Dealmaking was moderate on Wednesday with talks about potential or nixed deals overshadowing any actual transactions, pushing markets into the red. Overall, the Dow finished down 142.25, or 1.68%, to 8,331.24, while the Nasdaq decreased 19.35, or 1.11%, to 1,731.08.
General Motor Corp.'s (NYSE:GM) bondholders weren't able to reach a deal with the automaker under its debt exchange offer, which came in under the 90% threshold required by the U.S. Treasury to satisfy GM's debt
reduction requirements. The exchange offer expired at midnight on Tuesday. The Detroit automaker has a June 1 deadline set by the U.S. government to restructure or begin the process of bankruptcy. Shares of GM closed down 29 cents, or 20.14%, to $1.15.
Meanwhile, shares of Internet company Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) fell 34 cents, or 2.23%, to $14.94 as CEO Carol Bartz said she would be open to divest the company's search unit to Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) if the right price were offered. "If there's boatloads of money and the right technology involved, would we do a deal? Sure, it's that simple," Bartz said at a conference in Carlsbad, Calif. Microsoft finished down 21 cents, or 1.03%, to $20.13 a share.
Meanwhile, PNC Financial Services (NYSE:PNC) reported it raised more than $600 million through an at-the-market offering of 15 million shares over a two-week period. The offering was a U.S. government requirement after its stress tests found PNC had insufficient capital to weather a possible worsening economy. The new cash is intended to help the company's balance sheet in case market conditions should worsen. - Gerald Magpily
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