In brief: Rival bid likely for mall operator
New York – Canadian property manager Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is preparing to bid for a large slice of General Growth Properties Inc. It’s an effort to block rival Simon Property Group Inc. from acquiring the giant shopping mall operator, a newspaper reported.
Simon made an unsolicited $10 billion offer for General Growth last week, but was rebuffed.
Brookfield’s offer would enable General Growth to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with Brookfield as its largest shareholder, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The report said the bid could come as early as this week.
General Growth owns or manages 200 shopping malls in 44 states. The company owns three Inland Northwest properties: NorthTown Mall, Spokane Valley Mall and Silver Lake Mall in Coeur d’Alene.
Associated Press
ABC staff memo warns of layoffs
New York – ABC News staffers got a memorandum Tuesday that promises to leave no part of the organization untouched, and will lead to massive personnel reductions by the end of 2010.
Although the memo from ABC News President David Westin specified no numbers, it was believed the goal for cutbacks is as high as one-quarter of the ABC News staff, which currently totals about 1,400.
“We anticipate that between now and the end of the year, ABC News will undergo a fundamental transformation that will ultimately affect every corner of the enterprise,” Westin said.
The memo listed several provisions of the news division’s restructuring plan, including an expanded use of digital journalists (who both produce and shoot their own stories), the combination of weekday and weekend operations for both “Good Morning America” and “World News,” and, at the newsmagazines and other long-form programming, “a more flexible blend of staff and freelancers.”
Associated Press
Banks struggle in record numbers
Washington – The number of banks in danger of failing shot up to 702 at the end of last year, the highest level since 1993, as the industry continues to struggle in its recovery from the so-called Great Recession, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday.
The large number of “problem institutions” – up from 552 at the end of September – comes after 140 banks failed in 2009, a level not seen since the savings and loan crisis in 1990. Not all banks on the problem list fail, and FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair noted that the vast majority of the approximately 8,000 banks with insured deposits are healthy.
“Overall, I think the banking system is challenged but stable,” Bair said Tuesday.
Los Angeles Times