LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Although a blowup in Europe would be
very costly to the American economy, I think we are in much better shape
to meet those challenges than we were a few years ago.”
Ben Bernanke,
Federal Reserve chairman Article, 1DCenterPoint seeks OK for trading point
Houston-based CenterPoint Energy Inc. filed a request Wednesday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to establish a trading point for natural gas at the Perryville Hub in northern Louisiana.
The Perryville Hub in Franklin Parish connects natural-gas lines from the Fayetteville Shale in north-central Arkansas, the Barnett Shale in Texas, the Haynesville Shale in northern Louisiana and the Woodford Shale in Oklahoma, Reuters reported.
Trading volume at the south Louisiana-based Henry Hub, which is the pricing point for natural gas on the New York Mercantile Exchange, has been declining in recent years because of a drop in Gulf Coast gas production, while output is rising from several shale plays in the region.
The company also requested permission to trade on the Intercontinental Commodity Exchange, a news release from CenterPoint said. CenterPoint has about 430,000 customers in Arkansas.
HP confirms printer, PC units merger
NEW YORK - Hewlett-Packard Co. announced Wednesday it will combine its printer and PC divisions to save money, part of the technology company’s effort to turn around its business.
The move comes at a time when sales of printers and ink, once HP’s lifeblood, are falling as people increasingly share documents and photos online. HP, the world’s No. 1 maker of personal computers, is also facing declining PC sales as people turn their attention to tablet computers and smart phones.
The combined unit will be led by Todd Bradley, the executive vice president of the PC group since 2005. Vyomesh Joshi, the head of the printing group, is retiring after 31 years with HP.
HP has said it needs to identify ways to save money to invest in growing businesses. The company said combining the units will increase productivity and efficiency, while streamlining customer support and the company’s supply chain.
HP didn’t say how much it will save or what effect the restructuring would have on jobs, but the move is likely to result in layoffs. In a 2009 shake-up of the printing, PC and other divisions, HP cut 4,400 jobs. The company had 349,600 workers as of October, the end of its most recent fiscal year.
In 2009, Hewlett-Packard began moving employees from downtown Little Rock to its $28 million building on a 12.5-acre site in Conway’s Meadows Office Complex.
Conway officials said HP planned to eventually have 1,200 people working at the new building.
A company spokesman declined to comment Wednesday on the announcement’s potential effect on the Conway facility.
Kraft snacks now branded Mondelez
NORTHFIELD, Ill. - Kraft Foods Inc. says its new global snacks company will be named Mondelez International Inc.
Mondelez was inspired by the suggestions of two separate Kraft employees. It is intended to evoke the idea of a “delicious world” as “monde” is derived from the Latin word for “world” and “delez” as an expression of “delicious.”
Kraft is splitting into two public companies before the end of this year. The North American grocery business will continue to carry the company name as Kraft Foods Group Inc.
Shareholders will have to approve the name at a meeting in May.
The company has also reserved the stock symbol “MDLZ” for trading under the new name. The new stock symbol for its grocery business will be revealed at a later date.
Shale-gas reserves let down Poland
WARSAW, Poland - Poland’s shale-gas reserves are far lower than originally forecast, the government said Wednesday, a disappointment for a country that had been hoping to break its dependence on Russian energy imports.
The recoverable reserves are between 452 billion and 1 trillion cubic yards, according to a government report.
But until recently, hopes had been that the reserves would be many times larger. A U.S. estimate last year put them at about 6.9 trillion cubic yards.
Shale gas is underground across the European continent, from France to Ukraine, but many countries have decided not to attempt to extract it because of environmental concerns. The extraction calls for large quantities of water laced with chemicals and sand to be used to fracture the rock and release the gas.
Environmentalists say hydraulic fracturing can contaminate ground water, pollute the air, and even sometimes cause tremors.
Poland has huge stores of coal that generate 93 percent of the nation’s electricity output, but it remains heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas for other energy needs.
Washington Mutual exits bankruptcy
SEATTLE - Washington Mutual’s final exit from bankruptcy, and transformation from a giant thrift to a small mortgage reinsurer, is complete.
The company, now known as WMI Holdings with headquarters in Seattle, said its reorganization plan became effective Monday. It will begin distributing about $7 billion to creditors, many of them hedge funds that bought WaMu’s debt securities after the company declared bankruptcy in September 2008.
Common and preferred shareholders will own the bulk of WMI Holdings, whose initial business will be managing WaMu’s old mortgage-reinsurance business as it runs down.
But the new company will have $75 million in cash and access to a $125 million credit line, which could enable it to acquire other businesses or build new ones.
WMI Holdings also inherits billions of tax losses from the old WaMu, which could make it an attractive acquisition target down the road.
Michael Willingham, one of WMI Holdings’ new directors, said in a statement that the board would “begin exploring opportunities available to the company to enhance the value of the reorganized company’s assets for the benefit of the company’s new shareholders.”
The old WaMu’s stock, which had been trading on the Pink Sheets under the ticker symbol WAMUQ , has been canceled.
Business, Pages 22 on 03/22/2012