Planet Business

Other business news in brief

THE NUMBERS

$30 billion- Sum that the US government is pouring into General Motors, on top of an earlier loan of $20 billion, after the Detroit-based industrial giant became the world's largest bankruptcy.

€1.5 billion- Bridging loan from German government to Opel, part of GM's Europe division, to give it temporary control of the carmaker before the Canadians take it over.

£2 billion- Revenues secured by the Premier League in its 2007-2008 season, up 26 per cent on the previous year, according to a new report from Deloitte.

£1 billion- Salary costs in the Premier League for the same season

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"While hearts and minds may be a bit better, we haven't seen that in terms of chequebooks."- Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the world's largest advertising company WPP, tells its Dublin agm that its clients remain reluctant to sign on the dotted line.

"Business class is now officially dead."- But our upgrade fantasies are not, Michael O'Leary.

GOOD WEEK

Microsoft

Bing! Microsoft has named its new internet search service, settling on Bing to replace the all-too-anaemic Live Search. The word, which Microsoft's Steven Ballmer said he hoped would "verb up", is meant to conjure up the sound of a bell ringing to signal that "a-ha" moment when a search gives you the answer you want. (Wouldn't that be Ping!?) While the inevitable "Bada Bing" headlines probably didn't do any harm, the tech blog gossip immediately alighted on an unfortunate acronym: "But It's Not Google."

Aon

Aon is the new AIG, which is not to say that it's about to issue massive writedowns, put its hand out for a government bailout and then get embroiled in an excruciating executive bonus scandal. Instead, it has decided to become the new shirt sponsor for Manchester United, replacing AIG, which could no longer afford its £20 million arrangement. Aon will be emblazoned across United shirts from 2010-2011 in a deal estimated by the Financial Times to be worth a possible £25 million a year to the club.

BAD WEEK

Kevin Howard

It's only been eight years, but with layers upon layers of corporate shenanigans emerging since then, it seems like decades since the creative accounting scandal at Enron. Now the fiasco has secured another guilty plea - from the former chief financial officer of its broadband unit. Rather than face a third trial, Kevin Howard pleaded guilty to one count of falsifying books and records and could be sentenced to up to a year of "home confinement", aka house arrest.

Waiting staff

A court in California may have set a dangerous precedent for food service staff whose jobs are annoyingly "customer facing" after it overturned an earlier order that coffee giant Starbucks must repay its barista the tips that it pooled with supervisors.

The appeals court ruled that the lovely people who pour our delightfully foamy cappuccinos "essentially perform the same job" as senior staff who are obliged to lurk in the backrooms. This is the first court in the US to rule that employers can operate tip pools in this way.