Professional Business Network

We only have a few hours left before the much reviled “death” tax disappears, to be replaced by a complicated and confusing carryover basis regime. So, if your estate is over $3.5 million, the tax impact may be less if you die tomorrow rather than today.  Don’t count on certain tax savings, however, as Congress could very well reinstate the estate tax retroactively to January 1, 2010.  And if you wait until 2011 to die, your estate could be taxed even more, as the estate tax will return then, with a $1 million exemption and a 55% rate.

My advice – don’t die, but see your estate attorney right away!  Failure to plan for all these changing laws could end up being very costly.

MILAN (Reuters) – Italian confectioner Ferrero has met with private equity firms as well as Hershey Co to discuss a possible bid for Britain’s Cadbury Plc, Il Sole 24 Ore daily reported on Saturday.

Deals

The coming weeks will determine whether the family-held company will make an offer for the British confectionery maker rivaling a hostile 10 billion pound ($15.9 billion) bid from U.S. food group Kraft Foods Inc, the newspaper said.

Ferrero has met in recent weeks with private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Blackstone Group LP to discuss Cadbury, Il Sole 24 Ore said, citing financial sources.

Ferrero also has talked over an offer in recent weeks with Hershey, with the goal an alliance that could offset Kraft’s bid, the paper said.

A Ferrero spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

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Penn National Gaming Inc. (Nasdaq: PENN) said it has completed the purchase of a 44-acre parcel on Miami Street in Toledo that was expressly authorized as a site for casino gaming under the Issue 3 constitutional ballot initiative approved by Ohio voters on Nov. 3.

“Closing on the property moves us a major step closer to making Hollywood Casino Toledo a reality,” Eric Schippers, senior vice president of Penn National, said in a statement.

The Miami Street site was purchased by Toledo Gaming Ventures Inc., an Ohio corporation established by Penn National, from River Road Development, which acquired the property in 2006. River Road used a Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund grant and a matching grant from the city of Toledo to perform environmental remediation on the site. In Read Full Post…

Some financial advisors are warning against a Rush to Roth.  The key to is to approach the idea cautiously and do a comprehensive analysis.  Whether a Roth conversion makes sense is a highly individual decision, to be made in consultation with your advisors.

I did a Roth conversion the last time the IRS allowed us to pay the taxes over a couple of years, which was about 10 years ago. T

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The passage of the legislation, backed by a 33-30 margin by members of Parliament, boosts Iceland’s hopes of swift entry to the European Union and of getting its shattered economy back on track.

“Approving the Bill is the better option and will avoid even more economic damage,” Steingrimur Sigfusson, finance minister and leader of the Left-Green party, said during the debate.

“History will show that we are doing the right thing.”

The global financial crisis devastated Iceland’s economy, bringing down its top banks and plunging the country into recession.

Iceland was forced to go lenders, headed by the International Monetary Fund, for a $10-billion aid package.

But the dispute with Britain and The Netherlands has held up some funds, made it difficult for the country to relax exchange controls — put in place at the height of the crisis — and clouded Iceland’s bid to join the EU.

In August, Reykjavik struck an initial deal to reimburse the two EU nations for bailing out investors who lost money held in high-interest online savings accounts when Iceland’s financial system cracked under the pressure of the global credit crunch.

But Britain and The Netherlands balked at changes to the so-called “Icesave Bill” introduced by the Icelandic Parliament that would have meant the government’s repayment guarantee running out in 2024.

Iceland’s coalition government has struggled to push the new Bill — which extends the payment guarantee — through Parliament.

The deal is deeply unpopular with the Icelandic population and there is widespread resentment that taxpayers are being left to foot the bill for mistakes made by financial firms operating under the watch of other national regulators. Read Full Post…

If ever there was a year good to see the back of, it’s 2009. And it’s ended just how it started: badly. Unlike many other countries our economy has yet to emerge from recession, while government borrowing has hit £178 billion and unemployment reached a 13-year high. But at least we’ve had Alan Sugar as business tsar to provide some soothing advice along the way to those ‘moaning’ SMEs.

This mood of despondency has been reflected in our latest poll where 69 per cent of small businesses say Christmas trading has been the same or worse compared to last year. Nothing has improved, it seems.

But in the words of the late Ian Dury, there are reasons to be cheerful. Economically, we’re no longer plummeting into the abyss, with the latest revision of GDP figures showing a contraction of 0.2 per cent between July and September (an improvement on original estimates), making an emergence from recession seem very likely for the fourth quarter. And while ma

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Specialty chemicals company OM Group Inc. (NYSE: OMG) of Cleveland said it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase buy EaglePicher Technologies LLC, a maker of batteries for the defense, aerospace and medical industries, for $171.9 million.

The deal is expected to close by the middle of the first quarter of 2010, according to an OM Group news release. It will be funded by OM Group’s existing cash and credit facility.

Joplin, Mo.-based EaglePicher Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of EaglePicher Corp., which is based in Dearborn, Mich.

OM Group said in a news release that in addition to its traditional battery manufacturing, EaglePicher Technologies is “actively pursuing opportunities that would leverage its advanced power storage technologies to serve the rapidly growing alternative energy market.”

In fiscal year 2009, EaglePicher Technologies recorded revenues of approximately $125 million, of which about 60% came from its defense business.

“The proposed acquisition of EaglePicher is a logical extension of our portable power platform and is another excellent example of the type of acquisition we seek to transform our business model,” said Joseph M. Sca Read Full Post…