Business & Finance
US Airways is expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection today, but the carrier tempered that news by warning employees of an immediate 5 percent, across-the-board pay cut due to a drop in travel from the war in Iraq. Elsewhere in the struggling airline industry, there was speculation that American could file for bankruptcy as early as this week; and UAL Corp., the parent of United Airlines, is to be delisted by the New York Stock Exchange Thursday after trading below $1 a share for the past 30 days.
Bucking an industry trend, accounting giant Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has abandoned plans to separate its consulting and auditing operations, the Financial Times reported Friday. The decision leaves Deloitte Touche as the industry's only major company keeping both services under the same roof, which analysts warned risks conflict-of-interest accusations. Despite the risk, a senior executive said the company is "very happy with that position," which it chose because of tight credit markets, the war in Iraq, and the uneven growth of the US economy.
AOL Time Warner Inc. said it may have to restate revenues for the past two years by a further $400 million, after the Securities and Exchange Commission questioned advertising deals between its troubled America Online unit and German media giant Bertelsmann. AOL Time Warner announced a $190 million adjustment in January.
Corning Inc., the top producer of fiber-optic cable, agreed to pay $300 million to settle current and future asbestos claims against bankrupt Pittsburgh Corning, its pipemaking joint venture with PPG Industries, the Financial Times reported. Over the past 30 years, 200,000 suits have been filed against Pittsburgh Corning. PPG Industries agreed last May to pay $2.7 billion in asbestos claims.
Another 2,000 layoffs are expected to be announced today by Commerzbank, Germany's third-largest, the Financial Times reported. But the company also will unveil plans to step into a breach left by rival banks in making more credit available to medium-size companies, the newspaper said. Commerzbank has yet to complete the process of cutting 5,000 jobs announced earlier.
Sony Music Entertainment said it will cut 1,000 jobs, most of them in the US. Album sales at the company, a subsidiary of the Japanese electronics giant, slid by 15.8 percent last year from its 2001 figures.
