Business & Finance
As expected, US Airways applied for a $900 million loan guarantee from the federal government under a program set up to bolster the industry in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The sixth-largest US carrier posted a $2.1 billion loss last year. It would use the guarantee in negotiations with lenders on a $1 billion loan.
Two new board members at Adelphia Communications resigned, citing "serial disclosures of wrongdoing" at the nation's sixth-largest cable-TV provider. Earlier Monday, Adelphia revealed it had overstated revenues by $500 million over the past two years and confirmed the firing of auditor Deloitte & Touche. Some analysts predicted a bankruptcy filing by Coudersport, Pa.-based Adelphia within days.
Genentech Inc. was ordered to pay $300 million in compensatory damages after a Los Angeles jury found the biotech firm had withheld promised royalties on drugs developed by researchers at the City of Hope medical center in Duarte, Calif. The punitive phase of the trial is set to begin Monday. Genentech is based in San Francisco.
Energy supplier Williams Cos. said it will scale back on trading operations, trimming investment from $1.5 billion to $1 billion and cutting an unspecified number of jobs. More than 850 employees work in such services, the majority of them at the company's Tulsa, Okla., base. Williams, like several of its rivals, has been hit by fallout from the Enron scandal. Its shares closed at $8.59 on the New York Stock Exchange Monday; a year ago they were worth about $40.
A deal to develop one of the world's largest deposits of nickel was to be signed by mining giant Inco Ltd. and the government of Newfoundland and Labrador as the Monitor went to press. The project is expected to generate thousands of jobs, adding an estimated $11 billion a year to the economy of Canada's poorest province. But critics complain that the nickel would only be dug there, not processed, a step that would bring still more high-paying jobs. The deal calls for Toronto-based Inco to ship an equivalent amount of ore to Newfoundland for processing once the new mine is exhausted, in about 30 years. The critics note, however, that in 1998 Inco reneged on a promise to build a smelter in Newfoundland.
