Borders agrees to liquidationBorders Group threw in the towel Monday afternoon and agreed to submit a previously announced liquidation plan to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan on Thursday. The bookseller had been trying to reorganize for five months, but was overwhelmed with debt, losses and changing consumer tastes. Borders operates 399 stores and employs about 10,700 workers. The deadline to submit a bid for the Ann Arbor-based bookseller as a going concern came and went Sunday without one. Barring other bids, the court was expected on Thursday to approve the back-up bid -- a full chain liquidation led by Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners.
Cisco says it will ax 6,500 jobsCisco Systems Inc., the largest networking-equipment maker, plans to cut about 6,500 jobs, or 9 percent of its full-time workforce, to help trim $1 billion in annual costs. The cuts include 2,100 employees who took in a voluntary early-retirement program, Cisco said Monday. San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco also said it will sell a set-top box factory in Mexico to Foxconn Technology Group and will transfer 5,000 workers in the process.
Clorox spurns Icahn's $10.2B takeover bidClorox Co., maker of the namesake bleach, rejected Carl Icahn's unsolicited $10.2 billion offer and adopted a shareholder rights plan to guard against a takeover. The proposal to purchase Clorox "substantially undervalues the company," Oakland, Calif.-based Clorox said Monday. The rights plan allows current investors to buy additional shares if an entity acquires more than 10 percent of the company. Icahn, the company's largest investor, has a 9.4 percent stake.
Levy on banks a factor in European talksWith European leaders poised to hold crucial talks Thursday, officials Monday were discussing elements that might prove essential to a second bailout of Greece, including the idea of a special levy to ensure that banks share part of the cost. The package emerging for discussion Thursday is likely to have as its aim the reduction of the debt burden on peripheral euro zone countries. It would achieve that by including a buyback of Greek bonds and lowering the interest rate on bailout loans for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. But the issue of how to ensure that the private sector makes sacrifices remains unresolved, according to diplomats and officials briefed on the discussions but who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Anti-smoking vaccine fails a clinical trialA vaccine meant to help people quit smoking has failed to work in a large, late-stage clinical trial, dealing a setback to efforts to harness the immune system to help people fight addictions. Some 11 percent of the people who received the vaccine, called NicVax, had quit smoking after a year, virtually the same as the percentage for those getting a placebo. "We are clearly quite surprised and extremely disappointed by the results of the trial," Rafaat Fahim, the chief executive of Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, the developer of the vaccine, told analysts on Monday after the company announced the results. The stock of Rockville, Md.-based Nabi lost two-thirds of its value, closing at $1.89.
Gold continues rally and closes at $1,602.40Gold extended its longest U.S. rally since 1980 and topped $1,600 an ounce at its closing Monday. Gold for August delivery climbed for a 10th day, rising 0.8 percent to $1,602.40 an ounce, and gold for immediate delivery increased for an 11th day. The last time gold rallied this many straight days was when the U.S. was in the final month of a recession in July 1980, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, and inflation was at 13.1 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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