It emerged that Facebook is ending the trading of its privately held shares on the secondary market as it prepares to go public, which many people now expect to happen in May. Private secondary markets will see a big drop in their trading volumes with the departure of Facebook.
Lloyd's reported its first pre-tax annual loss in six years. Because of Japan's tsunami-induced nuclear disaster and big floods in Thailand, last year was the second most expensive on record (after 2005) for total catastrophe claims, which are estimated at up to $116 billion. Richard Ward, the chief executive of Lloyd's, said he was "disappointed" that insurance rates had not risen more.
The European Commission launched an investigation into United Technologies' $16.5 billion proposed takeover of Goodrich, which was announced last year. Both companies are American. The commission wants to know if a deal would hurt competition in specific areas of the aircraft components industry.
Sharp, a Japanese electronics company, sold a 10 percent stake in its business to Hon Hai, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer that assembles a wide range of electronic products, including the iPhone, at its factories in China, where it is known as Foxconn. The investment underscores the waning of Japan's once-mighty consumer electronics industry. Much of Sharp's business is in televisions and LCD screens, which are made more cheaply in Taiwan and South Korea.
ø Tim Cook, Apple's boss, traveled to China to meet a number of officials, including Li Keqiang, a deputy prime minister. A court in Guangdong will decide soon whether Apple has rights to the "iPad" name, which is claimed by a rival company in China. Cook also visited Foxconn's new factory in Zhengzhou, where the iPhone is made.
Rupert Murdoch's media empire was embroiled in fresh controversy when allegations emerged in Britain and Australia that computer workers at NDS, a subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corp. that is in the process of being sold to Cisco, were told to sabotage rivals to Sky, one of News Corp.'s television businesses. NDS denies the claims.
Political economyAmerica's nomination of Jim Yong Kim to lead the World Bank drew fire. Kim currently runs Dartmouth College and is an expert on public health, but he has scant experience in economics. In 2000, he published a book arguing that growth does little for the poor. Tradition demands that an American always head the World Bank, but some say it is time to break that tradition and pick Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria's finance minister.
A Pentagon official told Congress that America had suspended its provision of food aid to North Korea because the regime had broken the terms of last month's moratorium on missile tests by planning a rocket launch for April. North Korea claims it is only launching a satellite.
