Riverdeep close to Houghton Mifflin deal: sources
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Riverdeep Inc., an Irish educational  software publisher, is close to a deal to buy U.S. textbook  publisher Houghton Mifflin for about $3.5 billion including  debt, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on  Wednesday.
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Riverdeep Inc., an Irish educational software publisher, agreed to buy U.S. textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin for about $1.75 billion in cash and the assumption of about $1.61 billion in net debt, the companies said on Wednesday.
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The Lionsgate movie studio is close to an interim production deal with striking Hollywood writers, a source close to the talks said on Thursday.
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The deal, announced Thursday, brings to an end a 16-year run for Reader's Digest as a publicly traded company. It was not yet clear whether the deal would result in management changes
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For the third time in five years, Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin Co. has a new owner.
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(InfoWorld) - Despite financial and accounting problems at Dell Inc., Novell Inc. and Yahoo Inc., underlying faith in the software sector and a solid first-day performance on Riverbed Technology Inc.'s initial public offering indicate that the end of the year may yet reward IT investors. The early part of the third quarter proved worrisome for technology investors, as high hopes in the beginning of the year gave way to softer than expected sales and a price war for PC makers. But as the fourth quarter approaches, several brokerages have raised their forecasts for the tech sector as a whole. The lower cost of hardware is expected to spark a spending spree by both consumers and corporate buyers by the end of the year. Analysts also see pent-up demand for software. Signs of hope started appearing in August, when for example Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. released a survey showing that 60 percent of chief information officers polled anticipated increasing software spending in the second half of the year. In addition, Lehman Brothers Inc. and Credit Suisse First Boston have recently recommended that investors take a closer look and invest in technology stocks, reasoning that declines earlier in the year have made some companies a bargain. Stoked by recommendations, the Nasdaq exchange started taking off in August after sinking to a yearly low in July. Good news continued this week, as the debut of Riverbed, a maker of WAN (wide area network) optimization technology, shone on the Nasdaq. Riverbed's (RVBD) initial public offering of 8.7 million shares priced at US$9.75 a share, above the target of $7 to $8.50 a share, and closed at $15.30 Thursday, showing confidence in the network optimization trend. On TuesdayÂ Oracle Corp. reported better-than-expected earnings. Excluding one-time charges for acquisitions, Oracle's earnings per share grew 24 percent to $0.18, better than the $0.16 consensus forecast of analysts polled by Thomson Financial. Several analysts said that Oracle's results, after a similar strong report from Adobe Systems Inc. last week, bode well for the upcoming quarter. Specifically, Oracle's strong sales for new applications and services indicate that businesses are in the mood to buy. Citigroup upgraded Oracle to "buy" from "hold," and UBS Warburg and Deutsche Bank raised their price targets. Some bad news midweek put at least a temporary halt to the Nasdaq rise. Yahoo (YHOO) shares plunged $3.25, to close at $25.75 Tuesday after it warned that slowing growth from automotive and financial services advertisers would affect revenue. The warning pushed down sales of other Internet companies as well. News that both Dell andÂ Novell face delisting from the Nasdaq also helped depress the market Thursday. Due to accounting probes, both companies delayed financial reports, which triggered delisting notices. Hewlett-Packard Co. shares, which up until this week seemed impervious to the company's growing spy scandal, finally took a hit Thursday after revelations that Chief Executive Office Mark Hurd may have known about possible illegal investigative techniques as they were being planned. HP shares (HPQ) closed at $34.87, down by $1.91 Thursday. On balance, the bad news seems company-specific, while the solid software results and the excitement sparked by Riverbed appears to speak more to underlying trends. For the hoped-for fourth quarter tech rally to really happen though, investors need to see some strong quarterly reports next month. Â
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HP and Microsoft have an enterprise software deal in the works to be announced later today.
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Offers for Home Depot Inc.'s  supply division are due on Friday, according to a source involved with the deal, with two groups of private equity firms expected to be among the remaining bidders.
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Yahoo Inc  would  consider a business alliance with Google Inc  as one  way to rebuff a $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft, a  source familiar with Yahoo's strategy said on Sunday.
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The New York Times reports this morning that a deal is imminent between Liberty Media chairman John Malone and News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, in which Malone will acquire one of Murdoch's prize assets - satellite service provider DirecTV - in exchange for Malone's 19% voting stake, plus 15% non-voting stake, in News Corp.
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Rupert Murdoch&#39;s News Corp. and Dow  Jones & Co. Inc. have &quot;basically agreed&quot; on safeguards to the  editorial independence of Dow Jones&#39; news operations, a source  familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, setting the stage for  Dow Jones to accept a $5 billion buyout offer.
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Deal moves closer to completion, but is still subject to shareholder approval.
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Tishman Speyer Properties and  Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.  are close to a deal to  acquire real estate investment trust Archstone-Smith Trust  , according to the online edition of The Wall Street  Journal.
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SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK  - Yahoo Inc would consider  a business alliance with Google Inc as one way to rebuff a  $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft, a source familiar  with Yahoo's strategy said on Sunday.
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Citadel Broadcasting Corp. wants to  renegotiate some terms of its $2.7 billion deal to buy Walt  Disney Co.'s ABC radio business, the Wall Street Journal  reported on Monday, citing an interview with the chief  executive of Citadel.
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Houghton Mifflin agreed to buy the Harcourt education and trade publishing units from the publisher Reed Elsevier for $4 billion in cash and stock.
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An interim production deal between  striking Hollywood writers and the Lionsgate film and  television studio is imminent, said to source close to the  talks on Thursday.