Dell Wins $25 Billion LBO Deal Approval, Hilton Files IPO

Nichole Harper
12 Sep, 2013
New York City

Stocks on Wall Street edged lower and dollar was in focus and crude oil and gold trended lower after Syria tensions eased. Dell Inc shareholders approved company plan to go private in $25 billion deal. Hilton Worldwide files to raise as much as $1.25 billion. FaceBook Inc trades at a new high.

[R]11:50 PM New York – Stocks on Wall Street edged lower and dollar was in focus and crude oil and gold trended lower after Syria tensions eased. Dell Inc shareholders approved company plan to go private in $25 billion deal. Hilton Worldwide files to raise as much as $1.25 billion. FaceBook Inc trades at a new high.[/R]

U.S. stocks turned lower after struggling to hold gains in the early morning and investors looked ahead to Fed decision next week about the fate of bond buying program.

S&P 500 index declined 4.22 to 1,684.91 and Nasdaq Composite Index declined 9 to 3,716.13.

Syria tensions eased as Secretary of State John Kerry arrive in Geneva, Switzerland for a two days of talk with Russia and Syrian counterparts to decide the fate of chemical weapons control and a possible military strike.

U.S. has alleged that Syria killed more than 1,400 people in a chemical attack but Kerry is silent on the brutality of rebels that are funded by the allied nations and CIA that have killed more than 30,000 Syrian civilians.

Dell Inc shareholders approved the company founder Michael Dell’s plan to take PC maker private in a $24.9 billion buyout.

The approval ends months of conflict after activist investor Carl Icahn dropped his bid to take control of the company at a higher price.

Icahn is known for his aggressive tactics in the name of shareholder rights that largely benefit to him only at the expense of employees of new product development.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc, the hotel operator owned by Blackstone Group, filed for a public offering to raise as much as $1.25 billion.

Hotel operators are trading at their six-years high as the economy recovers and travel spending rebounds after global markets meltdown in 2008.

Weekly Jobless Claims Fall

Weekly initial jobless claims declined 31,000 to 292,000 in the week ended Sept 7, Labor Department said today.

Labor Day holiday and computer system problems at two states caused state agencies in reporting fewer jobless claims.

The latest weekly claims data are hard to decipher but the undertone of the statistics suggest the slow and uneven economic recovery is on track.

The four-week moving average of claims declined 321,250 in the last week, the lowest since October 2007 when the claims were 328,750.

The number of people receiving jobless benefits declined 73,000 to 2.87 million in the prior week ending on Aug 31.

And, the number of Americans receiving extended benefits that are not counted in the continuing claims declined 40,000 to 1.46 million in the week ending on August 24.

In addition, the number of people eligible for benefits decreased to 2.2% in the last week in August from 2.3% in the previous week.

U.S. Stocks in Review

FaceBook ((FB)) increased 0.7% and extended to a new high of $45.35 and traded above the intra-day high of $45 on the launch of its public offering.

Pandora Media ((P)) soared 23% to $23.45 after the largest online radio service hired Brian McAndrews as its new chief executive officer and also appointed him as chairman and president.

The maker of small-molecule pharmaceuticals, Vetex Pharmaceuticals Inc soared 2.5% and electronics instruments maker Ametek gained 3% after two companies were selected to include S&P 500 index.

AMD declined 1.7% and SAIC fell 2.1%, two companies are slated to be dropped from the index.