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Raffles' hotel business bought out for USD859mn
Singapore: Colony Capital LLC, a U.S. private- equity firm, will pay USD859 million in cash for Raffles Holdings Ltd.'s hotel business, including the 118-year- old Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

Colony HR Acquisitions LLC, an affiliate of Los Angeles- based Colony Capital, will buy a network of 41 hotels in 35 countries, Singapore-based Raffles has said in a statement. Raffles will book a S$605 million gain from the sale and retain its holding in Tincel Properties, which owns a S$700 million stake in a retail and hotel complex in Singapore.

Colony Capital Chief Executive Officer Thomas Barrack has spent more than $5 billion since 1991 buying assets, including Atlantic City casinos and London's Claridge's hotel.

Raffles CEO Jennie Chua, 61, said it's too expensive for the Singapore company to expand its hotel operations. Raffles owns 14 of the 41 hotels it operates under the Raffles and Swissotel brands worldwide. Colony Capital will take over the management contracts for the hotels that Raffles doesn't own. Raffles has 12,000 rooms worldwide, and Colony has about 19,000 rooms.
Colony Capital will assume S$220.7 million of debt and an additional S$53.4 million of minority interests. The price is a 64 percent premium to the asset value of Raffles' hotel business, the company said.

Colony Capital's offer was accepted partly because the company agreed to respect the heritage of the Raffles Hotel, which counts author Somerset Maugham and singer Michael Jackson among its former guests. The hotel, which will be sold to Colony on an 83-year lease, is also subject to rules governing the preservation of Singapore's historic monuments.

Colony also said that it was delighted that Jennie Chua had agreed to remain as chairman of Raffles Hotel Singapore in order to provide continuity.
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News Corp. to buy Intermix Media for USD770mn
New York: News Corp will buy Intermix Media, owner of the popular blogging website MySpace.com, for USD580 million in a move to expand the media conglomerate's Internet offerings.

The deal comes after News Corp., home to the Fox television network, Fox News and 20th Century Fox film studios, announced on Friday the creation of an internet division to hold the company's sports, news and entertainment sites.

News Corp. will pay USD12 a share, a 12 per cent premium over Intermix's closing price on the American Stock Exchange on Friday.

News Corp has a market capitalisation of over USD50 billion and USD6 billion in cash on their balance sheet. Analysts said that with a significant amount of advertising dollars moving from traditional outlets to online, News Corp., like most media companies, is looking to boost its Internet assets.

MySpace.com is the most popular of the once-trendy social networking sites, which allow people with common interests to seek dates, friendship and professional relationships.

Google, for its part, has a social networking site called Orkut. Yahoo has made social networking a part of its Yahoo 360 networking tool.

Intermix, which had USD24.1 million in revenue in its fiscal fourth quarter, will become part of News Corp.'s newly created Fox Interactive Media.

News Corp. had said it plans to make "strategic investments" in this area. The creation of the internet unit comes three months after News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch's exhortation to the newspaper industry that it was too slow to respond to the internet.
The News Corp. deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of calendar 2005.
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Whirlpool plans to buy rival Maytag
Atlanta: US appliance maker Whirlpool Corp, the maker of Hoover vacuums, has offered to buy smaller rival Maytag Corp for more than USD1.3bn.

The Whirlpool offer of USD17 a share beats a USD14 a share bid by an investor group led by New York private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings and represents a 10% premium over Maytag's closing stock price of USD15.45 on Friday.

Whirlpool's move could ignite a bidding war, as a group including Chinese appliance maker Haier has expressed interest in buying Maytag for USD16 a share but has not made a formal bid.

In a July 17 open letter to Maytag, Whirlpool said a combined Whirlpool-Maytag could achieve "substantial efficiencies" to drive cost savings, use of assets and innovation in an increasingly competitive industry.

Maytag's profitability has declined amid a slump at its Hoover unit, higher raw materials prices and competition from Asian rivals with lower costs.
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