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UPDATE 2-Priceline to buy OpenTable for $2.6 bln

Travel website owner Priceline Group Inc will buy restaurant reservation website operator OpenTable Inc for $2.6 billion, aiming to broaden its services outside the increasingly competitive online travel industry. Priceline's offer of $103 per share for the owner of OpenTable.com represents a premium of 46 percent to OpenTable's Thursday close. OpenTable's shares inched past the offer price to trade as high as $104.19 on the Nasdaq, suggesting that some investors expect a higher bid. Priceline's shares were down 1.6 percent at $1,205.50. Priceline, whose competitors include Expedia Inc and Orbitz Worldwide Inc, has a record of buying smaller companies and transforming them into large, successful businesses. With little room to expand, online travel companies are looking outside the industry to boost revenue and drive more customers to their websites by offering more of a one-stop shop for travelers by offering services at their destination. TripAdvisor Inc, for

PRECIOUS-Palladium at one-month low on hopes of S.Africa wage deal

Palladium tumbled to a one-month low on Friday, extending its biggest drop in nearly a year in the previous session, as investors awaited confirmation that South Africa's longest mining strike would end soon. Gold prices edged up after Thursday's 1 percent gain. The safe-haven metal, however, failed to rally further on market expectations that security conditions in Iraq will improve soon, traders said. The leader of South Africa's striking AMCU union said on Friday he hoped to meet the three major platinum firms over the weekend to give them formal feedback from workers about a wage offer that could mean the end of a five-month strike. On Wednesday, palladium had rallied to a 13-year high on speculation of a deadlock in wage talks. Palladium, however, tumbled as much as 5 percent on Thursday on news that platinum group metal (PGM) producers and the AMCU agreed in principle on a wage deal, taking a step closer to resuming operations after the longest strike in the 130-

Soccer-World Cup opener gets more Facebook comments than Oscars

Brazil's 3-1 win over Croatia in the World Cup opener on Thursday generated 58 million posts on Facebook, almost five times more than this year's Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood, the social media company said on Friday. _0"> The most commented play on Facebook was Neymar's first goal, which levelled the match after Brazil fell behind early with an embarrassing own goal. The second most talked-about play was the controversial penalty that led to Neymar's second goal, putting Brazil ahead for the first time. With 16 million posts, Brazil was the most active country on Facebook during the game, followed by the United States and England. "That number represents more than 20 times the capacity of all the stadiums of the World Cup," Facebook said in a statement. The World Cup is a big business opportunity for companies like Facebook as fans around the world turn to social media to comment on live events. The most active demographic group during t

Iraq crisis push European shares to one-week low

Major European stock indexes ended lower on Friday, with British equities slipping on the possibility of an early rate hike and travel stocks hurt by concern the Iraq conflict will raise oil prices. The STOXX Europe 600 Travel and Leisure index fell 1.7 percent, the top decliner in Europe, on concern higher energy prices will hurt profit margins of airlines and other transport companies. In Britain, the blue-chip FTSE 100 index fell 1.0 percent, led by property firms, after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said interest rates might rise sooner than markets expected and it would consider controls on mortgage lending. A Reuters poll of economists on Friday suggested the first rate rise will come in the first three months of next year. In a May 28 poll, economists' expectations had been for rates to go up in the second quarter. In reaction, Land Securities and British Land , the country's top two listed property companies, fell more than 4 percent. Kingfisher, Europe'

UPDATE 1-Wal-Mart to launch e-commerce marketplace in India in July

Wal-Mart Stores Inc will launch its business-to-business e-commerce platform in the Indian cities of Lucknow and Hyderabad in the first week of July, its India boss said on Friday. The world's largest retailer has 20 wholesale outlets in India, including in Lucknow and Hyderabad, which will support its e-commerce services, its India Chief Executive Officer Krish Iyer said. It would look at rolling out the service to the remaining 18 outlets as well, Iyer said, but not for another six months at least. "We will not start rolling out to the other 18 stores for the next six months because we will learn from any teething problems and feedback from members," Iyer told Reuters. In April, Wal-Mart said it planned to open 50 more wholesale outlets in India over four to five years and start online operations to sell to small shopkeepers, several months after it decided against opening its own retail stores. The e-commerce service will be available only to its trader members,

UPDATE 4-Carney signals earlier British rate rise, sterling soars

Britain could become the first major economy to tighten monetary policy since the 2008 financial crisis, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has signalled, sending sterling shooting towards a five-year high against the dollar on Friday. British government bond yields soared, construction stocks tumbled and interest rate futures priced in a first hike by December after Carney said rates could rise sooner than markets had thought - his most hawkish comment to date. "There's already great speculation about the exact timing of the first rate hike and this decision is becoming more balanced," Carney said in a speech late on Thursday alongside British finance minister George Osborne. "It could happen sooner than markets currently expect." Few economists had expected rates to increase until the second quarter of next year given the central bank's previous guidance that there was plenty of scope for Britain's economy to expand further without causing infla

LinkedIn must face customer lawsuit over email addresses

A federal judge said LinkedIn Corp must face a lawsuit by customers who claimed it violated their privacy by accessing their external email accounts, downloading their contacts' email addresses and soliciting business from those contacts. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, found that while customers consented to LinkedIn's sending an initial "endorsement email" to recruit contacts, they did not agree to let the professional networking website operator send two reminder emails when the initial email is ignored. This practice "could injure users' reputations by allowing contacts to think that the users are the types of people who spam their contacts or are unable to take the hint that their contacts do not want to join their LinkedIn network," Koh wrote in a 39-page decision released on Thursday. "In fact," she added, "by stating a mere three screens before the disclosure regarding the first invitation that 'We w