(Reuters) - Printing services company Lexmark International Inc (NYSE: LXK) is considering the possibility of divesting its hardware and software assets separately to revive interest in its sale process, according to people familiar with the matter.The deliberations come after Lexmark held discussions with several potential buyers about the sale of the entire company that have yet to result in offers that would be line with its valuation expectations, the people said this week.Private equity firms are now having conversations with Lexmark about acquiring either its hardware or software assets, the people said. The company has yet to make any decision on a way forward, the people added.The sources asked not to be identified because the details of the sale process are confidential."Lexmark does not intend to comment on the exploration process or disclose further developments until the board approves a specific transaction or otherwise concludes the exploration of strategic alternatives," the company said in a statement.Lexmark, which has a $1.74 billion market capitalization, announced in October that it was exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale, and had hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) as an adviser.Over the past few years, Lexmark has sought to diversify and aggressively bought up software assets to bulk up its services catering to business customers. Last year it bought Kofax Ltd for about $1 billion, a company which provides data services to financial, insurance and healthcare companies.At the time, Lexington, Kentucky-based Lexmark said the deal would double the size of its enterprise software unit to a $700 million business.Lexmark's software can scan everything from spreadsheets to medical images, and provides services to banking, healthcare, insurance and retail companies. While the software business has a higher growth rate, it represents a small portion of revenue compared to the hardware business.(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis and Liana B. Baker; Editing by Chris Reese)
Fed's Lacker (hawk, non-voter in 2016): Not seeing any inflation pressures on the horizon, hope the Fed is not behind the curve on rates - Q&A
- Likely to need at least four rate hikes this year
- US and Chinese economies are linked less than equity market moves would seem to imply
- US stocks overreacted to China's markets drop; China economy is still growing at a rapid pace
LXK - Said to be considering breakup and sale of hardware and software assets separately - press
ComScore sees quick spike higher following insider purchase by 10% owner, WPP (WPPGY) which disclosed purchase of 120K shares worth ~$4.4 mln (transaction dates 1/8, 1/11)
Bewkes nixes HBO spinoff but open to Time Warner sale
Time Warner boss Jeff Bewkes told investors in a series of closed-door meetings Monday that he’s against a sale or a spinoff of HBO but hinted he would entertain a sale of the New York media giant, The Post has learned.
Bewkes said splitting off HBO or the Turner Broadcasting cable-TV business doesn’t make sense in a media world where increasingly scale matters, according to sources briefed on the meetings.
“Splitting up can destroy value,” he told an investor in one meeting, citing the breakup of Viacom as an example. Viacom shares have struggled since Sumner Redstone split up his media empire a decade ago.
But Bewkes played coy when asked about a sale of Time Warner, saying he wanted to “increase shareholder value,” sources said.
A spokesman for Time Warner didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Bewkes is sitting down with investors as pressure builds to boost the company’s share price. Activists are circling Time Warner again, a decade after it beat back a bid by Carl Icahn to break up the company.
The Post reported Sunday that two of the media giant’s largest longtime investors are running out of patience and would support a sale or a breakup of the company.
Time Warner is worth $100 broken up — more than its current share price, according to one analyst. Shares were up around 2.5 percent at $71.31 in trading Tuesday afternoon.
Icahn told CNBC Monday he owns no shares of Time Warner, home to cable networks like TBS and TNT and the Warner Bros. film studio.
In December, however, a mystery buyer bought $100 million worth of Time Warner call options, which give the purchaser the right to buy shares at a set price in the future, one source noted.
This means Icahn or another investor could hold those options while claiming not to own Time Warner shares.
DoubleLine's Gundlach: Technicals call for a short-term bottom in oil prices
{http://www.reuters.com/article/us-doubleline-gundlach-idUSKCN0UQ26O20160112}
Jeffrey Gundlach, the widely followed investor who runs DoubleLine Capital and was prescient in his call for lower oil prices last year, said oil has hit a short-term bottom on Tuesday.
As oil prices per barrel flirt with the $30-mark, Gundlach told Reuters: "Fundamentals are lousy but the technicals call for a short term bottom today."
Peugeot Citroen is the technical partner to the Nigerian assembly plant, which has capacity to assemble 240 cars a day, PAN said on its website.
In a statement, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) said it owned 79.3 percent of PAN Nigeria Limited, having acquired the stake four years ago after purchasing the company's debt and taking some as equity.
PAN Nigeria Limited was set up in 1972 as a joint venture between the Nigerian government and France's Peugeot, with an annual production of 90,000 cars by the 1980s.
But operations nosedived and the company accumulated bad loans shortly after the government sold its stake via a privatisation to local core investors in 2006.
AMCON said PAN Nigeria had assets totalling 24.96 billion naira ($125.43 million) as of December 2014 and equity of 11.98 billion naira, and was seeking investors with experience in automobile manufacturing to buy the stake on offer.
Bids will close on Jan. 26 at 1600 GMT, it said.
President Muhammadu Buhari is keen to promote a "Made in Nigeria" industrial policy. In November, he met Peugeot's executive vice president for Africa and the Middle-East, Jean-Christophe Quemard, to discuss the revival of local production.
The government under a National Automotive Industry Development Plan has ordered local car distributors to come up with plans for new assembly plants, along with threats of imposing prohibitive import duties.
U.S. carmaker Ford Motor Co's partnership with a local car dealer has built its first model in Nigeria at a new assembly plant in November and said it will produce an initial 10 vehicles a day for the domestic market.
The auto market in Africa's biggest economy has huge potential but only a small number of new vehicles are sold annually because the sector is dominated by imported used vehicles, and the absence of an industrial policy that would encourage suppliers to set up in Nigeria has stunted growth.
AMCON was set up to absorb bad loans from banks after a $4 billion bailout in 2009 rescued nine lenders from collapse. AMCON then bought bad loans at a discount in exchange for government-backed bonds and has since been selling off collaterals against those loans to pay bondholders.
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Drugs firm #GSK is engaged in “illegal, deceptive marketing" of smoking cessation product, says whistleblower
A former GlaxoSmithKline biostatistics manager has filed a whistleblower lawsuit accusing the drug maker of firing him for alleging dodgy study data was used to tout the effectiveness of a smoking-cessation product.Alexandre Selmani, who worked at Glaxo for nearly a decade, claims his supervisors ignored repeated efforts to alert them to statistical mistakes made in clinical trials for NiQuitin, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in a New Jersey state court. In the United States, Glaxo markets the product as Nicoderm.