BNET Dispatch: March 6, 2007

It appears that Citigroup HR managers may be in for a headache, as they soon may have to deal with sending fleets of expatriates to Japan.  Today, the company announced a $10.8 billion takeover bid for Nikko Cordial, the struggling third-largest Japanese brokerage house.  The move signals Citigroup’s strategic commitment to the Japanese market and, if successful, would be the largest-ever foreign takeover of a Japanese firm.

Worker productivity gains are down and the cost of labor is up, according to revised data from the Labor Department.  An article from the Economist points out, however, that productivity gains are nonetheless positive while “real wages have only just begun to grow again after five years of stagnation.”

BP halved the bonus for outbound chief executive, John Browne.  In explaining the cut, BP’s compensation committee highlighted the importance of looking at factors other than bottom-line performance when determining executive compensation.  The committee referred specifically to the “broader qualitative factors” of embarassing operational glitches and employee safety lapses.

Microsoft attacked Google over its “cavalier” approach to copyright law, claiming that the company makes billions “solely on the back of other people’s content.”  Google CEO Eric Schmidt responded by saying that the dispute lies in the perceived value of copyrighted material: “The value is determined by whether people view it [the content], and in our world, value is measurable […]. People say: my product is worth X, and Google says: prove it.”