Briefcase

Former N.Y. mayor hired to lobby for Merrill Lynch

Merrill Lynch & Co. hired former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to lobby the state attorney general, who has threatened to bring criminal charges over the firm’s business practices.

Giuliani provided the nation’s largest investment firm with legal analysis and placed a call to New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer just before Spitzer released the results of his 10-month investigation into Merrill Lynch earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported in Wednesday’s editions.

Spitzer embarrassed the firm hours after the call by making public a series of internal e-mails suggesting that analysts were recommending clients buy stock in some companies even when the analysts had grave doubts about those companies.

Last week, the firm agreed to provide greater disclosure to investors when the firm’s analysts are rating companies with which Merrill Lynch has or seeks investment banking business.

Media

AOL Time Warner posts largest quarterly loss

AOL Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest media company, reported a net loss of $54.24 billion for its first quarter on Wednesday, the largest quarterly loss for a U.S. company, due to a massive balance sheet writedown mandated by new accounting rules.

The writedown, which was previously disclosed, exceeded the previous largest quarterly loss of $41.8 billion, which the former telecom high-flier JDS Uniphase reported in its first quarter of 2001.

Lawsuit

H-P chief takes stand in trial over disputed merger

Hewlett-Packard Co. chief Carly Fiorina became agitated on the witness stand Wednesday under questioning about company documents that allegedly show the purchase of Compaq Computer Corp. would fall short of its financial goals.

In the second day of dissident H-P director Walter Hewlett’s lawsuit against the company, Hewlett attorney Stephen Neal asked Fiorina how the teams that were planning the merger arrived at their financial estimates. Charts introduced as evidence Tuesday showed growing gaps between the latest revenue and earnings projections and the figures HP had promised to investors.

Sighing several times in exasperation, Fiorina said Neal was drawing the wrong conclusions about the meaning of the charts because they were taken out of context, as if someone looked at selected snapshots instead of “the whole movie.”

Area interest

Area companies announce quarterly earnings reports

Several publicly-traded companies with operations in the Lawrence area announced their earnings Wednesday.

Topeka-based Capitol Federal Savings announced earnings for the second quarter of 30 cents per share, up 5 cents from the same period a year ago. Capitol Federal Savings operates several branches in Lawrence.

Kansas City, Mo.-based DST Systems reported first quarter earnings of 46 cents per diluted share, compared to 41 cents per diluted share during the same period in 2001. The financial services company operates a customer service center in Lawrence.

Overland Park-based Waddell & Reed announced first quarter earnings of 30 cents per diluted share compared to 36 cents during the same period a year ago. The financial services company operates a sales office in Lawrence.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. posted a loss of 39 cents per share during the first quarter compared to a loss of 30 cents one year ago. The company operates a production facility in Topeka.