Business News

Microsoft Corp said on Sunday it has proposed an alternative deal to Yahoo Inc, rather than a full acquisition, in a move that could save the web pioneer from fighting a proxy battle with financier Carl Icahn.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) does not expect the global economy to recover before 2009, its chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Wednesday.

It may not be as glamorous, but the stock market also sees the trends changing as per the season -- just like the fashion industry.

For those who believe only grey cells set apart leaders from the rest, there is another hair raising observation among corporate America that most of the successful CEOs including Pepsico's Indra Nooyi part their hair to the left, says US business magazine Fortune.

Steel companies, battling government allegations of cartelisation and stoking inflation, today offered to cut prices across the board after a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Country's financial capital Mumbai is the worlds' seventh largest city in terms of billionaire population, says Forbes, the American business magazine famous for its annual list of richest people on the globe.

Corporates can undertake affirmative action by recruiting people on the basis of potential and not on merit alone, as part of the Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, Planning Commission Member Kirit Parikh suggested.

India, now under scrutiny due to rice export curbs and growing consumption that have helped drive grain prices to record highs, could help ease global food security fears, M S Swaminathan, the country's most revered rural economist, said.

ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steel maker, is eyeing a stake in China's Angang Steel in its latest foray into the enormous Chinese market, the Financial Times said on Monday.

Software giant Microsoft has abandoned its three-month old bid to buy Yahoo after the two failed to agree on acceptable price and it concluded a hostile bid was 'not sensible'. Microsoft had earlier offered USD 47.5 billion which translated into USD 33 per share but Yahoo wanted USD 57 billion or USD 37 a share.

Bottlenecks continue to delay the Sipat project with NTPC now having reservations on giving a fresh application to the Chhattisgarh government for restoring water supply to the project.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's appeal to all political parties not to politicise the inflation issue and not to indulge in "scare mongering" had the Left fuming today as it launched an attack on him.

Yahoo Inc is working to rewire the dozens of services across its site so that users can manage all information about themselves in a single place and share it with friends across the Web.

Concerns about food security mounted on Thursday, as rice prices hit records in Asia and the United Nations warned that staples for the world's hungry were getting much more expensive.

Microsoft Corp gave Yahoo Inc no hope of a higher takeover price, saying it was ready to go hostile or even call off its bid if Yahoo maintains 'unrealistic expectations' of a better deal.

Nearly 41 per cent of wealthy Americans may spend less on luxury items in the next one year, amid fears of a weakening economy, says a new study.

Britain's advertising watchdog has rapped an Indian channel for telecasting an advertisement that breached the standards code by promoting the occult, psychic practices and exorcism.

Having survived the boardroom rumpus and a slew of shareholder dissent and with a masterstroke-like entry into Indian market, British mobile giant Vodafone's India-born CEO Arun Sarin has been named the most powerful businessperson in the UK's technology and telecom industry.

China's booming economy, which relies on coal for 70 per cent of its electricity, could be running out of steam, with the country's coal reserves down to just 12 days.

Three Indian-origin businessmen who swindled banks in Britain and the United States of more than 300 million pounds by pretending to run a worldwide metal trading empire have been found guilty and face a long term in jail.