Biggest Dividend

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2 (Bernama) -- Felcra Bhd on Thursday announced dividends amounting over RM107million to 80,350 participants as first interim payment to mark Aidilfitri.

Burger King agreed to be bought by investment firm 3G Capital for $3.26 billion. The deal represents a 46 percent premium to Burger King’s share price before news of the deal talks emerged on Wednesday. *View article *View WSJ article on how tasty a Burger King deal is

Hewlett-Packard raised its offer by $3 to $33 per share for 3Par. Shortly after, Dell announced it is bowing out of the bidding war for the data storage company. *View article

China is stepping up attempts to hamper BHP Billiton’s $39 billion hostile offer for Potash Corp, amid worries about future supplies of fertilizer it needs to rapidly boost food production. There is a report that China’s state-run Sinochem has hired HSBC to advise it on options and another which says China is considering launching an anti-monopoly investigation into the deal. *View article *View factbox on Potash supply and demand

Worldwide M&A volume last month was the largest in over a year. Get a snapshot of the deal activity in this PDF.

Live video of Thursday’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission testimony from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair.

DOWAGIAC -- Asa Kingsbury, founder of the First National Bank of Cassopolis, died years ago, but he's still paying dividends as far as Cass County's history. Just how much is the subject of a new exhibit at the Museum at Southwestern Michigan College.

Evaluating the sustainability of dividend payments.

ProLogis , a leading global provider of distribution facilities, announced today that its Board declared a dividend in the amount of $1.0675 per Cumulative Redeemable Series C preferred share, payable on September 30, 2010, to shareholders of record on September 15, 2010. Â Series C preferred share dividends are cumulative and payable quarterly at an annualized rate of $4.27 per share.

This simple secret can reveal a company's true generosity.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Boards of Trustees of AGIC Convertible & Income Fund (NYSE: NCV) and AGIC Convertible & Income Fund II (NYSE: NCZ) (collectively, the “Funds”) announced today that they have declared the following dividends on the Funds’ common shares: AGIC Convertible & Income Fund $0.09 per common share AGIC Convertible & Income Fund II $0.085 per common share The dividends will ...

It's easy to see why private equity firms might salivate at the prospect of another bite at Burger King. The fast-food chain has made a fortune for a trio of buyout barons who acquired the company in 2002 and flipped it onto public markets four years later. But Burger King won't be another LBO whopper.

Back then, nobody wanted Burger King. The business was in the hands of Diageo, the booze behemoth desperate to divest itself of any assets that couldn't be consumed at a cocktail party. Not only did it have to cut the price from $2.3 billion to $1.5 billion, it guaranteed all the buyout's debt at advantageous rates.

Diageo's backing allowed TPG, Bain and Goldman Sachs to buy Burger King with just a sliver of equity -- only 14 percent of the purchase price, or $210 million. Though they've since sold off chunks of their stake and harvested dividends from Burger King, they are still sitting on stock worth nearly four times the entire original investment.

Flash forward to the new and improved Burger King. With talk of a buyout spicing up the shares, plus about $1.8 billion of net debt, the company now sports an enterprise value of around $4.3 billion. That suggests a valuation of at least 9.5 times JPMorgan's 2011 estimate for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.

By contrast, the TPG-led crew paid just a little over five times Burger King's 2002 EBITDA, according to the prospectus for its 2006 initial public offering. Moreover, without the backing of a sugar daddy like Diageo behind the debt, a new owner would need to inject at least twice as much equity as TPG, Bain and Goldman did.

That makes the next bite of Burger King look gristly. Sure, further expansion abroad remains an option if the international success of McDonald's is anything to go by. And a revamped menu might help sales. But most of the costs have already been picked through and revenue growth from consumers eating cheap food in the weak economy has started to level off. Today's Burger King just isn't the value meal on which TPG, Bain and Goldman have already feasted.

This simple secret can reveal a company's true generosity.