RBC selling its U.S. bank unit to PNCThe PNC Financial Services Group announced Monday that it had agreed to buy the American retail business of the Royal Bank of Canada for $3.45 billion. The deal, priced at a $112 million discount to tangible book value, will let PNC expand into the Southeast. The Royal Bank of Canada unit has 424 branches in North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and South Carolina, and roughly $25 billion of assets. Once the acquisition is complete, PNC will be the fifth-largest bank in the United States, as measured by branches.
Borders seeks loan and talks of auctionBorders Group Inc., the U.S. bookstore chain that filed for bankruptcy protection in February, has asked a judge to approve a $30 million loan and plans to hold an auction on July 19. Borders wants to complete a sale by July 29, according to a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The company is "encouraged that one of the parties presently negotiating with the debtors will emerge as the successful buyer," Andrew Glenn, a Borders lawyer, wrote in Friday's filing. Borders will pursue a "dual-track process" so it can proceed with a sale to liquidators if it isn't acquired as a going concern, Holly Felder Etlin, senior restructuring vice president, said in a separate court filing.
Jobs abroad less plentiful for couplesOverseas assignments are more brisk after the recession, but accompanying spouses and partners still struggle to find work abroad. An annual survey of global relocation trends found that 61 percent of companies surveyed are expecting to transfer more employees in 2011 than in recent years, higher than the historical average of 57 percent. But only 15 percent of spouses employed before going abroad were able to find overseas assignments, about 10 percent less than in 2006. Scott Sullivan, an executive vice president of Brookfield Global Relocation Services, publishers of the annual survey, said that "trailing" spouses are especially reluctant to give up jobs and a second income at home because of risks to future earning potential and career development.
Lightning strikes in 2010 hit insurers harderU.S. insurers' costs from lightning strikes rose 30 percent last year as consumers filled their homes with electronic devices like computers and flat-screen TVs that can be damaged by power surges, a trade group said. Homeowners' insurance claims from lightning strikes rose to $1.03 billion last year from $798 million in 2009, according to a statement Monday from the Insurance Information Institute, a New York-based trade group. The average cost per claim increased to $4,846 from $4,296. The number of claims surged to more than 213,000 from about 185,000. Travelers Cos. and Allstate Corp. are among insurers that have faced losses this year from an above-average number of tornadoes striking the U.S. The institute didn't provide data for insurers' lightning-claim losses in 2011.
Music firm EMI again is for saleEMI, the music company that was seized by Citigroup in February after a disastrous four-year ownership by the private equity firm Terra Firma, is being put up for sale again. The smallest of the four major record companies, EMI announced Monday that it had begun a process "to explore and evaluate potential strategic alternatives, including a possible sale, recapitalization or initial public offering." A sale is widely considered the likeliest outcome, with an auction to begin in coming weeks. In a memo to employees, Roger Faxon, EMI's chief executive, wrote that by the fourth quarter of this year, "we will have a good idea of who our new owners are likely to be."
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