Posted: Sunday, August 27, 2006 7:00 pm
NEW YORK — Over the past year, the shares of 41 percent of companies that received buyout offers showed abnormal and suspicious trading ahead of those deals’ public announcements, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The newspaper asked analytical research firm Measuredmarkets Inc. to study acquisitions valued at $1 billion or more during the 12 months ending in early July. Measuredmarkets is in business to provide examples of unusual trading to institutions, individuals and a Canadian regulatory agency.
Of the 90 large M&A deals announced in that year, the shares of 37 target companies exhibited abnormal trading in the days and weeks before the deals were disclosed, the Times reported.
The Times said the Securities and Exchange Commission declined comment on the study. “A lot of times the trading may look like something crazy, but you’ve got to have evidence,” said Walter Ricciardi, the SEC’s deputy director of enforcement.
Japanese restaurant chain plans to restore U.S. beef
TOKYO — A Japanese restaurant chain plans to resume serving U.S. beef soon at dozens of its branches nationwide, company officials said. It would be the first to do so since Tokyo eased an import ban over concerns about mad cow disease.
Zenshoku, based in the western Osaka prefecture, said it will offer U.S. beef at its 57 Korean barbecue restaurants across Japan, but company spokeswoman Tae Okuda said no date has been set yet.
Japan’s business daily Nihon Keizai reported earlier that the chain planned to introduce American beef as early as Tuesday.
The company’s president and officials visited two food processing plants in California and Colorado earlier this month and confirmed they meet safety standards to export beef to Japan, Okuda said.
The chain plans to show a videotape of the inspection trip at its outlets to put customers at ease over whether U.S. beef was safe to consume, she said.
Only Costco Wholesale Japan Inc., a unit of the American retailer, has openly pushed American beef, selling beef steaks at five stores across Japan.
Prices reduced on Benchmark Homes OMAHA — Prices on most of the remaining unsold houses of bankrupt Benchmark Homes are being cut $10,000 to $20,000 to bring them in line with today’s cooler market.
Vince Leisey, president of Prudential Ambassador Real Estate, which is listing the remaining 71 houses, says Benchmark had raised its prices $15,000 on Jan. 1.
“Quite honestly, we feel we’re just bringing them in line with what the market is,” Leisey said. “Anyone could tell you that houses are not worth any more today than they were a year ago, and we’re just putting them back where they were priced eight or nine months ago.”
Benchmark hit financial skids in March after the suicide of its founder.
China enacts bankruptcy law for businesses
BEIJING — China has enacted an updated bankruptcy law that explicitly covers private businesses for the first time.
The law passed Sunday by parliament also raises the status of commercial creditors, requiring failed companies to pay them first instead of workers, who previously had priority, the Xinhua News Agency said. The law takes effect June 1, 2007.
—From news wires