Business Briefing
Merck to settle suits by investors
Closing another chapter in the painful saga over withdrawn arthritis pill Vioxx, Merck & Co. has agreed to settle lawsuits brought by shareholders who lost billions by appointing two committees and a chief medical officer to monitor drug safety and keep the company honest.
Vioxx, which had peak sales of $2.5 billion a year, was pulled from the market in 2004 because it doubled users’ risk of heart attacks and strokes. Thousands of lawsuits brought by patients, their survivors and others alleged that Merck executives knew about those risks and hid them. In November 2007, Merck reached a $4.85-billion settlement to resolve most of the roughly 50,000 lawsuits alleging that Vioxx users were harmed or killed.
The new settlement would end state and federal lawsuits that Merck stockholders filed against the Whitehouse Station, N.J., company and more than two dozen current and former Merck executives and board members.
EARNINGS
Sprint loses $980 million
Sprint Nextel Corp. managed to reduce the rate of subscriber loss in the fourth quarter, an encouraging sign for a wireless carrier that has lost millions of customers over the last few years.
Sprint reported a quarterly loss of $980 million, or 34 cents a share, for the last three months of 2009. That compares with a loss of $1.62 billion, or 57 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue slipped 7% to $7.87 billion.
Allstate profit is $518 million
Property and casualty insurer Allstate says it was profitable in the fourth-quarter as it reduced losses in its investment portfolio.
The company based in Northbrook, Ill., earned $518 million, or 96 cents a share, in the final three months of 2009. That compared with a loss of $1.13 billion, or $2.10, a year earlier.
Excluding investment gains and losses, Allstate’s operating income rose 14% to $592 million, or $1.09 a share, versus a profit of $518 million, or 96 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts forecast earnings of $1.01 a share.
MORTGAGES
2 firms to buy back bad loans
Government-controlled mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they would buy back troubled loans contained in securities they have already sold to investors.
The companies are repurchasing mortgage loans for which borrowers have missed at least four months of payments. At the end of last year, Fannie had about $127 billion of such loans, and Freddie Mac had about $70 billion.
The two companies guarantee the mortgage securities they sell to investors. Buying the delinquent loans back would cost less than making those guarantee payments, both companies said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Live Nation deal gets 2nd review
The merger that created Live Nation Entertainment Inc. must be reviewed a second time in Britain after a London tribunal said regulators didn’t fully consider the input of a competitor.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal made the order to the Competition Commission at a hearing in response to an appeal by CTS Eventim AG.
-- times wire reports
