TELECOMMUNICATIONS

QWEST GIVES MCI NOON DEADLINE FOR $8.9B OFFER

Qwest Communications International Inc. said its $8.9 billion offer for MCI Inc. is its best and final offer, and gave MCI until noon today to publicly declare its latest offer superior to Verizon Communications Inc.’s accepted bid for MCI. Qwest, which is battling with Verizon to acquire MCI, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is increasing committed financing to $6.25 billion from $5.75 billion. The company said it is providing revised financing commitments to MCI’s advisers Tuesday, responding to the MCI board’s requests for additional liquidity at the combined Qwest-MCI. Qwest raised its takeover bid for MCI to $8.9 billion last week and had initially set a deadline of midnight last night for MCI’s board to accept the offer. MCI agreed earlier last week to be acquired by Verizon in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $7.5 billion.

– Dow Jones Newswires

ENTERTAINMENT

COURT OKAYS TRUMP COMPANY’S BANKRUPTCY REORGANIZATION

Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts won court approval yesterday to emerge from bankruptcy, breathing new life into Donald Trump’s cash-strapped casino empire. Four months after Mr. Trump’s company filed for Chapter 11, bankruptcy Judge Judith Wizmur signed off on the company’s reorganization, a bonds-for-equity swap under which the star of TV’s “The Apprentice” will surrender majority control but retain the titles of chairman and chief executive officer in the new company.

It will be called Trump Entertainment Resorts.

The company is to emerge from bankruptcy in about 30 days.

The approval came easily, thanks in part to a March 28 agreement in which Trump bought off dissident shareholders who were expected to turn the court confirmation process into a bitter, drawn-out affair.

Under the deal, Trump Hotels has agreed to pay $17.5 million to the 20,000 stockholders, and also have them share in proceeds from a land sale.

Altogether, holders of common stock are to get between $2 and $3 for each share they held, a big boost from the approximately half-cent per share contemplated under the original reorganization plan.

Under the reorganizations, the company will borrow $500 million to refurbish its tired Atlantic City casinos and perhaps make a play in Pennsylvania, which approved slot machines last year.

– Associated Press

NCAA TITLE GAME RATINGS ARE BEST SINCE 1999 IN LARGE MARKETS

The University of North Carolina’s victory over Illinois to win the college basketball national championship Monday night drew the best large-market television ratings since 1999 on Viacom’s CBS.

The broadcast of North Carolina’s 75-70 win in the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship game was watched in 16% of homes in the 56 largest American markets, according to Nielsen Media Research.

That’s 43% higher than the 11.2% that watched last year as Connecticut beat Georgia Tech 82-73.

The average big-city rating for the entire tournament was 7.3%, 14% better than last year and the highest since 1994.

Preliminary ratings measure about 70% of the 109.6 million American households with televisions.

CBS, which is the most-watched American network since the television season began in September, has shown the NCAA men’s tournament since 1982 and just completed the third year of an 11-year, $6 billion contract.

– Bloomberg News

INTERNATIONAL

ARMY TO PAY HALLIBURTON $1.18 BILLION, ENDING DISPUTE

Halliburton Company, the biggest U.S. military contractor in Iraq, will get $1.18 billion for feeding American troops in the country and in Kuwait under an agreement with the Army that ends a billing dispute.

The government will keep $55.1 million of about $200 million in payments that had been withheld from Houston-based Halliburton’s KBR unit while billing questions were resolved, the Army Field Support Command said in a statement yesterday.

The U.S. Defense Department last May suspended payment of $159.5 million to KBR for meals served at 64 Army dining halls, citing incomplete documentation for the meals that were billed. Separately, Army auditors have questioned at least $108 million in costs Halliburton claimed under a contract to rebuild Iraqi oil fields.

Quarterly reports showed that Halliburton earned about $72 million last year for KBR’s Iraq-related work before corporate costs and taxes. Chief Executive David Lesar said in September that Halliburton would seek to shed the unit to focus on its oilfield-services business, the world’s largest, which is benefiting from soaring energy demand.

– Bloomberg News