More Bad News from GM and Delphi

Delphi
Officials of Delphi's two largest unions (UAW and IUE-CWA) rejected the company's latest proposed wage and benefit cuts. Officials of both unions said there was nothing in the proposal to even warrant taking it to union members for a vote. The proposal included a pay cut from $27 to $22 an hour in July 2006 and to $16.50 an hour in September 2007. The proposal also included new, larger health care premiums. As a result of the rejection, Delphi is likely to file Friday in bankruptcy court to void labor agreements covering over 33,000 union members.

GM
General Motors laid off 500 salaried employees at facilities across the country. The layoffs are the first wave of job eliminations in a program aimed at reducing the number of salaried and contract workers 7%.

Housing Banks May Be Forced To Cut Dividends

The Federal Housing Finance Board proposed rules this month that would require the banks to retain more of their earnings as capital to build up a bigger cushion against potential losses. The move comes in the wake of embarrassing stumbles by some of the 12 regional home-loan banks. The proposed rule probably will force most of the home-loan banks to slash their dividends, a big source of income for many of the more than 8100 commercial banks, thrifts, credit unions and insurers that own the banks. The proposal may also discourage the home-loan banks from purchasing mortgage loans made by their members, drying up a small but important source of housing finance and marginally increasing mortgage costs for consumers.

Source: WSJ

Lucent and Alcatel Merging

Lucent and Alcatel announced that they were in talks to effect a "merger of equals."

Here are some financial publications' take on the merger:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060324_429614.htm
http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/24/lucent-alcatel-merger-0324markets03.html

Google Settles Suit

Google agreed to pay $90 million in legal fees and advertising credits to settle a lawsuit filed against it and other Internet companies last year alleging that the companies knowingly overcharged for online advertisements and conspired to continue doing so.

As of this writing, the stock is at $347.76, down 1.73%.

Source: Wall Street Journal

GOOG

Google had a couple of good days Thursday and Friday of last week, but it's been beat up pretty bad this week. After a 2.9% drop today, it is trading at $353.88, down over 25% from its high of $475.11 in January.

AT&T-BellSouth Merger

Two of my four predictions in February 2005 (#1, #2) after the SBC-ATT merger was announced has already come true, as MCI was swallowed up by Verizon.

Now, it looks like a third one is being confirmed as BellSouth gets swallowed up too, by the new AT&T.

The short story:

• AT&T is offering 1.325 shares for each share of BellSouth, which amounts to a 17.9% premium, $37.09 a share at Friday's AT&T closing price, or $67 billion for all outstanding shares. AT&T will also take on BellSouth's debt of $22 billion, putting the total price of the deal at $89 billion. (Compare that with the paltry $16 billion SBC paid for the old AT&T.)
• Current BellSouth shareholders will own 38% of the new company.
• AT&T will own all of Cingular Wireless after the deal. (Will they change the name of the company to AT&T Wireless?)
• About 10,000 jobs will be eliminated after the merger. This is in addition to the job cuts already announced after the SBC-AT&T deal.
• Although the boards of both companies have already approved the deal, there could be regulatory hurdles due to the size of the combined company. (It would constitute a very large portion of the Ma Bell of olden days.)