Cisco earnings up 27 percent
San Francisco – Cisco Systems Inc., the world’s largest networking equipment maker, said Wednesday its first-quarter earnings jumped 27 percent over last year on higher sales of the gear that connects computers to the Internet.
Net income for the quarter ended Oct. 28 was $1.61 billion, or 26 cents per share, compared with $1.26 billion, or 20 cents per share, in the same period last year.
Quarterly sales for the San Jose-based company were $8.18 billion, compared with $6.55 billion last year.
Excluding one-time charges, the company would have earned $1.9 billion, or 31 cents per share.
The company was expected to earn, on average, 29 cents per share on $7.9 billion in revenue, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Two businessmen submit bid for Tribune Co.
Los Angeles – Billionaire businessman Eli Broad and supermarket magnate Ron Burkle have teamed up to submit a bid for the Tribune Co., The Associated Press has learned.
Details of the offer by the companies controlled by the two businessmen were not disclosed.
A person familiar with the offer, who was not authorized to publicly discuss it, confirmed Wednesday the bid had been submitted.
Broad and Burkle had been expected to bid for the Los Angeles Times, the Tribune’s largest property. The joint bid for the entire company came as a surprise.
Broad declined to comment on the report. A call to Burkle’s office was not immediately returned.
The bid came a day after Chicago-based Tribune Co. replaced Dean Baquet as editor of the Los Angeles Times because he refused to make mandated cost cuts at the paper.
Broad and Burkle have long said they would be interested in returning the Times to local ownership.
Scientology groups to pay back $3.5 million from Slatkin scheme
Los Angeles – Three groups affiliated with the Church of Scientology have agreed to return $3.5 million they received from a pyramid scheme operated by Reed Slatkin, the disgraced co-founder of EarthLink Inc.
The move is part of an effort by a federal bankruptcy court to recover funds for investors bilked by Slatkin, who used money from new investors to pay off earlier investors. The settlement with the Scientology groups was approved Tuesday by the bankruptcy judge.
The scam, which did not involve EarthLink, raised nearly $600 million, and ultimately swindled investors out of about $240 million.
Slatkin, who pleaded guilty to fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, is serving a 14-year prison sentence.
Slatkin, who was once an ordained Scientology minister, paid $1.7 million from his scheme directly to Scientology groups, while millions of dollars more were funneled through other investors to groups affiliated with the church, bankruptcy trustee R. Todd Neilson said in court filings.
