Before the bell: Futures higher after BUD offer, ahead of retail salesAmerican International Group (NYSE: AIG) shareholders -- former AIG director, Eli Broad, and two fund managers , who together control about 4% -- are asking for changes to the management and board of the world's largest insurer, which has been struggling with the fallout of the subprime mortgage mess.
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) said it will spend $1 billion over the next two years to expand capacity in five of its Illinois factories, and will shift production at some of its plants to address the demand for machines used mostly in mining and large infrastructure projects.
Also, CAT and Navistar International Corp. (NASDAQ: NAVZ) will begin cooperating to pursue new on-highway truck business and cooperate on an variety of engine platforms.
Starbucks Coffee Co. (NASDAQ: SBUX) said Thursday that it has reached a licensing agreement with SSP to open coffee retail stores in more than 150 airports and train stations in Europe. Financial terms were not disclosed.
William Ackerman, the billionaire hedge fund manager who is a major stakeholder in Borders Group Inc. (NYSE: BGP) is pushing for Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) to go for Borders, saying it could become the "bricks-and-clicks" component of Amazon's nationwide sales strategy.
BusinessWeek has an interesting article about how in Japan Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) will have to work together, despite being direct competitors in some things.
Thornburg Mortgage (NYSE: TMA) shares are climbing over 5.5% in premarket trading after it said it swung to a first-quarter loss of $3.31 billion due to delinquent loans.
General Motors Corp (NYSE: GM)'s head of European operations sees European sales slumping to levels not seen in decades due to rising oil prices, high commodity costs and the strength of the euro.
Why do we have a weak dollar?
Holiday hiring slow for retailers
Closing Bell: What sell-off? (AIG, ABK, EPR, MBI, JAVA, ORCL, ERTS)
