Detroit Would Like Higher Numbers but Not This One on Home Services

Dec

Detroit Would Like Higher Numbers but Not This One

posted by admin in Home Depot

YAHOO looked to new leadership in its battle against Google. It was a bad week for automakers. Home Depot downsized by a unit, and Wal-Mart introduced products and services for the unbanked.

YAHOO UPHEAVAL What next for Yahoo? Terry S. Semel resigned Monday as Yahoo chief executive, amid growing shareholder dissatisfaction over the company poor performance and Mr. Semel high pay. Perhaps more than anything, Mr. Semel became a victim of Google, whose technology prowess and startling success over the last few years left Yahoo a very distant second in the Internet hottest business: search advertising.

The job of restoring the company fortunes now falls on a co-founder, Jerry Yang, who was appointed chief executive, and the longtime chief financial officer, Susan L. Decker, who was promoted to president, the No. 2 post. The two have vowed not to change course, but rather to do a better job of executing Yahoo current strategy, which they helped shape.

They will have to deliver results and quickly to skeptics in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, who believe that Yahoo needs more drastic changes.

MIGUEL HELFT

HOME DEPOT STREAMLINES Home Depot said Tuesday that it would sell its Home Depot Supply unit to a three private equity firms for $10.3 billion, cutting off one of the last vestiges of its controversial former chief executive, Robert L. Nardelli.

The three buyers Bain Capital, the Carlyle Group and Clayton, Dubilier Rice will acquire a supplier of materials like cement and pipes for professional builders that has generated 13 percent of the retailer sales and 8 percent of its operating profit.

But the unit never fit in alongside the faucets and light bulbs that are Home Depot mainstays.

Struggling to lift its stock price, Home Depot will put proceeds of the sale toward a $22.5 billion share repurchase plan. But the retailer must find other ways to generate growth as it runs out of room to build new stores.

MICHAEL J. de la MERCED

FUEL ECONOMY PUSH Detroit auto companies spent more than 20 years fighting increases in fuel economy requirements. But this week, that battle ended with a stunning defeat. And the companies face the prospect of yet another setback.

The Senate approved a sweeping energy bill Thursday night that requires cars and trucks to get a combined average of 35 miles a gallon by 2020, a 40 percent increase from the current standard, which has been in place since the 1980s.

Now the action moves to the House, where Democrats have vowed to impose an even stricter standard than the Senate bill.

In normal times, auto companies could count on their old friend Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan to help them thwart an increase. But Mr. Dingell was among Michigan lawmakers who warned executives that it was time to dispense with their past resistance and figure out something with which they could live.

MICHELINE MAYNARD

TOY STORY Parents of Thomas the Tank Engine fans tried to decide whether to throw out those pricey toy trains this week after RC2 issued a warning that lead paint was used in two dozen Thomas Friends toys sold from January 2005 until this year.

RC2, a little-known company based in Oak Brook, Ill., offered to replace the toys if customers mailed them back. By the end of the week, RC2 had still not publicly explained how lead became added to the paint on the wooden toys. RC2 subcontracts its manufacturing to a number of third parties in China, and the Thomas recall has raised questions about the hidden costs of outsourcing to countries like China.

RC2 also makes toys based on character from other famous shows like Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street.Despite concerns about the Thomas toys, RC2 executives attended the annual licensing convention in New York this week, where manufacturers like RC2 met with movie studios, television networks and other media companies each year to sew up licensing deals. HIT Entertainment, the owner of the Thomas Friends brand, also attended. Yesterday, a law firm based in Seattle, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against RC2 on behalf of Channing Hesse, a mother in Downers Grove, Ill., who had purchased seven of the recalled Thomas Friends toys for her toddler sons. RC2 executives were unavailable to comment yesterday on the suit or any other aspect of the recall, a spokeswoman for the company said.

In the coming months, media companies that own the rights to famous brands and characters might keep a closer watch on where their products are made.

LOUISE STORY

DOW JONES TWISTS The story of Dow Jones Company, owner of The Wall Street Journal, took more plot twists than a cheap thriller, ultimately moving a little closer to a takeover by Rupert Murdoch News Corporation.

General Electric and Pearson, the British publisher, seriously explored making a competing bid, before concluding that it would not make sense to match the $5 billion price offered by the News Corporation.