Social media giant Twitter Inc (NASDAQ:TWTR) kicked the tyres on a possible merger with internet portal Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO), the New York Post reports.
Both networks have a lot of users but one is struggling to convert those numbers into profits and the other is slowly losing its hold on its user base, as the shadow of Google continues to lengthen.
Though one comes from the new school of technology and the other from the old school, the idea of a merger “isn’t as crazy as you might think”, the Post quoted an inside source as saying.
“Twitter is the destination for instant news, and Yahoo has a lot of eyeballs on its site,” the source said.
Nevertheless, the feeling was that Twitter was mainly interested in drawing information out of Yahoo, and the social media giant quickly withdrew from the running to acquire Yahoo!
Rival New York publication, the New York Times looks across the pond to reflect on the possible merger of Deutsche Börse and the London Stock Exchange.
It says the last time the two stock exchanges considered getting hitched, the main investment bankers involved in the horse/bourse trading worked at Morgan Stanley.
Now, “in a sign of the fast-changing landscape on Wall Street, they compete with their old company, operating out of boutique investment banks that did not even exist in late 2004, when the two exchanges last tangoed,” the New York Times revealed.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) continues to rattle the cage of FIFA, the world governing body of association (or “soccer”, as privately educated schoolboys used to call it for short back in the 19th century) football.
A small group of FIFA’s top officials, including ex-President Sepp Blatter and his former second-in-command, Jérôme Valcke, allegedly paid each other bonuses worth tens of millions of dollars tied to World Cups, according to a cache of contracts disclosed by internal investigators on Friday.
Some of the contracts for the bonuses paid to Blatter and Valcke were discovered in a safe sitting in former Deputy Secretary-General Markus Kattner’s office at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, according to a person familiar with the investigation, the WSJ reported.
Swiss and American law enforcement agencies have been briefed on the latest findings, investigators said.
The world’s biggest retailer by sales, Wal-mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT), is taking its groceries upscale, according to the USA Today.
In a growing number of stores, there's an entire wall dedicated to organic produce, fresh sushi and a selection of about 50 gourmet cheeses, the result of a scouting trip through Europe last year.
The general view in Europe is that most Americans are surprised to learn that cheese does not come out of a can.
“These Walmarts are the leading edge of what could become a grocery revolution at the giant retailer — and one of the key reasons why food sales were a factor in the company's latest upbeat quarterly earnings report. Walmart's produce and bakery sections are being upgraded to make them more attractive and easy to navigate, with some surprising options for the country's largest discounter,” the paper reports.