IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 12 January
12-01-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Xsil wind-up petition adjourned | Electronic Arts lowers profit forecast
The Irish Times reports that a petition to wind up Dublin firm Xsil was adjourned by the High Court on Monday when it was heard that the directors of the company had appointed a receiver. The petition had been taken by Gavin King and 11 other former employees. Xsil, which sold manufacturing tools for chip makers, ceased trading in October 2008. At that time, it employed 44 people. They claim they are owed their final month's salary, holiday pay and pay in lieu of a notice period. Justice Mary Laffoy heard a receiver had been appointed to Xsil last Friday by its directors. As a result, the hearing of the winding-up petition was adjourned for four weeks.
The Irish Examiner says that Gardai are investigating "chain text messages" that are reportedly being forwarded to random mobile phone customers. A formal statement has been made to the Garda, who have indicated they will be contacting mobile operator O2 to try and get to the source of the message. A caller to the Gerry Ryan radio show on Monday outlined details of a message her friend had received telling her she had been "cursed" and urging her to forward the message to 10 people.
According to the Financial Times, hackers calling themselves the Iranian Cyber Army briefly hijacked the homepage of Chinese search engine Baidu on Tuesday. Baidu's home page showed the message: "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army" against a dark background and the Iranian flag. Baidu's search engine went down for at least four hours. The same group hacked Twitter in December, replacing its home page with an anti-American message.
The paper also says that Spanish telco Telefonica has re-stated its earnings guidance, after analysts warned that the Venezuelan currency devaluation could cost it USD1 billion in revenues. The bolivar was devalued 50 percent on Friday. The telecoms group gets around 7 percent of total sales from its subsidiary in Venezuela. Analysts said that the devaluation, along with accounting adjustments to reflect hyper-inflation, could force Telefonica to lower its earnings per share targets for this year by 15 percent. However, Telefonica insisted on Monday in a regulatory filing that it stood by its "short and medium term earnings guidance and dividend targets until 2012".
The Wall Street Journal reports that video games maker Electronic Arts has lowered its fiscal-year guidance for the second time in two months. For its fiscal third quarter ended 31 December, EA expects adjusted per-share earnings of USD0.29 to USD0.33 on revenue of USD1.23 billion to USD1.25 billion. Analysts had estimated earnings of USD0.56 on revenue of USD1.42 billion. The company blamed its latest warning on weakness in Europe in December and a shift to lower-margin products in the latest quarter, primarily in North America.
The paper also says that AOL has started laying off staff and said it would close some European offices, after failing to reach its goal of cutting about one-third of staff through a voluntary programme. About 1,100 employees accepted the voluntary package, which was aimed at cutting 2,300 jobs. That leaves AOL with about 1,200 more jobs to eliminate. A spokeswoman said the cuts will be across the board.
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