The Wall Street Journal reports, in the latest sign of the government’s gradual retreat from financial-crisis-related programs, the Treasury Department is expected to announce Monday that taxpayers reaped a $25 billion profit on mortgage bonds purchased at the height of the meltdown. The profit is the Treasury’s biggest for any program tied to the 2008-2009 crisis. The government last week sold the last of the bonds, winding down Treasury’s ownership of debt backed by the federally backed mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Treasury spent $225 billion on purchases over 16 months before it began selling the securities last year. Officials said the effort shows the government can unwind a rescue program without roiling markets. How asset prices might respond to the eventual curtailment of government support has been a tense subject for investors in recent years.
The Wall Street Journal also reports, Apple said today, it would pay a dividend to shareholders and buy back up to $10 billion in stock, heeding calls for the technology heavyweight, to deploy its massive cash pile. Apple, expects to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share sometime in the fourth quarter. Additionally, Apple’s board authorized a 10 billion dollar share repurchase, beginning on Sept. 30th. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years. As of the end of December, Apple’s cash, cash equivalents and short-term and long-term marketable securities, totaled roughly $97.6 billion dollars, more than the market capitalizations of all but 52 publicly traded companies at the time. That was up from the $59.7 billion dollars in cash, that Apple had on its balance sheet, the year before. Shares were halted in pre-market trade. Apple’s stock has risen sharply in recent months, in anticipation of a change in the company’s approach, and as it has posted quarterly revenue and profit records on brisk iPhone and iPad sales. The shares closed at $585.57 Friday, up 45% since the start of the year.
Bloomberg reports, UPS raised its offer for TNT Express by 5.6 percent to 5.16 billion euros, to secure the biggest deal in the U.S. company’s 105-year history and challenge Deutsche Post AG. UPS will pay 9.50 euros a share in cash for the region’s second-largest express delivery company, up from a bid last month of 9 euros per share. Buying TNT will be UPS’s biggest purchase since the company was founded in 1907, as a bicycle-messenger service. The deal tops the 2005 acquisition of Overnite Corp. for about $1.25 billion in cash, which gave UPS the ability, to make U.S. land shipments of parcels too large to be lifted by a driver. UPS controlled 7.7 percent of the European express-parcels market in 2010, compared with TNT’s 9.6 percent, according to industry researcher Transport Intelligence. Combined, they would be about as large as DHL, which had a 17.6 percent share.
The Wall Street Journal reports, in the latest sign of the government’s gradual retreat from financial-crisis-related programs, the Treasury Department is expected to announce Monday that taxpayers reaped a $25 billion profit on mortgage bonds purchased at the height of the meltdown. The profit is the Treasury’s biggest for any program tied to the 2008-2009 crisis. The government last week sold the last of the bonds, winding down Treasury’s ownership of debt backed by the federally backed mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Treasury spent $225 billion on purchases over 16 months before it began selling the securities last year. Officials said the effort shows the government can unwind a rescue program without roiling markets. How asset prices might respond to the eventual curtailment of government support has been a tense subject for investors in recent years.
The Wall Street Journal also reports, Apple said today, it would pay a dividend to shareholders and buy back up to $10 billion in stock, heeding calls for the technology heavyweight, to deploy its massive cash pile. Apple, expects to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share sometime in the fourth quarter. Additionally, Apple’s board authorized a 10 billion dollar share repurchase, beginning on Sept. 30th. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years. As of the end of December, Apple’s cash, cash equivalents and short-term and long-term marketable securities, totaled roughly $97.6 billion dollars, more than the market capitalizations of all but 52 publicly traded companies at the time. That was up from the $59.7 billion dollars in cash, that Apple had on its balance sheet, the year before. Shares were halted in pre-market trade. Apple’s stock has risen sharply in recent months, in anticipation of a change in the company’s approach, and as it has posted quarterly revenue and profit records on brisk iPhone and iPad sales. The shares closed at $585.57 Friday, up 45% since the start of the year.
Bloomberg reports, UPS raised its offer for TNT Express by 5.6 percent to 5.16 billion euros, to secure the biggest deal in the U.S. company’s 105-year history and challenge Deutsche Post AG. UPS will pay 9.50 euros a share in cash for the region’s second-largest express delivery company, up from a bid last month of 9 euros per share. Buying TNT will be UPS’s biggest purchase since the company was founded in 1907, as a bicycle-messenger service. The deal tops the 2005 acquisition of Overnite Corp. for about $1.25 billion in cash, which gave UPS the ability, to make U.S. land shipments of parcels too large to be lifted by a driver. UPS controlled 7.7 percent of the European express-parcels market in 2010, compared with TNT’s 9.6 percent, according to industry researcher Transport Intelligence. Combined, they would be about as large as DHL, which had a 17.6 percent share.