Hollingsworth Daily Post

• Mittal Puts Credibility to Test in $9 Billion Bharti Offer for Zain Africa For Sunil Mittal, Bharti Airtel Ltd.’s founder and chairman, there’s a lot riding on the planned $9 billion purchase of the African assets of Kuwait’s Zain, not least of which is his credibility.


• Eastern Europe Bolstered by Greek Woes as Lower Deficits Lure Pimco, HSBC Investors are returning to eastern Europe a year after the region’s banking crisis triggered a global market selloff, as concern Greece may be unable to fund itself bolsters countries with lower borrowing needs.


• Microsoft Risks Margins as $19 Billion Office Business Fights Off Google Microsoft Corp. President Stephen Elop is preparing for the biggest shakeup to the $19 billion Office business in a decade as the company races Google Inc. to sell Internet-based programs.


• IPhone Catch-Up Leaves Nokia, Carriers Flooding Show With Rival Services Apple Inc.’s iPhone has more applications than any other mobile phone. Now the world’s wireless companies are trying to catch up.


• Dubai World Said to Prepare $22 Billion Debt-Restructuring Plan for March Dubai World will present a proposal to creditors in March to restructure about $22 billion of debt after its advisers complete valuing the assets of the state- owned company, a person close to the Dubai government said.


• Making Partner Becomes Less Likely as Big U.S. Law Firms Face Cash Crunch Making partner, the brass ring for law firm associates who toil slavishly for a decade after law school, has become an elusive dream as shrinking revenue cut promotions at some of the largest U.S. firms.


• Lula Loses to `Chipmunks' as Brazilians Reject Election-Year `Propaganda' A new movie about Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, one of the most expensive ever produced in Brazil, is falling short of its blockbuster expectations as the president’s record popularity fails to bring box-office profits.


• Blizzards That Struck Eastern U.S. Make it Hard to Decipher Economic Data Blizzards that hammered the East Coast of the U.S. and winter storms that blasted through the deep South earlier this month also disrupted economic data.


• Pimco Buys Brazil Debt in Redux of $1 Billion Lula Bet That Trounced Peers Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, posted its best year in emerging markets by loading up on Brazilian debt ahead of the 2002 presidential elections. Eight years later, the company is using a similar tack.


• Bharti's Mittal Says $9 Billion Price For Zain Africa `Not Over the Top' Sunil Mittal, the billionaire chairman of Bharti Airtel Ltd., said the price India’s largest mobile-phone company is offering for most of the African assets of Kuwait’s Zain is “not over the top.”


• Gundlach's Grudge Match With TCW Might Cost `The Godfather' $500 Million Jeffrey Gundlach has a black eye and a cut on the bridge of his nose, and he winces as he rubs his side.


• Moroccan Rains Give Stocks Lift Over BRICs After Missing Last Year's Rally Morocco’s stocks are laggards no more as the strongest rains in three decades help boost agricultural output in the only emerging-market nation where equities fell in 2009.

• Bloomberg Daily News 18th February 2010