Business news in brief

State chamber to hold annual meeting

The Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce will hold its 86th annual meeting Wednesday at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.

Check-in will begin at 11:30 a.m. with lunch at noon.

Stephen Moore, chief economist at The Heritage Foundation, will be the keynote speaker. Gov. Mike Beebe also will speak.

At The Heritage Foundation, Moore focuses on advancing public policies that increase the rate of economic growth to help the United States retain its position as the global economic superpower. He formerly wrote on the economy and public policy for The Wall Street Journal.

The cost is $75 per person. For more information or to register, contact Deb Mathis at 501-210-4212 or dmathis@arkansasstatechamber.com.

-- David Smith

German rail union to end strike early

BERLIN -- A German train drivers' union said it will end a strike that has caused commuter chaos ahead of the country's celebration on Sunday of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

German news agency dpa reported Friday that the head of the GDL union announced the strike would end Saturday, more than a day sooner than planned.

GDL chief Claus Weselsky spoke after a court in Frankfurt ruled the strike was lawful.

The union wants a 5 percent pay increase and shorter working hours, but the main sticking point is its demand to negotiate for train drivers and for other staff.

There has been widespread criticism of the strike, including over the potential disruption for people traveling to the anniversary festivities in Berlin.

-- The Associated Press

Low oil prices take toll on Transocean

In a sign lower oil prices are starting to take their toll on the industry, offshore rig owner Transocean announced it would take charges totaling more than $2.7 billion because demand for its rigs is falling.

Transocean said the charges forced it to delay its third-quarter earnings report that was scheduled for release Friday.

Companies that explore for and produce oil are dialing back investment because of sharp declines in the price of oil, which is reducing rig demand and lowering rates for Transocean's rigs.

Brent crude, the most common benchmark for global oil, has fallen 28 percent since late June. Friday it traded near $84 a barrel, not far from its lowest level in four years.

Judson Bailey, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, wrote in a report that Transocean's charges should serve to alert investors to the deteriorating market for oil rigs, which "will only be made worse if Brent prices remain in the low-$80s."

-- The Associated Press

Symantec to cut 2,000 jobs in spinoff

Symantec Corp., which is splitting its cybersecurity and data-storage divisions into two publicly traded companies, will cut about 2,000 jobs as part of the spinoff.

Symantec, the biggest maker of security software, will reduce head count by about 10 percent, the company said during a conference call with analysts Wednesday. It will incur restructuring charges of as much as $120 million, with half of that amount coming in fiscal 2015, Thomas Seifert, chief financial officer of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company, said during the call. Separation costs will be as much as $100 million, excluding taxes and adviser fees related to the split.

Symantec last month followed eBay Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. in announcing a plan to separate businesses to drive growth. This week, Symantec forecast fiscal third-quarter sales and profit that fell short of analysts' estimates, citing the plan to split and the fact that customers are adopting newer technologies for repelling hackers.

As of March 28, Symantec employed more than 20,800 people worldwide, with 44 percent of that number in the U.S., according to its most recent annual filing. The announced job cuts of 10 percent would equate to about 2,000 positions, based on that employee count.

-- Bloomberg News

JPMorgan to cut 3,000 additional jobs

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. bank, said it's on track to eliminate 3,000 more jobs this year than previously forecast in its mortgage and credit-card divisions.

The company expects about 4,000 reductions in its card, merchant-services and auto unit, up from about 2,000 previously announced, the New York-based bank said Friday in a Web presentation. Mortgage banking will achieve about 7,000 reductions, compared with a previous forecast of about 6,000.

Competitors, including Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., have also been dismissing workers as refinancings that banks relied on to fuel profits decline. In February, JPMorgan said staffing cuts for the two divisions would total 8,000.

JPMorgan is also cutting hundreds of technology-support jobs in its corporate and investment bank as revenue declines, people with knowledge of the move said in July.

-- Bloomberg News

As prices rise, Chile inflation rate high

Chilean consumer prices rose more than twice as much as economists expected in October, led by food costs, pushing the annual inflation rate to the highest in almost six years.

Prices climbed 1 percent in the month, the National Statistics Institute said Friday, compared with the 0.4 percent median estimate of 19 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The annual inflation rate increased to 5.7 percent, above the bank's 2 percent to 4 percent target range and the highest since January 2009. Core prices, which exclude fuel and produce, increased 0.7 percent in the month, the agency said.

The jump in prices follows eight interest-rate cuts in the past 13 months as policymakers try to revive an economy growing at its slowest pace in five years. The rate reductions triggered a slump in the peso, pushing up import costs. The central bank will now pause before deciding if the rate cycle has come to an end, policymakers said in the minutes of their last meeting.

"In the very short term, we believe that inflation could rise a bit more and remain above 4 percent for some months," said central bank President Rodrigo Vergara last week. "In 2015, it will decrease rapidly toward 3 percent."

-- Bloomberg News

Business on 11/08/2014

Upcoming Events