Baker Hughes Buys BJ Services

Baker Hughes has agreed to buy BJ Services for $5.5 Billion US Dollars.

The price represents a 16 percent premium to BJ Services’ stock price on Aug. 28 and will leave BJ Services stockholders owning about 27.5 percent of Baker Hughes’s outstanding shares, Houston-based Baker Hughes, the world’s third-largest oilfield- services provider, said in a statement today. BJ Services shareholders will receive 0.40035 share of Baker Hughes’s stock and a cash payment of $2.69 a share.

BJ Services is the third-biggest provider of so-called pressure-pumping services, whereby slurry, often sand and water, is injected into a well to stimulate production. Pressure pumping is used in unconventional gas plays such as shale formations to break up rock. The method is expected to account for about 20 percent of the combined company’s revenue, compared with less than 1 percent for Baker Hughes last year.

“Baker’s hoping to fill a product hole that they had,” said Ted Harper, who helps oversee about $6.1 billion at Frost Investment Advisors in Houston. “They’re buying an asset that is highly correlated to a rebound in natural-gas prices, and they look to benefit as to what they hope to see as higher activity rates for land rigs somewhere down the line.”

source: bloomberg.com

Disney Buys Marvel

Big news today for Walt Disney Co. who have announced that Disney is buying Marvel for 4 billion US Dollars.

For this big amount of money Disney will be able to turn over 5,000 Marvel Comic characters into theme parks, movies and anything they want!

Disney CEO, Bob Iger, said about the deal:
“We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation.”

Looks like we are really in for a ride with all the Marvel characters Disney is getting, what ride/movie are you looking forward to?

GMAC Bank is now Ally Bank

GMAC Financial Services is switching to a new name: Ally Bank.

GMAC Financial Services are known for their auto loans and today they have announced that they will be calling themselves Ally Bank as well, although Ally Bank is still a unit of GMAC. Why the name change? Chief Executive Al de Molina said:

“We are launching a new brand with a new approach of treating customers with total transparency, unlike other banks which depend on fees as a business model, we want to make money with customers, not off customers.”

That’s the news on Ally Bank.

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GM Dealer Closing List

GM Dealerships will also be notifying around 1,100 dealers that they will not be renewing contracts with them. This is following the similar announcement of yesterdays Chrysler Dealerships Closing List.

GM said the the dealerships that are closing are due to low sale volumes and because they dealerships doesn’t meet the requirements set by the company.

Yesterday Chrysler released a public list of the 789 dealerships that will be closing due to bankruptcy but GM will not be filing for bankruptcy, yet. Also GM says that it does not plan to release a “closing list”,

Spokeswoman of GM, Susan Garontakos said:

“They can transition out of the business by selling down their inventory, and they also have special tools and parts and things like that that they might want to sell.”

That’s the news on GM Dealer Closing List.

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Bank Stress Test Results

The long awaited “Stress Tests” on the Bank Industry will soon be revealed. The Bank Stress Test was ordered by Obama to see if the nation’s banks of enough capital to remain stable based on a series of stress scenarios created by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve.

According to Reuters:

The results of “stress tests” of the 19 largest U.S. banks — due at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) — are the culmination of a months-long exercise aimed at reviving the financial system and are expected to show about half the banks need more capital.

10 of the 19 largest U.S financial institutions will be required to raise a combined $75 billion in capital, as the U.S. government for the first time divided healthy banks from those that may need help to weather a worsening economy.