Finance and Economic

Community Health Systems Inc. has ended its effort to buy competitor Tenet Healthcare Corp. after Tenet rejected its latest $4 billion-plus offer.

Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health said Monday it withdrew its offer to buy Tenet for $7.25 per share. It has also rescinded its effort to put nominees on Tenet’s board of directors.

Tenet shares fell 6 cents to $6.46 in pre-market trading Tuesday.

Community Health has been trying to acquire Tenet since late 2010. It originally made a bid of $6 per share for the Dallas company, and took the bid public after Tenet turned it down. Community Health raised its offer on May 2. The latest bid valued Tenet at about $4 payday loans no teletrack.06 billion.

Tenet also opposed the takeover offer efforts by adopting a “poison pill” stock dilution measure, delaying its annual meeting by six months, and filing a lawsuit that accused Community Health of defrauding Medicare.

Tenet said Monday that he latest offer was still too low. Community Health had said that bid would be its last offer.

Community Health runs about 130 hospitals in fast-growing and non-urban markets, while Tenet’s 49 hospitals are in urban and suburban markets.

Source

U.K. producer prices rose more than economists forecast in April, suggesting inflation pressures may still be building in the economy.

The cost of goods at factory gates increased 0.8 percent from March, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The median forecast of 12 economists in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 0.7 percent gain. From a year earlier, output prices rose 5.3 percent. Annual input-price inflation accelerated to the fastest since September 2008.

The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent yesterday, favoring support for the economy’s recovery over curbing an inflation rate that’s twice its 2 percent target. Nevertheless, with commodities such as crude oil surging, manufacturers may have no choice but to pass on higher costs to customers, feeding price pressures.

“There are underlying pressures for sure,” said David Tinsley, an economist at National Australia Bank in London. “Still, the recovery looks pretty limp and I don’t think there’s a lot of reason to be optimistic there’s going to be a recovery in domestic demand.”

The pound erased its decline against the dollar after the report and traded at $1.6384 as of 9:38 a.m. in London, little changed on the day.

Tax Increases

Tobacco and alcohol output prices jumped 2.6 percent in April from March, the statistics office said, while petroleum products rose 1.3 percent. The gains in tobacco and alcohol were largely due to an increase in taxes in the government’s budget in March.

Input prices rose 2.6 percent in April from March and were up 17.6 percent from a year earlier, the statistics office said. Crude oil was up 38 percent on the year, it said installment payday loans.

Core output prices, which exclude food, drink, tobacco and petroleum, increased 0.6 percent on the month and 3.4 percent on the year. The statistics office revised the monthly and annual increases in March headline output prices to 1.1 percent and 5.6 percent from 0.9 percent and 5.4 percent respectively.

Premier Foods Plc (PFD), the U.K.’s biggest food manufacturer, said on April 27 that first-half gross profit may suffer as it seeks to negotiate price increases to make up for rising costs.

Source

The government says Japanese exports in March fell 2.2 percent from a year earlier due to the fallout from last month’s massive earthquake and tsunami.

The finance ministry said Wednesday that the March figure marked the first year-on-year decline in 16 months. Exports shrank to 5.87 trillion yen ($71 billion), while imports rose 11.9 percent to 5.67 trillion yen last month.

The magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11 destroyed many factories in northeastern Japan, crippling production and supply chains. The twin disasters have forced manufacturers including Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp. to suspend their output due to parts shortages.

Source

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service has lowered its long-term outlook for the United States’ sovereign debt to “Negative” from “Stable” due to risks from the country’s growing deficit.

But the agency also reaffirmed the investment-grade credit ratings on country’s long-term and short-term debt.

S&P says the U.S. has a high-income, diversified and flexible economy that has helped it to encourage growth while containing inflation. But the country’s ballooning deficit could offset those positives over the next two years.

The agency noted that the deficit grew to 11 percent of gross domestic income in 2009. That is much higher than the average of 2 percent to 5 percent in the previous six years.

Source

Consumer-price pressures in South Korea will begin to ease in the second quarter while staying “strong” enough for the government to weigh steps to tame inflation, the nation’s finance minister said.

“Inflationary pressures will decline from the second quarter,” Finance Minister Yoon Jeung Hyun said in an interview yesterday in Washington, where Group of 20 finance chiefs and central bankers are meeting. Even so, the pressures “still will be strong, so the government is very cautiously monitoring” prices, he said in an interview.

Oil and food costs have pushed consumer inflation above the central bank’s 4 percent ceiling each month since the start of 2011, prompting it to raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point in January and again in March. The government has stepped up price controls by freezing power and gas charges and pressing a cut to gasoline costs and mobile fees after President Lee Myung Bak declared a “war” against inflation in January and said it should be capped at 3 percent.

“We will be doing everything we can” to lower the burden of inflation on consumers, Yoon said. “We’re looking at many options on the table,” he said, referring to the government’s non-monetary efforts to contain price pressures. These include reducing tariffs on imports to ease supply shortages and steps to identify monopolies in the domestic market, he said.

The won has appreciated the most against the dollar among Asian currencies this year. The currency reached a 31-month high of 1,082.10 on April 8. The strengthening of the currency “would have a stabilizing effect” on import costs while also having “some impact on the price competitiveness of exports,” Yoon said.

No Intervention

“The Korean government has no intention whatsoever to intervene in the exchange rate,” he said. “We fully respect the role and functioning of the market.”

The Bank of Korea projected on April 13 that consumer prices may increase 3.9 percent this year, faster than a December estimate of 3.5 percent. Gross domestic product is forecast to expand 4.5 percent following a 6.2 percent gain in 2010, the bank said after keeping interest rates unchanged at 3 percent on April 12.

Consumer prices climbed 4.7 percent from a year earlier in March, the biggest increase since October 2008. Bank of Korea Governor Kim Choong Soo said on April 12 that high inflation will likely persist in coming months and that he will take monetary policy action “neither too slowly nor too fast.”

‘Strong Reasons’

While there are “some strong reasons for interest rates to be hiked,” Yoon said, there also are “other serious barriers” that call for not raising borrowing costs. The central bank has the independence to decide what course to follow, he said.

The finance ministry last December projected 5 percent economic growth and 3 percent inflation for this year. The government is yet to decide on whether it will bring its own outlook for inflation and growth in line with this week’s revised projections from the central bank, Yoon said.

“Maybe during April or May our position will be announced,” he said. “At this moment, no change.”

The won rose 0.1 percent to 1,086.85 per dollar as the of 3 p.m. close of trading in Seoul on April 14, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, while the Kospi stock index rose 0.9 percent to a record 2,141.06.

The central bank also estimated the economy grew 1.5 percent during the first quarter and expanded 4.1 percent from a year earlier, bolstered by exports. Overseas shipments jumped 30 percent to record $48.6 billion in March, according to a government report on April 1.

Source

SAN FRANCISCO

Engineers pinned their hopes on chemicals, sawdust and shredded newspaper to stop highly radioactive water pouring into the ocean from Japan’s tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant Sunday as officials said it will take several months to bring the crisis under control, the first time they have provided a timetable.

Concrete already failed to stop the tainted water spewing from a crack in a maintenance pit, and the new mixture did not appear to be working either, but engineers said they were not abandoning it.

The Fukushima Da-ichi plant has been leaking radioactivity since the March 11 tsunami carved a path of destruction along Japan’s northeastern coast, killing as many as 25,000 people and knocking out key cooling systems that kept it from overheating. People living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant have been forced to abandon their homes.

The government said Sunday it will be several months before the radiation stops and permanent cooling systems are restored. Even after that happens, there will be years of work ahead to clean up the area around the complex and figure out what to do with it.

“It would take a few months until we finally get things under control and have a better idea about the future,” said Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama. “We’ll face a crucial turning point within the next few months, but that is not the end.”

His agency said the timetable is based on the first step, pumping radioactive water into tanks, being completed quickly and the second, restoring cooling systems, being done within a matter of weeks or months.

Every day brings some new problem at the plant, where workers have often been forced to retreat from repair efforts because of high radiation levels. On Sunday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced it had found the bodies of two workers missing since the tsunami.

Radiation, debris and explosions kept workers from finding them until Wednesday, and then the announcement was delayed several days out of respect for their families.

TEPCO officials said they believed the workers ran down to a basement to check equipment after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake that preceded the tsunami. They were there when the massive wave swept over the plant.

“It pains us to have lost these two young workers who were trying to protect the power plant amid the earthquake and tsunami,” TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata said in a statement freecreditscore.

On Saturday, workers discovered an 8-inch (20-centimeter) crack in a maintenance pit at the plant and said they believe water from it may be the source of some of the high levels of radioactive iodine that have been found in the ocean for more than a week.

This is the first time they have found radioactive water leaking directly into the sea. A picture released by TEPCO shows water shooting some distance away from a wall and splashing into the ocean, though the amount is not clear. No other cracks have been found.

The radioactive water dissipates quickly in the ocean but could be dangerous to workers at the plant.

Engineers tried to seal the crack with concrete Saturday, but that effort failed.

So on Sunday they went farther up the system and injected sawdust, three garbage bags of shredded newspaper and a polymer _ similar to one used to absorb liquid in diapers _ that can expand to 50 times its normal size when combined with water.

The polymer mix in the passageway leading to the pit had not stopped the leak by Sunday night, but it also had not leaked out of the crack along with the water, so engineers were stirring it in an attempt to get it to expand. They expected to know by Monday morning if it would work.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people are still living in shelters, 200,000 households do not have water, and 170,000 do not have electricity.

Running water was just restored in the port city of Kesennuma on Saturday, and residents lined up Sunday to see a dentist who had flown in from the country’s far north to offer his services. Many were elderly and complaining of problems with their dentures.

Overhead and throughout the coastal region, helicopters and planes roared by as U.S. and Japanese forces finished their all-out search for bodies.

The effort, which ended Sunday, is probably the final hope for retrieving the dead, though limited operations may continue. It has turned up nearly 50 bodies in the past two days.

In all, more than 12,000 deaths have been confirmed, and another 15,500 people are missing.

Source

The chief of General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) on Thursday defended the conglomerate’s zero tax rate in 2010, and called for reform of the U.S. tax code.

In his first public speaking engagement since a barrage of criticism about not having to pay taxes in 2010, GE chief executive Jeff Immelt told the Economic Club in Washington that his company did nothing wrong.

"At GE, we do like to keep our tax rate low, but we do it in a compliant way, and there are no exceptions," Immelt said. "Our tax rate will be much higher in 2011 as GE Capital recovers."

But Immelt added that he, along with many other corporate leaders, wants the federal government to reform the U.S. tax code, which he called "old, complex and uncompetitive."

Immelt also pointed out that over the past five years GE has paid $14 billion in taxes. He said that even though GE made money in 2010, "we didn’t make a lot of that in the U.S."

The company is particularly in the spotlight because Immelt also serves as the chief of President Obama’s innovation and jobs council payday loans with no fax. When asked what he thought of criticism that GE isn’t a good role model and shouldn’t be leading the jobs council, Immelt said he was committed to helping the president build jobs.

"I’m completely committed to doing this job and working with the president and building jobs in the U.S.," Immelt said.

Later, in an interview with the media after his speech, when asked what GE was doing to help job growth, he said the company expects to have hired 16,000 new employees this year and last year, mostly in manufacturing and high tech services industries.

Immelt said he understands why his company is taking heat in the media.

"I don’t fault this type of reporting," Immelt said. "It is what it is. You can’t do any job like this unless you have a thick skin." 

Source

The economic newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun says the government estimates the economic toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami could exceed $300 billion.

The newspaper said Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano will present the estimate of 15 trillion yen to 25 trillion yen ($185 billion to $300 billion) at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The March 11 magnitude-9 Business Card Holders.0 quake and tsunami devastated Japan’s northeastern coast and triggered a crisis at a nuclear power plant.

Utilities have imposed power rationing, many factories remain closed and key rail lines are impassable.

Source

Mounting concerns over the impact of the massive earthquake in Japan pushed stocks lower Monday. The earthquake and tsunami along Japan’s northeast coast killed thousands and has raised fears of a slowdown in the world’s third-largest economy.

All 10 company groups that make up the Standard and Poor’s 500 index fell. Utilities companies lost 1.9 percent, the most of any group, on worries that the disaster may lead to increased skepticism over the safety of nuclear power plants.

The S&P index, the basis for most U.S. mutual funds, fell 15 points, or 1.2 percent, to 1,288.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 122, or 1 percent, to 11,922. The Nasdaq composite fell 29, or 1.1 percent, to 2,686.

Japan’s central bank pumped a record $184 billion into money market accounts to encourage bank lending. Financial analysts said the move could put pressure on Japan to raise interest rates, particularly since the country is saddled with a massive debt that, at 200 percent of gross domestic product, is the biggest among developed nations.

“The fiscal position is deteriorating in Japan,” said Channing Smith, managing director of equity strategies at Capital Advisors Inc. “If we get higher interest rates, that is a major threat to … the global recovery.”

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 633.94 points, or 6.2 percent, to close at 9,620.49 _ its lowest level in four months. The decline wiped out this year’s gains.

Upscale retailers with large businesses in Japan fell. Tiffany & Co. lost 6 percent, and Coach Inc. lost 6.2 percent. Caterpillar Inc. gained 1 percent on assumptions that it will benefit from large-scale rebuilding efforts.

In the U.S., Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said it would purchase chemical company Lubrizol for $9 billion in cash. Berkshire will pay $135 per share, a 28 percent premium to Lubrizol’s closing stock price Friday of $105.44. Berkshire’s Class B shares fell 1 percent on the news, while Lubrizol rose 27 percent.

Cephalon Inc. fell less than 1 percent after a federal court overturned two of the patents on its painkilling drug Fentora. That could allow competitors to start selling cheaper generic versions of the drug soon.

Oil prices fell 58 cents to $100.56 a barrel. Bond prices rose, sending yields lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 3.35 percent from 3.41 percent late Friday.

.

Source