Top of the Morning – Warren Buffett Says Tax the Rich

JP Morgan Profit Falls 4% (NYTimes)

JPMorgan Chase kicked off the banking industry’s earnings season, reporting on Thursday that profit fell 4 percent in the third quarter as a result of lingering mortgage troubles and weak investment banking results.

AOL CEO Pushing for Deal with Yahoo (Reuters)

AOL Inc CEO Tim Armstrong has been meeting with top shareholders in the past couple of weeks to push the idea of a sale to Yahoo Inc that could wring up to $1.5 billion of cost savings, according to sources with knowledge of the discussions.

Pratt Buys Rolls-Royce Out of Joint Venture with Airbus (FT)

Pratt & Whitney, a division of the United Technologies conglomerate, said on Wednesday night that it would pay $1.5bn to buy Rolls-Royce, the British aerospace company, out of their joint venture that builds aircraft engines for Airbus.

Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett Advocates Tax-the-Rich (WSJ)

Warren Buffett is one tax-efficient billionaire. According to a letter Mr. Buffett sent to a Republican congressman on Tuesday, the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman and chief executive disclosed that he earned almost $63 million last year, yet paid less than $7 million in federal income tax.

Devon Energy Faces $6.5 Billion US Tax Bill (FT)

Devon Energy will have to pay US corporation tax on the $6.5bn cash it holds outside the US if it repatriates it, the energy company’s chief executive has said. It amassed the money last year when it withdrew from deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the oil and gas industry outside the US and Canada to concentrate on onshore oil and gas development in North America.

BP, Transocean and Halliburton Charged Over Oil Spill (FT)

BP, Transocean and Halliburton, the three companies at the heart of the Deepwater Horizon disaster last year, have been formally charged by the US government with breaches of offshore regulations, in a move that could lead to the first official penalties arising from the accident, the FT says.

Blackberry Struggles to Increase Service Levels (FT)

Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, on Thursday said it was seeing a “significant increase in service levels” after three days of severe disruptions that had spread to 30m-40m people or half of all BlackBerry subscribers worldwide.

Samsung Barred From Selling New Tablet in Australia (FT)

Apple has won an important legal battle in a Sydney court to block rival Samsung Electronics from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia ahead of the crucial Christmas shopping season.

Carrefour Lowers Profit Target a Second Time (WSJ)

French retail giant Groupe Carrefour SA on Thursday cut its full-year profit target for a second time in a few months, battered by see-sawing on its core strategy and increasing worries about consumer spending.