COMPANIES

Investment banks saw the amount they earn in fees rise to record levels for the fifth year in a row in 2007, despite the impact of the credit crunch on major banks.

Credit card network, Visa has said it is planning to raise a record $18 billion (9 billion pounds) in what would be the largest ever Initial Public Offering in the U.S.

ImClone Systems, Inc., which is counting on regulatory approval of a blockbuster cancer drug, got a vote of confidence from an analyst on Monday.

Owners of privately held credit card and payment services giant Visa, Inc. plan to sell about half of the company to the general public as they look to raise a U.S. record $17.1 billion through a stock offering.

Goldman Sachs said it expects additional writedowns of about $1 billion to $12 billion each for several major U.S. brokers in the first quarter, with Citigroup estimated to record the highest amount of about $12 billion.

The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies were reported by 1430 GMT on Monday.

Retailer Lowe's Cos reported lower quarterly profit on Monday and forecast full-year earnings below Wall Street estimates, citing challenging days to come as the slumping housing market hurts sales.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday rejected an appeal from Fox Television on Friday to overturn an indecency complaint over a 2003 episode of a short-lived reality TV show.

Starbucks Corp. is cutting 600 posts, with its headquarters in Seattle taking the bulk of the reduction, in an effort to revive the struggling coffee chain.

The Federal Communications Commission will back off from plans to force TV stations to air more advertisements about the upcoming transition to digital TV next year, according to several news reports.

Top U.S. electronics retailer Best Buy Co, facing stagnant sales at home, said on Friday it would ramp up its expansion in China but would not grow through partnerships with local rivals. Best Buy will invest substantially and open a large number of stores in China in the next five years, and will launch online sales in the country in the next 24 months.

Dresdner Bank AG is bailing out an $18.8 billion K2 structured investment.

The beef industry is putting pressure on U.S. agriculture regulators to reduce the scale of a massive recall initiated this week, according to a report.

The tender offer, a speedier mechanism to buy a public company, is being increasingly used to structure takeovers. But some caution that the route won't necessarily produce a top-dollar bid for shareholders. Tender offers allow bidders to go direct to shareholders with or without support from a target company's board, as opposed to a merger, in which a buyer will typically negotiate an agreement with the target that is then subject to board and stockholder approval.

Shareholders in Seven Bank Ltd, which operates ATMs in convenience stores owned by Seven & I Holdings Co Ltd, raised $481 million after its IPO was priced at the top of its projected range, as investors rattled by the subprime crisis embraced its low-risk business model.

Europe's biggest insurer, Allianz , is axing hundreds of jobs at its Dresdner Kleinwort investment bank and slashing its complex structured finance business, after suffering big fourth-quarter writedowns.

Reed Elsevier announced the acquisition of U.S. risk-management business ChoicePoint Inc for $4.1 billion including debt alongside its results, as well as a renewed cost-savings drive and the planned sale of an advertising-dependent information business. Shares in Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed, which have outperformed the DJ Stoxx European media sector by 5 percent over the past year, jumped 6 percent to 619 pence on the news on Thursday.

College student Li Aihua wears his tattered, grungy Li Ning basketball sneakers with pride.

Global consumer packaging company Rexam Plc has announced its full year results for 2007, posting an 11 per cent rise in sales from continuing operations, taking the total value of its annual sales to £3,566 million.

Supermarket chain ASDA has announced it will be creating 9,000 new jobs in what it calls its biggest jobs programme in a decade. The jobs will be created through new store openings, extensions and business expansion.

An internal investigation by Societe Generale into a massive trading loss blamed on a single trader has found controls at the French bank lacked depth, a report published by the bank showed on Wednesday

Social-networking site, MySpace is in talks with major record companies to create a service that would provide users with free music as it moves to distinguish itself from encroaching competitors such as Facebook, according to news reports.

Bain Capital Partners said on Wednesday it withdrew its application for U.S. national security approval for its planned $2.2 billion acquisition of network-equipment maker 3Com Corp.

Inflation fears and delays in debt payments by an affiliate of private equity giant KKR spooked financial markets on Wednesday, battering stocks and driving the cost of corporate debt insurance to all-time peaks.

Air China is in initial talks to buy all the shares it does not already own in its cargo venture with the parent of Beijing Capital International Airport, an Air China executive said on Wednesday.

Annual pay cheques of some fund managers in India have hit $1 million, levels seen normally in London and Tokyo, as asset management firms scramble for scarce talent in a booming market.

British bank Alliance & Leicester on Wednesday suffered a double blow from the impact of financial market turmoil, warning of sharply higher funding costs to add to a big writedown on the value of risky assets. Britain's seventh largest listed bank is estimating higher funding costs as it seeks to avoid a crisis that hit rival Northern Rock last year.

The end of the format battle is finally here. Toshiba said overnight that it would withdraw from the HD DVD business causing U.S.-listed shares of Sony Corp rallied to a 3-week high on Tuesday on optimism about sales of its PlayStation 3 video game consoles and Blu-ray DVD players.

Credit Suisse has written $2.85 billion off the value of its asset-backed investments and found mismarking and pricing errors on its books, it revealed on Tuesday, sending its shares plummeting. The bank said the write-downs would wipe $1 billion from its first-quarter net income, after taking into account tax credits and cancelling some staff bonuses, but it still expected to stay in profit in the quarter, despite the charge.