DealBook: Buffett’s Annual Letter Plays Up Newspapers’ Value

Over the last half-century, Warren E. Buffett has built a reputation as a contrarian investor, betting against the crowd to amass a fortune estimated at $54 billion.Mr. Buffett underscored that contrarian instinct in his annual letter to shareholders published on Friday. In a year when Mr. Buffett did not make any large acquisitions, he bought dozens of newspapers, a business others have shunned....

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Detroit Car Sales Climb Again

General Motors reported a 7 percent gain in auto sales in the United States in February, beating several analyst estimates on the strength of its crossover models and pickup trucks, while Detroit rival Ford Motor Co. posted a slightly weaker-than-expected 9.0 percent gain. G.M. sold 224,314 cars and trucks last month. Sales of its Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks jumped nearly 30 percent,...

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DealBook: For S.E.C., a Setback in Bid for More Time in Fraud Cases

The Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered a swift and decisive rejection of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s argument that it should operate under a more forgiving statute of limitations in pursuing penalties in fraud cases.As a result of the decision, the agency will have to find a long-term solution to give itself more time to investigate cases.In Gabelli v. Securities and Exchange Commission,...

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DealBook: Obama’s Nominee for S.E.C. Tries to Allay Skepticism

Mary Jo White’s path to the Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a crucial juncture: the Congressional charm campaign.Lawmakers are scrutinizing Ms. White ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing, raising questions about the former prosecutor’s lack of regulatory experience and the challenge of policing Wall Street firms she recently defended in private practice. But Ms. White is seeking...

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Wall Street Sheds Morning Gains

After beginning the day with a partial rebound from Monday’s steep drop, stocks on Wall Street gave up their gains Tuesday in the course of Congressional testimony by Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. In late morning trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was essentially flat, while the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.4 percent. The Nasdaq composite index...

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BP Trial Opens, With Possible Deal in Background

NEW ORLEANS — The long-awaited civil trial against BP and its contractors stemming from the 2010 explosion of a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico that left 11 dead and soiled hundreds of beaches began on Monday, even as settlement talks appeared to intensify between the oil company and federal and state goverments. Jim Roy, the lead lawyer of private plaintiffs, started the trial with a...

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent. With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps...

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Many States Say Cuts Would Burden Fragile Recovery

States are increasingly alarmed that they could become collateral damage in Washington’s latest fiscal battle, fearing that the impasse could saddle them with across-the-board spending cuts that threaten to slow their fragile recoveries or thrust them back into recession. Some states, like Maryland and Virginia, are vulnerable because their economies are heavily dependent on federal workers,...

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Room for Debate: Should Companies Tell Us When They Get Hacked?

A National Priority and a Business Priority Lauren Gelman, BlurryEdge Strategies Like pollution, an insecure infrastructure is bad for everyone. Disclosing security breaches reintroduces the public's collective interest. Disclosure Plays Into Hackers’ Hands Alexander Tabb, partner, research and consulting firm...

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DealBook: Carlyle's Profit Fell in 4th Quarter as Growth Slowed

11:18 a.m. | Updated Most of the publicly traded private equity giants proudly reported glowing fourth-quarter earnings.The Carlyle Group isn’t one of them.The alternative investment giant disclosed on Thursday a 28 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit from the same time a year ago, as the growth of its portfolio companies slowed. That sent the company’s stock down more than 8 percent by midmorning,...

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DealBook: Office Depot and OfficeMax Announce Plans to Merge, After Erroneous Release

11:12 a.m. | Updated Office Depot and OfficeMax announced plans to merge on Wednesday, just hours after an erroneous news release about the deal surfaced briefly.Under the terms of the deal, Office Depot said it would issue 2.69 new shares of common stock for each share of OfficeMax. At that level, the transaction would value OfficeMax at $13.50, or roughly $1.19 billion, a premium of more than 25...

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Media Decoder Blog: NBC News Hires David Axelrod as Political Analyst

NBC News announced Tuesday that it had hired David Axelrod, the chief political strategist for both of Barack Obama’s presidential elections, as a full-time political analyst for the news organization.He will appear on news programs for NBC’s broadcast network and for its cable news channel MSNBC. That channel has positioned itself aggressively as the liberal counterpart to the conservative-leaning...

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Disruptions: Disruptions: 3-D Printing Is on the Fast Track

Will the future be printed in 3-D?At first glance, looking at past predictions about the future of technology, prognosticators got a whole lot wrong. The Web is a garbage dump of inaccurate guesses about the year 2000, 2010 and beyond. Flying cars, robotic maids and jet packs still are nowhere near a reality.Yet the prediction that 3-D printers will become a part of our daily lives is happening much...

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Group of 20 Pledges to Let Markets Set Currency Values

MOSCOW — In a concerted move to quiet fears of a so-called currency war, finance officials from the world’s largest industrial and emerging economies expressed their commitment on Saturday to “market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange rate flexibility.” In a statement issued at the conclusion of a conference here of the Group of 20, the finance ministers from the Group of 20...

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Supreme Court to Hear Monsanto Seed Patent Case

With his mere 300 acres of soybeans, corn and wheat, Vernon Hugh Bowman said, “I’m not even big enough to be called a farmer.” Yet the 75-year-old farmer from southwestern Indiana will face off Tuesday against the world’s largest seed company, Monsanto, in a Supreme Court case that could deal a huge blow to the future of genetically modified crops, and also affect other fields from medical...

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DealBook: Anheuser-Busch InBev Revises Grupo Modelo Deal

11:38 a.m. | Updated LONDON – Anheuser-Busch InBev moved on Thursday to rescue its $20.1 billion proposed takeover of Grupo Modelo of Mexico, the maker of Corona beer, by making concessions aimed at persuading American antitrust authorities to let the deal proceed.Under the revised terms, Anheuser-Busch InBev offered to sell the rights to Corona and other Grupo Modelo brands in the United States to...

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Deal Professor: Unusual Moves in Confronting Apple's Huge Pile of Cash

The fight over Apple’s $140 billion cash pile is proving the adage that money can make people do strange things.And it is not just Apple that is doing things it would not have done before. The hedge fund manager David Einhorn, famous for shorting stocks like Lehman Brothers, has gone long on Apple, betting heavily that Apple’s stock is undervalued — and blaming that eye-popping mountain of money.While...

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DealBook: Ryanair Indicates Regulators Will Reject Aer Lingus Deal

Ryanair, the discount European airline, is preparing for a fight with regulators over its deal to buy Aer Lingus.On Tuesday, Ryanair said the European Commission “intends to prohibit” its offer for Aer Lingus, despite the airline’s attempts to appease antitrust concerns. Ryanair added that it planned to appeal the decision.“It appears clear from this morning’s meeting, that no matter what remedies...

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DealBook: Goldman Names Gregg Lemkau as New Co-Head of M.&A.

Goldman Sachs named Gregg R. Lemkau as a new co-head of global mergers and acquisitions on Monday, according to an internal memorandum reviewed by DealBook.Mr. Lemkau, who has been based in London since 2008, will hold that title along with Gene T. Sykes, who has served as the sole co-head since the departure of Yoel Zaoui in April.“Gregg will work closely together with Gene, as well as with Michael...

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Boeing 787 Completes Test Flight

A Boeing 787 test plane flew for more than two hours on Saturday to gather information about the problems with the batteries that led to a worldwide grounding of the new jets more than three weeks ago. The flight was the first since the Federal Aviation Administration gave Boeing permission on Thursday to conduct in-flight tests. Federal investigators and the company are trying to determine...

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