Business Briefing
EARNINGS
Best Buy says 4th quarter will be leaner
Customers snapping up electronics and gift cards for the holidays boosted Best Buy’s Inc.’s fiscal third-quarter profit, but the nation’s largest electronics retailer said its profit margin would be squeezed in the fourth quarter, and its shares fell.
Still, Best Buy raised its annual profit and revenue forecasts and said both traffic and shoppers’ average spending rose from a year earlier.
Net income rose to $227 million, or 53 cents a share, in the quarter ended Nov. 28 from $52 million, or 13 cents, a year earlier, when Best Buy wrote down the value of its British retailer, Carphone Warehouse. Sales rose 5% to $12.02 billion.
Shares of the Minneapolis company fell $3.84, or 8.5%, to $41.53.
Adobe Systems swings to a loss
Adobe Systems Inc. said although it swung to a loss in its fiscal fourth quarter, consumer demand improved and allowed it to post an optimistic outlook for the current period.
The San Jose maker of Photoshop and Flash software reported a loss of $32 million, or 6 cents a share, compared with a profit of $245.9 million, or 46 cents, a year earlier. Sales fell 17% to $757.3 million.
The company forecast a profit of 34 cents to 39 cents a share for the current quarter on sales of $800 million to $850 million.
Adobe reported its results after markets closed. Its shares closed up 58 cents, or 1.6%, at $36.36.
CREDIT CARDS
BofA may drop arbitration clause
Bank of America Corp. said it has tentatively agreed to drop a clause from its credit card contracts that requires disputes with customers to be handled through binding arbitration rather than through the courts.
BofA agreed to the change under a tentative settlement that is subject to court approval. The agreement came in a 4-year-old federal lawsuit in New York City that also names other major banks. One of those banks, JPMorgan Chase & Co., reached a similar tentative settlement last month.
TECHNOLOGY
Disney to start selling comics
Walt Disney Co. said it would start selling comics to users of Apple Inc.’s iPhone and other devices today to take advantage of increased demand for digital content.
The Digicomics service will be accessible through Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation Portable, or PSP, Disney developers said in Milan, Italy.
CONGRESS
Glass-Steagall redux considered
The House could reinstitute the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which barred bank holding companies from owning other financial companies, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said.
A renewal of the 1933 law “is certainly under discussion” by House members, he said. The law was repealed a decade ago to help pave the way for the formation of Citigroup Inc. by the $46-billion merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group Inc. “As someone who voted to repeal Glass-Steagall, maybe that was a mistake,” Hoyer said.
Glass-Steagall barred banks that took deposits from underwriting securities.
LAS VEGAS
Sahara to close 2 towers for season
The Sahara hotel-casino is closing two of its towers for the winter season because of low demand for rooms.
Los Angeles-based SBE Entertainment owns the 1,720-room Las Vegas Strip property, which opened in 1952.
-- times wire reports
