Raymond James wins bidding war to buy Morgan Keegan

After more than six months on the auction block, Florida-based Raymond James Financial emerged as the winning bidder to acquire Morgan Keegan & Co., a Memphis-based brokerage that’s a powerhouse in municipal bond underwriting.
Raymond James was competing with St. Louis-based Stifel Financial in the final days leading up to Wednesday’s sale announcement, but Stifel’s bid […]

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TSX starts 2012 trading on positive note

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Financier Theodore Forstmann dies

Theodore J. Forstmann, a longtime financier who counted the iconic baseball card company Topps and business jet company Gulfstream Aerospace among his buyouts, died Sunday at the age of 71.
The cause was brain cancer, according to a statement from sports agency IMG. Forstmann was the chairman and CEO of IMG and was the senior founding […]

US stocks edge down as investors weigh jobs, Spain

Stocks are opening slightly lower as investors balance spiking bond yields in Spain with signs of growth in the U.S. economy.
An auction of 10-year bonds in Spain left the country paying interest rates of nearly 7 percent. That is the highest rate since 1997 and a level that economists see as unsustainable.
In the U.S., applications […]

Murdoch tabloid spied on hacking victims’ lawyers

Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper company spied on two lawyers who represent alleged victims of phone hacking by its tabloid News of the World, the firm acknowledged Monday.
News International said lawyers Mark Lewis and Charlotte Harris “were subject to surveillance,” a practice it called “inappropriate.”
The BBC and The Guardian newspaper reported Monday that Lewis and Harris […]

Sarkozy scrambles to salvage Cannes summit

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will hold emergency talks Wednesday with European leaders in a last-ditch bid to salvage his Group of 20 meeting of world leaders this week after the shock decision by Greece’s prime minister to put his country’s financial rescue to a popular vote.
Sarkozy’s summit in the sun on the Cote d’Azur now […]

Stocks mixed ahead of Fed statement

Stocks shifted between small gains and losses Wednesday morning as traders tried to anticipate what steps the Federal Reserve might take to stimulate the U.S. economy.
Concerns that Greece could fail to qualify for fresh bailout funds kept gains muted.
The Federal Reserve expects to announce the results of the central bank’s two-day policy meeting Wednesday afternoon.
Some […]

Consumers take painful steps to steadily pay down debt

When the Croy family’s income shrunk by half, they saw only one way out

A year later, Chile’s ‘33′ are mostly unemployed

One of the myths surrounding the 33 miners who were so dramatically rescued after being trapped for 69 days deep inside a Chilean copper mine is that they’re all millionaires and no longer need to work.
The truth: nearly half the men have been unemployed since their mine collapsed one year ago Friday, and just one, […]

Egypt fires 669 officers to cleanse police force

Egypt’s government, meeting a key demand by protesters, fired nearly 700 top police officers on Wednesday to cleanse the discredited and widely unpopular force, state television reported.
In another nod to demands by activists, Egypt’s military is delaying parliamentary elections initially expected to take place in September, Egypt’s state news agency said. The vote is now […]