Yahoo Offices

Google has announced they will no longer go ahead with the advertising partnership with Yahoo that they were negotiating on.

The discussions started this June, after Microsoft had announced they do not want to buy Yahoo anymore.

As consequence, Yahoo went to Google with the proposal of an advertising partnership, which meant that Yahoo would be displaying Google’s ads.

This deal was only available for the US and Canada, for a period of 4 years, and it would have brought Yahoo approximately 800 million dollars every year.

The competition authorities have said they would be analyzing this deal very thoroughly; and they did. In October, they had already imposed a temporary delay of the deal, and this week they have changed the terms under which they would accept it.

The deal could only last maximum two years, Yahoo could only receive from Google a 25% of the profits obtained as consequence of the deal; moreover, the customers who advertised in Google could ask not to appear in search lists made in Yahoo searches.

Google have announced that they cannot accept these terms and regret this could not happen, as they think it would have been a good thing for all those involved.

Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso, the Spanish Formula 1 pilot, has announced that he has decided to renew his contract with Renault for the next two seasons.

Flavio Briatore, the owner of the French company, has declared that Alonso will compete for Renault two years more, but his contract does allow the pilot to change his mind at the end of this year.

Alonso is currently very satisfied with his collaboration with Renault, but experts think he will probably go to Ferrari in 2010, when they will have an opening.

The Spanish champion did not have much of a choice, considering that Kubica and Heidfeld have renewed with BMW and Massa and Raikkonen with Ferrari.

For the next season, Briatore counts on Alonso and also on Nelson, to obtain the best results, and he expresses his admiration towards the two pilots.

Apart from the financial and technical reasons, Alonso says that one of the elements which helped him decide was also the team he works with at Renault. He says they are very united, they are very competitive but at the same time, they are relaxed, welcoming and open minded, which is exactly what he wants in his team.

Alitalia Aircraft

Alitalia, Italy’s national airline company, has been in a critical situation ever since two years ago. Several attempts have been made to save the company since then, and airlines such as Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and British Airways have been involved in the process.

On Friday, the Italian investors’ group CAI (Compagni Aerea Italiana) has made a 1 billion Euros offer for Alitalia and they hope that in the future they will be able to join one of the major European Airlines.

Unfortunately, this offer has a down size, as this purchase will mean that more than 3,000 people will lose their jobs. Some Alitalia trade unions are still against this offer, although negotiations have been carried out for a long time.

The rescue plan states that CAI will have 12,500 people working for Alitalia, 3,500 less than now. Apart from the personnel cut, they will also cease activity on unprofitable routes and will get rid of some of the older aircrafts.

Experts advise the deal must follow EU competition rules; otherwise Alitalia is sure to declare bankruptcy.
The Italian government has even made modifications to the bankruptcy laws in order to keep the national airline alive, and the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is most keen to settle a deal as soon as possible.

BMI Aircraft

British airline BMI, Heathrow second -largest airline, will be taken over by German airline Lufthansa.

Lufthansa already owns approximately 30% of BMI shares and now it will buy another 50% from Sir Michael Bishop, the airline’s owner. This deal will bring Lufthansa in close competition with Heathrow’s main airline, which is British Airways.

The German carrier will take over the 54 planes and the flights to the 51 destinations BMI was dealing with, as well as an average 10 million passengers a year.

This deal was somewhat sealed since 1999, when Lufthansa signed an agreement that if BMI would ever sell their shares, they would buy them. The final signature is to be given on the 16th of January, if the British competition authorities have no argument. The contract has an estimated worth of about £318 million.

Lufthansa is already experienced in taking over other airlines, as proven by the integration of Swiss Airlines some time ago.  They have declared that there will be no personnel made redundant and that things will basically stay the same.

The remaining 20% of BMI are currently owned by Scandinavian Airlines (SAS).

Porsche Logo

Porsche representatives have declared that they have raised their stake in Volkswagen to 42.6% and are hoping to own the majority package of shares in the European carmaker.

Porsche already owns 35% of Volkswagen, which makes them the biggest shareholder already, but they want to buy even more. Still, they do not wish to create a merger. Their goal is to form an alliance strong enough to face the competition and obtain better sales numbers, more customers and more performance and prestige.

This collaboration is quite important for both companies, seeing that the car market has been affected by the world financial crisis as well.

A few weeks ago the negotiations were put on hold because of some family misunderstandings between Wolfgang Porsche and Ferdinand Piech, the cousins running the two businesses; they seemed not to agree on how to organize this take-over. Luckily, both families have come to an agreement and we can expect the official announcement of the take-over by the end of this year.

Sandisk Logo

After six months of negotiations and waiting, Samsung Electronics had decided to put an end to the Sandisk buying process, seeing that the US flash memory card producer has not yet accepted the price they were offered.

Sandisk, based in California, saw the 26 dollars a share price as too low, and did not accept it, although the total amount would have been of 5.9 billion dollars.

Apparently Samsung made the right decision; the price of Sandisk shares had already fallen approximately 6%, which means a share is now valued at 13.72 dollars in the Frankfurt trade, and 14.76 in the US one.

Samsung also based its decision on the problems Sandisk has been having lately: they announced a 250 million dollar loss, they had to make major personnel cuts, and they most likely will suffer quality losses in their products.

Also, Sandisk renegotiated their contracts with Toshiba, Samsung’s rival, which Samsung managers could not overlook.

Exelon Nuclear Power Plant

Exelon Corp. has offered 6.2 billion dollars in stock to purchase the New Jersey based NRG Energy. This buy would mean a great territorial expansion for Exelon Corp., based in Chicago; also, their merge would create a company whose value would sum up to over 60 billion dollars.

NRG officials have not yet reacted to this unsolicited buy proposal, but it seems that they are not very thrilled about it.

Exelon Corp. operates under the environmentally friendly principle and all 17 nuclear reactors that they handle produce very low quantities of greenhouse house emissions.

They have stated that this merge with NRG would keep them amongst the less polluting energy companies in the United States.

Also, they have tried to describe this merger as a win-win situation for the involved companies; Exelon gets territorial expansion, NRG gets leverage on the 8 billion dollar debt and better credit rating, and together they get to produce about 47,000 MW, which would be enough to provide electricity for about 45 million homes in the US.

At present, shareholders from both companies are analyzing the merger and the results will be communicated to the press as soon as a final agreement has been reached.

Negotiating

2008… Job, career, family life, personal life… for all these you have to negotiate in order to obtain them. Wife, kid, colleagues, neighbors, friends, bosses… with all these you have to negotiate on order to obtain the first ones.

What is negotiation after all? Well, nowadays negotiation has become an art, because this is one of the ways of getting what you want.Here are some tips to a successful negotiation:

1. Be realistic! Never ask for something that you, yourself, cannot do or obtain.
2. Express your interests and, with them, your feelings and opinions.
3. Listen to what your interlocutor has to say.
4. Understand the other one’s point of view. You will gain the respect of your interlocutor.
5. Don’t threat, blackmail or lie! All these could turn against you one day.
6. Admit when you are wrong. Your interlocutor will appreciate it.
7. Suggest more than one solution. If you think of only one solution, the other one will be more reserved in accepting it.
8. Don’t lie to yourself! Establish a fair goal!

Chrysler Aspen Hybrid

Honda Fit, Honda Insight, Toyota Prius and Chrysler Aspen Hybrid…….what do all these cars have in common?

Well, they are cars designed to look good, have good performances and be “green”, all at the same time.

The Aspen Hybrid is Chrysler’s first hybrid model even though the hybrid car has appeared on the market over 10 years ago.

The Chrysler Aspen Hybrid can be considered a family car, due to its eight passenger seats but it is also a quite powerful SUV, offering 335 horsepower. Its estimated mile/gallon ratio is of 19-20/gallon. This SUV has a towing capacity of up to 6,000 pounds and a navigation system which will detect any change in the level of power needed and will automatically switch off some of the engine’s cylinders.

As for the design, Chrysler has chosen not to differentiate the hybrid model from the standard one: on both models the 300 volt battery is located under the second row seats and the only optional features are a DVD entertainment system, a sunroof and a towing package. The standard model comes equipped with a parking assistant, leather seats, traction and navigation control.

Park Hyatt Dubai

The United Arab Emirates have always been a great tourism market and the country’s touristic potential is, nowadays, highly appreciated by international hotel chains, such as Hilton, Kempinski, Sheraton, Continental.

The Hyatt group owns more than 365 hotels in 45 countries and it comprises brands like Hyatt Regency, Grand Hyatt, Park Hyatt, Hyatt Place and Hyatt Summerfield Suits. They already own four hotels in the United Arab Emirates and the new Park Hyatt they are planning to build in Abu Dhabi would be the third Park Hyatt in the region.

The hotel will be built in the cultural district of Saadiyat Island , it will be surrounded by a golf course and the clients will be able to enjoy the wonderful view of the Persian Gulf from the 9-kilometer long private beach.

The Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel and Villas will be built in association wiht Abu Dhabi National Hotels, and the project will be coordinated by Peter Fulton (S-W Asia Hyatt Managing Director) and His Excellency Saif Mohammed Al Haieri (Chairman of ADNH).

The hotel will have over 270 rooms and 40 villas, a variety of international restaurants and will occupy a surface of 75000 square meters. The grand opening is scheduled to tale place in 2010.

Waterfront Media

Revolution Health Network, an online health operator, will be announcing soon that they have merged with Waterfront Media, a health websites owner.

At present, the strongest presence on the online health market is WebMD, and this merge is supposed to surpass them and ensure the leading position in this field. The deal, which is supposedly worth around 300 million dollars, will allow them to have more traffic than WebMD, especially in the USA.

Steve Case (Revolution’s founder) and Benjamin Wolin (Co-founder of Waterfront) will each continue to run their own companies, but at the same time they will coordinate the activity of the new “product”.

They will be operating with a total of 24 websites, such as HealthTalk.com, EverydayHealth.com, SouthBeachDiet.com, and the niche site dedicated to future mothers, WhattoExpect.com.