The troubles on Wall Street are clobbering the car lot on Main Street, with automakers and dealers saying tougher credit requirements are knocking potential buyers out of the market at a time when the struggling industry can least afford it. Through August, U.S. auto sales were down 11 percent compared with the first eight months of 2007. The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate for August was 13.7 million, up from 12.5 million in July, the worst month in 16 years.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the largest secured creditor in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case, with an estimated $23 billion in claims, according to a recent court filing. Secured creditors are the first to be repaid in a bankruptcy in the event there is money to be distributed. Secured creditors are paid before unsecured creditors - shareholders rank lowest and often get nothing.
The makers of two anti-flu drugs, attempting to bolster sales now that demand has subsided, have started programs to encourage businesses to stockpile their medicines, Tamiflu and Relenza. The Roche Group of Switzerland, Tamiflu's maker, and the U.K.'s GlaxoSmithKline PLC, maker of Relenza, are offering U.S. employers the option of paying a $6 annual fee, per treatment course, to reserve their own stockpile. The manufacturers will store and replace the drugs when their shelf life expires after five years, and companies won't have to make big outlays for something they hope they won't need - all major concerns employers have raised.
MySpace's new music service has managed to bring major record labels together. News Corp.-owned MySpace opened the much-anticipated MySpace Music on Thursday, giving its roughly 120 million users free access to hundreds of thousands of songs from the biggest recording labels. All four major record labels - Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Inc., Universal Music Group and EMI Music - brought their catalogs to the service, which is operating as a joint venture between them and MySpace. Sony ATV-Music Publishing and The Orchard, a large independent music distributor, were also on board for the launch, though neither have equity stakes in the service.
Oil prices fell just over $1 a barrel Friday as a U.S. financial bailout plan remained stuck in legislative limbo, raising investor worries that the economic crisis could deepen and further erode domestic energy demand. Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell $1.13 to settle at $106.89 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier dipping as low as $104.25. Crude rose $2.29 to settle at $108.02 on Wednesday. Weak U.S. demand for fuel has helped send crude down 27 percent since the price surged to a record $147.27 per barrel on July 11.
HSBC Holdings PLC, Europe's largest bank by market value, is cutting 1,100 jobs worldwide in the wake of the financial turmoil, a spokesman said Friday. The London-based lender is laying off 4 percent of its global banking and market division, with half of them taking place in the bank's operation in Britain, said spokesman Gareth Hewett in Hong Kong. All of the staff being cut have already been told. In Hong Kong, HSBC, which operates in Europe, Asia and the Americas, is laying off 100 staff members. HSBC has a 335,000-strong work force globally, and so the job cuts will hit only 0.3 percent of its total employees.
