U.S. nets 11 gas, oil rigs, for 1,925 total
HOUSTON -- Oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. said the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. increased by 11 this week to 1,925.
The Houston firm said Friday in its weekly report that 1,584 rigs were exploring for oil and 340 for gas. One was listed as miscellaneous. A year ago there were 1,767 active rigs.
Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas gained seven rigs, New Mexico and Pennsylvania each gained two and Arkansas, Oklahoma and Wyoming each gained one.
Kansas lost two rigs and Colorado lost one.
Alaska, California, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah and West Virginia were unchanged.
The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.
-- The Associated Press
Airbus to sell Dassault stake before exit
Airbus Group NV will sell as much as 10 percent of Dassault Aviation SA back to the maker of Falcon business jets and Rafale fighters as a first step toward exiting its holding, a person familiar with the plan said.
Airbus, which owns about 46.3 percent of Dassault, expects to proceed quickly with the interim disposal if other owners approve the purchase of a stake of that size, the person said.
Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders has said his company aims to sever links to Dassault after failing to find a strategy to cooperate industrially, telling analysts July 30 that it's a question of "how," not "if," an exit happens. A staged withdrawal would help maximize returns, the person said.
The French state handed Airbus the Dassault stake in 2000 when the Boeing Co. rival was formed as European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. The government has first right of refusal on the stake, though Enders has made frequent comments about the difficulties companies face when answering to state owners.
Dassault Falcon Jet, a subsidiary of Dassault Aviation SA, finishes Falcon business jets at its facility at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.
-- Bloomberg News
Family Dollar rejects General's latest bid
CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- Family Dollar on Friday rejected Dollar General's latest acquisition offer, and rival Dollar Tree said it will now divest as many stores as needed to get antitrust clearance for its deal to buy Family Dollar.
Family Dollar rejected an earlier offer of nearly $9 billion from Dollar General, with the Goodlettsville, Tenn., discounter then raising its bid to $9.1 billion. Dollar General -- the nation's biggest dollar-store chain -- also had revised its proposal to increase the number of stores it would be willing to divest and to include a $500 million reverse break-up fee to Family Dollar if the deal hit antitrust roadblocks.
But Family Dollar said Friday that it still has antitrust concerns. Dollar General did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Family Dollar has been looking for a lifeline after running into some financial stress, shuttering stores and cutting prices. In June, one big shareholder, Carl Icahn, urged the Matthews, N.C.-based company to put itself up for sale.
-- The Associated Press
Virgin to add U.S. flights after Delta deal
Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. said it will add five daily U.S. flights, including a new route to Detroit, while scrapping services to cities including Tokyo and Mumbai after last year's investment by Delta Air Lines Inc.
Virgin, in which Delta purchased a 49 percent stake, will operate more than 500 more flights next summer, it said Friday. Detroit, a major hub for the U.S. carrier, gets a daily service from London Heathrow, while Los Angeles, Delta's Atlanta base and New York's John F. Kennedy airport get extra daily trips.
The U.K. carrier, in which billionaire Richard Branson has a 51 percent stake, is rebuilding its business on a revenue-sharing alliance with Delta on North Atlantic flights. Virgin said it's on course to end annual losses by the end of this year and is targeting record profitability by the end of 2018.
"We're positioning ourselves to be a winning airline," Chief Executive Officer Craig Kreeger, who joined from American Airlines in February 2013, said in an interview. While Trans-Atlantic flying "has always been at the heart of our network and our most financially successful region," Virgin Atlantic "remains committed to the rest of the world," he added.
Crawley, England-based Virgin won antitrust clearance for joint trans-Atlantic operations with Delta last year, allowing the coordination of timetables and pricing and giving access to a network including more than 40 cities beyond New York.
-- Bloomberg News
Ghana calls on IMF to stem currency drop
Ghana's Finance Ministry will start talks with the International Monetary Fund as early as next week with support from the lender aimed at stemming a slide in Africa's worst-performing currency this year.
A deal on technical support and possible financial aid may be reached by November, Deputy Finance Minister Mona Quartey said in a Friday interview in London. The world's second-biggest cocoa producer may consider moving short-term debt to issuances with longer maturities to bring down borrowing costs, she said.
"The IMF's view and focus will be on the balance of payments," Quartey said. "That will help stabilize the currency further and once the currency is stabilized a lot of the other issues start to fall away."
Government spending, including civil-servant pay increases and lower revenue from key exports such as gold and tax earnings, weighed on Ghana's fiscal deficit, which was forecast in July to reach 8.8 percent of gross domestic product this year from an earlier target of 8.5 percent.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 09/06/2014