Share Prices News Page 3

A fall in sales of inkjet printers has led to US firm Lexmark announcing that it is to close its factory in the Philippines by 2015, which produces inkjet supplies, as well as ceasing to develop inkjet technology by 2013. The moves are being made as the company seeks ways to improve profitability and will cost around 1,700 jobs. Paul...

Samsung has seen its shares drop in value after the electronics firm lost a court battle with Apple which has resulted in a fine of more than $1 billion. Samsung was found guilty of copying Apple’s designs by a jury in the US. Shares in the South Korean company were down by seven per cent, the heaviest drop since 2008. The firm has...

Best Buy, the US electronics retailer, has seen the value of its stock fall by four per cent after it published disappointing second quarter results. The firm reported a drop in net profits from $150 million during the same quarter last year to just $12 million in 2012. The company recorded revenues of $10.6 billion for the three months and...

Apple, the computer and gadget designer and manufacturer, has just beaten Microsoft to the crown of most valuable firm of all time. Apple is already the most valuable company on the planet, but with a market value of an estimated $623 billion it has just beaten the previous record set in 1999 by Microsoft of $620.58 billion. The price of...

Heineken is likely to take a controlling stake in the producer of Tiger Beer after a deal worth $4.5 billion was agreed with Fraser and Neave for its controlling stake in Asia Pacific Breweries. However, the deal still has to be approved through a vote by the company’s shareholders. In a statement, Jean-Francois van Boxmeer, Heineken’s...

Shares in social networking giant Facebook fell sharply at the end of the first lock-up period this week. In New York on Wednesday shares dropped in value from $20.74 to $19.87, a fall of 6.27 per cent. The end of the lock-up period meant that more than 270 million shares could be sold on Thursday. Lock-ups are put in place to prevent...

Sharp, the Japanese electronics manufacturer, has seen the value of its stock drop to a 37-year low as analysts fear the firm’s financial losses will grow. Sharp has predicted that its full-year losses will total 100 billion yen. However Goldman Sachs has forecasted that the figure will be closer to 150 billion yen. Deutsche Securities...

A private equity group has offered to buy Chinese advertising firm Focus Media. The consortium has said that it is willing to pay $27 per share for the company which was recently embroiled in accusations of accounting fraud. The offer means that the group, which includes Focus Media’s chief executive, has valued the advertiser at around...

Stocks are down across Asia as Japan reports a slowdown in growth and China announces exports have not grown as expected. For the quarter ending in June this year the Japanese economy grew by a disappointing 1.4 per cent because of a strong yen and the continuing economic crisis in Europe. Japan’s growth was down from the previous...

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire has been forced to announce a loss for the fourth quarter of the financial year of $1.6 billion. This is compared to a net gain of $683 million made for the same three months a year ago. The company has said that the losses are partly to do with weaker profits from the publishing business and partly to do...