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Jeffry M. Picower, a longtime investor in Bernard L. Madoff’s fraud scheme who died in his Palm Beach swimming pool last month, left an estate with assets far in excess of $1 billion — and that could be a spot of good news for Mr. Madoff’s victims.
Although Mr. Picower’s will, which is expected to be […]

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LONDON — Kraft took its $16.3 billion bid for Cadbury, the British chocolate and chewing gum maker, directly to shareholders on Monday after the Cadbury board rejected the offer as too low.
But Kraft did not raise its offer, sticking with its original proposal from September. Kraft, which makes of Ritz crackers and Oreo cookies, […]

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for jobless benefits rose more than expected last week, after falling in five of the last six weeks, as employers remained reluctant to hire even with the economy showing signs of recovery.
The Labor Department saidThursday that new jobless claims rose to a […]

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NEW YORK, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc reported higher third-quarter profit as aggressive cost-cutting helped offset unfavorable foreign currency exchange rates and declining sales of drugs, including those facing competition from cheaper generics.
The world’s biggest drugmaker, which completed its $67.3 billion acquisition of Wyeth last week, posted a net profit of $2.88 billion, or […]

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(Reuters) – Blackstone Group (BX.N) is finding it difficult to raise money for a new leveraged buyout fund, the New York Post said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The private equity firm, which hoped to raise a fund as large as $20 billion, has raised $9 billion at most since fundraising began in early […]

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HONG KONG (Reuters) – The dollar edged further away from 14-month lows on Monday as investors trimmed bets against the beleaguered U.S. currency, while South Korean stocks dragged down other Asian markets on worries third-quarter earnings may not live up to expectations.
Activity was limited due to a holiday in Japan and with most U.S. […]

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BERLIN — As recently as last year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development seemed like a relic of the post-cold war era. One of the nations providing the bank’s financial backing, Australia, asked for its money back, while one of the new European Union members, the Czech Republic, became the first country to leave […]

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PARIS — Société Générale, the French bank, said Tuesday it planned to raise €4.8 billion, or $7.02 billion, in a rights offering to repay government bailout funds and pursue acquisitions.
The moves comes just a week after BNP Paribas, the largest bank in France, said that it would raise €4.3 billion from investors to help repay […]

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LONDON (Reuters) – Kraft Foods Inc (KFT.N) is poised to launch a hostile bid for Cadbury Plc (CBRY.L) valuing the British confectionery business at around 11 billion pounds ($17.6 billion), a report in The Observer newspaper said.
In a separate interview with the Sunday Times, Kraft Chairman and Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld said Cadbury CEO […]

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MOSCOW — Just a few years after compelling foreign oil companies to renegotiate their contracts in Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin has invited executives from some of the largest such companies to discuss new work on Siberian natural gas fields.
Executives from Shell, Exxon Mobil, Total and other companies met with Mr. Putin in […]

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WASHINGTON — As a senior House Democrat announced an ambitious schedule to complete legislation overhauling the nation’s financial system, the Obama administration on Wednesday abandoned a symbolically significant provision in the face of widespread political and industry opposition.
At a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced that the […]

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NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) failed to meet a Monday midday deadline to hand over further details about its acquisition of Merrill Lynch to a congressional investigative committee, a panel spokeswoman said.
Bank of America "did not comply with the deadline," said the spokeswoman for House Oversight and Government Reform Committee […]

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NEW YORK — Last Tuesday, Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader of the U.S. Senate, was asked by a reporter to appraise the odds that Congress, in the throes of debating health care changes, would manage to pass climate legislation in 2009 — including provisions for an emissions cap-and-trade plan.
“So, you know, […]

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BEIJING, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) — The first seven companies applying for listing on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM), a Nasdaq-alike market in China, have got green lights from the country’s securities regulator on Thursday.
They are in the fields of software, medical equipment and medicines. They planned to raise 2.27 billion yuan (332.65 million U.S. […]

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SHANGHAI — Coca-Cola Inc. said Tuesday that a second manager who worked in the company’s Shanghai bottling plant has been detained by police on suspicion of accepting bribes or kickbacks.
The announcement came just days after Coca-Cola confirmed that a middle manager at the same facility, the Shanghai Shenmei Beverage & Food Co., was detained earlier […]

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shares of FedEx Corp (FDX.N) rose 4.5 percent to $75.90 in premarket trading on Friday, after the company said its first-quarter earnings would exceed guidance.
(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica)

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — For more than a year, prosecutors have been cracking down on the corruption and kickbacks that thrived during the boom years in this Persian Gulf city-state. Dozens of executives have been arrested and charged in a high-profile effort to show that fraud will no longer be tolerated. Investigators say their […]

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WASHINGTON – A federal court in Newark, N.J. has rejected Schering-Plough Corp.’s request for a $473 million tax refund related to the drugmaker’s efforts to avoid paying taxes on $690 million in overseas profits it brought back to the U.S. from offshore subsidiaries.
Income generated overseas that is reinvested into a company’s international operations is generally […]

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, said he plans legislation to restrict the Federal Reserve's emergency lending powers and subject the central bank to a "complete audit."
At a recent town hall meeting, Frank said the House would pass a bill to use an […]

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Iceland’s Parliament, the Althing, passed legislation on Friday enabling the government to repay Britain and the Netherlands about $6 billion that they had given depositors who lost money in Icelandic savings accounts during the financial crisis.
The government hopes the move will start of the end of a troubling period for the island nation, ravaged by […]

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