Time Warner has bought back Google’s 5 percent stake in struggling Internet company AOL for US$283 million.

The price, paid July 8, is close to what Google estimated its stake at earlier this year.

The details emerged in a regulatory filing by AOL on Monday.

The deal sets the stage for AOL’s impending spinoff from parent Time Warner.

Mountain View-based Google bought the stake for $1 billion in 2006, but in January estimated the investment had sunk by more than 70 percent to $274 million – giving AOL a market value of about $5.5 billion.

Time Warner agreed to buy back the stake earlier this year.

The price at which New York-based Time Warner bought back the stake values AOL slightly higher, at about $5.66 billion.

Related Posts:

• Google posted net income of $1.96 billion
• Microsoft + Yahoo vs Google ?

Reuters reported that a US bankruptcy judge gave General Motors Corp (GM) permission on Monday to buy several assets of another bankrupt company, Dephi Corp, an auto parts supplier as part of a deal with a private equity firm that could take Delphi out of bankruptcy. How ironic. A bankrupt helping a bankrupt to get out of bankruptcy.

Judge Robert Gerber of US Bankruptcy Court in Manhanttan gave “Old GM”, now known as Motors Liquidation Corp, permission to buy Delphi’s steering business and a number of its plants, deemed essential to GM’s ability to build cars.

Delphi is by far GM’s largest supplier, accounting for about 11.3 % of its purchases in 2008.

If GM’s partner in the bid for Delphi, private equity firm Platinum Equity, won the auction for Delphi that is set for later this week, “New GM” or General Motors Co – which emerged from bankruptcy last Friday after the carmaker sold the bulk of its best assets to a US government-led group, paid by taxpayer money – would reimburse Old GM and receive the Delphi assets.

Old GM, which now consists of the remainder of the automaker’s assets, remains in bankruptcy court. Delphi, which was spun off from GM in 1999 (parents helping its kid?), filed for bankruptcy in 2005, said last month that it had reached a deal to sell most of its global operations to Platinum, in a plan that with the participation of GM would allow Delphi to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In a court document, GM had said it expected the transaction to cost US$3.9 billion, including a payment of US$1.1 billion to Delphi’s creditors (probably the same creditors for GM?) and a US$2 billion equity stake in Parnassus, a unit of Platinum, which has submitted the only bid so far to take Delphi out of bankruptcy.

Platinum would invest US$250 million in Delphi under terms of the plan. But the deal still has to get approval from the judge overseeing Delphi’s bankruptcy.

Related Posts:

• GM Vice Chairman retired
• GM CEO hopes for profit in 2010
• Soros against credit default swaps
• GM proposed to slash 21,000 jobs
• Impact of GM or Chrysler going bankrupt

British Airways is asking thousands of its staff to work for free for up to four weeks, spokeswoman Kirsten Millard said Tuesday.

In an e-mail to all its staff, the airline offered workers between one and four weeks of unpaid leave — but with the option to work during this period. British Airways employs just more than 40,000 people in the United Kingdom.

Last month, the company posted a record annual loss of £400 million ($656 million).

Its chief executive declared at the time there were “absolutely no signs of recovery” in the industry.

“I’m 30 years in this business and I’ve never seen anything like this. This is by far the biggest crisis the industry has ever faced,” said Willie Walsh, British Airways’ chief executive.

A spokesman for one of Britain’s biggest unions said its workers could not afford to work for free for a month.

“It’s all well and good for Willie Walsh to say he’s prepared to work for free when he earns four times in a month what they do in a year,” said Ciaran Naidoo, a spokesman for Unite.

He pointed out that the airline was not ordering staff to work without pay.

“It’s a request — you can take unpaid leave or you can work for free, and the chances of people working for free are very unlikely, but there might be some people who want to take unpaid leave.”

Demand for the airline’s passenger seats and cargo holds fell during the last financial year, while its fuel bill rocketed to almost £3 billion ($4.7 billion).

Walsh said British Airways’ woes were inextricably linked to the downturn in the global economy and that there had been no sign of any “green shoots” of recovery.

Like its premium-class competitors, British Airways is losing customers to cheaper rivals.

The airline’s premium passenger numbers fell 13% in the second half of last year, in line with the industry average.

Total traffic fell 3.4% and while the airline carried 33.1 million passengers last year, it was a drop of 4.3% on the previous year.

The dip in demand for British Airways’ flights has forced a switch in strategy at the airline.

From the end of last year, it has been trying to tempt passengers with lower fares, sacrificing profit per seat for “bums on seats.”

It plans to reduce capacity by 4% next winter by parking up to 16 aircraft.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts