Trump Suing For GM Building

Forbes.com is reporting that Real-estate mogul and '80s icon Donald Trump is suing Conseco , charging the firm broke an agreement to sell him its half stake in the General Motors Building in bustling midtown Manhattan. The Trump Organization seeks damages of over $500 million, and punitive damages of another $500 million in the suit, filed in New York's Supreme Court. Trump and Conseco bought the GM Building, a full-block, 50-story monolith opposite the opulent Plaza Hotel in July 1998. Last summer, Trump--who ranks No. 292 on the Forbes World's Richest People list--agreed to buy Conseco's 50% stake in the edifice for about $295 million. The insurer says the deal fell through when Trump, who is also chief executive of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts , could not get financing for the deal, originally scheduled to close Sept. 15. "Seeking to take unfair advantage of the Sept. 11 tragedy and believing that its interest in the General Motors Building became more valuable as a result of the loss of 20 million square feet of space...Conseco wrongfully refused to extend the closing date beyond Sept. 15 unless it received significant additional financial benefits," the miffed Donald charged in the lawsuit. More...

British satellite TV operator BSkyB said it was taking a 985 million pound ($1.39 billion) hit to write down its stake in Deutschland's troubled KirchPayTV, pushing it into a huge loss. Kirch's cash crisis has led to speculation it may have to sell off key assets to stay afloat--a notion that fans further rumors that BSkyB's ever-acquisitive Chairman Rupert Murdoch may try to take over some assets. BSkyB bought a 22% stake in KirchPayTV in December 1999 but warned last year it was unhappy with the way the company was being run and would likely exercise its option to sell its stake back to Kirch in October this year. The U.K.'s No. 1 pay-TV purveyor, which is 36%-owned by Murdoch's News Corp. , said net digital subscribers rose to 5.716 million at the end of December, a net gain of 218,000 in the quarter. Analysts were forecasting an addition of 214,000. The Aussie ranked No. 39 on the Forbes World's Richest People list for 2001, and with the additional success of Fox Entertainment , he's not likely to drop off anytime soon. More...

Former General Electric Chairman Jack Welch told Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Carly Fiorina that he sees the potential for "chaos" surrounding HP's plan to acquire Compaq . Welch said in a television interview with Fiorina that support for the deal among HP's competitors helped explain why European regulators had given the go-ahead to HP's proposed deal, while rejecting GE's bid under Welch to buy Honeywell. "Your competitors want this deal to go through. It will create chaos. They will clean both your clocks while you're doing all this. That's the one argument that rang a bell with me," Welch said, echoing an objection raised by the deal's main opponent. More...

Trader-turned-criminal Nick Leeson feels "an eerie sense of deja vu." Leeson, who lay waste to Barings Bank in the early 1990s, ripped the industry for failing to learn from his transgression and prevent the new scandal at Ireland's biggest bank. Allied Irish said American dealer John Rusnak tried to disguise huge foreign exchange losses at its Baltimore unit with fictitious trades, defrauding the firm of some $750 million. Leeson, sentenced to six and a half years for fraud against Britain's oldest merchant bank--his crimes led to losses of $1.4 billion--said the loopholes for abuse remained wide open: "I find it exceptionally frightening because I know how basic the checks were that should have been done to catch me...If they haven't been put in place, I think that is shocking. It is not a great advertisement either for the bank or the banking industry as a whole." More...