Pick-ups and discards
Sears discards credit division
Citigroup bought the credit card operations of Sears for $3.4 billion. That's another step in the roll-up of the credit industry. The idea is that Sears can now concentrate on its core business, rather than financial services. But the problem is that Sears is threatened in its core businesses. In apparel and general merchandise, Wal-Mart and Target are already killing the company. In hardware and paint, Home Depot and Lowe's are dominant. And in appliances, that old Sears specialty, Best Buy is dominant. The credit card business, though declining, was a source of profits, now lost.
Vivendi Universal auction
Latest on who gets the Vivendi Universal goody bag of media properties (minus the Music Group). The big contenders are jockeying back and forth. According to a Wall Street Journal article (7/15/03), General Electric may be backing out. Liberty Media, as stated earlier, may have too much on its plate with the QVC merger. MGM has just demanded more info about the companies, fast, or it will walk away from the bidding. That might leave the investor group led by ex-Seagram's scion Edgar Bronfman, who has already lost big money with these properties.
Aol-Time-Warner auction
AOL-Time-Warner is about to finally sell its DVD/CD manufacturing division, to one of two investor groups. The price tag is around $1 billion, enough to take at least one notch off the amazing debt load the company carries.
Combatting Google
Yahoo is not the only company looking at Google's big profits selling ads on its search engines. According to today's Wall Street Journal ("Raising Clout of Google Prompts Rush by Internet Rivals to Adapt"7/17/03), "Earlier this year Microsoft's MSN online group launched a project to develop its own search engine, wit the goal of using search to increase MSN subscribers and advertisers." A search function will be at the core of future Microsoft operating systems.
7:18:27 PM 
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