THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.BRIEFLY IN BUSINESS
Confident consumers charged up their credit cards, bought or refinanced their homes and took advantage of the gravity-defying stock market - all to the benefit of the banks' bottom lines.
COMPUTERS
IBM profits surge
IBM's second-quarter profits jumped 65 percent, reflecting strength in personal computers, computer services and the sale of its data networking business, as it beat analysts' expectations.
IBM said Monday it earned $2.39 billion, or $1.28 a share, in the three months ended June 30. That was up from a profit of $1.45 billion, or 75 cents a share, in the year-ago period.
Microsoft profits climb
Microsoft Corp., buoyed by healthy sales of the latest upgrade to its Office suite of business software, reported Monday that its fourth-quarter profits rose 62 percent from a year ago.
Microsoft had net income of $2.2 billion or 40 cents a diluted share, compared with profits of $1.36 billion or 25 cents a diluted share a year earlier.
AUTOMOBILES
Used car web site grows
AutoConnect.com and Auto Trader Online, two of the largest used-car buying sites on the Internet, will join forces in one of the fastest-growing segments of electronic commerce.
The merger, announced Monday and planned for the fall, will provide consumers one stop on the Internet to find nearly 1.5 million used car and truck listings from dealers and individuals nationwide.
RESTAURANTS
Steak chain sells shares
Ruth's Chris Steak House, which originated in the New Orleans area and has grown to 68 restaurants worldwide, is selling a majority share of the company to a private investment firm.
Majority control will be held by Chicago-based Madison Dearborn Partners, the two groups announced Monday. A price was not disclosed.
NEWS FROM ABROAD
Russia could receive as much as $3.8 billion in foreign loans this year, allowing the government to stop borrowing from the Central Bank to meet foreign debt payments, a top financial official said Monday. The International Monetary Fund is expected to decide soon on releasing the first installment of an 18-month, $4.45 billion loan program to Russia. ... Thousands of Argentine farmers plan to converge on Buenos Aires on Wednesday to protest what they see as the government's failure to help them weather slack crop prices and rising debts.
NAMES IN THE NEWS
One of the telecommunications industry's most powerful women will be the new president and chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co. Carleton Fiorina, 44, is replacing Lewis Platt, 58, who is retiring at the end of the year, the company announced Monday. Fiorina has been president of Lucent Technologies' global service provider business, that company's fastest-growing division. ... French oil company Elf Aquitaine, the target of a hostile bid by TotalFina, turned the tables Monday in announcing plans to launch its own $50.97 billion cash-and-stock offer to acquire TotalFina. ... Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp. has formed a joint venture in Cambodia to begin making about 10,000 motorcycles a year, a Japanese newspaper reported.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Business-to-consumer gets all the press because people like to read about it. Business-to-business is really the backbone of the U.S. and the world economy and that's where probably 80 percent of this business is coming from," -Intel Corp. CEO Craig Barrett predicting the number of Internet users will increase six-fold to 1 billion within five years, due largely on the growth in business-to-business transactions.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED VERSION.
Provided by 7DAYS.ae
Global tourism leaders gather in Dubai today to plot future strategy for an industry which, despite a slight downward revision of annual growth estimates, is easily bucking present economic trends. As around 1,000 delegates gather for the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) summit,A talk will likely focus on ensuring adequate infrastructure for future growth and mitigating tourism's well-documented impact on the environment.
Airlines, tour operators and hotel chains will be joined by around 40 government ministers as the WTTC, which began as a select club in 1990 by the chiefs of Amex, Accor, British Airways and American Airlines, comes truly of age. WTTC projections show tourism will this year generate $8.4 trillion in
revenue despite the revised growth projection of three per cent compared to 3.9 per cent last year.
That represents almost ten per cent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP), providing employment for 238 million people across the globe. And all this despite the worldwide credit crunch, the spectre of recession in the US, surging oil and food prices and worries over climate change - each of which have played their part in trimming initial growth projections of 4.6 per cent.
"Over the next ten years, we will see an explosion in activity throughout our sector," said Jean-Paul Baumgarten, who is the president of the London-based organisation. "It's up to us to see this industry develop responsibly," he added.
By 2018, the WTTC expects annual tourism expenditure to rise by an average of 4.4 per cent. Baumgarten cites a tourism "boom" fuelled by emerging economic powerhouses in China, India, Russia and the Middle East, although he recognises the sector faces its challenges, not least the carbon footprint left by the ongoing exponential growth in air travel.
"We are part of the problem because our industry is responsible for between 11 and 12 per cent of [all] CO2 emissions, but we are also part of the solution," he added, with an eye on one of the major themes of the Dubai conference, which runs until Tuesday. Another major issue up for discussion is the eternal question of how to develop national tourist infrastructures in line with demand, with Baumgarten speaking of "great concern" within his body at the "lack of planning [shown] by the majority of governments around the world".
Dubai, he said, offers an example to all, with the UAE government "turning a desert into a destination", he added. Difficulties in recruitment within different branches of the industry could also put the brakes on its growth, with Baumgarten saying that the two giants of the sector, the US and China, are suffering from a shortage of qualified staff.
However, the WTTC's growing strength - these days it counts around 100 influential members within its ranks - means that its global lobbying power has risen considerably. The turning-point in that process can be traced back to the September 11 attacks on the US back in 2001, Baumgarten said. "Governments the world over realised then the enormous impact tourism has on the economy and started listening to us," he added.
[c] 2007 Al Sidra Media LLC
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