IN BRIEF
Banks freeze home equity credit lines
Countrywide Financial Corp. has frozen home equity credit lines for almost all its Las Vegas customers, joining Bank of America Corp., Washington Mutual and IndyMac Bancorp. Together the four lenders have frozen about 600,000 equity credit lines nationwide since January, said Michael Kratzer, president of a Bankrate-owned Web site.
Home equity lines are a form of revolving debt backed by the borrower's stake in a house they own. Lenders are curtailing access to such credit in cities where property values are falling.
Separately, U.S. home values dropped 7.7 percent in the first quarter to the lowest in almost three years, estimates by Zillow.com, an online data provider, show.
WASHINGTON
Kerkorian snaps up shares of Ford Motor
Buying up small blocks of stock, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian quietly accumulated millions of shares of Ford Motor Co. in a series of purchases in April that left the automaker "completely unaware" of his involvement until later in the month.
Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. on Friday launched his previously announced $170 million cash offer to buy an additional 20 million shares of Ford as new details emerged about how he bought about a 4.7 percent ownership stake without notice.
In a government filing, Tracinda outlined an April 4 meeting between Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair and Jerry York, a top Kerkorian adviser.
NEW YORK
Citigroup chief will keep banking model
Citigroup's new chief executive, Vikram Pandit, plans to stick with a global banking model after months of intense review -- but only after shrinking the company by about one-fifth first.
The three-year game plan, revealed Friday, includes getting rid of more businesses, mortgages, real estate operations and jobs.
The bank aims to shed between $400 billion and $500 billion of its $2.2 trillion in assets and grow revenue by 9 percent over the next few years as it tries to rebound from massive losses tied to deterioration in the credit markets.
BILOXI, Miss.
Governor will ask to limit growth of casinos
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says he'll ask his state Legislature to limit casinos to counties where they are already located.
Barbour's comments came Thursday in a speech at the Southern Gaming Summit in Biloxi.
Barbour says he will present the casino moratorium issue to lawmakers in an upcoming special session. A similar bill failed in the 2008 regular session that ended in April.
Barbour says he may ask lawmakers to reconsider a casino tax incentive, a proposal that also failed in the regular session, but only if it has the votes to pass.
SAN JOSE, Calif.
EBay studies requiring use of PayPal service
EBay is exploring whether to require customers to use its online payment service PayPal, a move that has angered users and prompted antitrust scrutiny in Australia, where a PayPal-only rule takes effect next month.
After repeated queries, the online auction company said late Friday it will not institute such a rule in the United States. But it remains unclear whether eBay will still try it in other countries. EBay often tests big changes in smaller markets before expanding them worldwide, and says it is open to that in this case.
"We are going to take learnings from it and apply them accordingly," said eBay spokesman Usher Lieberman.
EBay says it wants to reduce disputes and restore trust in its marketplace with the PayPal-only plan. Because eBay and PayPal can share information on each transaction, eBay says use of PayPal allows it to stop fraud more efficiently.
WASHINGTON
Yahoo-Google ad deal facing opposition
An online advertising partnership between Yahoo and Google is facing opposition from consumer and civic groups that didn't wait for an official deal announcement to voice their discontent.
Top Google executives said Thursday they are interested in a partnership with their closest rival. However, they did not say how close they were to reaching an agreement.
A coalition of 16 civil rights and rural advocacy groups on Friday urged federal regulators to investigate the potential combination.
Circuit City opens books to Blockbuster
Circuit City Stores, pressured by investor Mark Wattles to raise its stock price, put itself up for sale and opened its books to Blockbuster and billionaire Carl Icahn to prepare for a possible offer.
The second-largest U.S. electronics retailer rose 5.8 percent in New York trading.
Blockbuster made an unsolicited bid of $6 to $8 a share for Circuit City in February, provided it could study the retailer's books. That would value Circuit City at $1.35 billion, more than 50 percent higher than its market capitalization now. Icahn said Friday he'd buy the company should Blockbuster fail to get financing.
NEW YORK
Treasury prices for note, long bond rise
Treasury prices rose Friday.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 0.09 points to 100.88 and its yield fell to 3.77 percent from 3.78 percent late Thursday, according to BGCantor Market Data. Bond prices move in the opposite direction of yields.
The 30-year long bond rose 0.31 points to 97.50 and yielded 4.53 percent, down from 4.54 percent late Thursday.
