BUSINESS BRIEFS
Weak PC sales take $1 billion bite out of Intel
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Intel Corp. whacked more than $1 billion from its fourth-quarter revenue forecast and ratcheted down its profit expectations because a clampdown on spending is reducing demand for its chips.
Intel's announcement yesterday illuminates how the economic crisis is rippling across industries. As consumers and businesses cut back on buying all kinds of things, their reduced purchases of PCs are harming computer makers and their suppliers. Intel is the world's largest supplier of microprocessors, the brains of personal computers, with roughly 80 percent of the global market.
Intel now expects sales of $9 billion in the last three months of the year, plus or minus $300 million. It previously expected sales between $10.1 billion and $10.9 billion, and analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were looking for $10.3 billion.
MORGAN STANLEY LAYOFFS CONTINUE
NEW YORK — Morgan Stanley yesterday outlined plans to cut 10 percent of staff in its biggest business, which covers everything from investment banking to stock trading.
The nation's No. 2 securities firm, which converted into a bank holding company in September, plans to scale back its most capital-intensive businesses before the end of the year.
The layoffs inside the institutional securities group follow a 10 percent cut made earlier this year to the same group.
Morgan Stanley also plans to restructure its money management business by cutting 9 percent of the staff there.
It was not immediately clear how many positions will ultimately be eliminated from the company's total ranks of about 44,000.
"The firm is resizing its cost base and head count to match current opportunities in the market place, while reallocating resources to those businesses that provide an attractive risk-adjusted return on capital," spokesman Mark Lake said.
OIL PRICES KEEP ON HEADING DOWN
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Oil prices plunged below $56 a barrel yesterday as weak numbers from retailers and a dismal outlook from automakers lent yet more evidence that the U.S. and the rest of the globe will slash its energy use.
The Energy Department predicted U.S. oil consumption to drop more severely than any time since 1980 next year, with gasoline use dropping by another 3 percent. Its Energy Information Administration said 2009 oil consumption is projected to sink by a further 250,000 barrels per day, or 1.3 percent, more than twice that projected in its previous outlook.
Also yesterday, the International Energy Agency said more than $1 trillion in annual investments to find new fossil fuels will be needed for the next 20 years to avoid an energy crisis.
Light, sweet crude for December delivery fell nearly 6 percent, or $3.50 to settle at $56.16 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest closing price since January 2007.
ANHEUSER-BUSCH SALE MOVES AHEAD
SECAUCUS, N.J. — Shareholders of Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. approved the $52 billion sale of the business to Belgium-based InBev SA yesterday, a deal that is set to create the world's largest brewer.
The vote was the latest step necessary to form the company that will be known as Anheuser-Busch InBev and combine brands such as Bud Light and Budweiser with Stella Artois and Beck's. The deal, reached in July, is expected to close by the end of the year. It is subject to regulatory approval in the U.S., Britain and China.
August A. Busch IV, Anheuser-Busch's president and chief executive, said the decision to sell the nation's largest brewer was a difficult one.
The new company brings about the end of the more than 150 years of family rule of the St. Louis-based company, though the newly combined company's North American headquarters will stay there.
InBev has said it will keep open all 12 of Anheuser-Busch's North American breweries.
