Asian Stocks Fall on Earnings Outlook; Samsung, Seven & I Drop, SonyRises

(Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell after Samsung Electronics Co.'s earnings missed analyst estimates and Seven & I Holdings Co. reported profit lower than the company's forecast.

``With earnings announcements coming into high gear, the outlook for the coming year is unclear and there's the strong possibility that we'll have conservative company forecasts,'' said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees $468 million in assets at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co.


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Japan March aluminium stocks fall 18 pct m/m

(Reuters) - Estimated aluminium stocks at the Japanese ports of Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka fell 18 percent month-on-month to 201,500 tonnes as of the end of March, trading firm Marubeni Corp. said on Friday.

The decline in stocks to the lowest level since November 2002 was due partly to a delay in the arrival of shipments into April --- 18,000 tonnes from Brazil and 11,000 tonnes from South Africa, a company official said.


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US Bain Capital will not up S.Africa's Edcon bid

(Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital LLC reiterated on Thursday it will not raise it $3.50 billion bid for South Africa's largest fashion retailer Edcon after a prominent fund manager called the offer 50 percent too low.

"There was a globally run auction to find buyers, it was announced in the press and ran for four months, during which no new bidders surfaced," Bain Capital Managing Director Dwight Poler told Reuters.


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European Bonds Poised for Fourth Weekly Loss on Prospect of Higher Rates

(Bloomberg) -- European government bonds are poised for a fourth week of losses as traders add to bets that central bank policy makers will lift interest rates as much as half a percentage point this year.

Two-year benchmark note yields rose to the highest in almost five years yesterday after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said current borrowing costs were fuelling economic growth. The ECB left rates unchanged at 3.75 percent as expected by all 37 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.


Read more at Bloomberg Bonds News

ANA to sell hotels to Morgan Stanley for Y281 bln

(Reuters) - TOKYO, April 13 - Morgan Stanley will buy 13 hotels from Japanese airline All Nippon Airways Co. Ltd. for an estimated 280 billion yen to become the largest hotel owner in Japan, financial sources said on Friday.

The deal is set to be one of the biggest single-asset property transactions in Asia and comes amid increasingly fierce competition for commercial property in Japan.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

UPDATE 2-Rite Aid profit falls, sees Coutu deal closing May

(Reuters) - CHICAGO, April 12 - Rite Aid Corp. , the third-largest U.S. drugstore chain, posted a lower quarterly profit on Thursday, weighed down by special charges.

The company also said it expects to complete its acquisition of the Brooks and Eckerd drugstore chains from Canada's Jean Coutu Group Inc. by the end of May, pending final regulatory approval by the Federal Trade Commission and other conditions.


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Sprint shares up after report of activist investor

(Reuters) - The report, citing unnamed sources, said Whitworth, in meetings with Sprint management, had called for several changes at the company, including a pullback in capital spending and a potential sale of its fiber-optic long-distance network.

Sprint and Relational Investors could not be reached for comment.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News