Whether you are a frog or an environmentally conscious individual, it’s not easy being green.
For weeks, there have been various lawsuits filed against Starbucks by landlords. Two of the reasons:
– Not paying rent in time since it announced the closing of 600 stores
– Backing out of a leases by Refusing to move in to newly built stores
Starbucks has denied many of the allegations but it recently settled one with a
builder named Chris Abele.
Despite this one case settled, some are saying the big corporation is not playing a fair game with landlords and builders.
It’s no secret that nearly every public company is facing a bit of uncertainty with the recent economic crisis. Warnaco’s stock (NYSE: WRC) is currently hovering around $31 a share, more than $20 down from its high in September. But, upon doing some research, I’m wondering if a bit of negative press is behind the share price too. Continue reading
Last week Discover Financial Services settled an antitrust suit with Visa and MasterCard for an undisclosed sum and sent the stock price up 11 percent. The dispute revolved around whether Visa and MasterCard were blocking banks from having Discover accounts. Discover had sought $18 billion, but industry sources say the settlement will yield around $3 billion. One billion of the settlement must be paid to the former parent company of Discover, Morgan Stanley.
In the complaint filed four years ago, Discover charged the defendants, Visa and MasterCard as having “engaged in a continuing combination and conspiracy to organize and operate their general purpose cards in a manner that restrains competition.”
Rupert Murdoch gave the thumbs up in an annual meeting with News Corp. shareholders today, according to several news reports.
The media mogul “told investors that News Corp has a strong balance sheet and a good array of businesses to help it in the event of a prolonged economic downturn,” the Washington Post reported.
According to News Corp’s 2008 annual balance sheet, filed with the SEC on June 13th, the company held $4.6 billion in cash, $11.4 billion in retained earnings and $28.6 billion in shareholders’ equity – a healthy offset to its $9.2 billion in current liabilities at the time of the filing.
The Warnaco Group owns the brands Speedo, Calvin Klein and Chaps by Ralph Lauren, as well as many others. Usually, apparel companies like this, which fall into the Consumer Discretionary Company category (along with household durable goods and the auto industry) fare poorly in a time when Americans have less money to spend–like now.
However, a recent report shows that Warnaco is one company actually faring better than it was one year ago. Continue reading
First Solar stock rebounds in market rally
The solar energy sector received an endorsement from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Monday as he detailed his economic plan at a stop in Ohio.
“We’ll take a page from Toledo that has become a leader in solar panel technology,” said Obama (D-IL). “We are going to create 5 million new high wage jobs by investing in the renewable sources of energy that will eliminate the need for oil we currently import from the Middle East in ten years.”
Continue reading
Slate spin-off faced both opportunities and hurdles in covering the financial crisis.
You would think that as far as timing goes, no other business news site could have been lucky enough to launch than four weeks ago, when Slate’s spin-off site Big Money hit the web during the collapse of Lehman. However, Big Money editor James Ledbetter feels that the timing has actually been more harmful than helpful for a site that attempts to use Slate-style wittiness and humor to make sense of Wall Street.
“Completely by accident, we launched into what turned out to be one of the most volatile periods in the history of the United States,” said Ledbetter in a phone interview. “That’s been a great thrill, but it’s also been a big challenge where we’re unable to plan coverage a few hours in advance. There is only one story for the day, and you can post the most brilliant story on the site, but if it’s not about the bailout or the crash, nobody will read it.”
The company spent months preparing for the first articles it would produce, and the style of the web layout, only to have to throw out their work or postpone it in favor of minute-by-minute reporting of the Lehman and AIG crises. Meanwhile, carving out a space in the crowded online business news genre is already difficult. The arena, though lucrative in terms of ad revenue, has many challenging players, from TheStreet.com to Silicon Alley Insider and Conde Nast Portfolio.
Standing out from the competition will require innovation from Big Money, whether in terms of fresh techniques like crowd sourcing or providing clever business tools to their audience. Before its launch, Big Money focused on both strategies, creating a stock screening tool that allows reader to screen the 500 largest public companies for criteria such as labor rights and environmental standards, as well as another application called We Build Your Presentation. The site also features blogs whose topics range from the business of food to one solely looking at Google, called Feeling Lucky.
“I am very hopeful that our approach, our way of differentiating ourselves will have to do with our particular use of the web medium,” said Ledbetter. “No one is really looking at it [the web tools] because there is only one story right now.”
First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) led the pack of solar energy companies hammered today as concerns arose about the risk of an oversupply in the sector and repeal of European alternative energy subsidies. First Solar stock fell close to 20% today, from 159.71 to 128.00. First Solar has declined 36% from a week high of 197.50.
Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Molnar downgraded the company from buy to sell today. Molnar said that countries like Germany, where First Solar made significant entry due to the tax incentives utility companies had received from the governments, and Spain, where First Solar had begun to make similar headway, had suggested that due to the tough economy the subsidies would be allowed to sunset. First Solar and other solar energy companies would be left with unsold inventory.
Though Europe might withdraw the subsidy in the United States last week, solar energy companies received an eight year extension to the investment tax credit under the Emergency Economic Stabilizaton Act of 2008. The ITC would asist residential customers afford solar panels.
First Solar would not comment due to the quiet period before the third quarters earnings call.
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