July 26, 2004
FSC/ETI Expected To Languish
Over Recess
Little progress is expected during the August recess on the corporate
tax bill that repeals the foreign sales corporation/extraterritorial
income tax regime, since the House adjourned Thursday night without
appointing conferees, CongressDaily reported. House
aides and lobbyists said without a formal conference under way,
lawmakers would be hesitant to discuss differences in the bills. There
might be some staff conversations, but staff lacks the authority to make
key decisions on the bill. Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick
Santorum of
and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) are making a bid to add tax
incentives for charitable giving to the FSC/ETI conference report, the
newswire reported. Those provisions have passed as part of
charitable-giving legislation in both chambers, but a generic partisan
dispute over conference committees in the Senate has blocked further
action.
AT&T, MCI Are Eyed For
Takeover
Falling stock prices and
evaporating long-distance telephone operations have made MCI Inc. and
AT&T Corp. vulnerable to takeovers, but the timing and value of any
deals still remain uncertain, analysts and investment bankers said on
Friday, Reuters reported. Price wars and changing government regulations
and consumer demands make it risky to predict the trough and value of
the long-distance market, analysts said. 'It's like trying to weigh a
falling rock,' said one telecommunications investment banker. 'It's
difficult for a buyer or seller to set a value on a business or company
that is shrinking daily,' the newswire reported.
UNITED AIRLINES
UAL May Stop
Contributions into Pension Plans to Save
Cash
United Airlines
parent UAL Corp. said it doesn't expect to continue making
contributions to its underfunded pension plans while under bankruptcy
protection, raising the possibility it might terminate the plans, the
Wall Street Journal reported.
The company said the terms of a
new debtor-in-possession financing arranged last week to fund operations
in chapter 11 'effectively' prohibit it from making scheduled
contributions to the plans. UAL also said it hasn't decided whether it
can sustain what it called 'a huge financial burden' when it emerges
from bankruptcy protection.
United Airlines Secures
New Bankruptcy Financing
United Airlines said on Friday
it has secured an additional $500 million in bankruptcy financing,
raising its total package to $1 billion, Reuters reported. The airline
told a bankruptcy judge that the deal involves four lenders, including
the GE Capital commercial financing arm of General Electric Co. United,
a unit of UAL Corp. that has been operating in bankruptcy protection
since December 2002, said it has until
Year='2005'>June 30, 2005, to repay the loans.
Metropcs to Land During IPO
Rough Patch
MetroPCS Communications Inc.
will attempt to raise half a billion dollars next week in an initial
public offering that comes as deals are consistently pricing below
expectations, Reuters reported. The wireless services provider, which
offers mobile phone services in
four
markets, has filed for a 24 million share offering and estimated its
shares would price between $20 and $22 each. MetroPCS plans to sell 12
million shares and holders will sell another 12 million shares,
according to regulatory filings. MetroPCS, which emerged from bankruptcy
in 1998, will now be confronting a market favoring buyers.
Slim Wins
State OK to Raise Global Crossing Stake
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim
won approval earlier this week from
raise his stake in Global Crossing Ltd., Reuters reported. Slim and his
family started purchasing Global Crossing stock shortly after the
company emerged from bankruptcy in December. He and his family own 9.9
percent of Global Crossing's total equity. As of April 1, they owned
11.25 percent of the company's publicly traded shares. ST Telemedia,
controlled by the
government, owns 61.5 percent of the company's total stock.
T&N Units Halt Payments
into 2,500 Workers' Pensions
Subsidiaries of British
manufacturing firm Turner & Newall (T&N) will immediately stop
paying into the pension fund of 2,500 staff as
its
parent firm works to emerge from bankruptcy, the trustee of the fund
said, Reuters reported. The employees at 13 T&N subsidiary firms
will receive no further company contributions to their schemes, while
about 37,500 other fund members face possible losses, a spokesman at
Alexander Forbes Trustee Services told Reuters on Friday.
Bankruptcy “Prayer for
Relief”
The BCA Board of Trustees reportedly met on Monday and resolved to place
the Bogalusa, La., school in bankruptcy to enable liquidation of its
assets
and debts, edailynews.com reported. The board retained Robert Marrero,
a New Orleans attorney, to represent the school during the
bankruptcy process. And a voluntary petition seeking relief under
chapter seven of the Bankruptcy Code was filed late on Tuesday. Read the
article at
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Delta Air Lines Starts
Review
Delta Air Lines has begun a
review for an agency or agencies to handle creative and media duties on
its account, the New York Times reported. Creative duties
are handled by BrightHouse Live, part of BrightHouse, while media
duties are handled by Starcom Worldwide, part of the Publicis
Groupe.