| Fiserv prepares debt sale, loan for CheckFree deal
Fiserv Inc. said Tuesday that it plans to sell debt notes to help pay for its proposed $4.4 billion acquisition of CheckFree Corp. The Brookfield-based financial technology and services company also has reached an agreement with a syndicate of banks that would allow it to take out a five-year term loan of $2.5 billion as a result of the CheckFree transaction, which Fiserv is buying in an all-cash deal. The term loan was disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fiserv plans to offer two series of senior notes that will mature in 2012 and 2017 under the sale of debt. The offering will be made pursuant to a shelf registration statement and is expected to close during the week of Nov. 19. The senior notes have been assigned ratings of Baa2 with a stable outlook by Moody's Investors Service Inc.
TxDOT cutting engineering budget
The Texas Department of Transportation plans to make some serious cuts in order to address a funding shortage, according to TxDOT's Deputy Executive Director Steve Simmons. In a meeting that took place Thursday afternoon in Austin, Simmons outlined anticipated cuts to the 2008 budget. Those cuts will include reducing the consultant engineering budget by 57 percent, or roughly $250 million; reducing its 2008 right-of-way budget from $500 million to $275 million; keeping purchases to a minimum; trimming the research budget by 50 percent and instituting a hiring freeze. "We will also look for opportunities to consolidate functions, both in our district offices and Austin Division, in order to generate greater efficiencies and effect cost savings," Simmons says.
Consumer debt spirals in the run up to Christmas
It is only mid-November but Czechs are already gearing up for a massive spending spree in the run up to Christmas. And it is not just salespeople who are expecting record profits: consumer debt is spiraling and in the euphoria of making their dreams come true here-and-now few Czechs are reading the small print. .
Home builders: Bankruptcy among latest worries
Home builders such as Dallas-based Centex Corp. and Pulte Homes Inc. aim to survive an industrywide unraveling by selling houses at bargain prices, slashing jobs and scrapping growth plans. But as the housing downturn worsens, experts say at least a few major U.S. home builders may end up bankrupt. Builders constructed more than 2 million housing units nationwide in 2005, the year the boom peaked. So far this year, housing starts fell to an annual rate of 1.2 million units through September, and economists expect the number to drop to an annual rate of 1 million by mid-2008. Some analysts foresee a shakeout similar to that of the early 1990s, when many builders went through bankruptcy, including NVR Inc. of Reston, Va., and U.S. Home Corp. of Houston, now part of Miami's Lennar Corp.
South Africa: Commercial Developers Try New Tack
COMMERCIAL property developers are starting to build up their own property portfolios, seeing value in holding on to properties instead of selling them in advance to reduce risk. This is just one of the changes in a commercial property sector that has come of age in the past three or four years. .
|
