| Belo sets exchange rate for newspaper spin-off
DALLAS—Media owner Belo Corp. has set a date for spinning off its newspapers, including The Dallas Morning News, with stockholders getting one share of the new company for every five shares of Belo they own on Jan. 25. Belo also said Friday that it asked the Internal Revenue Service to let the transaction qualify as a tax-free distribution to its shareholders. Dallas-based Belo, which will keep its 20 television stations, said the shares of the newspaper company, A.H. Belo Corp., would be distributed Feb. 8 and begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange three days later under ticker symbol AHC. Belo announced Oct. 1 that it would spin off its four daily newspapers and their Web sites into a new company. Some shareholders had pressed for the split in hopes that Belo stock would rise without the weight of the newspaper division.
Countrywide continues slide as foreclosures rise
Late payments and foreclosures rose in December at Countrywide Financial Corp., causing the stock of the nation's biggest mortgage lender to continue its free fall this week.
A day after losing more than a quarter of its market value, shares of the Calabasas, Calif.-based company, which is also the biggest mortgage lender in the Chicago area, closed Wednesday at $5.12, down 35 cents, or 6.4 percent, on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock plummeted 19 percent before rallying.
That decline followed losses of 9 percent Monday and 28 percent Tuesday, when the company, whose stock was trading near $40 about a year ago, denied speculation that it was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy.
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Friends Provident to hold on to F&C
Today is crunch time for embattled insurer Friends Provident. It is due to unveil a review of its business following the collapse of a nil-premium merger with Resolution Life last year. The company is expected to say its 52pc stake in fund manager F&C, worth about £700m, is up for sale. About 17pc of F&C stock is held by another asset manager -Dawnay Day - and the remainder is freely floated. In the past year, the share price has oscillated wildly as bid rumours came and went. But it is now trading flat compared to six months ago when Questor tipped it as a Sell. More recently, the price has been inflated by expectations that a bidder could emerge and one or two are tipped to be interested. Simultaneously, however, about 27m of the 45m F&C shares available on the stock market are being "shorted" by those expecting bad news.
CORRECTED - SocGen chairman's fate in balance as board meets
The board of Societe Generale met on Wednesday to decide the fate of its chairman after rogue trading losses as fellow French bank BNP Paribas ducked questions on whether it would bid for its wounded rival. The career of Daniel Bouton, the author of a blueprint on how to run a French company, hung by a thread as politicians pressed for top management changes over a scandal which has shaken France's image of itself as the sensible face of capitalism. "Bank chief on the ejector seat," said daily Le Parisien in its front-page headline. .
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