August 12 2008 at 04:51 AM

War Threatens Key Pipeline for Crude Oil

Chi-Chu Tschang

The outbreak of hostilities in Georgia is raising concerns that the supply of Caspian crude oil flowing through the country to global markets could be threatened. Around 1.2 million barrels of oil a day travel through Georgia, or 1.4% of global crude supply, and attacks on the pipeline could have repercussions for the supply chain.

Source: Wall Street Journal

UBS To Split Wealth Management, Investment Bank

Swiss bank UBS AG will split its business into three independent units that would separate investment banking and wealth management, after identifying shortcomings in its operations, it said. The announcement came as the bank posted a worse-than-expected second-quarter loss of around $330 million.

Source: Reuters

Whole Foods’ Recall Forces Changes

Whole Foods Market said Monday it would tighten oversight of its suppliers to keep substandard products out of stores, after recalling ground beef that apparently sickened customers in two states. Whole Foods is in damage-control mode after acknowledging that it failed to spot a change made by one of its suppliers of ground beef, Coleman Natural Beef. The government has identified Coleman Natural Beef’s slaughterhouse as the source of ground beef that has sickened scores of Americans.

Source: New York Times

The Dollar’s Comeback: What Investors Should Know

The slumping U.S. dollar has resulted in the best of times for foreign tourists in the U.S.--and for U.S. outfits that export their goods. It’s also meant the worst of times for U.S. consumers’ purchasing power. The dollar’s sustained deterioration over the past six years, and its plunge in the last year, have been all that and more. And that’s http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/aug2008/pi20080811_751634.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story”>made the greenback’s recent comeback vs. other major currencies all the more remarkable. Some view the dollar’s big bounce over the past week as a sign of growing confidence in U.S. growth prospects, but it may turn out to be nothing more than a tale of two (or more) diverging monetary policies.

Source: BusinessWeek

Waste Management Raises Bid for Republic

Waste Management raised its bid for rival trash hauler Republic Services, offering more than $6.7 billion, or $37 per share. The new bid marks a 9% increase over its previous $34-per-share offer, worth about $6.2 billion. Waste Management also offered a $250 million breakup fee if federal antitrust regulators block a deal between the companies and a so-called “ticking fee” that would increase the share price if regulators delay things significantly.

Source: Houston Chronicle

Two Charged in Multimillion-Dollar Fraud

The owners of a Chicago-based real estate investment firm were arrested Monday on federal fraud charges, and U.S. regulators accused them of conducting a quarter-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme going back as far as 2005. Steven Byers, 46, CEO of WexTrust Capital LLC, and Joseph Shereshevsky, 51, a principal of WexTrust, were taken into custody and charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, the Justice Department said. The Securities and Exchange Commission also alleged in a lawsuit that the two men had raised $255 million from about 1,200 people, many of them Orthodox Jews, and misappropriated the money.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Amazon’s Kindle May Be Hot Holiday Product

Amazon.com’s e-book reader Kindle should be a hot holiday seller this year, a Citigroup research report predicted. The online retailer could sell 380,000 Kindles in 2008, more than double what Citigroup research analyst Mark Mahaney had previously expected. “Turns out the Kindle is becoming the iPod of the book world,” Mahaney wrote in a report published Sunday.

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Deadly Blast Targets Pakistan Military

A bomb targeting an Air Force bus killed at least 12 people and wounded 15 others in northwestern Pakistan Tuesday, police said. The blast left a large crater on the road in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province. It appeared to have been placed in a car, but police could not immediately say whether it was detonated remotely or by a driver who committed suicide.

Source: CNN

Conversation of the Day: India R&D Stronghold

Reader Amit writes: “We have to break the stranglehold the government maintains on education. The stranglehold is destructive not just for the shortages it creates but also because it allows old socialist and communist fogeys to dictate what students learn.”

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The Executive Summary is BusinessWeek's daily roundup of the most important business news from around the Web. Edited by Chi-Chu Tschang and Mark Scott, the early edition is posted every weekday by 6 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. An afternoon edition, edited by Harry Maurer, is available by 3 p.m. EST.

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