Live Nation Chairman Azoff resigns; Liberty buys shares

 Irving Azoff, a legendary music manager who helped make stars out of The Eagles and Christina Aguilera, resigned as chairman of Live Nation Entertainment and sold some of his stake in the concert promotion giant to John Malone's Liberty Media Corp.
Azoff is expected to start a new talent management agency, and is expected to take some of his former clients with him, according to a person familiar with his exit. Those acts haven't been identified.
Liberty Media said in a statement that its acquisition of some of Azoff's shares increased the company's stake to 26.4 percent.
Azoff sold 1.7 million shares Live Nation to Liberty. He owned 7.6 million shares, or 3.9 percent of the company in June, according to the company's proxy statement.
Live Nation's shares closed up 0.4 percent at $9.31 a share on Monday.
Azoff's contract ends in 2014, according to the company's proxy statement. Last week, Live Nation said it renewed Chief Executive Michael Rapino's contract for five years.
Azoff was chief executive of Ticketmaster in 2010 when the ticketing company merged with Live Nation. He was named executive chairman at the time of the merger, and chairman of the board the following year.
He retained his position as chief executive of Front Line, his management company, which was part of the merger.
"After successfully overseeing the integration of Live Nation and Ticketmaster over the past two years, my job is done," the 65-year-old music executive said in a statement.

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Tribune exits bankruptcy with new TV-focused board

 More than four years after crushing debt and plunging advertising sales forced it to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Tribune Co. has emerged with a new television-focused board and over $1 billion in new financing.
Led by such creative and technology heavyweights as Ross Levinsohn, the former interim CEO of Yahoo Inc., and Peter Murphy, former strategic officer of The Walt Disney Co., the board's roster suggests a focus on the company's TV assets rather than newspapers, which haven't managed to turn around declines in readership and advertising. Peter Liguori, a former TV executive at Discovery Communications Inc. and News Corp.'s Fox, is expected to be named CEO in the next several weeks.
The exit closes a dark period for Tribune, which was founded in 1847 with a hand-cranked print run of 400 copies of the Chicago Tribune. It founded the WGN broadcasting brand with a radio station in 1924 and a TV station in 1948. The call letters stood for "World's Greatest Newspaper." Tribune first went public in 1983 valued at $206 million — one of the biggest IPOs of its day — and expanded over the years into a media giant through acquisitions of TV stations such as KTLA in Los Angeles and newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun and Newsday. It also owns a stake in the Food Network and online job site CareerBuilder.com.
In 2006, pressured by its long-sagging stock price and dissident shareholders, Tribune put itself on the block. Sam Zell, a Chicago real estate mogul who made his fortune in commercial real estate but had little experience with the media industry, took the company private in a leveraged buyout that valued Tribune at about $8.2 billion.
But the deal ballooned Tribune's debt load from $5 billion to more than $13 billion just as the Great Recession hit. Advertising revenue plummeted across the industry, which was also struggling with steep declines in circulation as readers found free access to news, sports and entertainment online. Less than a year after Zell closed the deal, Tribune filed for Chapter 11 protection.
The company's restructuring dragged on for years due to fraud allegations and dueling lawsuits between creditors. In the end, the parties agreed to a plan that included payouts of nearly $3 billion in cash to creditors and turned ownership over to senior lenders including Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo Gordon and Co., and JPMorgan Chase and Co.
The emerging Tribune is estimated to be worth about $4.5 billion, with television assets generating most of its value. Newspapers — seen as accounting for less than 15 percent of its value today — are expected to be sold off in a process that will likely see several bidders.
"Tribune is the poster child for the demise of the metropolitan newspaper," said Ken Doctor, a newspaper industry analyst with Outsell Inc. "Tribune remains a media company but likely drops the part of media that gave it its name and its birth, which is its newspapers."
Doctor says he expects that the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune could be sold for around $600 million to $700 million. Interested bidders include News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, Freedom Communications owner Aaron Kusher, who bought the Orange County Register this summer, and Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who invested in The New York Times Co., Doctor said.
As part of the restructuring, Tribune closed on a new $1.1 billion senior secured term loan and a $300 million revolving credit line. The loan will fund payments required under the reorganization plan, and the credit line will pay for its ongoing operations.
CEO Eddy Hartenstein said Monday that Tribune "emerges from the bankruptcy process as a multimedia company with a great mix of profitable assets, strong brands in major markets and a much-improved capital structure." He noted that the company's restructuring ensures that Tribune's subsidiary creditors and vendors receive payment "in full-100 percent recovery of what they are owed."
Hartenstein will remain at the helm for the next several weeks until the new board meets to designate executive officers.

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Shaw CEO sells most of stake after shareholders ok CB&I deal

 James Bernhard, chief executive of engineering company Shaw Group Inc , has sold off most of his stake in the company he founded after shareholders approved a sale to Chicago Bridge and Iron Co NV this month.
Late last week, Bernhard reduced his shareholding in Shaw to 143,356 shares from 1,131,603, according to filings with U.S. securities regulators on Monday, in a sale that would have raised more than $45 million.
In criticizing the deal price of $46 per share that Bernhard negotiated for Shaw, H. Kevin Byun at Denali Investors LLC speculated in a letter that Bernhard may have had political ambitions in Louisiana that influenced the timing of the sale to CB&I.
Denali, which had said it owns 1.1 percent of Shaw, was asking for a special committee to investigate Bernhard for potential conflicts of interest in selling off the Louisiana-based company.
But the $3 billion deal, comprising $41 per share in cash and $5 per share in CB&I stock when it was launched at the end of July, won approval from 83 percent of Shaw's outstanding shares on December 21.
Shares of Shaw closed at $46.61 per share on Monday, up 42 cents on the day.

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Best Buy loses two board directors

 Best Buy Co Inc said on Monday that two of its board directors had resigned, including one of its former chief executives, almost seven months after its founder, who is now mounting a bid for the struggling retailer, left the board.
The departures will leave Best Buy with four vacancies on its 11-member board.
The company's fortunes have faltered as consumers increasingly use its big box stores as showrooms for products they end up buying online at Amazon.com Inc and other websites.
Best Buy said that G. Mike Mikan, who served as interim CEO between April and September 2012 after former chief Brian Dunn was found to have had an improper relationship with a female employee, had stepped down from the board effective immediately.
Mikan left to become president of Edward Lampert's hedge fund ESL Investments Inc. Billionaire Lampert is the chairman of another retailer, Sears Holdings Corp, which he controls and is embarked on a turnaround campaign.
"Mike's background fits with our strategy and he will be a great asset to me and to ESL's portfolio companies," Lampert said in a statement on Monday.
Mikan's main corporate stint was at UnitedHealth Group Inc, where he spent 14 years and served as executive vice president and chief financial officer, as well as CEO of its Optum subsidiary. He became a Best Buy director in 2008.
Mikan was at the helm of Best Buy when Richard Schulze, its former chairman and founder, lost his chairmanship after he was held responsible for failing to notify the board about allegations against his protégé Dunn. Schulze resigned as board member in June.
In August, Schulze informed the board that he was interested in teaming up with private equity partners to buy the company but he has yet to table a solid offer and now faces a February 28 bid deadline.
Schulze remains Best Buy's largest shareholder with about one-fifth of the company's outstanding shares but the company is now led by turnaround expert Hubert Joly, who was tapped as CEO to come up with a new restructuring plan.
The second departure announced on Monday was expected. Matthew Paull, who had served on the board since 2008, will retire from the board in April 2013.
Paull stepped down as CFO of McDonald's Corp in 2008. Best Buy's rules dictate that a director must retire five years after he stops pursuing the primary career he or she was engaged in when appointed to the board.
Neither Paull nor Mikan indicated that they were resigning due to any disagreements with Best Buy's management, the company said.
The fourth vacancy on Best Buy's board dates back to June, when Rogelio Rebolledo left to also comply with the company's retirement policy.

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Sharp considering raising $1.2 billion to beef up capital: media

 Struggling Japanese TV maker Sharp Corp is considering raising more than 100 billion yen ($1.2 billion) this spring to bolster its capital base, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The debt-laden company, whose displays are used in Apple Inc's iPads and iPhones, was forced to seek a bailout from banks in September and has forecast a loss of 155 billion yen for the fiscal year to March 2013, hit by rising costs from a strong yen and tough competition from its South Korean rivals.
Sharp's capital-to-asset ratio is likely to fall to around 8 percent in March. Its main creditor banks want it to raise that ratio to above 10 percent with a mixture of steps including public and preferred share offerings as well as subordinated loans, the Japanese daily said, without citing sources.
Sharp will announce plans for a capital increase in February and hopes to use the proceeds to strengthen its capital base and its main liquid crystal display (LCD) panel business, according to the paper.
The company was not immediately available for comment.
Shares of Sharp have slumped and its credit rating was downgraded to junk status as the company struggles to turn its business around. It recently agreed on a capital and business tie-up with Qualcomm Inc in which the U.S. chipmaker will invest as much as $120 million.
Sharp's shares closed at 303 yen in Tokyo on Friday, well off its year-low of 142 yen hit in October but less than half its value at the outset of 2012.

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RIM shares dive as fee changes catch market off guard

Shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd plunged more than 20 percent on Friday on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on the business that has set the company apart from its competitors.
It was the stock's biggest, single-day, percentage price drop since September 2008. But shares were still nearly 80 percent above the year's low, which was reached in September. They started to rally in November as investors began to bet that RIM's long-awaited new BlackBerry 10 phones, which will be unveiled in January, would turn the company around.
The services segment has long been RIM's most profitable and accounts for about a third of total revenue. Some analysts said there was a risk that the fee changes could endanger its service ecosystem and leave the Canadian company as just another handset maker.
The fee changes, which RIM announced on Thursday after market close, overshadowed stronger-than-expected quarterly results. The company said the new pricing structure would be introduced with the BlackBerry 10 launch, expected on January 30.
RIM said some subscribers would continue to pay for enhanced services such as advanced security. But under the new structure, some other services would account for less revenue, or even none at all.
Chief Executive Thorsten Heins tried to reassure investors in a television interview with CNBC on Friday, saying RIM's "service revenue isn't going away".
He added: "We're not stopping. We're not halting. We're transitioning."
Since taking over at RIM in January, Heins has focused on shrinking the company and getting it ready to introduce its new BB10 devices, which RIM says will help it claw back ground it has lost to competitors such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.
But the new services pricing strategy came as a shock to markets, and some analysts cut their price targets on RIM stock.
RIM will not be able to sustain profitability by relying on its hardware business alone, said National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson, whom Thomson Reuters StarMine has rated the top RIM analyst based on the accuracy of his estimates of the company's earnings.
Thompson downgraded RIM's stock to "underperform" from "sector perform" and cut his price target to $10 from $15.
Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said the move was likely about stabilizing market share: "At the moment, they need to stem the bleeding."
He said the tiered pricing might line up better with RIM's subscriber base as it expands in emerging economies.
RIM's Nasdaq-listed shares closed down 22.7 percent at $10.91 on Friday. The stock fell 22.2 percent to C$10.86 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
COUNTDOWN TO LAUNCH
The success of the BB10 will be crucial to the future of RIM, which on Thursday posted its first-ever decline in total subscribers. Heins said on CNBC that the company expected to ship millions of the new devices.
He cautioned that this will require heavy investment, which will reduce RIM's cash position in its fourth and first quarters from $2.9 billion in its fiscal third quarter. He said, however, it would not go below $2 billion.
Still, doubts remain about whether RIM can pull off the transformation. Needham analyst Charlie Wolf said the BB10 would have to look meaningfully superior to its competitors for RIM to stage a comeback.
Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley said it was highly unlikely that the market would support RIM's new mobile computing ecosystem, and he remained skeptical about the company's ability to survive on its own.
"We believe RIM will eventually need to sell the company," said Walkley, who cut his price target on RIM shares to $9 from $10.
Baird Equity Research analysts said BB10 faced a daunting uphill battle against products from Apple, as well as those using Google Inc's Android operating system, and, increasingly, phones with Microsoft Corp's Windows 8 operating system.
Baird maintained its "underperform" rating on the stock, while Paradigm Capital downgraded the shares to "hold" from "buy" on uncertainty around the services revenue model.
"RIM has gone from having one major aspect of uncertainty - BlackBerry 10 adoption - to two, given an uncertain floor on services revenue," William Blair analyst Anil Doradla said.
RIM will have to discount BB10 devices significantly to maintain demand, Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu said.
The BlackBerry, however, still offers the security features that helped it build its reputation with big business and government, a selling point with some key customers.
Credit Suisse maintained its "neutral" rating on the stock, but not because it expected BB10 to be a big success.
"Only the potential for an outright sale of the company or a breakup keeps us at a neutral," Credit Suisse analysts said.
Separately on Friday, ailing Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia said it had settled its patent dispute with RIM in return for payments.

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TSX ends flat as RIM buckles, gold miners bounce

Canada's main stock index ended little changed on Friday as gold miners gained on safe-haven buying amid U.S. budget uncertainty, while BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd plunged more than 20 percent.
The index's materials sector, which includes miners, rose 0.4 percent. Even though the price of gold was near its lowest level in four months, the gold-mining sub-sector added 0.9 percent as investors fretted over stalled U.S. budget talks that could throw Canada's largest trading partner back into recession.
"As our tiptoes are over the (U.S.) fiscal cliff and we're looking over the abyss, the markets are upset obviously, and this is sort of putting a damper on the stocks," said John Ing, president of Maison Placements Canada.
"But we've had a mixed reaction in Canada, mainly because the resources have been much better, like gold for example, which is hedging into the uncertainty (around the budget talks)," he said, noting gold miners had been under pressure for the last two weeks.
Miner Barrick Gold Corp edged up 0.2 percent to C$33.29. Centerra Gold Inc jumped more than 3 percent to C$9.10.
Gold miners are playing catch-up after underperforming throughout the year and could rise further in 2013, said Gavin Graham, president at Graham Investment Strategy.
Shares of RIM dropped 22.2 percent to C$10.86 on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on the business that has set the company apart from its competitors.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> fell 3.01 points, or 0.02 percent, to end at 12,385.70. It gained 0.7 percent for the week.
Efforts to avoid the looming U.S. "fiscal cliff" were thrown into disarray on Friday with finger-pointing lawmakers fleeing Washington for Christmas vacations even as the year-end deadline for action edged ever closer.
Graham said that until a deal is reached in the U.S. budget talks, investors will avoid economically sensitive Canadian stocks and those most closely tied to the U.S. economy: auto parts manufacturers, forestry companies and resource stocks generally.
"The resource sectors in Canada, which is half of the index, is going to be adversely affected, correctly or not," he said.
"Chinese demand is likely to pick up somewhat now with the new leadership there but people will be focused on the U.S. given that it is still by far the most important export market for Canada.

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First photos of BlackBerry 10 ‘N-Series’ QWERTY smartphone leak

As Research In Motion (RIMM) begins its attempt to mount a comeback for the ages in 2013, it will place its early hopes on two high-end smartphones. The first is the BlackBerry Z10, and we’ve already seen it in a number of leaks. The second is a QWERTY-equipped touchscreen phone similar to the current BlackBerry Bold 9900, and it has just been pictured for the first time in photos published by Chinese blog cnBeta.com. No additional information accompanied the photos, however earlier reports stated that the smartphone will include a 720 x 720-pixel display with a pixel density of 330 ppi. Another image of the BlackBerry 10-powered N-Series phone follows below.

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Fifth-gen iPad reportedly due in March along with Retina iPad mini

Rumors that a second-generation iPad mini with a Retina display is set to launch ahead of Apple’s typical annual schedule next year have been swirling, and now it appears Apple’s (AAPL) full-size iPad may be sticking to its new semiannual release schedule. According to a report from Japanese blog Makotakra that cites an anonymous “inside source,” Apple plans to launch a new thinner, lighter 9.7-inch iPad as soon as March 2013. The fourth iPad model was just released last month alongside the iPad mini, but March was also suggested in recent Retina iPad mini rumors. Makotakra states that the new iPad will adopt styling queues from the current iPad mini model, unifying the look of Apple’s larger tablet with the iPad mini and iPhone 5.

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Find room for God in fast-paced world, pope says on Christmas eve

Pope Benedict, leading the world's Roman Catholics into Christmas, on Monday urged people to find room for God in their fast-paced lives filled with the latest technological gadgets.
The 85-year-old pope, marking the eighth Christmas season of his pontificate, celebrated a solemn Christmas Eve mass in St Peter's Basilica, during which he appealed for a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and an end to the civil war in Syria.
At the mass for some 10,000 people in the basilica and broadcast to millions of others on television, the pope wove his homily around the theme of God's place in today's modern world.
"Do we have time and space for him? Do we not actually turn away God himself? We begin to do so when we have no time for him," said the pope, wearing gold and white vestments.
"The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never seems urgent. Our time is already completely full," he said.
The leader of the world's some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said societies had reached the point where many people's thinking processes did not leave any room even for the existence of God.
"Even if he seems to knock at the door of our thinking, he has to be explained away. If thinking is to be taken seriously, it must be structured in such a way that the 'God hypothesis' becomes superfluous," he said.
"There is no room for him. Not even in our feelings and desires is there any room for him. We want ourselves. We want what we can seize hold of, we want happiness that is within our reach, we want our plans and purposes to succeed. We are so 'full' of ourselves that there is no room left for God."
PEACE CANDLE
Bells inside and outside the basilica chimed when the pope said "Glory to God in the Highest," the words the gospels say the angels sang at the moment of Jesus' birth.
Earlier on Monday the pope appeared at the window of his apartments in the apostolic palace and lit a peace candle, as a larger-than-life nativity scene was unveiled in St Peter's Square below.
Reflecting on the gospel account of Jesus born in a stable because there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the inn, he said when people find no room for God in their lives, they will soon find no room for others.
"Let us ask the Lord that we may become vigilant for his presence, that we may hear how softly yet insistently he knocks at the door of our being and willing.
"Let us ask that we may make room for him within ourselves, that we may recognise him also in those through whom he speaks to us: children, the suffering, the abandoned, those who are excluded and the poor of this world," he said.
He asked for prayers for the people who "live and suffer" in the Holy Land today.
The pope called for peace among Israelis and Palestinians and for the people of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq and prayed that "Christians in those lands where our faith was born may be able to continue living there, that Christians and Muslims may build up their countries side-by-side in God's peace."
The Vatican is concerned about the exodus from the Middle East of Christians, many of whom leave because they fear for their safety. Christians now comprise five percent of the population of the region, down from 20 percent a century ago.
According to some estimates, the current population of 12 million Christians in the Middle East could halve by 2020 if security and birth rates continue to decline.
At noon (1100 GMT/6 AM ET) the pope will deliver his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) blessing and message from the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica.

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