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Red Hat’s Purchase; Toll Bros. NYC Worries; Dollar Rally; Unilever’s New CEO; Fed President Sees Room for Cut; Boeing’s Labor Woes

• Red Hat Inc. (RHT) yesterday (Thursday) announced it had purchased privately held software company Qumranet Inc. for $107 million in cash. The Raleigh-based software distrubutor expects the purchase to knock 5 to 6 cents off of its annual earnings per share, The Associated Press reported. Red Hat expects the deal to add $20 million in revenue by the next fiscal year.

By Jason Simpkins
Associate Editor

At a price of just $2,500 each, Tata Motors Ltd.’s (TTM) Nano was billed early in its development as the world’s cheapest automobile and the only car that was both affordable and practical enough for India’s quickly burgeoning middle class. But the car that was emerging as a bright symbol of middle-class opportunity in fast-growing India could now epitomize something much darker: The human cost of rapid industrialization.

Company officials this week disclosed that the Nano might not debut next month as originally planned, because violent protests have erupted at the automobile’s main production site.

By Martin Hutchinson
Contributing Editor

I have been much more positive about the Japanese economy than most other analysts in recent months, largely because I believed that many of the problems from the Japanese recession of 1990-2003 were finally in the country’s rearview mirror. In particular, I believed that the Japanese budget deficit – which, by 2003, had become quite acute – was well on the way to being solved through public spending restraint. That, in turn, would allow Japan to pay down its excessive public debt, giving its private sector room to expand.

But the surprise resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Monday suggests I may have been wrong about the country’s near-term prospects.

By Jason Simpkins
Associate Editor

The Coca-Cola Co. (KO) announced yesterday (Wednesday) that it will buy China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd. for $2.3 billion (HK$17.9 billion) in an effort to diversify its presence in one of the world’s fastest-growing beverage markets. But the deal still requires government approval, which is anything but guaranteed.

Coca-Cola’s offer of $1.56 per share (HK$12.20) is more than triple China Huiyuan’s recent closing price of HK$4.14 a share. It is the company’s largest overseas acquisition to date, and the biggest foreign takeover of a Chinese company ever. The deal values Huiyuan at 46.6 times this year’s estimated earnings, according to Bloomberg data.

By Keith Fitz-Gerald
Investment Director
Money Morning/The Money Map Report

The "Bailout Bens" are at it again.

I’m talking, of course, about U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who’s clearly decided it will be "bailouts for all."

Why is this problematic? Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila C. Bair last week said that the government agency "may need to tap into [short-term] lines of credit with the Treasury for working capital," but "not to cover our losses," The Wall Street Journal reported.

After all, why hit up Treasury when you can have the taxpayer cover your losses?

India's top cigarette maker, ITC Ltd has reported 4.4 percent decline in net profit for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, attributing it to increase in excise duties on cigarettes.

India's largest private sector steel producer Tata Steel has reported 62.5 percent jump in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended June 30, 2008 (Q1 of FY09), boosted by earnings of its Anglo-Dutch steel unit Corus.

Zimbabwe will knock 10 zeros off the country's hyper-inflated currency next month, making 10 billion dollars one dollar, the nation's central bank governor said Wednesday.

Trade officials said Tuesday that a high-level summit to salvage a global trade pact collapsed, after the United States, China and India failed to compromise on when poor countries could raise import tariffs on farm products.