IN THE PAPERS
In the papers 18 March
18-03-2008
by Sylvia Leatham
Former Qwest chief's conviction is overturned | Siemens issues EUR900m profit warning
The Irish Times reports that Japanese mobile firm NTT DoCoMo has accused rival Softbank of copying one of its handsets. DoCoMo launched a legal challenge to have the model withdrawn from stores, with DoCoMo and handset maker Fujitsu filing a joint request for an injunction with the Tokyo district court.
The Irish Independent reports that Eircom's majority owner, Babcock & Brown Capital, will convene a general meeting on 21 April for shareholders to approve a AUD310 million buyback of half its own stock. This follows recent pressure from activist shareholder PendVest, a UK-based hedge fund, to find ways to bolster the fund's share price.
The paper also says that the Irish government has hired 10 different IT firms to supply the same service at an annual cost of almost EUR3 million. Although it has set up a financial shared services centre in Killarney to track spending and produce accounts, only three government departments are using it. The remainder have hired different companies to provide and maintain their own individual financial management systems at costs ranging from EUR9,000 to more than EUR1 million.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Telekom is targeting management control in Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE) after buying a 20 percent stake in the Greek telco for around EUR2.5 billion. Deutsche Telekom said it doesn't intend to make a tender offer for all of OTE. The deal calls for the German company to pay Greek private equity firm Marfin Investment Group Holdings -- which now controls the 20 percent stake -- EUR26 a share for 98.03 million shares in OTE.
The Financial Times reports that a US appeals court has overturned the high-profile insider trading conviction of Joseph Nacchio, the former chief executive of Qwest Communications, and ordered a new trial. The Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver voted 2-1 to overturn all the jury's guilty counts against Nacchio and said he should face a retrial before a different judge because the trial judge wrongly excluded expert testimony important to the defence. The Denver-based telecoms group and its former chief executive became the target of federal prosecutors and US regulators in 2002 after it restated USD2.2 billion in revenue for the previous two years.
The paper also says that Siemens, Europe's largest engineering group, shed EUR12.5 billion in market capitalisation on Monday after issuing a shock EUR900 million profit warning. A EUR600 million shortfall in profits at its power generation unit, EUR200 million in transport and EUR100 million in IT will all but wipe out profits in the second quarter, according to a consensus of analysts. The German conglomerate blamed a contract cancellation, project delays and capacity issues for the warning. Analysts said the bad news was "Siemens-specific", while one top investor said it left the credibility of Peter Loscher, chief executive since July, "hanging by a thread".
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 