General Electric's NBC on Monday pulled the plug on NBCi as the beleaguered online media company became the latest casualty of the Internet media downturn.
NBC, which said it already held about 38.6 percent of NBCi's shares, will be paying $2.19 per share, or about $138 million for NBCi, based on shares outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2000.
NBCi (NBCI) will immediately begin cutting the size of its work force as it prepares to scale down the business. NBC said it was in the process of determining how to use NBCi's assets and would develop a strategy for the Web properties over the next several months.
"Rather than continuing to operate at a significant loss, and having the value of NBCi continue to erode, we believe this transaction is in the best interest of NBCi's public stockholders," said Will Lansing, NBCi's chief executive officer.
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GM buying Daewoo?: General Motors is expected to announce its decision to take over ailing Daewoo Motor in early May, South Korea's commerce minister said. But a GM spokesman in Detroit said he was unaware of any deadline for a decision.
The world's largest automaker entered negotiations to buy Daewoo last September after Ford Motor (F) withdrew its bid, but has reportedly been reluctant to continue talks without layoffs at the South Korean company.
Henry Wong, who manages GM's international communications in Detroit, said that while the automaker remains interested in Daewoo, GM (GM) officials "do not know of any internal deadlines that we have for coming to an agreement of any kind."
Daewoo Motor has been under court receivership since going bankrupt in November with an estimated debt of $15 billion. The South Korean automaker so far has laid off 5,500 of its 16,000-person work force to sweeten a possible deal with GM.
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E-Bond gets quick death: Japan's Softbank Finance and U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers pulled the plug on online bond trading venture E-Bond Securities after only two months in business, citing lack of participation.
The 750 million yen ($6 million) venture, trumpeted as a new era of Web-based securities trading, was owned 60 percent by the Softbank unit and 40 percent by Lehman (LEH).
Analysts said the venture's failure after a launch delayed for several months reflects the daunting task of replacing traditional broking with the Internet despite a surge in Web surfers in Japan's homes and offices.
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Deal revised: Nortel Networks said it will take a bigger stake in a planned high-speed cable venture with ANTEC, instead of $325 million in cash that was part of the original deal.
Nortel will now own 49.3 percent of the newly formed cable company, or 37 million shares, up from 46.5 percent, or 33 million shares, planned when the deal was announced in October.
The venture, which stalled in December, after ANTEC's $550 million financing for the deal fell through, is now expected to close in the second quarter of 2001.
ANTEC had planned to pay Nortel $325 million for its stake in Arris Interactive LLC and use the remainder for receivables and inventory for the new company.
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Eircom retrenches: Eircom, the Irish telecoms operator, said it would be scaling back its Internet businesses and its British and Northern Irish operations in a restructuring move after the sale of its mobile phone arm, Eircell.
The announcement came as the company said it would be holding an extraordinary general meeting on May 11 to seek shareholder approval for the sale of Eircell to Britain's Vodafone.
Eircom and Vodafone agreed an all-share deal for the sale of Eircell worth around 3.5 billion euros ($3.15 billion) at current prices in December.
After the sell-off, Eircom said it would consolidate around its core Irish fixed-line business. As part of a restructuring operation the company said it would be getting out of its Internet software and content development operations and focusing on its profitable Internet services.
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A silver lining in the clouds: Amazon forecast a first-quarter loss narrower than Wall Street estimates, citing strong growth in electronics.
The outlook is a rare upbeat forecast for investors worried about corporate earnings and a slowing economy. The forecast also heightens the prospects for Amazon turning a profit, a major concern for investors.
CEO Jeff Bezos has pledged to reach a pro forma operating profit by the end of the year.
The outlook sent Amazon shares (AMZN) higher and helped set a firmer tone for the markets' opening. In pre-opening trading, Amazon shares surged 35 percent, to $11.30 from a Friday closing price of $8.37.
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No harm, no foul: Applied Biosystems Group said that a federal judge has ruled that one of its DNA sequencing products does not infringe on a patent held by Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, the life-sciences business of Nycomed Amersham.
Applied Biosystems (ABI), a publicly traded unit of Applera, said U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued a pretrial summary judgment that the company's BigDye version 3.0 does not infringe on Amersham's patent for florescent dye markers.
Amersham (NYE) said it will appeal the ruling and that the patent case for versions 1.0 and 2.0 of the BigDye products will go to a jury trial. Both companies make equipment used to sequence DNA.
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Japanese gamers speed up: Sony will begin selling an upgraded version of its PlayStation 2 game console in Japan next week, one that will allow users to plug in a broadband-ready hard disk drive unit.
The new feature will allow the popular game console to link into the Internet at several times the speed of current connections and also allow for enriched game content that takes advantage of the extra memory that the hard drive offers.
The upgraded version is for the Japanese market -- PlayStation 2 game consoles sold in North America and Europe since late 2000 already feature the expansion bay slot.
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Is it hot in here?: IBM and Carrier, an air-conditioning manufacturer, said they plan to offer Web-enabled air conditioners in Europe this summer that can be controlled wirelessly.
Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
Owners of the newfangled air conditioners will be able to set temperatures or switch the units on or off wirelessly using a website called Myappliance.com.
Reuters and AP contributed to this report.
