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DirecTV to open books to suitors
NEW YORK >> Satellite television operator Hughes Electronics Corp. is expected next week to open its financial records to suitors interested in its DirecTV arm or the entire company, sources familiar with the situation said.Local telephone company SBC Communications Inc., Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and other bidders are expected to be among the companies that will sign confidentiality agreements to review the financial records, sources said. Reviewing proprietary financial records, a process known as due diligence, is typically the start of a formal auction process.
General Motors Corp., which owns 80 percent of Hughes, has been trying to drum up interest in all or part of its Hughes unit since December, when EchoStar Communications Corp.'s proposed $18 billion acquisition of Hughes collapsed in the face of stiff opposition from regulators.
General Motors declined to comment on the due diligence process, but reiterated that it is exploring all options for Hughes.
SBC and News Corp. declined to comment.
Tobacco wins in California, Florida
Tobacco companies scored victories yesterday in separate court cases brought by a longtime smoker who said smoking left him with cancer and by a flight attendant who said secondhand smoke in airplanes made his lung disease worse.
A state court jury in Sacramento, Calif., ruled that two tobacco companies are not responsible for the illness of Laurence Lucier, 52, a former accountant who said his 30-year pack-a-day habit left him with terminal cancer.
He sued Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. under a products liability law alleging the tobacco companies engineered and sold a product they knew was addictive and harmful.
Lucier had asked for $3.6 million for medical expenses, loss of income and the pain and suffering that Lucier's illness had caused his wife and their 6-year-old daughter.
In Miami, a jury rejected a damage claim from a flight attendant who blamed secondhand smoke in airliners for aggravating his lung disease. The compensatory damage trial on the claim by San Francisco-based United Airlines attendant James A. Seal was the sixth to go to a jury under a 1997 settlement with the nation's nonsmoking attendants. Tobacco companies have won all but one.
Hong Kong overseas workers pricey
Hong Kong >> Hong Kong-based expatriate employees of multinational companies have benefits worth seven times more than their local colleagues, the highest ratio in Asia, Agence France-Presse said, citing a survey.Housing benefits, which average of $178,000 a year in the city, are the main reason for the discrepancy, the news agency said, citing the survey by HR Business Solutions (Asia) Ltd. Housing costs average $93,300 in Singapore and $80,000 in China.
Overall, Hong Kong-based expatriates have benefits worth slightly more than their pay, compared with benefits equal to 15 percent of the salaries of local employees, AFP said.
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