Forum Views ()
Forum Replies ()
Read more with google mobile :
Special Report: Guy Hands, Citigroup and the fight for EMI
|
Edition:
U.S.
Article
Comments (0)
Slideshow
Save
Email
Print
Reprints
Most Popular
Most Shared
WRAPUP 10-U.S. doubles Gulf oil spill estimate
10 Jun 2010
Mandela great-grandchild killed in crash
2:43am EDT
BP shares in focus after U.S. doubles spill estimate
| Video
2:29am EDT
Geithner signals U.S. patience waning on China currency
2:17am EDT
Florida wants escrow funds as heavier oil washes in
10 Jun 2010
Sailor Abby Sunderland found: parents
3:10am EDT
Analysis: In China, U.S. producer haven, rumbles of trouble
10 Jun 2010
WRAPUP 2-BP shares in focus after US doubles spill estimate
2:28am EDT
BP eyes showdown with US govt on liability-BP source
09 Jun 2010
WRAPUP 2-BP shares in focus after US doubles spill estimate
2:28am EDT
BP shares in focus after U.S. doubles spill estimate
| Video
2:29am EDT
UPDATE 2-Novartis' MS pill wins U.S. advisers' support
10 Jun 2010
Drugmakers to share data to speed brain drug research
12:07am EDT
FBI begins probe into AT&T iPad security breach
| Video
10 Jun 2010
Mandela great-grandchild killed in crash
2:43am EDT
WRAPUP 10-U.S. doubles Gulf oil spill estimate
10 Jun 2010
Sailor Abby Sunderland found: parents
3:10am EDT
Waiter, there's a potential carcinogen in my soup
09 Jun 2010
Scientists find autism has complex genetic roots
09 Jun 2010
Fourth "Twilight" film will be split in two
10 Jun 2010
pictures
Celebrity sightings
When the stars are out so are the cameras. Slideshow
MTV Movie Awards in photos
Special Report: Guy Hands, Citigroup and the fight for EMI
Simon Meads and Kate Holton
LONDON
Fri Jun 11, 2010 3:26am EDT
Factboxes
Factbox: Who is EMI's Guy Hands?
1:42am EDT
Factbox: Abbey Road studios -- recording history
1:42am EDT
1 / 3
Guy Hands (C), arrives for a meeting in London January 15, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Kieran Doherty
LONDON (Reuters) - One of the best ways to get inside the head of British private equity boss Guy Hands is to study what gift he gives for Christmas. For years, Hands has sent friends and business associates a book he has recently read along with a letter discussing the work. The gift is designed to be both thoughtful and thought provoking.
Entertainment | Music
Last Christmas, Hands chose "The Trouble with Markets," a work by London economist Roger Bootle. "I was particularly struck by his view that financial markets are distributive by nature and provide little benefit to society, rewarding those involved in markets out of proportion to the value of their work to society," wrote Hands of the book, which is subtitled "Saving Capitalism From Itself."
"That analysis seems particularly apt in view of the quick and remarkable return of the bonus culture to the banking world. Furthermore, in my view, such high pay levels attract many of the most talented individuals in society thus removing them from more entrepreneurial, creative or leadership roles in the 'real' economy."
Cynics might laugh at the idea of Hands as a defender of the real economy. In his heyday, the outspoken financier was known as the king of British private equity. More than anyone, Hands brought to Europe the idea of using cheap debt to pump apparently miraculous returns from dowdy businesses.
Three years ago, at the height of the bubble, Hands and his group Terra Firma bought British music company EMI -- home to artists from the Beatles to Kylie -- for 4 billion pounds, loading up on debt to finance the deal. As the financial crisis tightened, the deal began to unravel. Crippled by debt and spiraling interest payments and hit by a stronger U.S. dollar (in which some of the debt is priced), Terra Firma has struggled to keep control of its prize.
The EMI deal has become a symbol for the worst excesses of the boom era private equity world. Hands himself stands as "an example of what has always been wrong with private equity," says a former colleague at Nomura, who asked not to be identified so he could speak frankly. "They rode the wave of a bull market in debt but were not humble enough to know that was what they were doing."
ALL THAT GLITTERS
Famously tough and a fiery-tempered negotiator, Hands, 50, seems determined to hold onto his music firm. Despite debts of 3.3 billion pounds, Terra Firma has been unwilling to give its bankers Citigroup an inch in restructuring talks.
On June 14, Terra Firma is due to stump up the 105 million pounds needed to push EMI back within the terms of its loan. Failure would put the music company in the control of Citigroup, which advised Hands on EMI and put up 2.6 billion pounds for the purchase. The relationship between Hands and his creditors has so soured over the past couple of years that Terra Firma is suing Citigroup, accusing the bank and its principal dealmaker David Wormsley of fraud. Citigroup is contesting the suit.
But if the cash injection happens -- Terra Firma seems confident it has convinced enough of its current investors to open their wallets again -- Hands will have another year to nurture his real economy company back to success. "Terra Firma is putting it all into EMI. If it blows up, they are finished. It's that binary," said an investor who sold his investment in Terra Firma in April because he didn't want the fund sinking more money into the music company. "It's a high concentration, high risk strategy."
REVOLUTION
People who know Hands say he has always been an outsider. Singled out as a misfit at school, he was diagnosed with both dyslexia and dyspraxia, a motor learning difficulty that can affect co-ordination.
Numbers presented no such challenge. Hands could find things in a company's balance sheet that not even the company had noticed. He graduated from Oxford with a third class degree in politics and economics -- he dropped philosophy after a disagreement with a professor as to whether quantity or quality of pleasure was more important; Hands went for quantity -- and joined Goldman Sachs as a bond trader. The year was 1982 and London's markets would soon boom thanks to the 'big bang' of deregulation. By 1992, Hands was heading a new Goldman unit called Global Asset Structuring.
Securitization was still relatively unknown in Europe -- but Hands aimed to change that.
His plan was to work out ways to securitize assets in unfashionable industries such as real estate. His chance came when he joined Japanese bank Nomura, which promised him use of its large balance sheet at a low cost and with free rein to do deals. Hands dived straight in, financing everything from UK Ministry of Defense houses to train engines and carriages to high street gambling chain William Hill.
His financial wizardry was the envy of colleagues and rivals alike. Early successes were based on his ability to identify a target company's stable cash flows and then, once he had bought the firm, refinance the purchase by using securitization based on those cashflows. This was years before securitization became tainted because of its association with sub-prime lending and the credit crunch.
Nomura's principal finance group, led by Hands, also invented the concept that a bank could compete with private equity by using its own capital to buy assets.
Not all of the deals worked. Nomura's purchase of leading UK consumer goods rental firm Thorn turned bad because Hands failed to see that the rise of cheap electronic goods would kill the television and video rental business. (Luckily, Hands found another buyer -- WestLB's principal finance unit -- for Thorn before things got really bad).
There were also grumbles from his colleagues. "He never shared the juice with his team," said a former rival banker. "He tried to make every important decision. When we did business with him, I'm not sure there was any robust internal debate."
EMI
Hands had flirted with the punk scene at university. Even today, with all his wealth and establishment credentials, there's a sense that he likes nothing better than raising two fingers to convention. A streak of that punk attitude was evident in the EMI deal.
Weeks after buying the music company in May, 2007 a smug-looking Hands stood in a Cambridge University hall before a room full of equally self-satisfied media executives. Describing his plans for his new purchase, Hands said that Terra Firma, the private equity group he had set up after leaving Nomura, looked "for the worst business we can find in the most challenged sector."
He and his colleagues got "really happy if it's really, really bad," he explained. "EMI, our most recent investment, is a classic example. We're just hoping EMI is as bad as we think it is."
It was worse. Like all music companies, EMI had been hit by Internet piracy and the shift from selling physical albums in record stores to selling single tracks digitally. But EMI had other challenges as well. It was the third largest of the four music majors and had an especially weak presence in the U.S., the largest and most important market.
EMI is, in fact, two businesses. The most reliable part of the company, and most attractive to any private equity group, is music publishing. Every time a song EMI owns is played on the radio, on television or in an advert, it earns the company money. With a back catalog boasting the Beatles, Queen and Pink Floyd, EMI's publishing wing generates a stable flow of income. "It's a very, very good publishing business," said one private equity music industry expert, who previously eyed a takeover. "You would actively look to buy it."
EMI's problem was its other business: recorded music, which apart from a few high-profile acts like Robbie Williams and Radio Head was struggling badly. A generation of music lovers had become used to swapping songs for free. Sinking millions into new bands offered no guarantee of success and was increasingly risky.
EMI's financial health worsened, and in late 2006, after another in the seemingly perpetual rounds of merger talks with Warner Music collapsed, Chairman Eric Nicoli decided the company needed to find a buyer.
A consortium made up of private equity firms Apax Partners and KKR along with Credit Suisse First Boston discussed a possible buy out with EMI's board, Reuters has learned. A source familiar with the negotiations said that though the consortium liked EMI's publishing business they walked away because of the troubled recorded music division.
Permira, another private equity firm, also took a look at the business, and even tabled an indicative bid of 3.20 pounds a share. But EMI's board decided to play hard to get and knocked back the offer.
In November, 2006, according to Terra Firma's court submission in the Citigroup case, Citi's David Wormsley wrote to Hands to see if he might be interested in EMI. Hands asked to see the firm's books. But perhaps stung by Permira's cancellation of a new offer of 3.25 pounds a share, EMI refused to provide Terra Firma with the same level of due diligence and the deal died a few days before Christmas.
A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON
As 2007 began, the pace of private equity deals grew ever more frenzied. In April, Terra Firma lost a battle with rival private equity firm KKR for British pharmaceutical retailer and wholesaler Alliance Boots. At 11.1 billion pounds, the sale was Europe's largest ever private equity deal. Was the king of securitization losing his touch?
Hands rejoined the race for EMI. Cerberus, Fortress, and JP Morgan's private equity arm One Equity were all interested, while Warner Music had offered 2.60 pounds a share. Arriving to the sale late, Hands placed his trust in friend Wormsley and Citigroup, which had advised him on close to 20 acquisitions, refinance deals or securitizations totaling some $57 billion. On May 18, a Friday, EMI asked would-be bidders to put in binding offers by the following Monday morning.
Over the weekend, according to court documents, Wormsley continued to advise Hands to make a bid of 2.65 pounds a share despite knowing that Cerberus, the other main bidder, had pulled out of the race. Citigroup rejects this claim.
On Monday morning, EMI's board gave its blessing to the deal and Hands finally had his failing music company.
POPSCENE
For Christmas 2007, Hands sent his business associates copies of JK Galbraith's "The Great Crash, 1929." Speculation, wrote Galbraith in his account, comes down to the belief that it is possible to become rich without real work. "While it lasted, there was never a more agreeable way of making money," the economist noted, after describing how the wonders of leverage "struck Wall Street with a force comparable to the invention of the wheel."
Galbraith may have been writing 50 years earlier, but he gives us a pretty good description of the crazed LBO industry during the run up to 2007. The book and letter that year provided poignant epitaphs to an era of cheap debt that the Briton himself had helped conjure.
Hands had bought EMI believing that he could securitize its publishing assets, raise 1.5 billion pounds -- around 8 or 9 times earnings -- and combine the recorded music business with that from Warner Music. Citigroup was confident Terra Firma would be able to buy both music companies, a person familiar with the negotiations told Reuters.
But securitizing the catalog -- David Bowie had done something similar in the late 1990s when he issued bonds against future revenue -- would require more creativity and perseverance than it had just a few years earlier. "By summer 2007 that trick was gone," said one former Citigroup banker. Hands "pressed on because he wanted to hang out with Mick Jagger."
As well, the recorded music division was in worse shape than Hands had anticipated. First year profits were a meager 60 million pounds, just over a third the 170 million pounds Terra Firma had projected.
The company Hands had bought was stale. "I dreaded going to see them," Paul McCartney told The Times newspaper in 2007 after finally leaving his label of four decades. "Everybody at EMI had become a part of the furniture."
Hands brought in the former BBC director-general John Birt to lead a strategic review. Birt, known for his cost cutting and unintelligible business-speak, uncovered a long list of excesses and shoddy business practices: expensive flowers, candles, and luxury apartments. Hands told staff they should stop attending parties and work harder. Artists, he said, needed to behave better. "There is no reason why we should not be more selective in whom we choose to work with," he wrote in an internal memo. "There has been a lot of talk about what labels offer to artists and to the consumer. However, there is not much talk about how artists should work with their label."
Long-standing practices such as paying a band or artist an advance were dismissed as 'fun economics' that had to end. Hands was right: the music industry is full of quirky customs and excess. But in pushing for changes, he alienated the people at the heart of the business. "He woefully misjudged what sort of business it was," a rival music publisher recently told Reuters. "He completely failed to understand the very mercurial nature of the most important people, which is the artists. And they're not employees who jump to their new bosses tune."
As successive Terra Firma executives quit or got it "in the neck," as one deal adviser puts it, global recorded music revenues continued to plummet. By early 2008, aides acting as security guards escorted Hands into a central London building so he could tell EMI staff that he was making a third of them redundant. "For a man who came from nowhere to buy a company like EMI, and then to say all that he did, he did immense damage," Brian Southall, a former EMI staffer who wrote a book about the firm recalls. "Who was he trying to impress? Was it a big balls thing? I'm better and bigger than all of you?"
TROUBLE
One of the problems was Hands's business style, which tended to keep colleagues in the dark about anything they weren't directly working on. Friend and fellow private equity boss Jon Moulton describes Hands as "very much the leader, who runs his firm divided down into need to know activity."
Radiohead quit the label, accusing management of acting like a "confused bull in a china shop". Robbie Williams, one of EMI's biggest artists, pondered leaving and Williams' co-manager Tim Clark said that Hands was acting like a "plantation owner" with a "vanity purchase".
"You have to understand how to manage your talent and they're not like selling a tin of baked beans," the senior executive at the rival label told Reuters.
The former banking rival blames hubris. "He got away from trying to be a finance guy to being an operations guy," the banker said. "Buying and then financing is very different from buying and trying to manage."
DON'T GIVE UP
Despite all the problems, some analysts and industry executives believe EMI may finally be coming good. Concentrating on its core, big-selling artists such as Robbie Williams and Coldplay has paid off, while re-releases from the Beatles' back catalog have kept the registers ringing. New acts such as Tinie Tempah and Roll Deep have recently broken through; Lady Antebellum have stormed the charts in the U.S. That's lifted operating profits more than 60 percent between 2008 and 2009 to some 190 million pounds.
Hands has brought in executives from outside the industry. New chairman Charles Allen, who was known for keeping a tight lid on costs during his time at British broadcaster ITV, has looked to boost digital offerings and develop new sales methods. Even Williams's co-manager Clark has come around. "As they've become more involved they've changed some of their thinking," Clark told Reuters. "They've retained some of their better ideas and dumped some of the ones that clearly weren't ever going to work."
Ted Cohen, a Senior Vice President of EMI's digital unit until mid-2006 and now a consultant, also believes the firm is better run. "Six months ago I would not have been so bullish," he said. "But it feels better. Previously it had gone from being one of the most nimble companies to being dogged down by process. Now, going into the office it feels vibrant again."
EMI would like to bring in more young people, women and ethnic minorities. Some 20 percent of staff -- about 400 people -- earn more than 100,000 pounds a year. A figure of 10 percent would be more in keeping with the industry, though EMI would need to find around 30 million pounds to fund redundancy payouts.
GET OUT OF MY HOUSE
Hands's gift at the end of 2008 was a financial history of the world by British historian Niall Ferguson. "It is wrong to think (as Shakespeare's Antonio did) of all lenders of money as mere leeches, sucking the life's blood out of unfortunate debtors," Ferguson wrote. "Loan sharks may behave that way, but banks have evolved."
The frustration Hands now has toward his bankers is undisguised -- and the feeling is mutual. Citi clearly wants control of EMI so it can claw back some of its money, a London-based investment banker said. Talks broke down last autumn when Citigroup rejected a plan to cut debt by 1 billion pounds in return for a 1 million pound equity injection from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and other investors, one source familiar with the scheme said.
A separate source familiar with negotiations said Terra Firma had rejected another proposal to swap debt in exchange for Citigroup taking a majority equity stake in EMI, though the first source denies that Citigroup ever made a properly drawn up proposal. Whatever the case, "they all could have gotten out of there," said a private equity lawyer who has dealt with litigation between buyout firms and banks and is familiar with the talks. "It's personal now and I don't think it's going away."
Then there's the suit against Citigroup. "This whole thing is a nuisance and the refuge of scoundrels. You don't sue your banker," one senior private equity figure told Reuters. Some in the industry speculate that it's a high-risk attempt by Hands to get Citigroup back to the negotiating table.
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD
For a former punk, Hands has done well. He owns a home in Kent that used to belong to Sir Winston Churchill and produces wine and olive oil on a 1,700-acre estate in Tuscany. But when he's not traveling, he spends his time in self-imposed financial exile in a five-bedroom house on Guernsey, a 25-square mile island in the English Channel.
"Guy's real permanent home is at 35,000 feet in a plane," said a friend and colleague from the Nomura days.
In a court submission in the Citigroup case earlier this year, Hands said he had moved away from his wife Julia and their four children, two of whom are still at school in Kent, to shelter his income from the British taxman. He has not visited his elderly parents in England, he said, and would not do so except in case of emergency. His family makes the 35 minute plane trip to Guernsey to see him on weekends. "My residence in Guernsey is real, not a sham or a mere moniker for an otherwise unvisited location," he told the court.
Sources familiar with the talks say the company has received recent approaches for EMI's publishing business, including one from private equity firm KKR and music company BMG. Discussions on price value the business at 8 to 10 times earnings, which Hands believes is too low. And perhaps he'd prefer to hang on to his real world company -- and continue to rail at the markets and the finance men that he once embraced.
(Additional reporting by Alex Chambers, Georgina Prodhan and Quentin Webb in London and Yinka Adegoke in New York; Editing by Simon Robinson and Sara Ledwith)
Entertainment
Music
Add a Comment
*We welcome comments that advance the story directly or with relevant tangential information. We try to block comments that use offensive language or appear to be spam and review comments frequently to ensure they meet our standards. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters.
© Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters
Editorial Editions:
Africa
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
United States
Reuters
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Help
Journalism Handbook
Archive
Site Index
Video Index
Reader Feedback
Analyst Research
Mobile
Newsletters
RSS
Podcasts
Widgets
Your View
Labs
Thomson Reuters
Copyright
Disclaimer
Privacy
Professional Products
Professional Products Support
Financial Products
About Thomson Reuters
Careers
Online Products
Acquisitions Monthly
Buyouts
Venture Capital Journal
International Financing Review
Project Finance International
PEhub.com
PE Week
FindLaw
Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.
Other News on Friday, 11 June 2010 Defiant Iran could downgrade ties with UN atomic watchdog
Putin visits France amid warship row
China gets tough on World Cup gambling
Ex-workmate slams Kerviel's 'stratospheric' trades
Google drops background images on homepage amid outcry
US trade gap widens as Chinese imports surge
Dozens of Chinese websites warned over porn: state media
Grisly Afghan attack claims 40 lives, raises fear
Abbas: Hope eroding for two-state Mideast solution
|
Serbians flock en masse to online rich list
Iraqi Shi'ite blocs announce merger
|
China reverses stance with Iran sanctions support
Swiss national Goeldi freed from Libya jail-lawyer
|
China wants more dialogue on Iran nuclear issue
Slums, displaced show challenges for Colombia leader
|
Japan fail to get boost after being held by Zimbabwe
China, Russia seek new Iran nuclear talks
US drone strike kills three in Pakistan: officials
US fears for Myanmar refugees ahead of polls
US official: Fair Myanmar vote a must for refugees
Kewell fit and "up for" German battle
Australia pull out of 2018 World Cup bid
China's currency policy dampening global reforms: US
Thai PM reopens probe into Thaksin's 'war on drugs'
Blatter joins Twitterati in time for World Cup
|
China trade surplus soars in May on export boom
Global markets surge on upbeat growth prospects
Nigerian villagers face child deaths for gold digging
Egypt to make Alexandria first smoke-free city
China's currency policy threatens global reforms: US
Mandela leads slew of big stars at World Cup opener
Shiseido sees rising labour costs in China
Red, La Cage lead tight race for Tony Awards
|
Report details suicide attempt by Larry King's wife
|
Edinburgh Fringe grows bigger than ever
|
Thousands rock Soweto at World Cup concert
|
Shawn Johnson tells court she feared accused stalker
|
Iran leader in China after about-face on sanctions
Iran defies sanctions as West plans harsher measures
|
Putin visits France amid warship row
Twitter launches own site for World Cup
Rescue under way for missing US sailor, 16
FBI opens probe into hack of AT&T website
BP chairman summoned to Obama meeting over oil spill
Kyrgyzstan says 17 killed, 201 wounded in riots
|
Katy Perry Earns Second #1 With "California Gurls"
US more than doubles oil leak estimate
Twitter buys Web analytics firm
Abbas: Hope eroding for two-state Mideast solution
|
Colombia's Santos has strong lead for runoff: poll
|
"Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" Coming To DVD
Obama Congratulates Aquino As New Philippine Leader
Japan PM warns of eventual default if debt not fixed
|
Guantanamo Prisoners Focus of Habeas Report Released By Former FBI Director
Army Secretary Axes Arlington Cemetery Officials Over Burial Anomalies
Heads dumped in Guatemala capital
|
Dell Announces Settlement Talks With SEC Over Intel Relationship
On the brink of extinction, tigers need man as never before
Mandela relative's death clouds Cup start
|
BREAKING NEWS: Indian Team Completes Access To Mumbai Terror Suspect David Headley
U.S. Markets Rise On Foreign Growth Prospects
Calderon demands probe of U.S. border deaths
|
"Glee" To Debut Clothing, Games, Books And More This Fall
U.S. Senate Threatens China With Economic Sanctions Over Trade Imbalance
Hope for two-state solution 'beginning to erode': Abbas
Obama urges support for Iranian 'freedom'
Mexican president demands US probe of teen's death
Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic
Missing US yacht girl found safe in Indian Ocean
Minimum and maximum temperatures in Celsius
US casino cheat knows all the tricks of the trade
China police bust huge counterfeit ring
FBI begins probe into AT&T iPad security breach
|
Chinese man convicted for selling son on Internet
Iran's Ahmadinejad blasts nuclear powers on China visit
U.S. industry eyes win in IT trade case versus EU
|
News
Honda says two China plants to resume production
Britain's Standard Chartered lists in Mumbai
'US drone strike kills 3 militants in Pakistan'
China's inflation outstrips government target
Taiwan court cuts ex president's jail term
Japan PM: 'risk of collapse' from debt mountain
New Japan govt's corporate tax cut plans: minister
North Korea eye toppling mighty Brazil
US: China currency policy threatens global reforms
Japanese minister to resign over postal reform
Fujitsu, Toshiba to merge mobile operations
Designer from Nepal who cracked New York
India April factory production jumps 17.6 percent
India April industrial production surged 17.6 pct
US casino cheating expert knows all the tricks of the trade
Designer from Nepal who cracked New York
And the winner is... Zulu sangoma reveals all
Scotland tops list for lifestyle health risks: study
Fourth Twilight film will be split in two
|
Rare exhibition of homosexual art opens in Warsaw
Obama Congratulates Aquino As New Philippine Leader
Taiwan pulls movies from Shanghai festival
How much does movie marketing matter?
|
U.S. Teen Sailor In Solo Circumnavigation Bid Lost At Sea
Special Report: Guy Hands, Citigroup and the fight for EMI
|
Army Secretary Axes Arlington Cemetery Officials Over Burial Anomalies
Oldest Leather Shoe Found In Armenia Is 5,500 Years Old
Katy Perry heats up U.S. singles chart
|
No Parking Sign Goes Up In Front Of Park Car Ticketed Driver To Dispute Fine In Court
Woman Having Sex On Picnic Table Charged With Adultery, Public Lewdness
World Cup poses a challenge for studios
|
Joan Rivers documentary provides laughs, poignancy
|
US Silent Films Come Home From New Zealand
Texas Principal Fired For Child Neglect
Karate Kid and A-Team updates duel at box office
|
Study: Personality Shown To Predict Fertility
Carpenters lead guitarist Tony Peluso dies
|
Files Released In Roethlisberger Sex Assault Investigation
Bomb kills 9 in Afghan south: provincial official
Pope begs forgiveness for 'abuse of the little ones'
Aborigines to view Japanese spacecraft on landing
2 US troops, 11 Afghan civilians killed in south
Iraq suicide bomb kills 2 U.S. soldiers, 3 Iraqis
|
Kyrgyzstan imposes emergency as clashes kill 37
Ahmadinejad calls UN resolution 'worthless paper'
Ahmadinejad blasts US, says Israel is 'doomed'
Katy Perry Earns Second #1 With "California Gurls"
Obama has made 'big mistake' with Iran: Ahmadinejad
Ahmadinejad calls resolution 'worthless paper'
Iran slams US after China about-face on sanctions
U.S., NATO urge patience with slow Afghan progress
|
9 Afghan civilians killed by mine blast in south
9 Afghan civilians killed in mine blast
Iceland passes gay marriage law in unanimous vote
|
Somali pirates free British-flagged ship
|
Iran says U.S. kidnaps, illegally detains Iranians
|
Pope begs forgiveness for sexual abuse scandal
|
Attack on military convoy injures 14 in east Turkey
|
China sentences school attacker to death
Sudanese killers of US envoy 'escape from prison'
Police in China's Xinjiang hold anti-riot exercise
Conflict seen between 2 deals for 9/11 responders
S.Korea, Russia probe rocket failure
Farm Worker Pleads Not Guilty To 12 Animal Abuse Counts
Interview: Bill Clinton to Dems, 'Never give up'
Actress Ashley Judd Invites Obama To Witness Rape Of Appalachia
Japanese minister resigns over vexed postal issue
CT Man Trapped Under Furnace Nearly Amputates Own Arm In Escape Bid
Botox Found To Ease Pain Of Nerve Disorder
Federal Agents Seize Imported Chinese Honey
Murder Trial Of Former BART Officer Begins
S.Korea to brief UN on ship sinking
Summit Officially Splits "Breaking Dawn" Into 2 Films
Wall Street rally pushes Asian markets higher
"Look Who's Talking" To Make Nick At Nite Debut
Motorola, RIM end licensing dispute
|
India's industrial output up 17.6 percent
Reliance Ind. pays $1B for India broadband winner
India to make Bollywood Hitler movie
Reliance Industries pays $1 billion for Infotel
UK hip-hop on verge of breaking U.S. :Diddy
|
Rapper Dr. Dre loses claims against former label
|
Greece at new risk of being pushed off euro
Bodies of missing Tenn. mom, Jo Ann Bain, and daughter found
Female Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever
AMD Trinity Accelerated Processing Units Now in Volume Production
The Avengers (2012 film), made the second biggest opening- and single-day gross of all-time
AMD to Start Production of piledriver
Ivy Bridge Quad-Core, Four-Thread Desktop CPUs
Islamists Protest Lady Gaga's Concert in Indonesia
Japan Successfully Broadcasts an 8K Signal Over the Air
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Egypt : Mohammed Morsi won with 52 percent
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up
AMD Launches AMD Embedded R-Series APU Platform
Fed Should not Ignore Emerging Market Crisis
Fed casts shadow over India, emerging markets
Why are Chinese tourists so rude? A few insights