The agency said Tuesday it’s starting a program, the SBA Veteran Pledge Initiative, aimed at increasing lending to veteran-owned businesses by 5 per cent a year for the next five years. The 20 major banks known as SBA National Lending Partners are making the pledge along with about 100 regional banks across the country. The program is expected to help an additional 2,000 veterans get loans totalling $475 million over the life of the program, the SBA said.

The agency started the program after finding there was a gap in lending to veterans, SBA head Karen Mills told The Associated Press. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the SBA backed more than 3,200 loans to veterans worth more than $1.25 billion.

“We don’t have a specific theory about the cause,” Mills said. “When we went to the banks they were eager to be connected to veteran-owned businesses.”

Nine per cent of small businesses, or 2.45 million, are owned by veterans, according to the SBA. Mills said the new program is designed to complement SBA programs aimed at training veterans so they’ll be able to start and run businesses and obtain loans. Mills noted that many veterans leave the service with management skills that can carry over to running a business.

Many of the veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan have started companies, and many have decided to open franchises, said Rich Bradshaw, the head of SBA lending at TD Bank, one of the agency’s lending partners. He said most of the franchise loans that TD Bank expects to make under the new program will be under $150,000.

The ongoing reduction of troops in Afghanistan, which follows the withdrawal of troops in Iraq, is expected to increase demand for business loans from veterans, Bradshaw said.

The SBA’s website has a section aimed at veterans who are business owners or planning to start businesses. It’s www.sba.gov/veterans

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The Office for National Statistics said Tuesday that the annual rate fell to 2.4 per cent in April from 2.8 per cent the previous month. The fall was bigger than anticipated — the consensus in the markets was for a more modest fall to 2.6 per cent.

Inflation nevertheless remains above the Bank of England’s target of 2 per cent.

The drop in inflation hit the pound, as investors speculated that it may prompt the central bank to enact another monetary stimulus soon.

After the figures were released, the pound was trading 0.5 per cent lower at $1.5190. Prior to their release, the pound was trading around the $1.5213 mark.

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A person familiar with the deal said Tuesday that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. sold just under 1.6 billion shares of state-owned Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. The person was not authorized to discuss Monday’s sale publicly and asked not to be identified.

Goldman was one of a number of Western banks that bought stakes in China’s major state-owned commercial lenders before they held initial public stock sales over the past decade.

The Western institutions hoped the relationships would help them expand in China but most were disappointed. Still, shares in the Chinese banks multiplied in value and foreign institutions have made billions of dollars on their investments.

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The company said Tuesday that Nick Buckles will be replaced by Ashley Almanza, a senior executive from the oil and gas company BG Group.

G4S had agreed in February to take an 85 million pound hit after failing to provide agreed upon security personnel for last summer’s London Olympics.

That figure includes extra costs paid by the government to provide military and police security to cover the G4S shortfall.

Despite the setback, the company has been hired in a support role to help secure the G-8 summit of world leaders in Northern Ireland next month.

The new CEO is scheduled to take over on June 1.

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The event will be held Tuesday at the Connecticut Convention Center. It is expected to include a presentation by the state’s marketing team of the impact of Connecticut’s “Still Revolutionary” campaign.

Malloy unveiled the brand last year as part of a two-year, $27 million state marketing initiative.

He made boosting tourism a plank of his platform during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign after his Republican predecessor, Gov. M. Jodi Rell, slashed state funding for marketing and cost Connecticut its spot on a New England promotional map.

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The Obama administration said Monday it wants to see more cuts to agriculture subsidies and crop insurance in the legislation, which would cost almost $100 billion a year over five years and would set policy for farm programs and food aid.

The bill would cut about $2.4 billion annually from overall farm spending. But it would still expand federally subsidized crop insurance and raise some subsidies for rice and peanut farmers.

The White House did not specify how large a cut it was seeking.

The Senate began debating the bill Monday.

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The Fed is conducting its third round of massive bond purchases known as quantitative easing to help drive down interest rates and spur lending. But recently improving data on the U.S. economy has led to speculation that the Fed might consider scaling back the program or winding it down earlier than expected.

On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will appear before Congress and the central bank will release minutes of its most recent policy meeting.

“When markets are this elevated, with US markets at record levels, investors generally look for any excuse to exercise caution,” said Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG in Melbourne.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.1 per cent to 15,341.85. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.6 per cent to 23,364.36 amid profit-taking, analysts said. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.6 per cent to 5,176.70 after minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s May meeting, released Tuesday, showed the central bank expects the country’s economy to experience below-average growth this year.

South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.1 per cent to 1,979.93. Benchmarks in Singapore, Indonesia and New Zealand fell while the Philippines rose. Mainland Chinese shares were mixed.

A key piece of data comes out of China later in the week when HSBC releases its monthly manufacturing survey Thursday. After some recent ups and downs, analysts said they expected to see a stabilization of growth in factory output.

“I think the market has already turned more cautious,” said Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong. “I don’t think it will add much more impact to the market overall.”

Among individual stocks, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. soared 23 per cent after the company launched the manufacture of a mini-vehicle jointly developed with Nissan Motor Co., Kyodo News said.

On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.1 per cent to close at 15,335.28. The Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped 0.1 per cent to 1,666.29. Still, both stock indexes are near their record highs. The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.1 per cent, to 3,496.43.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was up 12 cents to $96.83 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained 69 cents to close at $96.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2886 from $1.2897 late Monday in New York. The dollar rose to 102.47 yen from 102.29 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

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The Fed is currently conducting the third round of massive bond purchases known as quantitative easing to help drive down interest rates and spur lending. But recently improving data on the U.S. economy has led to speculation that the Fed might consider scaling back the program or winding it down earlier than expected.

On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will appear before Congress and the central bank’s will release minutes of its most recent policy meeting.

“When markets are this elevated, with US markets at record levels, investors generally look for any excuse to exercise caution,” said Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG Markets in Melbourne.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index was marginally higher at 15,369.13. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.3 per cent to 23,427.07. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.7 per cent to 5,174.80.

South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.2 per cent to 1,979. Benchmarks in Singapore and New Zealand fell, while those in Taiwan and Indonesia rose. Mainland Chinese shares were mixed.

On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.1 per cent to close at 15,335.28. The Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped 0.1 per cent to 1,666.29. Still, both stock indexes are near their record highs. The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.1 per cent, to 3,496.43.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was up 14 cents to $96.85 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained 69 cents to close at $96.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2888 from $1.2897 late Monday in New York. The dollar rose to 102.50 yen from 102.29 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

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The rate of credit card payments at least 90 days overdue fell to 0.69 per cent in the first quarter from 0.85 per cent a year earlier — drop of nearly 19 per cent, credit reporting agency TransUnion said Tuesday.

The January-March card delinquency rate was also down from 0.73 in the October-December quarter, when many consumers ramped up credit use to finance holiday season purchases.

Neither a 2 per cent hike in Social Security payroll taxes that took effect in January, nor delayed federal income tax returns this year appeared to blunt borrowers’ ability to manage their debt.

While down, the late-payment rate is above historically low levels. The lowest late-payment rate on TransUnion records going back to the mid-1990s was 0.56 per cent, set in the third quarter of 1994. More recently, it was at 0.60 per cent in the second quarter of 2011.

All told, the card-delinquency rate has averaged 1.03 per cent since 1992, said the firm, whose credit trend data is based from a sample of 27 million consumer records.

“Even a moderate uptick in delinquency is not a cause for concern, because we are at historic lows,” said Ezra Becker, vice-president of research and consulting in TransUnion’s financial services business unit.

During the last recession, many Americans reined in spending in favour of paying off debt, particularly credit card balances. The housing downturn also prompted many homeowners to make paying their credit card accounts on time a priority ahead of other financial obligations, such as their mortgage payments.

Nearly four years after the recession, the U.S. economy and job market are far from fully recovered, but they have made steady progress.

The national unemployment rate remains at an elevated 7.5 per cent, but that’s down from a high of 10 per cent in October 2009. The economy has been steadily adding jobs, home values are rising nationally and the stock market has been on a sustained upswing, with the Dow Jones industrial average index up about 17 per cent this year.

Those factors have helped boost confidence among consumers, making them feel wealthier and more willing to spend.

Even so, many remain careful about how they manage their debt.

Average credit card debt per borrower fell 1.7 per cent to $4,878 in the first quarter from $4,962 in the same period last year, TransUnion said.

On a quarterly basis, it declined 4.8 per cent from $5,122 in the fourth quarter.

TransUnion, however, has forecast that average credit card debt will rise by roughly 8 per cent to $5,446 by the end of this year — the highest level in four years.

Meanwhile, the number of new credit card accounts opened by consumers continued to decline as 2012 drew to a close.

The data lags by a quarter, so the latest TransUnion figures cover the October-December period. They show that the number of new credit card accounts fell 1.6 per cent from the same period in 2011.

The share of cards issued to borrowers with less-than-sterling credit slipped to 28.1 per cent from 28.4 per cent a year earlier. That’s still above the 27.7 per cent share in the fourth quarter of 2010, however.

In the VantageScore credit rating scale, consumers with a score lower than 700 on a scale of 501-990 are considered non-prime borrowers.

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The official said Monday that Treasury told the White House in late April about a possible speech in which IRS official Lois Lerner would make a public apology and that outgoing Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller expected to be asked about the issue during congressional testimony. However, the official said Treasury did not give the White House advance warning that Lerner planned to address the issue during a May 10 conference, which she ultimately did.

White House advisers have said President Barack Obama was not told about the IRS targeting before it became public.

The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity.

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In a letter to congressional leaders, Lew said that he would tap the civil service retirement and disability fund and a similar fund that covers retired postal workers. The law allows him to remove investments from these funds to clear room for more borrowing until Congress votes to raise the debt limit

Under the law, any investments diverted from the pension funds must be replaced with interest once Congress approves raising the debt limit.

Lew has said the various bookkeeping measures he is allowed to employ should provide enough manoeuvring room to keep the government from defaulting on its debt until after Labor Day. Other estimates say Lew may be able to forestall a default until as late as November.

In January, Congress voted to temporarily suspend the debt limit but that suspension ended Sunday.

Before the suspension, the debt limit stood at $16.4 trillion. The government has borrowed $300 billion since the suspension took effect. On Sunday, the debt limit reset at the higher level of $16.7 trillion.

The government has run annual deficits of more than $1 trillion for the past four years. But the Congressional Budget Office last week estimated that this year’s deficit will drop to $643 billion, an improvement that reflects increased revenue from a stronger economy and the effect of tax increases that took effect in January.

Republicans want to reduce future deficits by cutting back on spending. Democrats have proposed a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, which Republicans oppose. The dispute has led to the current budget impasse.

A standoff over budget issues in August 2011 pushed the country close to its first-ever default before President Barack Obama and Republicans reached a last-minute compromise. That battle prompted Standard & Poor’s to issue the first-ever downgrade on long-term Treasury debt. The administration has vowed to prevent Republicans from using the need to raise the borrowing limit as leverage in the current budget battle.

“I respectfully urge Congress to protect America’s good credit and avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences of failing to act by increasing the debt limit in a timely fashion,” Lew said in his Monday letter.

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But now we’ve got David Karp, who doesn’t even have a high school diploma. Karp, 26, founded Tumblr, the online blogging forum, and sold it to Yahoo for $1.1 billion.

Which raises the question: When is it OK for a wunderkind to drop out of school?

Some folks in Silicon Valley and elsewhere say a conventional education can’t possibly give kids with outsize talents what they need. Others, like Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford Law School who teaches and advises startup companies, say dropping out to pursue a dream is like “buying a lottery ticket — that’s how good your odds are here. More likely than not, you will become unemployed. For every success, there are 100,000 failures.”

But what about kids who are so good at computer programming that schools can’t teach them what they need to know? “That’s what internships are for; that’s what extracurricular activities are for,” says Wadhwa, who has founded two companies.

Karp, in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, said he hopes teenagers don’t look at his success as an excuse for leaving school. “That is not a path that I would haphazardly recommend to kids out there,” he said. “I was in a very unique position of knowing exactly what I wanted to do at a time when computer science education certainly wasn’t that good in high school in New York City.”

Karp’s mother gave him the option of home-schooling when he was 14, after he completed his freshman year at the Bronx High School of Science, an elite New York City public school that only admits students who score well on a difficult entrance exam. Karp took Japanese classes and had a math tutor while continuing with an internship at an animation production company, but by age 16, he was working for a website and was on his way to become a tech entrepreneur. He never did get his diploma. Karp’s mother told the AP that she let him leave school because she realized “he needed the time in the day in order to create.”

That resonates with Penny Mills of Hudson, Mass., who let her son Thomas Sohmers, 17, drop out of 11th grade this year. “I could see how much of the work he was doing at school wasn’t relevant to what he wanted to learn,” she said. “He always wanted to learn more than what the schools wanted to teach him. At times it was very frustrating. I was fortunate to find people that were able to teach him more, but he has gone beyond what high school could ever give him.”

Thomas has been working at a research lab at the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology since he was 13, developing projects ranging from augmented reality eyewear to laser communications systems. He just won a Thiel Fellowship, which gives $100,000 to 20 people under the age of 20 each year so they can skip college to focus on research or a dream, whether it’s a high-tech project, a business or a non-profit. But his mom says she would have let him drop out even if he hadn’t won the award.

“The part that really bothers me is that there are a lot of Thomases out there and their needs are not being met,” said Mills.

Thomas says he’s sad to be leaving his teenage friends behind, but he’s excited about the future. And he has mixed feelings about his years in school. “I’ve had some amazing, great teachers that really have the passion to teach, but most of what is in school now is teaching to a test,” he said. “It’s really sad. You’re not learning the skills for how to solve the problem — you are just learning the answer to this question that is going to be on the test.”

Susan Bartell, a psychologist based in Port Washington, New York who works with adolescents and their families, says she frequently encounters parents who are convinced that their kids are extraordinarily gifted. But she cautions that it’s “the very rare exception when this decision (to drop out) makes sense.” In the case of Karp, she said, “it worked out, but almost always it doesn’t — even if a kid is extremely gifted. School is about much more than just academics and in most cases, even the most gifted kids need the socializing.”

And not all young moguls take Karp’s route. Earlier this year, a 17-year-old from London, Nick D’Aloisio, sold an app he created to Yahoo for $30 million — but he decided to stay in school.

On the other hand, there are examples of successful individuals in many fields who lack a high school diploma, from top performers such as Jay-Z to billionaire businessmen such as Richard Branson.

The tech community may be different from other industries. Degrees are not necessarily seen as a hallmark of achievement and programmers are judged on their ability to type lines of code. You are what you create.

What also sets the field apart is that computer programming is not taught at every high school, and even when it is, the most talented students often either “surpass the curriculum or feel it’s not relevant to them,” said Danielle Strachman, program director for the Thiel Fellowship. “They want to move at their own pace.”

Strachman also emphasized that just because someone has left school, doesn’t mean they’ve stopped learning. The Thiel program provides not just funding, but a community of peers and mentors to help recipients reach their goals. And they can always go back to pursue a degree when the fellowship is over.

It’s a goal that even Karp has his eye on— despite his newfound wealth. “I hope I have an opportunity to go to school at some point,” he said, “and study something completely different.”

___

Associated Press writers Meghan Barr in New York and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this story.

___

Online:

Thiel Fellowship: http://www.thielfellowship.org/

The post When is it OK for wunderkinds to drop out of school? (Hey, it worked for Tumblr’s founder!) appeared first on Canadian Business.

Pavlof Volcano released ash plumes as high as 22,000 feet over the weekend, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Clouds obscured the volcano Monday, but U.S. Geological Survey scientists said seismic instruments at the volcano show continuing tremors.

“Seismically, it’s been pretty steady over the last 12 hours,” geologist Chris Waythomas said late Monday morning.

The abrasive ash has not risen enough to threaten international air traffic passing over the volcano-rich Aleutian arc, Waythomas said. Ash emissions have gone high enough, however, to affect flights of some smaller planes.

Anchorage-based regional carrier Penair has cancelled a dozen passenger and cargo flights to several remote communities since Sunday afternoon. The communities include Sand Point, which reported a dusting of ash Sunday.

Penair CEO Danny Seybert said for those flying in the region, flight disruptions are part of doing business. It’s not unusual for the airline to cancel flights a couple times each year because of volcanoes, according to Seybert. To him, it’s not a big deal, not a sky-is-falling crisis.

“If we had that attitude, we would have quit 50 years ago,” he said. “It’s one of the situations that Mother Nature presents itself along our route structure.”

Ace Air Cargo, also based in Anchorage, cancelled two flights and delayed others, but for the most part, its planes are flying around any ash, said Greg Hawthorne, a company official. The airline is closely monitoring developments, he said.

“We’re used to those volcanoes going off in that region,” he said. “But if the winds are wrong, you don’t want to test that pumice.”

Pavlof eruptions typically involve gas-rich fountains of lava that can shoot up to a few thousand feet. But its ash clouds are usually lower and less dense than the plumes of more explosive volcanoes that pose a greater hazard to aircraft, according to scientists. That’s not to say it couldn’t spew out much higher plumes, they said.

The volcano 625 miles southwest of Anchorage is among the most active volcanoes in the region, with nearly 40 known eruptions, according to the observatory.

Pavlof last erupted in 2007. During the 29-day eruption, the volcano emitted mud flows and erupting lava, as well as ash clouds up to 18,000 feet high.

In the most recent eruption, trace amounts of ash fell at both Nelson Lagoon and in Sand Point, a town about 55 miles from Pavlof. Residents in the community of nearly 1,000 awoke Sunday to a thin layer of the gritty ash.

Kathleen Harper, a National Weather Service observer based at Sand Point, said it was raining lightly Monday. But on Sunday, ash was in the air, irritating her eyes and the back of her throat. She said the ash fall amounted to about a half teaspoon per hour on a sheet of white paper she placed on the ground.

When the weather is clear, the eruption can be seen from Sand Point, as well as the community Cold Bay, 37 miles from Pavlof. Through her binoculars, Harper saw Pavlof spit out a fountain of rocky lava.

“You could actually see the rocks coming out of the volcano,” she said. “It was pretty cool.”

___

Follow Rachel D’Oro at https://twitter.com/rdoro .

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Yahoo Inc. said at an event in New York City’s Times Square on Monday that it is now offering users 1 terabyte of online storage for free. One terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes — enough to store more than 500,000 images at a resolution common to most smartphones.

Yahoo has redesigned the Flickr website to emphasize photos rather than text or white space, as was the case previously. Photos are bigger and shared in full resolution rather than compressed into a lower quality.

Flickr also launched a new Android app to follow the December unveiling of a new iPhone app.

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Buffett visited a Dairy Queen in Ralston, Neb., Monday evening to serve up the restaurant chain’s new S’mores Blizzard flavour that will be available nationwide June 1. Then he ate ice cream for the cameras.

Berkshire owns Minneapolis-based Dairy Queen, so Buffett’s always happy to talk about his favourite treats.

Dairy Queen CEO John Gainor presented Buffett with a jersey labeling him the restaurant’s No. 1 fan. Buffett also wore his Dairy Queen tie Monday.

Gainor says it’s nice to have a boss who’s so willing to help promote Dairy Queen’s products.

Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns more than 80 companies, including insurance, railroad, utility, manufacturing and retail businesses.

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Here are some of the milestones on her watch:

— ALIBABA: In September, Yahoo completed a long-awaited, $7.6 billion deal for Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba to buy back half of Yahoo’s 40 per cent stake. Most of the proceeds will go to its shareholders, but Yahoo has an extra $1.3 billion to finance acquisitions or hire new talent. Some of that money is going to the Tumblr deal.

— MOBILE: Mayer has made mobile services one of her top priorities, as more people connect to the Internet on smartphones and tablet computers. During her tenure, Yahoo has created a new weather app for Apple’s iPhone. It also has redesigned an email app for smartphones, as well as the app for its Flickr photo service on the iPhone and iPad. But in February, Mayer also said Yahoo will be better served with just 12 to 15 mobile applications, down from a “scattered” portfolio of as many as 75 different programs in recent years.

— WEB MAKEOVER: Yahoo unveiled a long-awaited redesign of its home page in February — the first in four years. The new approach is meant to get people to visit more frequently and linger for longer periods of time. Yahoo said it has developed more sophisticated formulas to determine which topics are most likely to appeal to different people so the news feed can be fine-tuned to cater to different tastes.

— PERSONNEL: Ross Levinsohn, who was in charge of Yahoo’s media and advertising services and served as interim CEO before Mayer’s hiring, left the company. Software industry veteran Ken Goldman was named chief financial officer to replace cost-cutting specialist Tim Morse, who was hired in 2009. Alfred Amoroso stepped down as board chairman in April and plans to leave next month, which will make him the eighth director to leave since early 2012.

— STOCK PERFORMANCE: Mayer’s efforts at Yahoo have been well-received on Wall Street, although most of the 70 per cent surge in Yahoo’s stock price under Mayer’s leadership has been driven by the rising value of Yahoo’s remaining 24 per cent in Alibaba. Unlike Yahoo, Alibaba’s growth has been accelerating. That success has been steadily increasing Alibaba’s estimated market value during the past year. Analysts believe Yahoo may be able to make another $10 billion to $20 billion, before taxes, when it sells the rest of its Alibaba holdings.

— ACQUISITIONS: Yahoo has bought several startups primarily to obtain more engineering talent to build help build better mobile applications. It also bought London startup Summly, which makes a mobile application created by a teenage entrepreneur who sought an easier way to read news stories and other content on the smaller screens of smartphones.

Now, it is buying Tumblr in the most expensive acquisition since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company bought online search engine Overture a decade ago for $1.3 billion in cash and stock. Yahoo is paying mostly cash and expects to complete the deal by the end of the year. Mayer is betting Tumblr will provide Yahoo with a captivating hook to reel in more traffic and advertisers on smartphones and tablet computers. More than half of Tumblr’s users connect through the mobile app and engage in an average of seven visits per day.

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The high-tech issue involves a negotiation at arm’s length between industry, which relies on ever-increasing numbers of skilled foreigners, and organized labour, which represents American workers, according to lawmakers and officials close to the talks.

As drafted, the bill would raise the current cap on so-called H-1B visas from 65,000 annually to 110,000, with the possibility of a further rise to 180,000. At issue in the talks are the costs that companies must bear to bring foreigners into the United States, the steps they must first take to seek out American citizens for the jobs and other conditions.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, whose state has a large high-tech industry, told reporters on Monday he will vote in favour of the legislation in committee if agreement is reached on the issue. He has been negotiating with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who said in late afternoon no deal had been sealed.

On the other major remaining unresolved issue, officials said there was a growing if unspoken expectation that the measure would likely emerge from committee without a provision granting same-sex spouses the same access to legal status as heterosexual spouses are entitled to.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has introduced a proposal to give equal treatment under the bill to same-sex couples, a provision gay rights groups seek. Several lobbyists and others noted during the day he has not yet said definitively said if he will seek a vote on it before the panel completes its work, and neither the White House nor other Democrats on the committee have made a strong push for its inclusion.

A vote on the proposal could create political difficulty for Democrats on the committee who support gay rights and are also members of the so-called Gang of Eight which negotiated the main features of the legislation. That includes Sen. Chuck Schumer or New York and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Durbin has told outside groups he will back the change if it is offered. Schumer hasn’t said which way he would vote.

All eight have pledged to maintain the essential outlines of the legislation. A vote to add the gay rights provision could lead to approval on a party-line vote in committee, but lead to the collapse of Republican support on the Senate floor and the bill’s demise.

In addition, the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling by early July that could render the issue largely moot.

At its core, the legislation would provide an opportunity of U.S. citizenship to millions of immigrants living in the country illegally, create a new visa program for low-skilled workers and permit a sizeable increase in the number of high-tech visas, at the same time it mandates new measures to crack down on future unlawful immigration.

Final committee approval is expected by midweek, with the full Senate likely to begin debate next month.

The measure is one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities, although the administration has generally let the committee work on its own.

In a show of support, though, Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden arranged to meet Tuesday in the Oval Office at the White House with individuals directly affected by the measure.

In a long day of drafting on Monday, the panel voted to begin phasing in a requirement for foreigners to undergo fingerprinting when they leave the country. Lawmakers also agreed to make an immigrant’s third drunk driving conviction a deportable offence in some cases.

The committee rejected other proposals that backers of the bill said were unworkable.

Among them was one by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to require that every application filed as a first step toward seeking citizenship be done so online.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sought to include a provision requiring applicants to disclose any Social Security numbers they had used previously, but that fell on a party-line vote.

Democrats, too, were forced to scale back some of their proposals to win support.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, dropped a provision making Pell Grants available to individuals who have embarked on the path to citizenship. She won agreement for more limited benefits, such as access to financial aid.

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Yahoo takes big leap with $1.1 billion deal for Tumblr

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo is buying online blogging forum Tumblr for $1.1 billion as CEO Marissa Mayer tries to rejuvenate an Internet pioneer that had fallen behind the times.

The deal announced Monday is Mayer’s boldest move since she left Google 10 months ago to lead Yahoo’s latest comeback attempt. It marks Yahoo’s most expensive acquisition since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company bought online search engine Overture a decade ago for $1.3 billion in cash and stock.

Yahoo is paying mostly cash for Tumblr, dipping into what remains of a $7.6 billion windfall reaped last year from selling about half of its stake in Chinese Internet company Alibaba Holdings Group. Taking over Tumblr will devour about one-fifth of the $5.4 billion in cash that Yahoo had in its accounts at the end of March.

___

Tumblr CEO’s mom gushes over billion-dollar baby

NEW YORK (AP) — As a teenager, Tumblr CEO David Karp would canvass the streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, offering to build websites for local businesses. After his freshman year of high school, the precocious, computer-savvy kid decided to drop out altogether to devote more time to his passion for technology.

A few years later, Karp built Tumblr — the wildly popular blogging forum — from his tiny childhood bedroom, hunched over his laptop with bags of Tostitos. And on Saturday, the 26-year-old technology wunderkind returned home to inform his mother that, in a game-changing transaction, Yahoo was buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion.

The deal was a transcendent moment for Karp, who created one of the world’s busiest websites. It boasts 75 million daily posts and a user base that’s loyal, young and hip. While Facebook has morphed into a mainstream social network where grandparents talk golf, Tumblr is still that little corner of the Internet where the cool kids hang out.

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Panel: Apple uses firms outside US to avoid taxes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Apple Inc. employs a group of affiliate companies located outside the United States to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes, a Senate investigation has found.

The world’s most valuable company is holding overseas some $102 billion of its $145 billion in cash, and an Irish subsidiary that earned $22 billion in 2011 paid only $10 million in taxes, according to the report issued Monday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The strategies Apple uses are legal, and many other multinational corporations use similar tax techniques to avoid paying U.S. income taxes on profits they reap overseas. But Apple uses a unique twist, the report found. The company’s tactics raise questions about loopholes in the U.S. tax code, lawmakers say.

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Russian oligarchs foot most of 2014 Sochi Olympics

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — The mountains of Sochi are now home to Potanin’s slope, Gazprom’s gondola lift and Sberbank’s ski jump. The nicknames used by locals and an army of construction workers leave no doubt about who is paying for the 2014 Winter Games: Russia’s business powerhouses.

Other countries that have hosted the Olympics have overwhelmingly used public funds to pay for the construction of needed venues and new infrastructure. The Russian government, however, has gotten state-controlled companies and tycoons to foot more than half of the bill, which now stands at $51 billion and makes the 2014 Winter Games by far the most expensive Olympics in history. In contrast, the much-larger 2012 Summer Olympics in London cost about $14.3 billion and the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing cost about $40 billion.

For President Vladimir Putin, the games have been a matter of pride. He has entrusted the country’s top businessmen with Sochi’s key projects. He himself is spending increasing amounts of time in the southern Russian city, hosting world leaders at his luxurious presidential palace.

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Actavis buying Warner Chilcott in $8.5 billion deal

NEW YORK (AP) — Actavis is buying Warner Chilcott in an all-stock deal valued at about $8.5 billion that would create the third-biggest specialty pharmaceutical company in the U.S. market.

The announcement Monday comes after the companies said earlier this month that they were in talks about a possible pairing of one of the world’s largest generic drugmakers, Actavis Inc., with an Irish company that has a portfolio of established, branded drugs.

The combined company will be incorporated in Ireland, and analysts say that country’s lower tax rate is a key to making the deal work. Actavis said it expects about $400 million in after-tax savings and cost cuts from the combination, counting the lower tax rate.

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Economists predict increase in consumer spending

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer spending is likely to pick up this year, while government spending declines at a faster rate, according to a survey of business economists.

The economists predict that the U.S. economy will grow 2.4 per cent this year and 3 per cent next year. That’s unchanged from their forecast in February.

But they are more bullish on consumer spending and housing than they were three months ago, in part because of a more positive view about unemployment.

The survey was released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics, which periodically surveys economists for banks, manufacturers and universities.

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Special K churns out products in brand evolution

NEW YORK (AP) — Special K was once just a line of cereals. Today, it’s a diet food empire.

The brand first hit shelves in 1955 as a no-frills breakfast alternative but now caters to dieters who see its airy chips and pastries as a way to beat cravings and lose weight. And this summer, Kellogg Co. is building on its biggest moneymaker with a “hot cereal” called Special K Nourish that’s made with quinoa and other grains.

The new line, which promises to fill people up with 8 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, reflects Special K’s push to move in step with evolving trends. Until now, Special K products largely gave dieters low-calorie imitations of their fantasy foods. But weight watchers are increasingly looking for added nutritional benefits, rather than just counting calories.

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Seamless and GrubHub to combine, no terms revealed

NEW YORK (AP) — Rival online takeout services Seamless North America and GrubHub on Monday announced plans to combine and create a new company covering more than 20,000 restaurants in 500 cities across the U.S.

Financial terms were not disclosed and it’s unclear what the combined company will be called. GrubHub CEO Matt Maloney will become CEO, while Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky will serve as president, the companies said in a joint statement.

Brian McAndrews, an independent director on the Seamless board, will serve as chairman. Both New York-based Seamless and Chicago-based GrubHub will have significant representation on the new company’s board.

The combined company’s name and marketing brands will be determined following regulatory approval, the companies said.

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United restarts 787 flights after grounding

United Airlines put its 787 back in the air on Monday, with both the airline and Boeing hoping to put the plane’s four-month grounding behind them.

The flight from Houston to Chicago was just the kind of 787 flight that airlines are hoping for: uneventful.

Smouldering batteries on two 787s owned by other airlines prompted authorities to ground the planes in January. The failure of Boeing’s newest, flashiest and most important plane embarrassed the company and its customers.

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FDA says Merck drug helps treat insomnia but may cause daytime drowsiness and driving issues

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health regulators say an experimental insomnia drug from Merck can help patients fall asleep, but it also carries worrisome side effects, including daytime drowsiness and suicidal thinking.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday released its review of the company’s sleep aid, suvorexant, ahead of a public meeting on Wednesday. The pill works by temporarily blocking chemical messengers that keep people awake.

The FDA said company trials show suvorexant is better than placebo at helping people fall asleep and stay asleep. And regulators said the drug’s effectiveness was consistent across several doses tested by Merck & Co. Inc.

But patients taking the higher doses of the drug showed an eight-fold increase in daytime drowsiness, which sometimes interfered with driving the next morning. Patients taking 20 milligrams and 40 milligrams of suvorexant had trouble staying in their driving lanes when tested by company researchers. FDA notes that four women actually had to stop the driving test due to excessive sleepiness.

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By The Associated Press(equals)

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 19.12 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 15,335.28. The Nasdaq composite index fell 2.53 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 3,496.43 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 1.18 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 1,666.29.

Benchmark oil for June delivery gained 69 cents to close at $96.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, a benchmark for many international oil varieties, rose 16 cents to $104.80 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Wholesale gasoline was flat at $2.91 a gallon. Heating oil rose 1 cent to $2.95 a gallon. Natural gas gained 4 cents to $4.09 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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Other countries that have hosted the Olympics have overwhelmingly used public funds to pay for the construction of needed venues and new infrastructure. The Russian government, however, has gotten state-controlled companies and tycoons to foot more than half of the bill, which now stands at $51 billion and makes the 2014 Winter Games by far the most expensive Olympics in history. In contrast, the much-larger 2012 Summer Olympics in London cost about $14.3 billion and the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing cost about $40 billion.

For President Vladimir Putin, the games have been a matter of pride. He has entrusted the country’s top businessmen with Sochi’s key projects. He himself is spending increasing amounts of time in the southern Russian city, hosting world leaders at his luxurious presidential palace.

Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister under Putin, described the tycoons’ participation as a sort of tax imposed by the president.

“If you want to carry on doing business in Russia, here’s the tax you need to pay — the kind of a tax that he wants you to pay,” Kasyanov, now an opposition leader, told The Associated Press.

This is particularly true of those like metals tycoons Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska, who made their fortunes in the rags-to-riches privatizations after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. For others who have grown fabulously wealthy since Putin came to power in 2000, the 2014 Olympics have been a chance to reap the profits through lucrative state contracts.

Most of the projects the tycoons are involved in are not profitable — and many businessmen are making no secret of the losses they are incurring. But anyone who does business in Russia today is acutely aware of the importance of maintaining good relations with the government — and especially with Putin. The tycoons remember well how Putin in 2008, with one verbal attack, sent the stock of metals company Mechel tumbling 40 per cent, cutting $6 billion from its shareholder value.

“Russian big business is heavily dependent on the government and often has to follow Putin’s requests and take on projects that are important for top officials,” said Vladimir Milov, an economist and former deputy energy minister who also is now part of the anti-Putin opposition.

The tycoons and state-owned companies dismiss claims that they were pressured to invest in Sochi or that they did so in exchange for promises of preferential treatment.

Gazprom, the world’s largest natural gas producer and a publicly traded company, said in a written statement to the AP that its work in Sochi is “both a business project and serious social responsibility.” Gazprom’s Sochi projects are vast. It is building a pipeline to bring gas supplies to the Sochi area, a power station in a Sochi suburb, an Alpine ski resort, one of the three Olympic villages and a cross-country skiing and biathlon centre. Its total costs run to $3 billion.

Andrei Elinson, deputy general director at Deripaska’s Basic Element investment vehicle, insists its Sochi projects were all designed to be profitable. The company is building an Olympic village and a seaport and has just finished revamping the Sochi airport, for a combined cost of $1.4 billion.

“We are a strategic investor in the area. We believe in the development of the area on the whole,” Elinson said. After the games, Basic Element plans to convert the Olympic village into apartments and the sea port into a marina.

Even so, some tycoons are grumbling that they have been hit up with unexpected demands that are stretching their funds more than anticipated. Their balance sheets have been dragged down by a flow of requests from the state contractor Olimpstroi to build more infrastructure than originally planned.

Potanin started building his Roza Khutor ski resort even before Sochi was picked in 2007 to host the 2014 games. He is spending $2.5 billion, including $500 million on infrastructure required by the International Olympic Committee. In addition, the Alpine resort had to close to tourists for months at a time while hosting Olympic tests events during the past two winter seasons, costing it $3.2 million in lost revenue each month it was closed, according to Roza Khutor general director Sergei Bachin.

When Potanin’s Interros holding company first committed to the games, “we had no idea what exactly would be required from us,” Bachin said. Now delivering everything on time has become “a matter of honour,” he said. Still, looking back, Bachin said Roza Khutor should not have been so compliant.

“When we were asked to build this or that, we were probably too yielding in taking up those requests,” he said.

Potanin was the first to raise his voice. Last year he said he expected the Russian government to compensate him for at least the $500 million he is spending doing work that he said should have been the government’s responsibility.

Roza Khutor has asked the government to create a special economic zone in the Sochi area. Tax rebates would allow the resort to be “operationally sound” and help it repay loans to the state-owned VEB bank more quickly, Bachin said.

The frustrations have been shared by Deripaska’s Basic Element, which is suing Olimpstroi for about $50 million, the amount it had to fork out when Olimpstroi questioned the quality of the gravel used to protect the coast at the sea port. Deripaska’s company also complained that the sea port it built is receiving only 20 per cent of the cargo load that had been promised by the government, leaving revenues far lower than expected.

“It’s pretty frustrating,” Elinson said. “But we think it’s curable if the government takes certain responsibly for those actions and comes up with a solution that would allow the project and the investor to recover.”

He said at this stage all investors are concerned about the additional costs they have faced in Sochi.

Last month, Basic Element, Interros, Gazprom and state-owned Sberbank asked the government for help in covering some of their losses. Although there has not been an official response to the plea, the government has said in the past that investors bear full responsibility for any losses.

“Those are the risks of those who made the decision,” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who is overseeing the Sochi preparation, said in response to complaints last year.

In contrast to the Boris Yeltsin-era oligarchs like Deripaska and Potanin who are involved in capital-consuming projects with uncertain commercial prospects, the new generation of billionaires with close ties to Putin seems actually to be making money in Sochi.

One man who stands to profit from the games is Arkady Rotenberg, who has known Putin since he was 12.

Through a majority-owned subsidiary, Rotenberg holds nearly 39 per cent of the Mostotrest company, which has amassed a dozen Olympics-related state contracts to build nearly all of the highways in the area. Its projects include a $1.6 billion bypass for Sochi, as well as tunnels, bridges and railroads for a total of at least $3.4 billion.

“Those who became billionaires before Putin’s rise to power now have to pay the price, and that’s why they’re being forced to invest and build,” Kasyanov said. “Those of Putin’s generation are out there to make money. They use public funds. They don’t invest their own money but simply work on state contracts.”

One Russian businessman in charge of an Olympic project was publicly disgraced when he failed to deliver. On a tour of Olympic sites in February, Putin harshly scolded officials for the huge delays and cost overruns in building the ski jump, a project run by real estate developer Akhmed Bilalov, who had once owned 90 per cent of it. The state-controlled Sberbank had taken a controlling stake in 2012 when it was clear the project was in trouble, and Bilalov’s younger brother handed over the remaining 40 per cent stake after Putin’s televised dressing down.

Bilalov was immediately stripped of his position as a vice-president of the Russian Olympic Committee, but Putin still was not done with him. In April, prosecutors charged Bilalov with abuse of office in relation to his work as chairman of a state company that is building ski resorts elsewhere in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia. Facing up to four years in prison if convicted, Bilalov left Russia.

At least one company has already acknowledged the futility of its investment in Sochi.

During his inspection tour in February, Putin asked the chairman of mining giant UGMK, Andrei Bokarev, whether he would give the new $100 million hockey arena that UGMK has built to the state after the games.

“There’s nothing standing in the way of you doing it,” Putin commented.

That was not a direct order but its intent was clear.

Putting aside previous pledges that the stadium would be dismantled after the Sochi games and moved near an UGMK facility to benefit the company’s workers, Bokarev responded with gusto to the suggestion.

“We’re ready!” he said.

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Defence attorney Reid Weingarten called it a huge victory for David Rainey, who was BP’s vice-president of exploration for the Gulf.

The charge of obstructing Congress thrown out Monday by U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt “was perhaps as much as 90 per cent of the government’s evidence,” Weingarten said.

Rainey still faces one count of making false statements to law enforcement agents.

Engelhardt cited two reasons for dismissing the obstruction of Congress charge against Rainey. One is that the indictment failed to allege that Rainey knew of the pending congressional investigation he was charged with obstructing.

“Because it is an essential element of this crime that the defendant knew of this inquiry and investigation, the indictment must allege such knowledge. It does not,” the judge wrote in his 44-page ruling. “Even construing the allegations strongly in the government’s favour, it is simply impossible to ascertain from the indictment whether this essential element was presented to and found by the grand jury.”

The judge also ruled that the obstruction count must be dismissed because it wasn’t clear that it applied to subcommittee investigations like the one at the centre of the indictment.

“Although subcommittees exist in both Houses of Congress, the statute does not contain the word ‘subcommittee.’ Thus, the defendant argues that the Court should not enlarge the statute to include subcommittees,’” Engelhardt wrote.

U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass, who led a House subcommittee’s investigation of the oil spill, urged the Justice Department to appeal the judge’s ruling.

“This was a congressional investigation, plain and simple, and this kind of narrow and off-the wall interpretation of how Congress investigates wrongdoing is deeply troubling,” Markey said in a statement.

A Justice Department spokesman said prosecutors were reviewing the decision but declined to comment on it.

The indictment claims Rainey failed to disclose information about the estimated rate that oil was spewing from BP’s blown-out Macondo well during a May 4, 2010, congressional briefing. It also claims Rainey responded to a letter from a subcommittee chairman, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass

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Louisiana State Police spokeswoman Julie Lewis said Explo System Inc.’s state explosives licenses will remain revoked “pending the adjudication of all civil and/or criminal violations.”

The company has not been charged with any crimes, but state and federal investigations are ongoing.

A message left Monday at Explo System’s office was not immediately returned.

Explo Systems had a multimillion-dollar military contract to dismantle charges that are used to fire artillery rounds. The company operated on space leased at Camp Minden, a Louisiana National Guard installation in northwest Louisiana.

An explosion last October led authorities to look more closely at Explo and its facility.

When an investigator went to the facility, authorities say, he discovered millions of pounds of an improperly stored propellant chemical called M6, leading to the evacuation of nearby Doyline, the town known as the backdrop for the TV series “True Blood.”

Authorities say the M6 should have been stored in certified magazines — sometimes called bunkers — but some of it was found in boxes stacked in buildings, packed into long corridors that connect the buildings or “hidden” among trees outside. Some of the containers were spilling open, authorities say.

Authorities feared that ignition of any of the propellant could set off a massive chain reaction that would race through the corridors and blow up multiple buildings, threatening Doyline. Its 800 residents were put under a voluntary evacuation order for several days in December.

State police monitored the movement of the material into proper storage magazines, which took months as some of it was sold to other companies and the Guard provided additional space available at the installation.

Lewis said more than 10 million pounds of the material has now been properly stored and Explo relinquished its keys to the magazines at the installation.

A series of about 10 explosions at the facility caused an evacuation of Doyline in 2006. In 2007, Explo Systems was cited for violations in West Virginia for its use of an old military explosive for coal mining in 2007.

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Follow Mohr on Twitter at http://twitter.com/holbrookmohr.

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The Russell 2000, an index of small-company stocks, climbed above 1,000 points for the first time and ended higher Monday, even as the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index all edged lower.

Small stocks are doing well because they are more focused on the U.S., which is recovering, and are less exposed to recession-plagued Europe than the large international companies that make up the Dow and the S&P 500 index.

The gains for the smaller companies are encouraging for the broader stock market because they show that investors are becoming more comfortable about the economy and investing in riskier assets, said Rob Lutts, Chief Investment Officer at Cabot Money Management.

Small-company stocks are considered riskier than the stocks of well-established, large companies like IBM or Coca-Cola. That’s because small companies are often relatively young and tend to have less diversified businesses than larger ones, making them more susceptible to swings in demand from their customers. There are also fewer buyers and sellers for them, which can make the stocks harder to off-load if prices start to fall.

“Having smaller stocks hit new highs means that the rally is broad,” Lutts said. “It gives us a little more confidence that it’s a good, sustainable rally that can hold together for a while.”

The Russell 2000 ended the day 1.70 points, or 0.2 per cent, higher at 997.98. The index climbed as high as 1001.50 at midday. The index is 17.5 per cent higher for the year, a better performance than better-known market barometers like the Dow and S&P.

Major indexes fluctuated between small gains and losses for most of Monday. On Friday they ended at record levels after four straight weeks of gains.

The Dow closed down 19.12 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 15,335.28, paring its gain for the year to 17 per cent. The S&P 500 index fell 1.18 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 1,666.29. Its advance for the year now stands at 16.8 per cent.

Investors are focusing on the Federal Reserve this week and looking for clues about what it plans to do next with its economic stimulus program. On Wednesday Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will appear before Congress and the central bank will release minutes of its most recent policy meeting.

The Fed is buying $85 billion of bonds every month to keep long-term interest rates low. That has encouraged investors to put money into stocks instead of bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has been below 2 per cent almost continually since April 12. That’s less than many large companies pay in dividends.

Policy makers are unlikely to cut back on stimulus just yet since U.S. economic growth is likely to slow in the second quarter, said Scott Wren, a senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors. As a consequence, Wren said, stocks are likely to continue to rise.

“At some point, we will see some sort of a pullback, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be right now,” said Wren. “In the near term we’re probably going to trade a little bit higher.”

The stock market rally is also is being underpinned by investors moving back into stocks, reversing years of outflows of funds from equity markets, said Jerry Braakman, chief investment officer at First American Trust.

Investors have invested about net $17 billion into domestic stock mutual funds since the start of the year, according to data from the Investment Company Institute. Investors have pulled money out of mutual funds every year since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007.

“This market rally still has legs, partly because we’ve seen huge retail inflows back into equities,” Braakman said. “It’s hard to beat the money flow.”

In commodities trading, the price of crude oil rose 69 cents, or 0.7 per cent, to $96.71 a barrel.

The price of gold rose for the first day in eight as the dollar fell. The precious metal climbed $19.40, or 1.4 per cent, to $1,384. Gold has slumped this month as its attraction as an alternative investment fades as the dollar appreciates.

The U.S. currency is strengthening because investors believe the U.S. economy is in better shape than the Japanese or European economies.

The dollar’s rally paused on Monday, though, and the U.S. currency fell against the euro and the yen. The dollar index also dropped, after climbing to its highest level in close to three years Friday.

In U.S. government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.97 per cent from 1.93 per cent.

The Nasdaq composite index fell 2.53 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 3,496.43 points.

Among stocks in focus on Monday:

— Actavis rose $1.65, or 1.3 per cent, to $127.15 after the pharmaceutical company said it’s buying Warner Chilcott. The all-stock deal, valued at $8.5 billion, would create the third-biggest specialty pharmaceutical company in the U.S.

— Chesapeake Energy rose 53 cents, or 2.6 per cent, to $20.80 after the natural gas producer named Anadarko Petroleum executive Robert Douglas Lawler as its new CEO. He takes over as Chesapeake continues selling assets to pare down an enormous debt burden.

—Websense, an internet security firm, surged $5.53, or 29 per cent, to $24.76 after the company agreed to be taken private for $906 million by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners.

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Julie Hollander, a vice-president and controller of event operations for AEG Live, testified during the trial of a lawsuit filed by Jackson’s mother against AEG claiming the company was negligent in hiring the doctor later convicted in the death of the pop star.

The tally involved expenses compiled through October 2009, roughly three months after the singer’s death, Hollander said.

Budget documents shown in court indicated the company made no payments to the doctor, Conrad Murray.

AEG budgeted $150,000 a month for Murray’s treatment of Jackson, but the singer died of an anesthetic overdose before he signed Murray’s agreement.

Hollander said Murray’s contract was the only one she had ever seen in which an artist had to approve a contract for services on a tour. She believed Jackson’s signature was required because of the personal nature of the doctor’s services.

In total, Murray was projected to receive $1.5 million in payments over the first few months of the “This Is It” tour, which was slated for 50 shows at London’s 02 Arena.

Attorneys for Jackson’s mother are trying to prove that AEG hired Murray and missed numerous red flags about the pop singer’s health before his death.

AEG denies it hired Murray and says it bears no liability for Jackson’s death.

Hollander also testified that Jackson was responsible for 95 per cent of production expenses if his comeback shows were cancelled. Budget documents indicated the production was more than $2 million over budget.

Hollander was the first AEG executive to testify in the lawsuit. The company’s general counsel Shawn Trell began testifying on Monday.

Plaintiff’s attorney Brian Panish questioned Trell about a July letter sent to Jackson’s estate asking for more than $30 million in reimbursement, including $300,000 for Murray’s services.

Trell said it was a mistake to include Murray’s payments as production costs.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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Roughly 650 people are coming to this year’s weeklong National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems, compared with about 1,000 attendees at last year’s meeting in New York, executive director Hank Kim said Monday.

Kim says trustees and others from around the country are thinking about “headline risk” — how the trip may be perceived back home.

“They know that economically it makes sense. They realize that this headline risk is silly, but it’s something that if they felt they could avoid it, they would avoid the headline risk,” Kim told reporters Monday after the conference opened in a ballroom at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, the most popular area for tourists in the state.

The conference represents more than 550 funds in the United States and Canada.

Funds throughout the country have received close scrutiny and criticism from some public officials and news outlets for considering a Hawaii trip at a time when public pension systems are greatly underfunded.

Among those who skipped this year’s conference are administrators of the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions and the School Employees Retirement System of Ohio.

Beverly Woolridge, chairwoman of the Ohio school pension system’s board of trustees, said in a statement last month that the travel issue had become a “major distraction.”

The Detroit Free Press reported last week that records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request showed four trustees from two funds planned to spend $22,000 to take the trip. In response, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr is researching whether some of the pension trustees should be fired, the newspaper reported.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie defended Hawaii in remarks to open the conference, saying Honolulu is as legitimate a host as any other U.S. city.

“Unfunded liabilities are crippling state and local governments across the country,” Abercrombie said. “This is serious business, and Hawaii is a place where serious business is being done, will be done and has been done. I can assure you that.”

Abercrombie took on the issue directly during this year’s legislative session in Hawaii, asking for at least $200 million over the next two years to draw down the state’s unfunded liabilities for employee and retiree health benefits. Lawmakers exceeded his request and set aside $217 million over two years.

The governor told reporters after his speech Monday that Honolulu is economically competitive and that the criticism over the gathering has more to do with Hawaii’s reputation as a beach destination than cost comparisons with meetings in other cities.

“It’s kind of ironic that because people like the location of Hawaii so much that it becomes an opportunity for some people to say, ‘You shouldn’t go there,’” Abercrombie said. “I don’t think it carries much weight.”

Kim said the organization received no criticism last year for holding its meeting in New York, where he said the conference hotel-room rate was significantly higher than this year. Kim said last year’s conference cost roughly $1.5 million, while this year’s is less than $1 million.

Average hotel prices in Honolulu were $209 per night in 2012, according to an annual Hotel Price Index by Hotels.com that ranked Honolulu as the second most expensive U.S. city for hotels in the country behind New York.

Mel Aaronson, the conference’s president, said the meeting is designed to educate trustees and others on new investment strategies, the potential effects of globalization and fiduciary responsibility.

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Oskar Garcia can be reached at http://twitter.com/oskargarcia

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Associated Press writer Anita Hofschneider contributed to this report.

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Apple is holding overseas some $102 billion of its $145 billion in cash, and an Irish subsidiary that earned $22 billion in 2011 paid only $10 million in taxes, according to the report issued Monday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The strategies Apple uses are legal, and many other multinational corporations use similar tax techniques to avoid paying U.S. income taxes on profits they reap overseas. But the report found that Apple uses a unique twist, and lawmakers are raising questions about loopholes in the U.S. tax code.

While Apple claims to be the biggest U.S. corporate taxpayer, it is also “among America’s largest tax avoiders,” said Sen. John McCain, the panel’s senior Republican.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, the company’s chief financial officer and its tax chief are scheduled to testify and explain the company’s tax strategy Tuesday at a subcommittee hearing. Apple spokesmen didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The spotlight on Apple’s tax strategy comes at a time of fevered debate in Washington over whether and how to raise revenues to help reduce the federal deficit. Many Democrats say the government is missing out on collecting billions because companies are stashing profits abroad and avoiding taxes. Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate of 35 per cent and ease the tax burden on money that U.S. companies make abroad, saying the move would encourage companies to invest at home.

Apple has made clear that given current U.S. tax rates, it has no intention of repatriating its overseas profits to the U.S.

The report estimates that Apple avoided at least $3.5 billion in U.S. federal taxes in 2011 and $9 billion in 2012 by using the strategy. The company, based in California, paid $2.5 billion in federal taxes in 2011 and $6 billion in 2012.

The subcommittee also has examined the tax strategies of Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and other multinational companies, finding that they too have avoided billions in U.S. taxes by shifting profits offshore and exploiting weak, ambiguous sections of the tax code. Microsoft has used “aggressive” transactions to shift assets to subsidiaries in Puerto Rico, Ireland and Singapore, in part to avoid taxes. HP has used complex offshore loan transactions worth billions while using the money to run its U.S. operations, according to the panel.

Apple uses five companies located in Ireland to carry out its tax strategy, according to the report. The companies are located at the same address in Cork, Ireland, and they share members of their boards of directors. While all five companies were incorporated in Ireland, only two also have tax residency in that country. That means the other three aren’t legally required to pay taxes in Ireland because they aren’t managed or controlled in that country, in Apple’s view.

The report says Apple capitalizes on a difference between U.S. and Irish rules regarding tax residency. In Ireland, a company must be managed and controlled in the country to be a tax resident. Under U.S. law, a company is a tax resident of the country in which it was established. Therefore, the Apple companies aren’t tax residents of Ireland nor of the U.S., since they weren’t incorporated in the U.S., in Apple’s view.

The subcommittee said Apple’s strategy of not declaring tax residency in any country could be unique among corporations.

“Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” Sen. Carl Levin, the subcommittee’s chairman, said in a statement. “Apple sought the Holy Grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars, while claiming to be tax resident nowhere.”

The subcommittee report also noted that Apple has been setting aside billions for tax bills it may never pay. As previously reported by The Associated Press, the overlooked asset that Apple has been building up could boost its profits by as much as $10.5 billion. However, Apple has been lobbying to change U.S. law so it can erase its tax liabilities in a less conspicuous fashion.

In its second quarter ended March 31, Apple posted its first profit decline in 10 years. Net income was $9.5 billion, or $10.09 a share, down 18 per cent from $11.6 billion, or $12.30 a share, in the same period a year ago. Revenue increased 11 per cent, to $43.6 billion.

Apple said in April that it will distribute $100 billion in cash to its shareholders by the end of 2015. The company is expanding its share buyback program to $60 billion, the largest buyback authorization in history, and is raising its dividend by 15 per cent, to $3.05 a share.

President Barack Obama has proposed using the tax code to encourage companies to move jobs back to the U.S. and discourage them from shifting jobs abroad. Many in both top political parties say they want to overhaul the entire tax code, but there are vast differences in how they would do so.

___

Associated Press writer Marcy Gordon contributed.

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— TUMBLR

FOUNDED: February 2007 by software consultant David Karp and Web developer Marco Arment.

HEADQUARTERS: New York

LEADERSHIP: Founder David Karp, 26, is CEO. He owns a 25 per cent stake in the company.

EMPLOYEES: 175

FINANCIALS: Tumblr’s 2012 revenue was $13 million. The company’s net worth was estimated by Forbes at $800 million in 2011.

SERVICES: Blogging services where people share everything from snaps of their pets to videos, and stories from Dadaab, a Kenyan refugee camp.

— YAHOO

FOUNDED: 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. candidates David Filo and Jerry Yang

HEADQUARTERS: Sunnyvale, Calif.

LEADERSHIP: Marissa Mayer was lured from Google in July to become Yahoo’s fifth CEO in as many years.

EMPLOYEES: 11,300

FINANCIALS: Yahoo’s 2012 revenue was $5 billion, or $4.5 billion after subtracting advertising commission. It has a market valuation of $28.8 billion.

SERVICES: A wide range of services, including search, email, photo sharing and news.

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1. Dell Inc., to Silver Lake Management LLC (original bid), Feb. 5, 2013, $20.7 billion for 85 per cent of company.

2. Dell Inc., to Icahn Enterprises LP and Southeastern Asset Management Inc. (competing bid), March 25, 2013, $18.9 billion for 87 per cent of company.

3. BMC Software Inc., to Bain Capital Partners and others, May 6, 2013, $7.2 billion.

4. Acme Packet Inc., to Oracle Corp., Feb. 4, 2013, $2 billion.

5. Allflex Holdings, to BC Partners Ltd., May 3, 2013, $1.3 billion.

6. BGC Partners Inc. (eSpeed platform), to NASDAQ OMX Group Inc., April 1, 2013, $1.2 billiion

7. Tumblr Inc., to Yahoo Inc., May 20, 2013, $1.1 billion.

(tie) CompuCom Systems Inc. to Thomas H Lee Partners LP, April 8, 2013, $1.1 billion.

9. Power-One Inc., to ABB Ltd., April 22, 2013, $1.03 billion.

10. Open Solutions Inc., to Fiserv Inc., Jan. 14, 2013, $1.02 billion.

Source: Dealogic.

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Ambassador Theatre Group said Monday it has acquired rights to The Foxwoods Theatre, the 2,000-seat current home of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” The New 42nd Street, a non-profit organization, approved the switch and remains the theatre’s landlord.

The acquisition makes the Foxwoods the 40th venue now owned by the Ambassador Theatre Group and likely will mean a renaming of the theatre. The group, which owns several central London theatres including the Apollo Theatre and Lyceum Theatre, bought Live Nation’s UK theatres for $147 million in 2009.

Acquiring the Foxwoods’ lease marks the first time the group has control over a theatre venue in America, although it has been a producer of numerous shows on Broadway. “It is no secret that we at ATG have been looking to expand our impressive portfolio of UK theatres, by making acquisitions and alliances in strategic markets around the world,” said a statement from the Ambassador Theatre Group.

The company also said it hoped to keep the “Spider-Man” musical at its current 42nd Street home “for a very long time.” The show is still regularly topping $1 million in revenue a week.

The theatre now known as the Foxwoods underwent a major renovation in the mid-1990s and reopened in 1998 as the Ford Center for the Performing Arts. In 2010, it became Foxwoods Theatre and its tenants have included “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “Young Frankenstein.”

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The Treasury Department auctioned $30 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.045 per cent. That’s unchanged from last week. Another $25 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.085 per cent, up from 0.080 per cent last week.

The six-month rate was the highest since these bills averaged 0.090 per cent on April 15.

The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,998.86 while a six-month bill sold for $9,995.70. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.046 per cent for the three-month bills and 0.086 per cent for the six-month bills.

Separately, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable-rate mortgages, edged up to 0.12 per cent last week from 0.11 per cent the previous week.

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Wheat for July delivery rose 2 cents to $6.8525 a bushel; July corn fell 3.25 cents to $6.495 a bushel; July oats fell 12.25 cents to $3.6325 a bushel; while July soybeans jumped 16 cents to $14.645 a bushel.

Beef and pork prices rose on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

June live cattle rose 0.72 cent to $1.2012 a pound; August feeder cattle rose 1.10 cent to $1.4447 a pound; June lean hogs added 0.55 cent to 92.07 cents a pound.

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State officials hope the plan will reinvigorate — and reshape — the debate over whether to drill on the refuge’s coastal plain.

The plan was announced at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy in Washington, D.C., by Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan. Parnell appeared by remote.

Parnell, in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, said he is prepared to ask the state Legislature for $50 million toward funding the seismic program if the federal government is in as a partner. He also sees the private sector playing a role as well.

“For 26 years, Americans have engaged in a debate about the wildlife and oil and gas resources on and underneath the 1002 Area. Unfortunately, ANWR’s oil and gas resources have been estimated using archaic 2D seismic data,” he said in the letter, dated Saturday. The 1002 area refers to the coastal plain.

“State of Alaska land managers have found that 3D seismic data is an indispensable tool to managing our lands,” he said. “We believe that it would be very valuable for your land managers to have this data to inform their planning efforts for the 1002 Area.”

Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Cathy Rezabeck did not say whether Interior is interested in the plan but said Congress must weigh in on any potential oil and gas activity on the roughly 1.5-million acre coastal plain.

The last seismic program took place in the early 1980s, and in 1987, the Interior secretary recommended development. Congress in 1995 passed legislation that would have allowed for drilling but that was vetoed by then-President Bill Clinton. Efforts since then aimed at opening ANWR for development — supported by state political leaders and members of Alaska’s congressional delegation — have gone nowhere.

U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said opening the refuge for drilling “has been a top priority for me and most Alaskans because it is a critical part of a comprehensive national energy plan.” Having modern, 3-D seismic information available would help inform the debate, he said in a release. U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, said he hopes Jewell “takes this good faith effort” by the state into consideration as Interior updates its plan for refuge.

Pamela A. Miller, Arctic program director for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, called the state’s plan a “recycled bad idea” aimed at opening the refuge to drilling.

“There’s no point in exploring for a resource that cannot be developed today and should not be developed because of the values of this remarkable land for wildlife, people and human cultures,” she said.

Between the coastal plain, adjacent state lands and Alaska Native in-holdings, the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated the mean volume of recoverable oil of about 10.4 billion barrels, though that has a wide range of uncertainty. Natural Resources Commissioner Sullivan said officials could get an “almost definitive” number that Congress then can debate under the state’s plan, which would span at least seven years.

Alaska released its proposal Monday ahead of the anticipated release of Fish and Wildlife’s updated conservation plan for the refuge. Rezabeck said she did not know when the federal report might be released.

Sullivan said the state is stepping up out of frustration and a sense of responsibility. He said there’s frustration with the U.S. Interior Department’s apparent refusal to contemplate or study the oil and gas potential in the region so the state is doing the feds’ work for them. With the exception of the federal government, the state is the only entity with the expertise and experience to put forth this kind of plan, he said.

“Again, the frustration here is why wouldn’t you want to know? … Why wouldn’t the American people want to know what is under their land?” he said. “It’s not the Department of Interior’s land. It’s our land.”

Sullivan said the plan is modest and reasonable and should attract bipartisan support. He and Parnell said it should have minimal impact on the surrounding environment since it proposes seismic surveying and drilling in winter — making use of things like ice roads — and envisions use of newer technologies.

Miller said the prior seismic program had a lasting impact on vegetation and permafrost.

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Follow Becky Bohrer on Twitter at http://twitter.com/beckybohrerap.

___

Online:

To read the state’s proposal: http://1.usa.gov/10Jr9Iu and http://1.usa.gov/Z8Axac.

ANWR’s website: http://arctic.fws.gov/

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Even so, the potential for pollution is less than scientists had expected. The report released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concludes “the scope of the problem is much more manageable than initially feared…. Our coastlines are not littered with ‘ticking time bombs.’”

Agency officials estimate that far less oil will leak into the ocean than the BP oil spill of 2010, which spewed roughly 200 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico alone.

“That’s not a bad number in comparison to what we first thought it would be,” said NOAA’s Lisa Symons, who wrote the study.

There are 20,000 shipwrecked vessels that lie off the nation’s coastlines. Most of those either finished leaking long ago, ran on coal instead of oil, are too small or aren’t near vulnerable land.

“There are only six that really keep me up at night, but we don’t know where they all really are,” Symons said. Those six have the biggest potential to foul coastal areas because even if they spill only 10 per cent of their oil, they could cause a local-scale disaster, she said. They don’t have to be a worst-case spill to be a disaster.

Of those six, Symons said NOAA doesn’t know the exact location of three of them, just where they were last seen before they sank. Three of the six worst potential problems are off Florida, one near Georgia, one near South Carolina and one near New York. Some are as close as 15 miles from shore.

Of the overall 87 ships identified as potential polluters, 52 were lost in World War II, mostly up and down the Atlantic coastline.

Others were lost in crashes, fires and storms, including the Edmund Fitzgerald. The story of that ship’s sinking in Lake Superior was turned into a classic 1970s ballad. Two ships, including the Edmund Fitzgerald, aren’t even in U.S. waters but are close enough they can pollute American waters, NOAA officials said.

The agency has identified 17 ships that have a known location and that need to be investigated further to see if the oil could be removed. Removing oil in advance, before it leaks, is far easier than waiting till after it spills into the water, Symons said.

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Online:

The NOAA report: http://1.usa.gov/12Q5XiO

A searchable list of the 87 wrecks: http://1.usa.gov/17VearC

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

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It’s the first time the governor acknowledged serious worries about the structural integrity of the $6.4 billion infrastructure project to build a new eastern span of the bridge. Brown had dismissed concerns about broken bolts earlier this month.

Now, the governor said the state is reviewing construction documents going back as far as the administration of former Gov. Gray Davis, who served from 1999 to 2003.

“It’s a pretty big issue,” Brown told reporters before delivering a graduation speech for University of California, Berkeley political science students. “I drive across that bridge, too.”

The new bridge is replacing a span damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It’s already years late and billions of dollars over budget.

State transportation officials recently disclosed that nearly three dozen seismic safety bolts on the eastern span of the bridge had broken. The bolts, or rods, each 17- to 24-feet long, connect the bridge deck to so-called shear keys, which are large shock absorbers that control movement during an earthquake.

“I take it very seriously, and that thing’s not going to open unless it’s ready,” Brown said Monday. “And the engineers are telling me that they’re doing the kind of work that will be needed for that.”

Just three months ago, Brown had participated in an event to count down the bridge’s opening.

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The judge on Monday suggested that Wal-Mart attorneys had taken a “persnickety and narrow” approach to turning over documents requested by attorneys for large pension funds trying to find out what, and when, company directors knew of the payments.

The plaintiffs also want information about an internal investigation conducted by Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart into allegations that bribes were used to speed building permits and gain other favours.

The shareholders have alleged that Wal-Mart officials breached their fiduciary duties by allowing and covering up the alleged payments, which spurred federal bribery investigations in both the U.S. and Mexico.

The post Delaware judge orders Wal-Mart to give shareholders more info related to bribery allegations appeared first on Canadian Business.

A spokesman for the Guantanamo Bay prison says that officials have also blocked access to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter through military computer networks because of the threat.

Army Lt. Col. Samuel House says the precautions were taken because of online threats to disrupt activities at the base allegedly made by the international hacking group Anonymous. No disruptions have been reported so far.

The group had called for a global protest because of the ongoing hunger strike by prisoners protesting their conditions and indefinite confinement at the U.S. base. As of Monday, the military said 103 of the 166 prisoners were on strike.

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The seaside plant between San Diego and Los Angeles has been dark since January 2012, after a small radiation leak led to the discovery of unusual damage to hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water.

Operator Southern California Edison wants permission to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at reduced power in hopes of stopping vibration and friction that was blamed for damaging tubing.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission delayed several earlier target dates for a ruling, with officials recently projecting a June announcement. But its website on Monday listed no date for a restart decision — only “to be determined.”

Agency spokesman Victor Dricks had no comment.

Last week, the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board sided with environmentalists who have called for lengthy hearings on the restart plan after concluding that firing up the plant would allow Edison “to operate beyond the scope of its existing license.”

A statement from SCE spokeswoman Jennifer Manfre noted that NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane indicated earlier that no decision would be made until at least mid-June on the company’s request to change its operating license to run at lower power, a critical step in the restart plan.

“SCE continues to adhere to the established regulatory process,” the statement said. The company “cannot restart Unit 2 until the NRC says that it is safe to do so.”

Last month, SCE’s parent, Edison International, raised the possibility of retiring the plant if it can’t get one reactor running later this year. The company also disclosed that costs tied to the long-running shutdown had hit $553 million.

Edison is facing a tangle of regulatory obstacles that include a separate state investigation into who should pay for the trouble — customers or shareholders.

Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists and some lawmakers have said restarting the plant would lead to a disaster.

Friends of the Earth, an advocacy group challenging the restart, believes no decision can be made “until all the safety issues raised by the board are addressed,” spokesman Shaun Burnie said in an email.

Even with San Onofre sidelined, state power officials predict that there should be adequate power supplies in California this summer, but heat waves or wildfires that damage transmission lines could lead to potential shortages.

The problems at San Onofre centre on steam generators that were installed during a $670 million overhaul in 2009 and 2010. After the plant was shut down, tests found some generator tubes were so badly eroded that they could fail and possibly release radiation, a stunning finding inside the nearly new equipment.

San Onofre is owned by SCE, San Diego Gas & Electric and the city of Riverside.

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Royalty said Monday it will pay $12.50 in cash for each share of Elan Corp. PLC. That adds up to a total value of about $7.5 billion.

Royalty had offered in February to buy Elan for $11 per share and later raised that bid to $11.25 per share.

Elan has said the $11.25 bid was much too low. It said Monday its board will assess Royal Pharma’s latest announcement and, in the meantime, Elan shareholders should take no action.

Royalty is a privately held New York company that buys royalty interests in drugs and late-stage drug candidates.

Elan earlier on Monday announced that it planned to pay about $338 million for a privately held, Austrian drug developer and at least $110 million for stakes in two other companies. The company also said last week it will pay $1 billion for the right to future royalties from four respiratory treatments being developed by Theravance Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline.

Last month, Elan closed a deal to sell its interest in the multiple sclerosis treatment Tysabri to Biogen Idec Inc., its former partner on the blockbuster drug, for $3.25 billion in cash and recurring royalty payments.

Royalty Pharma said in a statement that Elan “dramatically overpaid” for the Theravance deal. It also said that deal “was pursued in haste and without critical confidential information which could significantly impair the value of the asset.”

The company added that it suspects the same may be true of the deals Elan announced Monday. It said its increased offer is conditional on shareholders voting against the Theravance deal and the other transactions.

U.S.-traded shares of Elan climbed 3.5 per cent, or 41 cents, to $12.08 Monday afternoon, while broader trading indexes fell slightly. That put the stock up 18 per cent since the start of the year.

The post Royalty Pharma raises bid for drugmaker Elan to $12.50 per share or about $7.5 billion appeared first on Canadian Business.

Shares rose 31 per cent Monday. Through Friday’s close, before news of the offer, Pactera’s stock had lost about two-thirds of its value over the past year.

Blackstone and the group of Pactera leaders are offering $7.50 for each U.S.-traded share of the company that they don’t already hold. That’s 43 per cent higher than Friday’s close of $5.26 on the Nasdaq stock market and puts the value of the company at $680.4 million, based on Pactera’s the estimated 90.7 million shares outstanding.

The group of potential buyers working with Blackstone includes Pactera’s non-executive chairman, Chris Chen, its CEO, Tiak Koon Loh, and three of its executive committee members.

Pactera said that its board will likely form a special committee of independent directors to review the proposal.

It is one of several recent buyouts efforts by private equity firms of U.S.-listed Chinese companies.

Citic Capital Partners said last week that it, along with one of the company’s co-founders, would take technology services firm AsiaInfo-Linkage Inc. private in a roughly $890 million deal. Focus Media Holdings Ltd. shareholders agreed in April to a deal to sell the Chinese advertising company to private equity firm Carlyle Group and a handful of Chinese investors for $3.7 billion.

Shares of Pactera jumped $1.61 to $6.87 by early afternoon.

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Federal prosecutors say 52-year-old Bryan Shaw entered his plea Monday to one count of conspiracy. He’s scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 16 when he faces a maximum of five years in prison.

Authorities say Shaw made over $1 million in illicit profits by trading in advance of company announcements on earnings results or mergers. In exchange, he gave former KPMG accountant Scott London bags filled with cash, along with a Rolex watch and jewelry for his wife, among other items.

London also is charged with conspiracy and is scheduled to be arraigned next week.

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Matthew said he never expected to make the finals in Omaha, much less win the entrepreneurial contest tied to “The Secret Millionaire’s Club” cartoon that drew nearly 4,000 entries online. The Cincinnati boy said his winnings make him “rich-ish” because $5,000 is quite a lot.

“I’ve wanted to be an investor all my life, so this is a dream come true,” said Matthew, who designed a wristband with an elastic strap that helped him learn to hold a pen correctly.

The cartoon, featuring an animated Buffett who teaches financial lessons, airs on the Hub cable network and online at www.smckids.com . Buffett supports the cartoon’s efforts to teach kids financial principles, such as avoiding debt, and he voices his own character.

But Matthew said he made sure to tell the billionaire that “he looks nothing like the cartoon.”

Buffett said he was impressed with the thought the kids all put into their products and how articulate they were. He gave all the finalists, who range in age from 7 to 16, and their teachers 10 Class B Berkshire shares.

“They so far ahead of where I was at that age,” Buffett said.

The chairman and CEO of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. conglomerate said he hopes the kids come away with the understanding that the more education they get, the more they’ll be able to earn. But mostly he said he just posed for pictures with the kids Monday and offered encouragement.

Buffett regularly meets with groups of college students who come to Omaha to ask him questions about business and life. He said he’s trying to pass on some of the lessons he’s learned because he had good teachers who helped him when he was young.

Kennedy Sabharwal, who won the group competition with her brother and her cousin, said meeting Buffett was the best part of the event.

“He’s such a great guy. He even let me hold his wallet for a picture,” said Kennedy, 13, of Lexington, Ky. Kennedy worked with her 16-year-old brother Spencer Sabharwal and her cousin Sawyer Beeler, of Liberty, Ky., to design an entrepreneurial kit to equip kids who want to run their own business.

The winning individual and all the members of the winning team received $5,000. Runners-up get $500.

The Fairholme Foundation sponsors the contest, and By Kids For Kids oversees it.

The foundation’s trustee, fund manager Bruce Berkowitz of investment firm Fairholme Capital Management, said he hopes the event continues to grow because the kids learned valuable lessons while trying to launch a business and by interacting with Buffett.

“Anything to do with Warren Buffett is worth doing. The man is clearly the Benjamin Franklin of our time,” Berkowitz said.

Besides Matthew Meyer, the other individual finalists were: Max Wallack of Natick, Maine; Krissa Hillman of Savage, Md.; Fabian Fernandez-Han of Conroe, Texas; Alexis Pollitto of Colts Neck, N.J.

The other group finalists were: Molly McKiernan, Michael Park, Charles Ripepi and Austin Hayhurst from the Cleveland area; and Clarissa Henry and Esai Prescod of Seattle.

___

Follow Josh Funk online at www.twitter.com/funkwrite

___

Online:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: www.berkshirehathaway.com

Secret Millionaire’s Club: www.smckids.com

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