BUSINESS BRIEFS
Healthcare costs for workers rise 21% to 29%
Associated Press
Workers are shouldering higher healthcare costs as more employers demand bigger out-of-pocket payments from employees before their insurance kicks in, a study out today shows.
Annual deductibles — the amount employees pay out of their own pockets for medical care before their insurance coverage starts — jumped an average of 29 percent, to $1,344, for those with family coverage, the survey says. It was conducted by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health policy, and the Health Research & Educational Trust, an affiliate of the American Hospital Association that studies health issues.
Deductibles rose an average 21 percent this year to $560 for single workers.
GOLDMAN SACHS RAISING BILLIONS
NEW YORK — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has undertaken a huge capital-raising program that includes an investment of at least $5 billion from Warren Buffett and a common stock offering for another $5 billion.
Just a week earlier, Goldman looked to be on precarious ground as its stock price plunged in response to fears that it could not survive as an independent investment bank. But the company contended yesterday that the current crisis in the financial markets wasn't the catalyst for the deals. Goldman said it was raising $5 billion through a common stock offering, doubling the amount it announced just the night before.
GM'S HUMMER BRAND UP FOR SALE
DETROIT — General Motors Corp.'s treasurer said yesterday that the automaker is planning to put its Strasbourg, France, manufacturing operation and its Hummer truck brand up for sale, and it may announce more asset sales later this year.
Company Treasurer Walter Borst said in a slide presentation at the Deutsche Bank Leveraged Finance Conference that the company expects to distribute marketing materials for both operations in October.
The slides posted on GM's Web site say the assets under review are worth $2 billion to $4 billion. The presentation also says GM continues to review other asset sales and will make more announcements in the fourth quarter.
AUGUST HOME PRICES FELL 9.5%
WASHINGTON — A record decline in U.S. home prices in August attracted more buyers in some areas and led to a sizable decline in the number of unsold homes on the market, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday.
The median sales price fell 9.5 percent to $203,100, the largest price decline on records dating to 1999. As prices fall, buyers are taking advantage of steep discounts, especially in hard-hit markets like California, Nevada and Florida.
The inventory of unsold homes fell 7 percent to 4.3 million, down from the all-time record of 4.6 million in July. That's a 10.4-month supply at the current sales pace.
YAHOO UPGRADES ONLINE AD SYSTEM
NEW YORK — Yahoo Inc. launched a much-anticipated upgrade to its online advertising system yesterday as it tries to bring to graphical display ads some of the innovations that powered Google Inc.'s rapid rise in search marketing.
Playing to Yahoo's strengths in display ads and technology targeting pitches to users' interests, the new "Apt from Yahoo" platform will initially involve just the newspaper companies in a 2-year-old consortium led by Yahoo. Many of the papers joined that effort hoping for relief from the decline in their industry.
The platform, renamed from Amp because of a trademark conflict, is intended to make it easier for advertisers and publishers to buy and sell display ads, borrowing self-service techniques that have made text-based search ads lucrative for Internet companies, especially Google.
