Harold Maass of The Week The Best of Today's Business

NEWS AT A GLANCE

AOL buys social networking site Bebo

Time Warner's AOL unit agreed to buy social networking site Bebo for $850 million, in a bid to expand its appeal to young Internet users and increase revenue from online advertising. "AOL was in danger of becoming your father's Oldsmobile," said TCW Group analyst Anthony Valencia. Bebo is the top social networking site in Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand, but a distant third in the U.S., behind MySpace and Facebook. (Los Angeles Times, free registration) Analysts said the deal makes a Yahoo!-AOL pairing less likely, as Yahoo! works to fend off a bid from Microsoft. (MarketWatch) Yahoo! reportedly met with Microsoft this week to discuss its offer, their first such meeting. (Reuters)

Russia's Evraz buys Canadian steel assets

Russian steelmaker Evraz agreed to pay $4 billion to buy IPSCO, the Canadian steel plate and pipe firm, from Sweden's SSAB Svenskt Staal. Evraz, part-owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich, is expanding its North American operations, after buying Oregon Steel Mills for $2.3 billion last year. The steelmaker also owns steelworks in Italy and the Czech Republic, and coal firms in Russia. (AP in Yahoo! Finance) Evraz shares rose 2.2 percent in London this morning. "This gives Evraz total dominance of the U.S. plate market," said Renaissance Capital analyst Robert Edwards. "In our experience, Evraz haven't done bad deals." (Bloomberg)

JP Morgan, Target talk credit cards

Discount retailer Target is in talks to sell a half-interest in its profitable credit-card operations to JP Morgan Chase for $4 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. Target announced its plans late Wednesday, without disclosing its intended partner. (Reuters) Investors greeted the news without much enthusiasm yesterday. "The only reason they proposed this was to satisfy shareholders," said Steven Jacowitz at Auriemma Consulting Group. "And obviously, shareholders don't love it." (Minneapolis Star Tribune) JP Morgan entered the branded credit card business a few years ago, buying portfolios from Circuit City and Kohls. (The Wall Street Journal, paid subscription required)

Collecting debt, with sympathy

Debt collectors aren't the most welcome of guests, especially during an economic downturn, but the industry is trying to put on a friendlier face. Debt collection is one of the fastest-growing U.S. fields, according to 2006 government figures, on track to employ half a million people by 2016. The move to spruce up its image -- calling targets "customers," say, and pushing personal finance -- is partly geared toward increasing collection success rates. It's also designed to avoid a government crackdown. Charm has its limits with debtors, though. "We're trying to take people's money from them," says Chicago collections lawyer Ira F. Leibsker. "Let's be honest." (The New York Times, free registration)

BEST COLUMNS OF THE DAY

Going for the gold

With gold topping $1,000 an ounce, investors are "looking for ways to join in the gold rush," says Ben Rooney in CNNMoney.com. But gold is "extremely sensitive to a number of economic factors," so speculators "looking to make a quick buck" have to "navigate volatile waters." For "novice gold bugs," buying actual gold is not a good idea -- taxes, transaction fees, and insurance can easily "erase your returns." Gold-backed exchange-traded funds can help you avoid some of those "pitfalls," but the "least risky way" to "get on the gold bandwagon" is to buy shares of mining companies. Mining firms are still "risky, to say the least," so don't go "overboard."

Paulson makes a down payment

"It must pain" Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to "push for more government regulation" of banks, says the Los Angeles Times in an editorial, but that is what "the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and credit crunch have forced him to do." A group headed by Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, proposed modestly tougher oversight for "lenders and their facilitators," but without the "crusader's gusto" called for. The changes should help borrowers and investors better assess future risks, but it is safest to "consider them a down payment on a fiscal house strong enough to withstand the next housing bubble's collapse."

GOOD DAY FOR: A summer vacation, as Chrysler said it will send almost all its 70,000 employees on a two-week furlough in July. Normally such shutdowns involve only hourly workers and manufacturing operations."As a private company, we all need to think like owners and do our part to accelerate Chrysler's recovery and transformation," said CEO Robert Nardelli. (The New York Times, free registration)

BAD DAY FOR: Family ties, after New York's highest court ruled that Elizabeth McNabb, an out-of-wedlock child of Jell-O heiress Barbara Woodward Piel, was not entitled to any of the family fortune. Piel put McNabb up for adoption and went on to get married and have two more children. A lower court had awarded McNabb a third of Piel's fortune. Piel died in 2003. (AP in BusinessWeek.com)

NOTED: Oil hit a new high of $111 a barrel yesterday, and gold traded above the psychologically significant level of $1,000 an ounce for the first time, as investors swapped weakening dollars for commodities. (MarketWatch) The high price of oil has started trickling down more, and drivers in Maui are facing an average price of $3.93 a gallon, with some places on the island charging $4.20. (AP in Yahoo! Finance)

This column was written by Peter Weber and edited by Harold Maass of TheWeekDaily.com.