VIDEO : BUSINESS THIS WEEK

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Transcript
Microsoft ended its tentative $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo! after negotiations between the companies broke down over the price. Microsoft wanted to pay around $33 per Yahoo! share, lower than the $37 the internet company insists each share is worth. Jerry Yang, the chief executive of Yahoo!, came under pressure from disgruntled investors who had been hoping for a sale.

Sprint Nextel, America's third-biggest mobile-phone operator, unveiled an alliance with Clearwire, an internet-service provider, to create a network based on WiMax, a technology that delivers fast wireless-internet access. Other companies, including Google, Intel and Time Warner, are investing in the venture. The deal may allow Sprint Nextel to steal a march on AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Its larger rivals are backing a different wireless technology that will not be ready for two years.

Countrywide Financial's share price took another dive, after an analyst advised that if Bank of America went ahead with its proposed $4.1 billion takeover of the stricken mortgage lender it would be saddled with massive writedowns. Although the analyst recommended it “completely walk away” from the deal, BoA gave assurances that it would proceed.

UBS announced it would cut 5,500 jobs by the middle of next year (2,600 of them in its investment-banking business) as part of an effort to repair its tattered balance sheet. The Swiss bank, which has written down $38 billion during the credit crisis, one of the largest sums of any financial group, also said it had sold billions of dollars of subprime debt at a discount to BlackRock, an asset manager.

Disney's quarterly net income rose by 22% compared with a year ago. Despite the economic slowdown, the company recorded brisk trade at its theme parks and resorts, where revenue increased by 11%. The weak dollar was said to help, by making it more expensive for Americans to travel abroad and cheaper for foreigners to visit the parks.

The price of oil pushed past $123 a barrel. Arjun Murti, an analyst at Goldman Sachs who three years ago forecast that oil would breach $100, estimated that prices could rise to between $150-200 a barrel within two years.

India's finance minister said that biofuels and speculators were responsible for soaring food prices and criticised the practice of converting land use from food to palm oil production. India has placed a ban on trading futures in some crops and is considering extending it to other commodities. Earlier, George Bush upset some Indian politicians by suggesting that the country's increasing prosperity was a factor behind rising prices.