Business

The numbers for December are in and they are grim. 2008 was a year to forget in the auto industry. Sales plummeted around the globe as recession took hold. In the United States, every major car company saw sales fall at least 30% compared…

This is a very sad tale.

Opel is a well-respected brand in Germany. As a result, the German subsidiary of General Motors has been profitable while the parent company was hemorrhaging losses. Many Germans see the parent as an albatross around their neck, leading to…

Just months ago, Rio Tinto was a behemoth swaggering from the huge run up in commodity prices. This is a company that had revenue of nearly $30 billion and net income of nearly $8 billion in 2007. It was worth over $160 billion by May as…

You have probably never heard of Glencore. Well you have heard of its founder Marc Rich, the man infamously pardoned by President Clinton before he left office. And I suspect that you will soon hear a lot more about the company as well.…

The Tribune was simply over-leveraged with a balance sheet made for this age of debt, leverage and bubbles. Note the lack of equity and the enormous debt load. Why would anyone, especially someone as savvy as Sam Zell load up a declining…

In a shocking news story, the Wall Street Journal reports that the media company Tribune Company, which publishes the Chicago Tribune, is exploring bankruptcy.  While advertising revenue has contracted significantly, impacting all major…

I caught a post today on the Swiss Blog Zeitenwende about Glencore, the Swiss corporate giant, which should reinforce the fact that this credit crisis is far from over. As the original post was in German, I have translated it into English…

I need a chance to vent about one company that just released earnings: Yahoo! I worked at Yahoo! for a number of years in a former life. It is a great brand and was a great company. But, the place has clearly been run into the…

This is not a financial sector post but I find it shocking enough that eBay is cutting 10% of its workforce that I had to post this. Now, this could be as unrelated to the current economic malaise as Yahoo's problems and rumored future job…