Canada beef business on freeze

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 22, 2003

Canada's beef industry slowed to a near halt as investigators quarantined two more Alberta farms in the search for the origins of North America's first case of mad cow disease in a decade. Japan, Australia, South Korea and Mexico joined the U.S. in suspending imports of Canadian beef. Canada said it's collaborating with U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarians in the effort to speed up the probe. "We cannot predict when the investigation will be concluded," said Claude Lavigne of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy has put thousands of jobs at ranches, feedlots, slaughterhouses and meat packers and an industry that contributes $20 billion a year to Canada's economy at risk.Bronfman eyes entertainment unit

Edgar Bronfman Jr., who sold Seagram Co. for $30 billion to Vivendi Universal SA in 2000, is trying

to form an investor group to buy back the French company's U.S. entertainment assets and salvage the family fortune. The Los Angeles- based billionaire Marvin Davis planned to bid about $20 billion for assets including the Universal movie studio and theme parks, people familiar with the plan said in November. Bronfman's family received a 7.5 percent stake in Vivendi, worth $7 billion in December 2000. The value of those shares has fallen 80 percent, and Vivendi has put the entertainment assets up for sale as part of a plan to reduce debt.

New asset seizure law proposed

Two top Republican lawmakers said they will propose a law to return more money to defrauded investors by expanding the power of U.S. regulators to seize mansions, yachts and artwork of corporate executives. The bill would be a "dramatic enhancement of authority" for the SEC by letting the agency assess higher fines, obtain bank records and serve subpoenas, said Representative Richard Baker, chairman of the House Financial Services capital markets subcommittee. The measure is a follow-up to the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance law enacted last year to crack down on corporate wrongdoers after financial scandals at Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and other companies.

Crude oil prices driven higher

Crude oil rose after an Energy Department report showed that U.S. inventories last week were 11 percent below levels a year earlier. Supplies rose

600,000 barrels to 285.1 million barrels in the week ended May 16. The increase was too small to keep a year-on- year deficit from widening from 10 percent the previous week. Inventories had their biggest gain in Western states and fell along the Gulf Coast, where about half of the nation's refining capacity is located. Gasoline supplies fell unexpectedly. "Outside of the West Coast, supplies were down," said Jan Stuart, head of research for global energy futures at ABN Amro Inc. in New York.Chirac: Cut interest rates

French President Jacques Chirac urged the European Central Bank to lower interest rates to fostergrowth, the first head of state from a euro nation to say so. "Interest rates are low and can go lower," Chirac said in a speech presenting the goals of a June

1-3 meeting of Group of Seven leaders at which they will do their "utmost to get the world economy growing again." Chirac's comments intensify pressure on the ECB to make borrowing costs cheaper as the economies of Germany, Italy and the Netherlands all shrank in the first quarter. The European Commission predicts the economies of the dozen countries sharing the euro may fail to expand for the next two quarters after stagnating in the first three months.American lays off legroom

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, after three years of luring passengers with extra legroom, will squeeze more seats back on some planes to help stem losses that drove the company close to bankruptcy. Increasing the seats in on 174 planes, or 23 percent of American's current fleet, will boost revenue while holding down prices to compete against low-cost carriers, Chief Executive Gerard Arpey said at AMR's annual meeting. American, the world's largest airline, took out about 9,700 seats from 875 planes starting in early 2000 and ran advertisements touting the effort. "Customers have made it clear in certain markets that price is more important than legroom," Arpey said at his first annual meeting as chief executive last month.FROM WIRE REPORTS