The company that gave executive bonuses for safety after its Gulfof Mexico rig exploded a year ago, killing 11 and causing thelargest offshore spill in U.S. history, "just doesn't get it," thehead of a U.S. presidential commission investigating the spill saidMonday.
Transocean's executive bonuses underscore the commission'sfinding that lax standards caused the accident that dumped more than200 million gallons of oil into the gulf, William Reilly said.
Reilly and his co-chairman, former U.S. senator Bob Graham,joined Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar on Monday for talks withMexican officials on uniform regulations for drilling in the gulf.
Transocean gave bonuses for the "best year in safety performancein our company's history," according to a regulatory filing lastweek.
"What I've seen from various investigative reports is that theywere at least at some fault," Salazar said in a news conference,adding that 2010 "was probably the greatest year of pain in terms ofdevelopment of deep-water gas and oil in the world, especially inthe Gulf of Mexico."
Ihab Toma, Transocean's executive vice president, said some ofthe wording in the 2010 proxy statement "may have been insensitivein light of the incident that claimed the lives of 11 exceptionalmen."
"We deeply regret any pain that it may have caused," Toma said ina statement.
Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, agreed to sell itsCapsugel manufacturing unit to KKR for $2.38 billion in an effort tofocus on developing new medicines.
Capsugel, Pfizer's smallest unit, makes wholesale pill casingsand had $750 million in sales last year. Pfizer said it will useproceeds from the deal to expand a $5 billion share repurchase.
The sale may spur rivals to evaluate similar deals as genericcompetition erodes sales of top-selling medicines, said LesFuntleyder, a fund manager at Miller Tabak, which owns Pfizershares. Drugmakers face generics copies in the next five years toproducts with $141 billion in annual sales, according to healthresearch firm IMS Health.
The acquisition of Capsugel is KKR's second-largest deal in thepast year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In November, aKKR-led group agreed to buy Del Monte Foods Co. for $5.3 billionincluding debt.
Google offered $900 million in cash for the rights to NortelNetworks patents as the world's biggest Internet search companyseeks to stave off lawsuits by bolstering its portfolio ofintellectual property.
Nortel, a Canadian phone-equipment maker, filed for bankruptcyprotection in January 2009. The planned sale includes about 6,000patents and patent applications for wired, wireless and digitalcommunications technologies.
Meanwhile, Google co-founder Larry Page took over as its chiefexecutive, and Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice presidentof productmanagement, announced his resignation. Rosenberg oversaw the designand creation of all Google's products.
l A Toyota spokesman said it's inevitable that the company willhave to shut down its North American factories because of shortagesof parts from Japan. Spokesman Mike Goss says the shutdowns arelikely to take place later this month, affecting about 25,000workers. But he says no layoffs are expected.
l Texas Instruments is buying National Semiconductor for $6.5billion in a marriage of the world's premier makers of analog chips,which are widely used in electronics to transform signals such assound into digital form that computers can understand.
l Online radio service Pandora has received a subpoena from afederal grand jury investigating whether popular smartphoneapplications share information about their users with advertisersand other third parties.
l Low-cost carrier AirTran had the best overall performance ofthe 16 largest U.S. carriers last year in an annual study of airlinequality, knocking previous leader Hawaiian Airlines into secondplace. Regional carrier American Eagle ranked last in the study,which is based on Transportation Department data.
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