Lawsuit: Hewlett-Packard heir attempts to scuttle deal

Lawyers for dissident Hewlett-Packard Co. shareholder Walter Hewlett cited internal company memos and personal documents in court Tuesday as evidence that executives deceived investors about the financial prospects of H-P’s proposed $19 billion purchase of rival Compaq Computer Corp.

In opening statements in Hewlett’s attempt to overturn a shareholder vote approving the deal, Walter Hewlett’s lawyer Stephen Neal claimed H-P executives knew as late as a few days before shareholders were set to vote on the deal last month that internal projections showed the financial benefits would fall well short of what H-P publicly touted.

Telecommunications: Sprint to cut more jobs

Sprint Corp. will eliminate 340 more jobs, bringing the total number of workers laid off since October to 11,470.

The reductions the Overland Park-based telecommunications company announced Monday will come from Sprint’s Global Markets Group.

The division, which encompasses most of the struggling long-distance business, reported a $75 million operating loss in the three-month period ending March 31.

Employees losing their jobs in the latest round of cuts, including 95 in the Kansas City area, worked on the company’s long-distance fiber network in the network services department.

Banking reforms: Greenspan opposes raising deposit insurance limit

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress Tuesday that the Fed opposes increasing the $100,000 limit on deposit insurance coverage but supports requiring more banks to pay premiums for the insurance.

Greenspan, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, said the Fed, which regulates bank holding companies, agrees with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that a number of aspects of the deposit insurance system need to be reformed.

Northeast Kansas: Snorkel to close plant

The Elwood Snorkel plant will close in about month, resulting in about 200 layoffs, the facility’s parent company announced this week.

OmniQuip cited “continued industry softness” as a reason for closing the plant, which makes aerial boom lifts.

Snorkel, which employed 800 workers in 1999, laid off several hundred workers in 2001. But earlier this year Snorkel brought back about 100 workers to fill orders, causing some people to think the company was on the rebound, said Galen Weiland, economic developer in Doniphan County.

Doniphan County already had the state’s highest unemployment rate at about 12.5 percent.

Weiland said that number could reach 15 percent with the Snorkel layoffs.