Thomas Cook to acquire MyTravel
Germany based package travel specialist Thomas Cook will acquire UK based MyTravel, the companies said on Monday. The merger would create a travel giant worth about $5.5 billion.

Thomas Cook owned by retail group KarstadtQuelle, will hold 52- per cent stake in the new entity, with the other 48 per cent controlled by MyTravel's shareholders. The new company would be called Thomas Cook Group and will take about 19-million people a year on vacations.

The merger would create a company having annual revenues of £8 billion ounds. The new firm, to be headquartered in London and listed on the London stock exchange, would be worth about $5.4 billion following a sharp jump in MyTravel shares on Monday after the merger.

MyTravel and Thomas Cook said they expected to make cost savings of $146.1 million a year from combining the two businesses although it would take at least two years for the cost savings to come through.
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Oil slides as Opec defers cuts
After the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said that Opec cartel might not cut output at its next official meeting in March the price of Brent North Sea crude for March delivery slid 91c to $58.10 / barrel in electronic trading in London.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, fell 86c to $59.03 / barrel in electronic deals before the official opening of the market.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), whose members produce 40 per cent of the world's oil, will hold its next official meeting on March 15. As the world's biggest producer of crude, Saudi Arabia is viewed as Opec's most influential member.

At its last meeting in December, Opec decided to cut production by 500 000 barrels per day (bpd) from 1 February, following a reduction of 1.2 million bpd in November.
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Yahoo! to begin display advertising on mobile devices
New York: Yahoo Inc plans to begin showing display advertising on mobile devices in 18 foreign markets. Yahoo! plans to announce the expanded program at the 3GSM World Congress trade show in Barcelona according to which it will begin showing ads from a number of large advertisers in several European, Latin American and Asian markets, with the United Kingdom the largest among them.

Yahoo! has been showing mobile display ads in the US since November, and its Yahoo! Japan unit has shown them in Japan for several years.

The web search engine firm also plans to announce in Barcelona several new features for its Yahoo! Go 2.0 suite of mobile applications, including the ability to search directly from maps pages and share search results and news content with friends.

Yahoo! said that Go 2.0, which it unveiled in early January. It said that it had tied up with advertisers like Hilton Hotel Corp.'s (HLT) Embassy Suites, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.'s (NSANY) Infiniti, Intel Corp. (INTC), PepsiCo Inc.'s (PEP) Pepsi, Procter & Gamble Co.'s (PG) Asia Pacific unit and Singapore Airlines Ltd. (S55.SG) for its display ads.

For now, Yahoo! plans to show small, banner-style ads only on its mobile-Web home page, below its own logo.

It said consumers will be able to click on the ads to make a call, get directions or send an email. For now, Yahoo! won't charge advertisers now but may do so in the future.
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