Preferred bidder at NIB to emerge today?
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A preferred buyer for the National Irish and Northern banks is expected to be announced by their parent this morning. National Australia Bank is due to make an announcement to the stock exchanges in Melbourne and London.
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A month after its unpopular price hikes, the auction site seeks to smooth some ruffled business feathers. Also: Kuwait blocks radical websites to combat terrorism.... Google loses a legal round in France.... and more.
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By Bill Condie, Evening Standard, London  Feb. 16--The sale process for deeply-troubled IT provider iSoft could be  salvaged by an Australian bidder.
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Review Neat idea - shame about the price?
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(InfoWorld) - Google and Intel have already expressed interest in the forthcoming 700MHz spectrum auction. Now, speculators say Apple may throw its hat into the ring. TheÂ auctionÂ is creating a bit of a frenzy because the winner will obtain some of the last available prime spectrum, ideal for delivering broadband wireless Internet access. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expects to auction it off next year. While Google has said that it may bid in the auction, Apple's participation is pure speculation, and analysts appear split on whether it makes sense for theÂ iPhoneÂ maker to become a network operator. Apple's entry into the carrier business, while interesting to speculate, is difficult to imagine since the company already has a "sweetheart deal" with AT&T, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. In an unusual arrangement for the mobile industry, Apple is thought to receive a portion of the monthly service revenue that AT&T earns from iPhone customers. AT&T is the iPhone's exclusive carrier. Gartner analyst Van Baker finds it "highly unlikely" that Apple would be interested in buying the spectrum. "It's a very different business than they're in, and it's not something they have a whole lot of expertise in," he noted. Apple could decide to partner with another company that has more experience in the mobile operator business, which could make more sense, Baker said. Still, the arrangement between Apple and AT&T looks beneficial to both companies, so there probably isn't a significant incentive for Apple to want to change that setup, especially because the operator business comes with "lousy margins," he said. However, Apple might have at least one good reason for wanting to operate a network, said Avi Greengart, an analyst with Current Analysis. "They do like to control the end-to-end experience," he said. While becoming a mobile operator would be a "tremendous stretch" for Apple, it wouldn't surprise Greengart if Apple was considering it. An Apple network would likely be very tightly integrated with Apple products and come with very simple pricing, he said. Such a strategy could have a ripple effect across the industry. Operators tend to watch what competitors are doing and make adjustments to their own strategies accordingly, he said. Greengart and the others cautioned that they hadn't heard directly from the company or other sources that Apple was considering the auction. "But they're pretty good about being tight-lipped," Greengart said. Apple is known for being very secretive, with big announcements leaking out only days in advance, if ever. BusinessWeek first reported on the rumor that Apple might be interested in the spectrum auction.
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A bidding consortium led by the Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to give some insight as to whether it will go ahead with a rival offer.
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Putnam Investments begins this business day as a company that is very publicly up for sale. Just a block away in Boston's Financial District, a much smaller firm will spend the day discreetly looking for asset managers it can buy into or finance.
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Mike Lowell will soon be a free agent, about to hit the market with that shiny World Series MVP trophy sticking out of his back pocket. Potential bidders? Take your pick.
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Which funds are buying Wall Street's most wanted?
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Pulitzer Inc. has hired an investment bank to explore âstrategic alternatives,â including the sale of the company. The decision to weigh possible offers for the company, which owns the St.
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Symbol Technologies Inc. SBL.N, a   maker of bar code and inventory scanning technology, is   auctioning itself, and mobile phone company Motorola Inc.   MOT.N is the most likely buyer, the Wall Street Journal   reported on Saturday.
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Business & money: Consortium led by the Royal Bank of Scotland is today expected to make a Â£49bn hostile takeover bid for the Dutch bank ABN Amro.
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New OWB merits serious consideration
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EBay looks set to complete the purchase of an online auction business in South Korea. On Thursday it filed a tender offer to acquire the remaining shares of Internet Auction (IAC) that it does not already own, in a deal valued at about $4m (Â£2.
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SEOUL: HSBC Holdings is expected to be named the preferred bidder to buy South Korea&#39;s eighth-largest lender Korea First Bank, a source at the Korean bank familiar with the deal said yesterday.
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No other buyer will be willing to pay more for Yahoo. Since Yahooâs management will not be able to justify turning down that sort of premium, Microsoft is likely to win the prize.
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Media & professional: Despite opposition, Rupert's $5bn bid for the Wall Street Journal is likely to succeed - with implications for British papers. James Robinson reports.