UBS to take $10 billion more in losses
UBS AG will write off a further $10 billion in losses from the U.S. subprime lending market, the Swiss bank said Monday, and raise billions in capital through share sales to Singapore and an unidentified Middle East investor.
UBS said it will post a loss for the fourth quarter and may record a loss for the full year as well. That comes on top of the 4.2 billion francs written off in its third quarter, making 14.2 billion francs ($12.6 billion) in writedowns from the subprime crisis by UBS this year.
The Government of Singapore Investment Corp., a sovereign-wealth fund, is investing 11 billion Swiss francs ($9.75 billion), while an undisclosed strategic investor in the Middle East is contributing 2 billion francs ($1.77 billion).
As recently as the middle of November, UBS had predicted a profit for the fourth quarter.
Microsoft Corp. said Monday it will provide online advertising for CNBC’s financial news Web site.
The software maker said it will be the exclusive third-party seller of contextually driven text ads on the site starting later in December, and display ads beginning in March 2008. The companies did not disclose financial terms.
Jon Tinter, a general manager at Microsoft, said the company plans to offer advertisers the option to buy ads on CNBC.com together with ads on Microsoft’s own financial site, MSN Money.
CNBC.com, part of General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal division, gets about 2.6 million unique visitors each month, according to a company statement. Microsoft said it plans to aggregate information about CNBC.com visitors’ Web surfing habits to better target advertising in the future.
CNBC will maintain its own ad sales team, which will focus on selling video ads online and on CNBC TV.
Microsoft has invested heavily in its advertising business this year, including the $6 billion acquisition of online advertising company aQuantive Inc., which closed in August.
Google Inc. remains the largest online advertising seller.
Ford Motor Co. says it will temporarily close two light truck plants in Michigan and Kentucky on Monday.
The shutdowns come two weeks ahead of their planned holiday closings. Company spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari said the move is part of the company’s typical response to adjust supply to meet fluctuating demand.
Affected are a plant in Dearborn, Mich., that builds the F-150 pickup and another in Louisville, Ky., that builds the Explorer sport utility.
Sales of Ford’s F-series pickups fell 11.7 percent to 46,568 last month.