BROADCASTING

CNN FINANCIAL NETWORK WILL BE PULLED OFF AIR

Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest media company, will shut down its CNNfn business-news cable channel in December, spokeswoman Alison Rudnick said.

Since it was founded in 1995, CNNfn has struggled to lure viewers away from other financial news channels including General Electric Co.’s CNBC, said Susan Nathan, a researcher at New York-based advertising firm Universal McCann.

“I don’t think it even comes close to CNBC,” she said. “I have never actually seen a measurable ratings number for it.”

Many CNNFn employees will take new jobs at CNN, Time Warner’s all-news cable channel, according to an e-mail sent to employees by the president of CNN News Group, Jim Walton. He wasn’t more specific. The e-mail didn’t specify whether employees would lose their jobs.

– Bloomberg News

INSURANCE

SPITZER SAYS CHARGES FOR MARSH ‘FAR HIGHER’ THAN $500M

The price for settling state charges of collusion and bid rigging by the nation’s largest insurance broker could be “far higher” than $500 million, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said yesterday.

Mr. Spitzer disputed the $500 million settlement figure reported yesterday by The Wall Street Journal as the minimum for any settlement of the attorney general’s lawsuit against Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. Since Mr. Spitzer announced the suit October 14, the company’s chief executive resigned and outside directors have scrambled to settle the case as its stock plummets.

“The number I saw in the paper is not one that I have heard,” Mr. Spitzer told the Associated Press after speaking to the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation in Manhattan. “There has been no discussion about a number. It is very premature.” A Marsh spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment yesterday.

– Associated Press

ENERGY

ROYAL DUTCH/SHELL SAYS IT SEEKS ‘BIG FINDS’

Royal Dutch/Shell Group, after uniting its parent companies and boards, must find the next generation of oil fields to rebuild reserves and gain investor trust, Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer said in an interview. “We are going for big finds,” he said in London. “We have already increased our exploration expenditure. It’s important to find new reserves so we can start additional production.” Shell, the third-largest publicly traded oil company, yesterday said it will drop its century-old dual ownership, responding to investor calls for change after writing off a fifth of its reserves in January. The announcement led to the departure of former chairman Phil Watts and two other senior executives. Shareholders filed more than a dozen lawsuits, and the company agreed to pay about $150 million in fines to regulators. The combination of Royal Dutch and Shell “is a first step, but the company isn’t where it should be by a long shot,” said Wouter de Ridder, who is part of a team at Kempen Capital Management in Amsterdam that oversees about $6.7 billion, including Royal Dutch and Shell Transport & Trading shares. “Step two is to improve operations.”

– Bloomberg News

ENRON TRIAL JURY BEGINS DELIBERATIONS

Jurors began deliberations in the trial of six former Enron Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co. executives accused of fraud and conspiracy in the 1999 sale of three energy-generating barges off Nigeria.

In closing arguments today, a lawyer for former Merrill executive James Brown said his client was wrongly caught up in a financial “snake pit” at Enron after the bank paid $7 million for stake in the barges. Mr. Brown, a former strategic financial group chief at Merrill, didn’t know that Enron sold Merrill the barges in 1999 as part of a plan to fraudulently book a $12 million profit, defense lawyer Lawrence Zweifach said.

“There is a world of difference between the image Enron presented to the world and the dark reality,” Mr. Zweifach told the jury yesterday in Houston federal court. “Enron was nothing more than a snake pit.”

Mr. Zweifach’s statement, coming at the end of a six-week trial, mirrored efforts by three other Merrill defendants to distance themselves from two former Enron employees also on trial.

– Bloomberg News

INTERNET

E-MAIL PROVIDERS SUE SPAMMERS

Time Warner Inc.’s America Online unit, Microsoft Corp., EarthLink Inc., and Yahoo! Inc. – the four largest American Internet mail providers – sued dozens of junk e-mail senders in a second wave of lawsuits under a new U.S. law designed to curb spam. The six lawsuits filed in California, Georgia, and Washington state target senders of unwanted commercial email peddling pornography, prescription pills, cheap mortgages, and other products, the companies said in statements. It’s the second round of complaints over junk e-mail filed by the Anti-Spam Alliance, founded in April 2003 and led mainly by the four companies.

– Bloomberg News

RECREATION

CALIFORNIA SKI RESORT OPENS FOR FIRST TIME IN OCTOBER

California’s Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games, will open its Lake Tahoe resort to skiers in October for the first time ever after getting more than 5 feet of snow in the past two weeks. Three feet of snow fell on the 55-year-old resort last week and another 2 feet this week, building a base of as much as 30 inches. Alpine Meadows, the resort next to Squaw, has gotten 48 inches of snow this month. “Skiers were foaming at the mouth,” Ms. Dahl said.

– Bloomberg News

AIRLINES

DELTA AIR LINES MAY AVERT BANKRUPTCY

Delta Air Lines Inc., the third largest American carrier, may avert a bankruptcy filing after winning $1 billion in wage, pension, and other concessions from its pilots union. Its shares surged as much as 27%. The union’s top council approved the tentative contract and gave members until November 11 to vote, the union said in a message. The proposal cuts pilots’ pay 32.5%, freezes the defined benefit pension, and replaces it with a defined contribution plan. Pilots will get stock options for 15% of the company. Delta’s Air Line Pilots Association and the company reached the agreement Wednesday night. The airline sought pay cuts to avoid a bankruptcy court filing as high fuel costs and price competition widened losses. Chief Executive Gerald Grinstein said in a statement that bankruptcy “remains a possibility” as the company seeks to arrange new financing and delay debt payments.

– Bloomberg News

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES MAY BEGIN ASSIGNING SEATS

Southwest Airlines Co., the largest American low-cost carrier, may assign passengers to seats for the first time because the company thinks it can make the change without adding to the time planes spend at airport gates. The carrier probably won’t make a decision for at least a year, President Colleen Barrett told reporters at a meeting in Dallas. Southwest long has been known for not assigning seats, which cuts the time required to board passengers. Some travelers consider the open seating an inconvenience. A study within the last year showed the Dallas-based airline that ticketing-data technology it’s developing may increase efficiency enough to consider assigning seats, Ms. Barrett said. Southwest tries to limit how long a plane sits at a gate between flights to 20 minutes and won’t change the policy if the so-called turn time would increase, she said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see if we begin to assign seats once the technological problems are solved,” Ms. Barrett said.

– Bloomberg News