him.
Scrushy was testifying for the first time since a series of high profile trials and suits against him which started in 2003. The suits stem from a $2.7 billion accounting scandal at the rehabilitation medical company.
Plaintiffs say they want to recover as much money as possible through the suit brought by stockholder Wade Tucker, who alleges Scrushy squandered and fraudulently paid out money to himself and other executives.
Scrushy, who came to court in leg shackles and a suit that hung loose on his shoulders, said he had no knowledge of financial problems at HealthSouth, reiterating the argument used at his 2005 criminal trial.
At that trial, his attorneys portrayed him as a duped chief executive who fell victim to five chief financial officers who have all pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy.
"That never happened. I never had a discussion where I asked them to do anything illegal," said Scrushy, in response to testimony from two former CFO's who described telling him they would not meet the company's financial goals. They said Scrushy asked them to fudge the numbers.
When asked about building a failed and expensive "digital hospital," that was the former CEO's brainchild and featured heavily in previous trials, Scrushy said:
"You would have been a complete bumbling idiot to build a hospital knowing you did not have the cash to build it. It makes no sense."
Read more here
Scrushy was testifying for the first time since a series of high profile trials and suits against him which started in 2003. The suits stem from a $2.7 billion accounting scandal at the rehabilitation medical company.
Plaintiffs say they want to recover as much money as possible through the suit brought by stockholder Wade Tucker, who alleges Scrushy squandered and fraudulently paid out money to himself and other executives.
Scrushy, who came to court in leg shackles and a suit that hung loose on his shoulders, said he had no knowledge of financial problems at HealthSouth, reiterating the argument used at his 2005 criminal trial.
At that trial, his attorneys portrayed him as a duped chief executive who fell victim to five chief financial officers who have all pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy.
"That never happened. I never had a discussion where I asked them to do anything illegal," said Scrushy, in response to testimony from two former CFO's who described telling him they would not meet the company's financial goals. They said Scrushy asked them to fudge the numbers.
When asked about building a failed and expensive "digital hospital," that was the former CEO's brainchild and featured heavily in previous trials, Scrushy said:
"You would have been a complete bumbling idiot to build a hospital knowing you did not have the cash to build it. It makes no sense."
Read more here
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Asian Currencies Weaken as Japan Slump Reignites Recession Woes
(Bloomberg) -- Asian currencies weakened, led by Indonesia’s rupiah, after a government report showed Japan’s economy shrank by a record last quarter, reigniting concern that a slump in consumer spending will prolong the global recession.
The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the 10 most-active regional currencies, ended a two-day gain on speculation investors will cut holdings of emerging-market assets in favor of safety in the dollar and yen. A sentiment index issued today in Australia showed pessimists outnumbered optimists for a 16th month in May, while the U.S. Commerce Department reported yesterday that housing starts unexpectedly fell.
“The tone of recent data has turned more cautious,” said Patrick Bennett, Hong Kong-based Asia foreign-exchange strategist at Societe Generale SA, France’s third-largest bank. A “correction” in regional currencies is “appropriate” following recent gains, he said.
The rupiah depreciated 1.4 percent, the biggest drop since March 25, to 10,370 per dollar as of 9:45 a.m. in Jakarta. South Korea’s won fell 0.2 percent to 1,252.30 and the Philippine peso dropped 0.3 percent to 47.42. The Asia Dollar Index declined 0.2 percent to 107.71.
Gross domestic product in Japan contracted 15.2 percent in the three months ended March 31, following a 14.4 percent decline in the previous quarter, the Cabinet Office said. Westpac Banking Corp. and Melbourne Institute said their consumer sentiment index fell 4.3 percent from April to 88.8 points, while the U.S. Commerce Department reported housing starts slid 13 percent last month to an annual rate of 458,000.
Export Demand
The yen gained against the euro after Japan’s GDP damped optimism the worst of the recession is over, spurring safe-haven demand. The yen rose to 129.87 per euro in Tokyo from 130.81 yesterday in New York. The dollar was at 95.58 yen from 95.97 yen.
Malaysia’s ringgit snapped a three-day gain and dropped 0.4 percent to 3.5490 per dollar in Kuala Lumpur, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Singapore, the U.S. and Japan were Malaysia’s three-biggest export markets in 2008, accounting for a combined 38 percent of shipments. Singapore’s overseas sales fell for a 12th month in April, easing 19.2 percent, the government said on May 18.
“Some of the rally in Asian currencies looks overdone in the short term,” said Mitul Kotecha, head of global foreign- exchange strategy at Calyon in Hong Kong. “Yesterday’s U.S. housing start numbers dampened sentiment. There’s a risk of consolidation before we see stronger moves going into the second half of the year.”
Read more here
The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index, which tracks the 10 most-active regional currencies, ended a two-day gain on speculation investors will cut holdings of emerging-market assets in favor of safety in the dollar and yen. A sentiment index issued today in Australia showed pessimists outnumbered optimists for a 16th month in May, while the U.S. Commerce Department reported yesterday that housing starts unexpectedly fell.
“The tone of recent data has turned more cautious,” said Patrick Bennett, Hong Kong-based Asia foreign-exchange strategist at Societe Generale SA, France’s third-largest bank. A “correction” in regional currencies is “appropriate” following recent gains, he said.
The rupiah depreciated 1.4 percent, the biggest drop since March 25, to 10,370 per dollar as of 9:45 a.m. in Jakarta. South Korea’s won fell 0.2 percent to 1,252.30 and the Philippine peso dropped 0.3 percent to 47.42. The Asia Dollar Index declined 0.2 percent to 107.71.
Gross domestic product in Japan contracted 15.2 percent in the three months ended March 31, following a 14.4 percent decline in the previous quarter, the Cabinet Office said. Westpac Banking Corp. and Melbourne Institute said their consumer sentiment index fell 4.3 percent from April to 88.8 points, while the U.S. Commerce Department reported housing starts slid 13 percent last month to an annual rate of 458,000.
Export Demand
The yen gained against the euro after Japan’s GDP damped optimism the worst of the recession is over, spurring safe-haven demand. The yen rose to 129.87 per euro in Tokyo from 130.81 yesterday in New York. The dollar was at 95.58 yen from 95.97 yen.
Malaysia’s ringgit snapped a three-day gain and dropped 0.4 percent to 3.5490 per dollar in Kuala Lumpur, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Singapore, the U.S. and Japan were Malaysia’s three-biggest export markets in 2008, accounting for a combined 38 percent of shipments. Singapore’s overseas sales fell for a 12th month in April, easing 19.2 percent, the government said on May 18.
“Some of the rally in Asian currencies looks overdone in the short term,” said Mitul Kotecha, head of global foreign- exchange strategy at Calyon in Hong Kong. “Yesterday’s U.S. housing start numbers dampened sentiment. There’s a risk of consolidation before we see stronger moves going into the second half of the year.”
Read more here
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Wal-Mart targets electronics customers
(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is revamping the electronics departments in its stores to attract customers who previously shopped at the now defunct Circuit City Stores Inc, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The retailer's larger and more interactive electronics displays will begin arriving in stores on Monday, the newspaper said in its electronic edition.
"Circuit City's business is up for grabs right now and we expect to get our share," Gary Severson, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of home entertainment, said in an interview with the newspaper.
Read more here
The retailer's larger and more interactive electronics displays will begin arriving in stores on Monday, the newspaper said in its electronic edition.
"Circuit City's business is up for grabs right now and we expect to get our share," Gary Severson, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of home entertainment, said in an interview with the newspaper.
Read more here
Thursday, 14 May 2009
‘Superfood’ Promoted on Oprah’s Site Robs Amazon Poor of Staple
(Bloomberg) -- Rising U.S. sales of acai, a purple Amazon berry promoted as a “superfood” on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, are depriving Brazilian jungle dwellers of a protein-rich nutrient they’ve relied on for generations.
U.S. consumers are turning a “a typical poor people’s food into something like a delicacy,” said Oscar Nogueira, who specializes in the fruit at Embrapa, Brazil’s agricultural research company.
Spending on acai-based products by Americans seeking to lose weight, gain energy or slow aging doubled to $104 million last year, according to SPINS, a Schaumburg, Illinois-based market research firm. Since U.S. demand took off early this decade, the fruit’s wholesale price in Brazil has jumped about 60-fold, Embrapa data show.
In 2008, exports from Para, the South American country’s main producing state, climbed 53 percent to account for about a quarter of output, according to the local government. Production, though, has increased little in the past five years.
Winfrey, 55, discussed the berry with Mehmet Oz on her TV talk show in February 2008, when the New York cardiologist presented his “anti-aging checklist.” It includes acai, blueberries and tomatoes.
“It has twice the antioxidant content of a blueberry,” said Oz, 48.
Winfrey’s site publishes dermatologist Nicholas Perricone’s “10 Superfoods List,” which includes the Brazilian fruit. Meriden, Connecticut-based Perricone, 60, sells skin-care items and food supplements, including a powder that contains the berry, according to his Web page.
Winfrey Disclaimer
Oz declined to be interviewed for this article. Perricone didn’t reply to e-mail and telephone requests for comment.
Perricone’s list on Winfrey’s site includes a link to a statement saying she isn’t associated with any acai product.
“We are pursuing unauthorized uses of Ms. Winfrey’s name associated to acai-based products, none of which she has endorsed,” said Don Halcombe, a spokesman for Harpo Inc., Winfrey’s production company. Chicago-based Harpo is turning over complaints about such items to the Illinois Attorney General’s office, Halcombe said in a telephone interview.
Halcombe declined to comment on the effect increased U.S. demand is having on traditional consumers in Brazil.
In Igarape-Miri, an Amazon village 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) north of Brasilia, Francisca Neves, who sells manioc flour to neighbors and restaurants, says the bitter pulp she used to eat twice a day is now a luxury.
“Our granddaughter is turning 3 and we’re going to have family coming to our house,” said Neves, 68, as she paid 20 reais ($9.40), or about 7 percent of her monthly household income, for 2 liters (2 quarts) of the thick mush at a local street market.
Palm Trees
Acai grows on palm trees and looks like a blueberry. In the Amazon, it is beaten, diluted in water and eaten with manioc, meat, fish or dried shrimp.
The pulp provides more protein in relation to its weight than eggs and milk, and has high levels of anthocyanin, an antioxidant, as well as vitamins E and B1, potassium, iron and calcium, according to Embrapa.
The Para government recommends its consumption. The berry is popularly associated with bone and muscular strength, longevity and a healthy immune system, said Lucival Cardoso, the state’s chief health inspector.
“We encourage families to give acai to children as young as 6 months,” Cardoso said. “It’s also very filling; that’s why it’s traditionally associated with low-income family diets.”
Read more here
U.S. consumers are turning a “a typical poor people’s food into something like a delicacy,” said Oscar Nogueira, who specializes in the fruit at Embrapa, Brazil’s agricultural research company.
Spending on acai-based products by Americans seeking to lose weight, gain energy or slow aging doubled to $104 million last year, according to SPINS, a Schaumburg, Illinois-based market research firm. Since U.S. demand took off early this decade, the fruit’s wholesale price in Brazil has jumped about 60-fold, Embrapa data show.
In 2008, exports from Para, the South American country’s main producing state, climbed 53 percent to account for about a quarter of output, according to the local government. Production, though, has increased little in the past five years.
Winfrey, 55, discussed the berry with Mehmet Oz on her TV talk show in February 2008, when the New York cardiologist presented his “anti-aging checklist.” It includes acai, blueberries and tomatoes.
“It has twice the antioxidant content of a blueberry,” said Oz, 48.
Winfrey’s site publishes dermatologist Nicholas Perricone’s “10 Superfoods List,” which includes the Brazilian fruit. Meriden, Connecticut-based Perricone, 60, sells skin-care items and food supplements, including a powder that contains the berry, according to his Web page.
Winfrey Disclaimer
Oz declined to be interviewed for this article. Perricone didn’t reply to e-mail and telephone requests for comment.
Perricone’s list on Winfrey’s site includes a link to a statement saying she isn’t associated with any acai product.
“We are pursuing unauthorized uses of Ms. Winfrey’s name associated to acai-based products, none of which she has endorsed,” said Don Halcombe, a spokesman for Harpo Inc., Winfrey’s production company. Chicago-based Harpo is turning over complaints about such items to the Illinois Attorney General’s office, Halcombe said in a telephone interview.
Halcombe declined to comment on the effect increased U.S. demand is having on traditional consumers in Brazil.
In Igarape-Miri, an Amazon village 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) north of Brasilia, Francisca Neves, who sells manioc flour to neighbors and restaurants, says the bitter pulp she used to eat twice a day is now a luxury.
“Our granddaughter is turning 3 and we’re going to have family coming to our house,” said Neves, 68, as she paid 20 reais ($9.40), or about 7 percent of her monthly household income, for 2 liters (2 quarts) of the thick mush at a local street market.
Palm Trees
Acai grows on palm trees and looks like a blueberry. In the Amazon, it is beaten, diluted in water and eaten with manioc, meat, fish or dried shrimp.
The pulp provides more protein in relation to its weight than eggs and milk, and has high levels of anthocyanin, an antioxidant, as well as vitamins E and B1, potassium, iron and calcium, according to Embrapa.
The Para government recommends its consumption. The berry is popularly associated with bone and muscular strength, longevity and a healthy immune system, said Lucival Cardoso, the state’s chief health inspector.
“We encourage families to give acai to children as young as 6 months,” Cardoso said. “It’s also very filling; that’s why it’s traditionally associated with low-income family diets.”
Read more here
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
India Stocks May Suffer Election ‘Blip,’ HDFC Says
(Bloomberg) -- Indian stocks may halt their second- quarter rally unless the next government attracts foreign investment to revive the economy, said HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co., the country’s sixth-largest private insurer.
The ruling Congress party-led coalition may have won the most seats without securing enough votes to form a government, based on exit polls after a five-week election that ended yesterday. SGX CNX Nifty Index futures slumped the most in two weeks in Singapore while Indian stocks traded in the U.S. sank.
“The election outcome will only be a blip,” Prasun Gajri, chief investment officer at HDFC Standard Life, which manages $1 billion in equities, said in an interview in Mumbai yesterday. “It isn’t the only determinant for the market. It may impact the markets for a month or two but nothing beyond that.”
The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index, or Sensex, was the worst performer in the first quarter among the so-called BRIC markets that also include Brazil, Russia and China. The gauge rebounded 24 percent in the second quarter, beating benchmark indexes in Brazil and China.
“The rally has been too fast, too soon,” Gajri, 37, said. While the economy has shown signs of an improvement, investors will need to watch for more data, he said.
Nifty Futures Fall
Nifty index futures, derived from the 50 stocks on the underlying S&P CNX Nifty Index on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd., fell 2.2 percent to 3,560 as of 10:45 a.m. in Singapore, the most since April 28. The Bank of New York Mellon India ADR Index dropped 5.5 percent to 557.22, the most since March 5. The Sensex slid 1.1 percent in Mumbai yesterday.
American depository receipts or ADRs of Infosys Technologies Ltd., India’s second-largest computer-services provider, dropped 4.7 percent to $30.36, the most since April 15. Those of ICICI Bank Ltd., India’s second-largest lender, tumbled 6.7 percent to $20.99. That’s the largest drop since April 20.
The International Monetary Fund expects India’s economy to grow 4.5 percent in 2009, while Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said April 21 that government stimulus and monetary easing could help the economy grow 6 percent in the year that started April 1. The $1.2 trillion economy expanded 5.3 percent in the three months to Dec. 31, the weakest pace of expansion since the last quarter of 2003.
Read more here
The ruling Congress party-led coalition may have won the most seats without securing enough votes to form a government, based on exit polls after a five-week election that ended yesterday. SGX CNX Nifty Index futures slumped the most in two weeks in Singapore while Indian stocks traded in the U.S. sank.
“The election outcome will only be a blip,” Prasun Gajri, chief investment officer at HDFC Standard Life, which manages $1 billion in equities, said in an interview in Mumbai yesterday. “It isn’t the only determinant for the market. It may impact the markets for a month or two but nothing beyond that.”
The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index, or Sensex, was the worst performer in the first quarter among the so-called BRIC markets that also include Brazil, Russia and China. The gauge rebounded 24 percent in the second quarter, beating benchmark indexes in Brazil and China.
“The rally has been too fast, too soon,” Gajri, 37, said. While the economy has shown signs of an improvement, investors will need to watch for more data, he said.
Nifty Futures Fall
Nifty index futures, derived from the 50 stocks on the underlying S&P CNX Nifty Index on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd., fell 2.2 percent to 3,560 as of 10:45 a.m. in Singapore, the most since April 28. The Bank of New York Mellon India ADR Index dropped 5.5 percent to 557.22, the most since March 5. The Sensex slid 1.1 percent in Mumbai yesterday.
American depository receipts or ADRs of Infosys Technologies Ltd., India’s second-largest computer-services provider, dropped 4.7 percent to $30.36, the most since April 15. Those of ICICI Bank Ltd., India’s second-largest lender, tumbled 6.7 percent to $20.99. That’s the largest drop since April 20.
The International Monetary Fund expects India’s economy to grow 4.5 percent in 2009, while Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said April 21 that government stimulus and monetary easing could help the economy grow 6 percent in the year that started April 1. The $1.2 trillion economy expanded 5.3 percent in the three months to Dec. 31, the weakest pace of expansion since the last quarter of 2003.
Read more here
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Amazon’s Kindle DX Resurrects ‘Crazy Idea’ From Knight Ridder
(Bloomberg) -- Newspaper publishers say Amazon.com Inc.’s new Kindle electronic reader may help a business plagued by plunging ad revenue and shrinking circulation. Seventeen years ago, the news industry tried to help itself.
The Kindle DX, introduced last week, can display newspaper pages and hold 3,500 books. New York Times Co. and Washington Post Co. have agreed to distribute their newspapers on it, Amazon.com said. In 1992, Knight Ridder Inc. set employees to work at a lab in Boulder, Colorado, to create its own portable newspaper-reading device to boost readership and revenue.
“There were people talking even then about the death of newspapers and there would be some electronic medium that would replace ink on paper,” Roger Fidler, who headed the Knight Ridder laboratory, said in an interview last week.
Fidler and his colleagues spent about three years trying to create an electronic tablet that could download newspapers and magazines. With the death of James Batten, Knight Ridder’s chairman at the time, the project fizzled and the 10-person lab was shut down, according to Fidler.
McClatchy Co. bought Knight Ridder, the publisher of the Miami Herald, in 2006. Fidler, 66, is now the program director for digital publishing at the Donald Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Peter Tira, a McClatchy spokesman in Sacramento, California, had no comment.
The new $489 Kindle DX has a 9.7-inch screen, displays PDF documents and can be used in landscape and portrait modes. Amazon.com didn’t take any inspiration from Knight Ridder in developing the product, Drew Herdener, a spokesman for the Seattle-based online retailer, said in an e-mail.
Sharing Revenue
Amazon.com will keep 70 percent of the revenue from Kindle- based subscriptions, with the rest going to the newspaper, James Moroney, publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told a U.S. Senate committee on May 6. Amazon.com doesn’t discuss the terms of its deals, said Cinthia Portugal, a spokeswoman. She confirmed that the Kindle DX won’t initially carry ads.
Newspaper publishers are cutting jobs, combining sections and halting print editions to cope with plummeting ad revenue and a 7.1 percent industry circulation decline for the six months through March. The Christian Science Monitor and Seattle Post-Intelligencer this year switched entirely to Web versions.
In a 1994 promotional video, Knight Ridder said the tablet readers would be “part of our daily lives by the turn of the century,” with screen clarity similar to the printed page, color displays and sound.
“It may be difficult to conceptualize the idea of digital paper, but in fact we believe that’s what’s going to happen,” Fidler said on the video. Unlike the Knight Ridder concept, the Kindle DX downloads articles wirelessly and doesn’t have color.
Read more here
The Kindle DX, introduced last week, can display newspaper pages and hold 3,500 books. New York Times Co. and Washington Post Co. have agreed to distribute their newspapers on it, Amazon.com said. In 1992, Knight Ridder Inc. set employees to work at a lab in Boulder, Colorado, to create its own portable newspaper-reading device to boost readership and revenue.
“There were people talking even then about the death of newspapers and there would be some electronic medium that would replace ink on paper,” Roger Fidler, who headed the Knight Ridder laboratory, said in an interview last week.
Fidler and his colleagues spent about three years trying to create an electronic tablet that could download newspapers and magazines. With the death of James Batten, Knight Ridder’s chairman at the time, the project fizzled and the 10-person lab was shut down, according to Fidler.
McClatchy Co. bought Knight Ridder, the publisher of the Miami Herald, in 2006. Fidler, 66, is now the program director for digital publishing at the Donald Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Peter Tira, a McClatchy spokesman in Sacramento, California, had no comment.
The new $489 Kindle DX has a 9.7-inch screen, displays PDF documents and can be used in landscape and portrait modes. Amazon.com didn’t take any inspiration from Knight Ridder in developing the product, Drew Herdener, a spokesman for the Seattle-based online retailer, said in an e-mail.
Sharing Revenue
Amazon.com will keep 70 percent of the revenue from Kindle- based subscriptions, with the rest going to the newspaper, James Moroney, publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told a U.S. Senate committee on May 6. Amazon.com doesn’t discuss the terms of its deals, said Cinthia Portugal, a spokeswoman. She confirmed that the Kindle DX won’t initially carry ads.
Newspaper publishers are cutting jobs, combining sections and halting print editions to cope with plummeting ad revenue and a 7.1 percent industry circulation decline for the six months through March. The Christian Science Monitor and Seattle Post-Intelligencer this year switched entirely to Web versions.
In a 1994 promotional video, Knight Ridder said the tablet readers would be “part of our daily lives by the turn of the century,” with screen clarity similar to the printed page, color displays and sound.
“It may be difficult to conceptualize the idea of digital paper, but in fact we believe that’s what’s going to happen,” Fidler said on the video. Unlike the Knight Ridder concept, the Kindle DX downloads articles wirelessly and doesn’t have color.
Read more here
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