Business & Finance
Delphi Corp. scheduled a news conference for Wednesday at its suburban Detroit headquarters to address issues related to its bankruptcy filing as trading in its shares was suspended on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and employees of at least one assembly plant were advised by their union to prepare to strike. But the company also was given the go-ahead by a federal court to begin using $950 million in emergency loans assembled by banking giants Citigroup, J.P. MorganChase, and other lenders. Delphi's stock now is sold only on the over-the-counter market since being delisted Tuesday by the NYSE due to low trading volume. Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers Union in Lockport, N.Y., distributed fliers to its 4,000 members at Delphi's plant there, advising them that it "has the right to authorize a strike" if a bankruptcy court nullifies its contract with the company. Delphi insists it needs a new deal with the UAW by Dec. 16 that would reduce some employee benefits and cut wages by more than 50 percent.
In a deal valued at $1.25 billion, a consortium of shareholders in Jurys Doyle Hotel Group PLC bought the 58 percent of its stock they didn't already own, apparently with the goal of taking the company private. Jurys Doyle is the Republic of Ireland's largest hotelier and owns 38 properties there, in Britain, and in the US. The consortium represents the daughters of the company's founder and two members of its board.
As many as 300 people will lose their jobs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., its director warned. News outlets reported that the NASA facility expects a cut of up to 5 percent in its budget for fiscal 2006. Two JPL projects - a spacecraft to explore Jupiter's moons and an orbiter that would gather data about the atmosphere on Mars - have been scrapped in favor of the plan to return to the moon by 2018.
Anheuser-Busch Inc., the world's largest brewer, lost a long legal fight to sell its products under the famous Budweiser label in Portugal. In a ruling Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights said that nation's supreme court was correct in recognizing the legality of a 1986 treaty granting Czech rival Budejovicky Budvar the right to use that trademark, even though Anheuser-Busch is the older of the two companies. The issue also is at the center of 40 other lawsuits around the world.
