Business Briefing
Japanese brewers’ attempt to merge fails
A clash over control has scuttled plans for Japanese beer maker Kirin Holdings Co. and smaller rival Suntory Holdings Ltd. to create one of the world’s largest beverage companies.
Despite seven months of negotiations, the two companies could not agree on an acquisition ratio, which would have determined control of the new entity.
The combined entity would have given Japan its first brewery capable of competing with the likes of Anheuser-Busch InBev.
PUBLISHING
Magazine sales decline slows
Retail sales of U.S. magazines fell 9% in the second half of 2009, a slight improvement from the 12% year-over-year decline in the first half of the year.
Figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show how the weak economy continues to batter the magazine industry at a time when consumers have plenty of free reading alternatives available online.
Newsstand and other single-copy retail sales are important for publishers because they charge more per copy than they do for subscriptions, which fell 1.1% in last year’s second half. Magazines generally give subscribers a discount to boost the circulation they can promise advertisers.
EARNINGS
CVS Caremark beats forecasts
Drugstore operator CVS Caremark Corp. said profit rose 11% in the fourth quarter as results improved for its pharmacy benefits management business.
The Woonsocket, R.I., company said it earned $1.05 billion, or 74 cents a share, up from $949 million, or 65 cents, a year earlier. Excluding one-time costs, CVS earned 79 cents a share -- a penny ahead of the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters.
Revenue grew 7% to $25.82 billion. Analysts forecast $26.22 billion.
Hasbro quarterly profit jumps 77%
Hasbro Inc. said fourth-quarter profit rose 77% to $165.6 million, or $1.09 a share, from $93.6 million, or 62 cents a year earlier. That surpassed the 81 cents a share analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected.
Sales climbed 12% to $1.38 billion. Analysts had forecast $1.34 billion.
TECHNOLOGY
SAP’s Apotheker resigns abruptly
SAP Chief Executive Leo Apotheker unexpectedly resigned less than a year after taking the job amid customer and employee discontent and a failure to boost revenue at the world’s largest maker of business-management software.
SAP’s board decided not to extend Apotheker’s contract, which would have expired at the end of the year. He had become sole CEO of the Walldorf, Germany, company in May.
SAP said board members Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe would take over as co-CEOs.
COURTS
Guilty plea for former Intel exec
A former Intel executive charged in a massive insider trading case has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud.
Rajiv Goel entered the plea in Manhattan federal court in what authorities call the largest hedge fund insider trading case in history. Sentencing was set for May 28.
-- times wire reports
