COMPANIES

Lowe's Cos posted a 19 percent drop in quarterly profit on Monday and forecast current-quarter earnings below Wall Street estimates as consumers put off big home projects, sending its shares down more than 8 percent.

Language training software maker Rosetta Stone Inc cut its third-quarter earnings outlook and scrapped a proposed stock offering barely a week after announcing it, sending shares down more than 25 percent.

Telephone operator Cellcom Israel Ltd said it posted a forecast-beating rise in second-quarter net profit as an increase in content and value-added services offset a decline in roaming revenue from tourism.

With two rivals set to merge, pressure is mounting on Japan's Asahi Breweries to be more aggressive on acquisitions and map out a clear growth path as its home market shrinks.

German utility RWE has submitted a bid for a 67 percent stake in Polish peer Enea, German paper Financial Times Deutschland reported, citing unidentified people in the financial industry.

The Australian unit of Swiss bank UBS AG thriving, even as its parent struggles in the global financial crisis, and has earned a reputation for snatching deals from rivals and making a success of them.

Australian packaging group Amcor Ltd is set to raise about A$1.6 billion ($1.3 billion) in equity to help fund a purchase of Rio Tinto's Alcan packaging unit, sources said on Monday.

Despite unveiling a face-saving iron ore deal with Australia's Fortescue Metals Group on Monday, China's embattled steel industry body CISA seems to be ceding its grip on the levers of China's iron ore pricing talks.

China's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, which made big paper losses on stakes in Morgan Stanley and Blackstone, is set to invest up to $2 billion in U.S. mortgages as it eyes a property market recovery, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Monday.

Hennes & Mauritz , the world's third-biggest clothing retailer, reported on Monday a bigger-than-expected 3 percent drop in year-on-year sales at established stores in July.

Swedish fashion chain Hennes & Mauritz reported on Monday a bigger-than-expected 3 percent drop in year-on-year sales at established stores in July.

Toyota Motor Corp is looking to end production at a joint venture factory in California that it had held with General Motors in March 2010, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported on its website.

Comcast Corp has been hoarding cash to better manage its balance sheet but investors worry that it could be building a war chest for a splashy acquisition similar to its failed 2004 bid for Walt Disney Co.

Opel labor leader Klaus Franz branded Volkswagen's renewed threat to pull business from Canadian auto parts supplier Magna if it acquires VW's closest German rival as tantamount to blackmail.

Opel labor leader Klaus Franz branded Volkswagen's renewed threat to pull business from Canadian auto parts supplier Magna if it acquires VW's closest German rival as tantamount to blackmail.

Mexico's Cemex, the world's No. 3 cement maker, said on Friday it finalized a $15 billion debt restructuring to avoid default and announced it could sell shares worth about $1.7 billion as part of the deal.

The Syrian unit of Qatar National Bank (QNB) said on Saturday a 1.7 billion Syrian pounds ($36.9 million) initial public offering was oversubscribed 1.7 times.

The previous chief executive of Volkswagen, Bernd Pischetsrieder, is favourite to head the supervisory board of German car parts maker Continental AG, magazine Der Spiegel reported, without saying where it obtained its information.

A consortium dominated by Swedish owners plans to bid for Ford Motor Co's Volvo car unit, a Swedish business daily reported on Saturday without disclosing its sources.

China's 12 joint-stock commercial banks posted net profit of 45.2 billion yuan ($6.6 billion) in the first half of this year, down 19.3 percent from a year earlier, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday, quoting a banking regulatory official.

Hedge fund Citadel, which launched an investment banking group earlier this year, has hired a senior Citigroup Inc financial institutions investment banker, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Islamic lender Kuwait Finance House (KFH) is tying up with United States apartment building owner UDR Inc to buy high income property in the United States to tap lower asset prices.

A U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) judge on Friday issued an initial determination in favor of Nokia Oyj in an action brought by InterDigital Inc against Nokia.

Back in 1969, Woodstock organizers billed their three-day festival as An Aquarian Exposition. But although the concert became free when an expected crowd of 200,000 grew half a million strong, it was conceived as a business proposition.

The founder of the defunct British online gambling firm BetOnSports pleaded guilty in U.S. court on Friday and agreed to forfeit more than $43 million in criminal proceeds, the Justice Department said.

A bulked-up Canadian Hydro Developers Inc said on Friday it is big enough to pursue large renewable power projects on its own and has no need for an inadequate takeover bid from TransAlta Corp.

SNC-Lavalin Group Inc said on Friday it has bought a 48 percent stake in a Russian engineering company, a deal the Canadian company hopes will help it become a leader in that country's oil and gas market.

Allied Nevada Gold Corp said it would raise about C$100.4 million ($92.45 million) by selling 11.2 million common shares to a syndicate of underwriters co-led by GMP Securities LP and Genuity Capital Markets.

Private equity firm Blackstone Group LP plans to launch a 5-billion-yuan ($732 million) fund that will primarily invest in the city of Shanghai, the city said in a statement on Friday.