6:45 AM

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Dell ready to up bid for 3PAR: report Reuters

Addison Ray

NEW YORK Reuters Dell Inc is preparing to sweeten its bid for 3PAR Inc after its earlier bid was topped by rival Hewlett-Packard Cos $1.6 billion offer for the data storage company, according to a report on Bloombergs website.

The report, which cited one person familiar with the matter, said Dell may send the offer within days. A representative for Dell was not immediately available for comment.

In early trade on Tuesday, 3PARs shares were trading up 3.1 percent at $26.90, above the $24 a share that HP has offered. HPs price is about 33 percent higher than Dells $18-a-share bid.

Bidding wars are rare in the tight-knit technology industry, where deals are often made behind closed doors, with exceptions like the 2009 battle between Oracle Corp and IBM for Sun Microsystems. Oracle eventually bought the computer maker for $7 billion.

For 3PAR, a deal with a large company like Dell or HP would give it a broader sales reach, helping it compete against rival EMC and smaller players like Isilon Systems Inc and Compellent Technologies Inc.

IBM, HP and Oracle have been boosting investment in cloud computing and virtualization technology, which allows users to access data and software over the Internet and corporate networks.

In premarket trade, shares of HP were off 1.2 percent at $38.56, while Dell was down 2.1 percent at $11.69.

Reporting by Liana B. Baker and Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Gary Hill, Dave Zimmerman



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6:41 AM

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Barnes & Noble posts larger-than-expected loss

Addison Ray

NEW YORK | Tue Aug 24, 2010 9:18am EDT

NEW YORK Reuters - Barnes & Noble Inc BKS.N reported a larger-than-expected quarterly loss on declining sales at its namesake brick-and-mortar stores and costs to develop its Nook electronic book reader.

Shares of the largest U.S. bookstore chain fell nearly 3 percent.

Barnes & Noble reported a net loss of $62.5 million, or $1.12 per share, for the first quarter ended July 31, compared with a year-earlier profit of $12.3 million, or 21 cents per share.

Excluding one-time items, the loss was $1.02 per share, deeper than the 80 cents Wall Street analysts expected, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales, which reflect last Septembers purchase of College Booksellers, rose 20.8 percent to $1.4 billion.

Online sales, including the Nook e-reader device launched in October and e-books, rose 42 percent to $145 million.

Sales at namesake bookstores open at least a year fell 0.9 percent, and the company said it expected a decline of 1 percent to 3 percent in the current quarter. For the full year, it still expects those same-store sales to be flat to up 3 percent.

Barnes & Noble, which earlier this month put itself up for sale, is in the midst of a proxy war being waged by its two largest shareholders.

The bookseller said legal and other costs surrounding the contest would hurt results, and it lowered its full-year forecast by 25 cents per share to a loss of 25 cents to 65 cents.

The companys shares were down 2.7 percent at $14.60 in premarket trading.

Reporting by Phil Wahba; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn



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6:15 AM

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Burger King profit down as sales slip Reuters

Addison Ray

NEW YORK Reuters Burger King Holdings Inc BKC.N reported a lower quarterly profit, hurt by declining restaurant sales worldwide and unfavorable foreign exchange rates, and the fast-food chain forecast its business would remain under pressure.

Burger King, known as the home of the Whopper, had net income of $49 million, or 36 cents a share, for the fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30, down from $58.9 million, or 44 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue slipped 1 percent to $623 million.

Worldwide sales at restaurants open at least 13 months were down 0.7 percent, driven by a 1.5 percent drop in the United States and Canada.

Burger King, which is more exposed to the job markets problems than rival McDonalds Corp MCD.N because a larger share of its customers are young males, warned that worldwide comparable sales are expected to remain under pressure in its fiscal year 2011 because of lingering unemployment and government austerity programs in several European countries.

Reporting by Phil Wahba and Lisa Baertlein; editing by John Wallace



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6:06 AM

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Burger King profit down as sales slip

Addison Ray

Thomson Reuters is the worlds largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.

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4:08 AM

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Zurich fined �2.3m for data loss

Addison Ray

24 August 2010 Last updated at 06:34 ET

The UK operation of Zurich Insurance has been fined �2.27m for losing personal details of 46,000 customers, the Financial Services Authority said.

It is the highest fine levied on a single firm for data security failings.

Margaret Cole, the FSAs director of enforcement and financial crime, said: Zurich UK let its customers down badly.

Stephen Lewis, chief executive of Zurich UK, said: This incident was unacceptable.

The data on policyholders, including in some cases bank account and credit card information, went missing in August 2008.

However, Zurich did not become aware of the loss until a year later, when it then began notifying customers.

The information went missing during a routine transfer to a data storage centre in South Africa.

�Start Quote

Firms across the financial sector would do well to look at the details of this case �

End Quote Margaret Cole FSA director of enforcement

The FSA said in a statement: Zurich UK failed to take reasonable care to ensure it had effective systems and controls to manage the risks relating to the security of customer data resulting from the outsourcing arrangement.

The firm also failed to ensure that it had effective systems and controls to prevent the lost data being used for financial crime.

Margaret Cole added that Zurich failed to oversee the outsourcing arrangement effectively and did not have full control over the data being processed by Zurich SA.

To make matters worse, Zurich UK was oblivious to the data loss incident until a year later.

Firms across the financial sector would do well to look at the details of this case and learn from the mistakes that Zurich UK made, she said.

Zurich said that it had no evidence the data had been misused. The firm said it had introduced new security measures, and had appointed a dedicated information security officer.

Mr Lewis said that the incident served to remind us of the need to strive continually to improve the ways in which we seek to protect customers data.

As Zurich agreed to settle at an early stage of the investigation the firms fine was reduced by 30%. Without this discount the fine would have been �3.25m.

The FSA has previously fined HSBC, Nationwide and Norwich Union for data loss.



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