Business News

(Reuters) - While Wall Street slashes pay and freezes cash awards, Goldman Sachs Group's top five executives may reap special bonuses of $10.5 million apiece if the firm hits historically easy profit targets over the next two years.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A series of technology companies, including security software maker Palo Alto Networks, are preparing to go public on the heels of Facebook's $5-billion filing, sensing a window of opportunity as the stock market rallies.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and more than a half dozen other major banks are being hit with a new lawsuit over $949 million in residential mortgage-backed securities.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. home resales surged in January to a 1-1/2 year high and the supply of properties on the market was the lowest in almost seven years, pointing to a nascent housing recovery.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Fitch cut Greece's long-term ratings on Wednesday to its lowest rating above a default, becoming the first ratings agency to make the widely expected downgrade after the country announced a bond exchange plan to ease its massive debt burden.

(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc and UBS AG , in a series of disclosures to law-enforcement officials, have provided crucial information to investigators in multiple countries as part of inquiries into whether the world's biggest banks manipulated a global benchmark interest rate, according to people familiar the situation.

BERNE (Reuters) - Switzerland announced plans on Wednesday to force banks to do more to make sure foreign clients' money is taxed in an attempt to shake off its past as a haven for untaxed funds as it seeks to put an end to a damaging U.S. tax probe.

LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc has made an agreed 992.4 million pounds ($1.6 billion) bid for Mozambique-focused Cove Energy , offering a full price to open up a new gas frontier for the Anglo-Dutch oil major in East Africa.

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro zone economy is in danger of tipping into recession, with the services sector shrinking this month along with manufacturing, tempering a wave of optimism after a new bailout deal for Greece struck this week.

ZURICH (Reuters) - UBS plans to sell more loss-absorbing bonds to meet tougher bank capital rules after the Swiss bank tested investor appetite for these new instruments with an initial $2 billion deal last week.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Applications for U.S. home mortgages tumbled last week as demand for loan refinancing sagged, an industry group said on Wednesday.

(Reuters) - Some public agencies that rely on the municipal bond market for financing fear that a landmark financial reform rule will cripple their ability to sell bonds and make it more expensive to raise money for crucial services.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - When it takes six hours to draft a single sentence in a 100-page document, you know things are moving slowly.

PARIS (Reuters) - General Motors and PSA Peugeot Citroen are discussing a broad manufacturing alliance designed to stem losses in Europe and lower production costs elsewhere, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Olympus Corp's main lender Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC) denied it was trying to take control of the firm's board by stealth, but said it might well agree to send a former banker to be chairman of the disgraced camera and medical device maker.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Mazda Motor Corp is looking to raise up to $2 billion in a bigger-than-expected public share offering, a regulatory filing showed on Wednesday, which would cause a massive 69 percent dilution of its existing shares.

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co is pouring $3.8 billion into its global pension plan this year and will invest its plan assets more heavily in bonds, as the second-largest U.S. automaker moves more aggressively to minimize its pension risks in a shaky market.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Europe's debt crisis will dominate talks between Group of 20 (G20) policymakers this weekend as the rest of the world looks for pledges that the euro zone will boost its crisis safety net.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A government watchdog on Wednesday said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulator needs to curtail the rising cost of their legal expenses since there is no end in sight to the widening taxpayer tab keeping the two firms afloat.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended little changed on Tuesday, paring gains after the Dow topped 13,000 for the first time since May 2008, and as higher oil prices damped prospects for the economy.