BNET Daily Dispatch: Barclays, Foot Locker, Icahn, and Salary Gap
- ABN Amro of Denmark and Barclays of Britain announced today that they would merge in one of Europe's biggest banking deals ever. The merger is valued at more than $90 billion. In a separate deal, ABN Amro and Barclays agreed to sell LaSalle Bank, a unit of ABN, to Bank of America for $21 billion.
- Clothing retailer Genesco said today that its board rejected Foot Locker's unsolicited $1.2 billion buyout offer. Genesco CEO Hal Pennington said the bid was not in the best interest of its shareholders. Genesco owns Johnston & Murphy, Hatworld, Lids, and Journeys stores.
- Carl Icahn agreed to sell his Nevada gaming operations to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s real estate funds for $1.3 billion. Icahn's American Real Estate Partners will see a gain of $1 billion from the deal. Icahn is selling after a year in which the Strip had record $6.69 billion in sales, an increase of 11 percent from 2005, and as casino companies are expanding in Las Vegas.
- Women earn only 80 percent of what their male peers do one year after college, according to a new study released today. Ten years after college, women earn only 69 percent of what men do. The study, by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, said that the gap is "likely due to sex discrimination."