BP-Rosneft oil deal falls throughThe disputed share swap and oil exploration agreement between BP and the Russian state-owned company Rosneft has collapsed. BP's proposed deal with Rosneft lapsed as BP failed to reach a last-minute agreement with Rosneft and resolve a dispute with BP's Russian partners in a separate joint venture, TNK-BP. BP said Tuesday it would continue to talk to Rosneft and its partners in TNK-BP about future collaboration.
Conde Nast to anchor 1 World Trade CenterConde Nast Publications, whose magazines chronicle the American zeitgeist as meticulously as any anthropologist, has reached a deal to lease 1 million square feet at 1 World Trade Center, giving ground zero a much-needed corporate anchor with a proven ability to attract other businesses. To attract Conde Nast, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, had to take on some risk, notably by agreeing to assume the last four or five years of the company's current lease in Times Square. The deal is worth an estimated $2 billion over 25 years.
Netflix bandwidth is No. 1 and growingPeople watching videos on Netflix take up more bandwidth on the Internet than users of any other website or service in North America, according to a report Tuesday by broadband analytics firm Sandvine. At peak Internet hours, as much as 30 percent of online traffic is generated by Netflix subscribers who are watching movies or TV shows over their laptops, game consoles and smartphones. Combined, Netflix, YouTube and other online video sites create about 46 percent of all Internet downloads during peak hours, according to Sandvine. The company forecasts that on-demand entertainment will represent a combined 55 to 60 percent of peak traffic by the end of 2011.
Industrial output weaker than expectedU.S. industrial production was flat in April as a shortage of parts due to Japan's earthquake slowed auto production, the Federal Reserve reported. The weakness in output of the nation's factories, mines and utilities surprised economists, who in a MarketWatch survey had been expecting a 0.3 percent gain for April. The Fed revised lower output for February and March -- to a 0.3 percent drop in February and a 0.7 percent gain in March.
LinkedIn increases IPO target priceMountain View, Calif.-based LinkedIn, a social networking site for professionals, is getting set to launch the valley's biggest IPO in years. Its debut Thursday is sure to be closely watched because social heavyweights Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and Zynga are also expected to file for public offerings in the near future. On Tuesday, LinkedIn increased the IPO target price by about 30 percent in a sign of heavy demand by investors. LinkedIn raised the price range on its shares to $42 to $45 each from $32 to $35. Shares are expected to price Wednesday and begin trading Thursday. The new price means LinkedIn could be valued at more than $4 billion after going public.
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