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21 Feb 2011 11:02

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World: Egypt: Top prosecutor trying to freeze Hosni Mubarak’s assets

  • liquid During Hosni Mubarak’s time as Egyptian leader, it’s been rumored that his family amassed a fortune as large as $70 billion. Whew.
  • frozen? After Mubarak’s departure, top prosecutor General Abdel Magid Mahmud has been working to get Mubarak’s assets locked up. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Jul 2010 21:26

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Tech: Guy says he owns Facebook. Now we claim that we own it, too

  • 84% percentage of Facebook some guy claims he owns
  • yes the dude’s claim led to a stop on all Facebook asset transfers
  • 0% percentage of Facebook we think that guy actually owns source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Jan 2010 10:41

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Biz: Reward for risk: The Federal Reserve made a huge profit in 2009

  • $46.1 billion the size of the Federal Reserve’s profits in 2009
  • $14.4 billion the increase in the Fed’s profits from 2008 source
  • Why the increase? Simple. The Fed lowered its standards and became the buyer of last resort, buying assets nobody else wanted, and getting profits from those assets. In case you’re wondering, by the way, they dump these profits back to the Treasury.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Aug 2009 22:53

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Biz, U.S.: It’s Friday. Guess it’s time for more banks to fail.

  • five number of banks that failed today, including the fairly huge Colonial Bank
  • 77 number of banks that have failed this year, which is far too common right now source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

26 Jun 2009 17:41

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Biz: For sale: Former gem of a newspaper, based in Boston. Loses lots of $$$

  • $123 million Assets of the Boston Globe, which the New York Times company is trying to sell quickly, along with (possibly) a second paper
  • $182 million Amount of debt obligations the Globe has – a liability of $58 million. The NYT company recently cut salaries 23%, BTW. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Jun 2009 16:43

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Biz: An odd left turn: Car-racing-rooted Penske buys Saturn from GM

  • The car brand would have died without a buyer. Well, General Motors has one less brand to worry about. Just days after agreeing to sell Hummer to a Chinese company, they’ve found a suitor for another castoff, Saturn. Penske, owned by namesake former racer (and current NASCAR and Indy Car team owner) Roger Penske, will only distribute the brand and currently own no dealerships. Nor will they open any. The move, to be complete in October, would save 13,000 jobs and 300 dealerships. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 May 2009 09:07

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Biz, U.S.: Shaking off TARP: Big banking firms raise stock to pay off U.S.

  • why now? Two reasons why: Investors appear to be buying stocks at the moment, and they want the monkey off their backs. TARP regulations force companies to limit executive pay, which they don’t like.
  • the firms U.S. Bancorp, Capital One Financial Corp., KeyCorp, Principal Financial Group Inc. and BB&T Corp. all announced plans this morning to raise $7 billion in capital to get the U.S. off their backs. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

28 Mar 2009 13:42

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Biz: Charter has a crapload of debt, guys. They filed for bankruptcy.

  • $21.7 billion amount of debt the cable company, part-owned by Paul Allen, had on the books as of late 2008
  • $13 billion amount of debt the company hopes to have after getting out of “prearranged” bankruptcy source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Feb 2009 11:00

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Biz: Sirius XM could go bankrupt. Here’s why.

  • $3.25 billion in debt for the company, which merged together one last year. It has $5 billion in assets and 20 million subscribers.
  • $175 million in debt payments must be made by the satellite radio provider by the end of the month. They might be hindered by the credit crunch. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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