(Reuters) – A Sony-led group is set to win approval from European antitrust regulators for its $2.2 billion purchase of EMI’s music publishing business, the Financial Times said, citing people involved in the negotiations.

Clearance from the EU Commission, the executive body which acts as the competition regulator for the 27-country European Union, would help Sony avoid the possibility of a longer review of the deal’s antitrust implications, the newspaper said.

Sony had earlier offered concessions to the EU in a bid to gain approval for the planned acquisition that would see it become the biggest player in the sector.

Sony will sell EMI Music Publishing catalogues that generate about 25 million euros ($33 million) in annual revenue from songwriters such as Ozzy Osbourne, Culture Club and Tears for Fears, the Financial Times said.

A Commission spokesperson declined to comment to the Financial Times.

A European Commission press officer had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.

($1 = 0.7621 euros)

(Reporting by Ranjita Ganesan; Editing by Mark Potter)

(Reuters) – Apple Inc wants to go to trial to defend itself against U.S. government allegations that it conspired with publishers to raise prices of electronic books, a lawyer for the Silicon Valley giant said in court on Wednesday.

Two publishers took a similar stance in the first hearing in Manhattan federal court since the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice last week accused Apple and five publishers of colluding to break up Amazon.com’s low-cost dominance of the digital book market.

The publishers are Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, and Pearson Plc’s Penguin Group.

“Our basic view is that we would like the case to be decided on the merits,” Apple lawyer, Daniel Floyd, told U.S. District Judge Denise Cote. “We believe that this is not an appropriate case against us and we would like to validate that.”

The judge scheduled the next hearing for June 22.

The court also heard that 15 U.S. states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico were in settlement talks with the three publishers. If all 50 states were ultimately to settle, it would have an impact on a separate class action brought by consumers, a HarperCollins lawyer, Shepard Goldfein, told the judge.

“There could be something left of the class, or nothing left of the class,” Goldfein said.

The government said the price-fixing took place in early 2010 as Apple was introducing its iPad.

E-book prices went up an average of $2 to $3 in a three-day period in early 2010, according to the complaint.

The settlement with three publishers will allow Amazon to resume discounting books, and will terminate the “most favored nation” contracts with Apple.

News Corp owns HarperCollins Publishers Inc, CBS Corp owns Simon & Schuster Inc and Hachette Book Group is a subsidiary of Lagardere SCA.

Hachette and HarperCollins also settled with a group of U.S. states, agreeing to pay $51 million in restitution to consumers who bought e-books. Simon & Schuster is in negotiations with the states to join that settlement, a lawyer for the company said in court on Wednesday.

The European Commission is also probing Apple and publishers in a similar antitrust probe. It said on Wednesday that it had received settlement proposals from Apple and four publishers – Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Hachette Livre and Macmillan’s parent.

The case is USA v Apple Inc et al in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-2826 and No. 11-md-02293.

(Additional reporting By Diane Bartz; Editing by David Gregorio)

(Reuters) – France and Spain sold all the bonds they wanted at auction on Thursday, though for Spain the cost was rising yields, indicating growing concerns the government will not be able to tame its deficit.

After a brief respite fuelled by a trillion euros of cash the European Central Bank (ECB) lent Europe’s banks in December and February, markets are becoming nervous again about euro zone debt loads, with fears that Spain might follow Greece, Ireland and Portugal in needing a bailout from international lenders.

That has put pressure on bond yields in the region, notably for Spain and Italy.

The Spanish treasury said it sold 2.5 billion euros ($3.3 billion) of two bonds, taking its issuance to half its gross target for the year.

It received bids for 3.3 times the offer on the shorter of the two bonds, and 2.4 times the longer, both up on previous auctions, suggesting Spanish banks were making the most of the ECB’s bounty.

France shifted 7.97 billion euros of medium and long-term bonds, with investors bidding for nearly three times the amount on offer, despite jitters on the secondary market before a presidential election that polls suggest will be won by Socialist Francois Hollande in the second round on May 6.

Spain, which has seen debt costs jump since early March, when Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy abandoned the deficit target previously agreed with its European partners, sold 1.1 billion euros of a bond maturing October 31, 2014, at an average yield of 3.463 percent.

It also tested market appetite for a longer-term benchmark bond, due January 31, 2022, selling 1.4 billion euros at a yield of 5.743 percent, up from 5.403 percent at the last primary auction in January.

Yields on the 10-year bond also rose after the auction, suggesting investors remain concerned about the country’s long-term fiscal sustainability.

“A reasonable set of results, which will go some way to allaying fears the domestic bid for Spanish bonds has dried up. That said, as evidenced by the accepted yield on the 10-year, this support does come at a price,” rate strategist at Rabobank Richard McGuire said.

The yield on 10-year Spanish bonds rose briefly above 6 percent on the secondary market on Monday for the first time since the end of November, sparking concern it could soon become impossible for the government to affordably refinance itself.

France auctioned for the first time a 0.75 percent medium-term note, known as a BTAN, due in September 2014, at a yield of 0.85 percent. The yield on its 3.50 percent long-term OAT bond, which matures in April 2015, was 1.06 percent. No recent yield comparison is available for that bond.

Its 1.75 percent BTAN due in February 2017 sold at an average yield of 1.83 percent, slightly up from a yield of 1.78 percent when it was last auctioned on March 15.

“It went smoothly, decent demand, they’ve reached their target,” said RIA Capital Markets strategist Nick Stamenkovic in Edinburgh. “We’ve seen a bit of a concession in the past few weeks as investors fret about a shift in policy under the helm of Hollande if he gets into power.

With half its annual target raised so far this year, Spain now has some leeway to issue debt at a slower pace later in the year if borrowing costs remain high.

Spain’s banks, virtually closed off from international wholesale debt markets with investors spooked by the property-related assets on their books, have used large chunks of the ECB’s loans to buy domestic government paper.

Meanwhile, non-residents have been dumping it; investors residing outside of Spain have cut their holdings to 42 percent of the country’s sovereign debt in February, down from 50 percent just two months before.

Spain entered its second recession since 2009 in the first quarter after more than four years of contraction or minimal growth In the aftermath of a collapse in its property market.

“The Treasury can afford to ease off the gas … but Spain remains under the cosh and locked in a negative feedback loop,” said Jo Tomkins, strategist at 4Cast.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn in Paris; Writing by Will Waterman; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)

(Reuters) – An incensed Spain threatened swift economic retaliation against Argentina on Tuesday after it announced plans to seize YPF, the South American nation’s biggest oil company, in a move which pushed down shares in Spanish energy giant Repsol, the controlling shareholder.

Madrid called in the Argentine ambassador in a rapidly escalating row over the nationalization order by Argentina’s populist and increasingly assertive president, Cristina Fernandez, a move which delighted many of her compatriots but alarmed some foreign governments and investors.

Promising action in the coming days, Spanish industry minister Jose Manuel Soria said: “With this attitude, this hostility from the Argentine authorities, there will be consequences that we’ll see over the next few days. They will be in the diplomatic field, the industrial field, and on energy.”

“Argentina has shot itself in the foot,” said Foreign Minister Jose Manual Garcia-Margallo.

Despite the rhetoric, Spain appeared to have little leverage over Buenos Aires – any action to be taken will be determined at a cabinet meeting on Friday – and Argentina has proven impervious to such pressure in the past.

Repsol said YPF was worth $18 billion as a whole and it would be seeking compensation on that basis, but the Spanish oil major’s shares fell by 7.5 percent in Madrid on Tuesday. The company said it could raise money in the bond market and sell some assets to help its cash flow.

Repsol described Argentina’s move as “clearly unlawful and seriously discriminatory” and said it would take legal action.

“This battle is not over,” Repsol Chairman Antonio Brufau said. “The expropriation is nothing more than a way of covering over the social and economic crisis facing Argentina right now.”

But Fernandez dismissed the risk of reprisals. “This president isn’t going to respond to any threats … because I represent the Argentine people. I’m the head of state, not a thug,” she said.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he expected Argentina to uphold international agreements on business protection with Spain. “I am seriously disappointed about yesterday’s announcement,” he said in Brussels.

But action against Argentina appeared limited in scope. The EU Trade Commissioner would write to Argentina’s trade minister to “reiterate our serious concerns” while an EU-Argentine meeting this week would be postponed.

“It’s absolutely shameful considering everything that Spain has done for Argentina,” said a woman called Domi, who was filling her tank at a Repsol petrol station in Madrid.

“I hope the government takes measures and does something serious. They’ve pulled our leg long enough!”

Spanish media condemned the Argentine action, believed to be the biggest nationalization in the natural resources field since the seizure of Russia’s Yukos oil giant a decade ago.

La Razon newspaper carried a photograph of Fernandez on its front page in a pool of oil with the headline: “Kirchner’s Dirty War”, referring to her full name. The business newspaper La Gaceta de los Negocios called the takeover “an act of pillage”.

El Periodico spoke of “The New Evita”, pointing out that Fernandez had announced the nationalization in a room decorated with a large portrait of Eva Peron, the actress who was married to a president and revered by many Argentines as a populist mother of the nation and champion of the poor.

Repsol’s Brufau said he suspected nationalization of YPF was imminent when he tried to contact Fernandez last Friday and was told that the president “was angry” and did not want to speak.

YPF has been under pressure from Fernandez’s centre-left government to boost oil production, and its share price has plunged in recent months on speculation about a state takeover.

Spanish investment in Argentina may now be at risk after the move on YPF. In the “reconquista” or reconquest, of the 1990s, newly privatized Spanish businesses bought Latin American banks, telephone companies and utilities, much as their armor-clad ancestors had conquered the region 500 years earlier.

Through its latest nationalization move, Argentina runs the risk of frightening off foreign investors, key to contributing money to help develop one of the world’s largest reserves of shale oil and gas recently discovered in the Vaca Muerta area.

ACE UP ITS SLEEVE?

This led some analysts to question whether Argentina might have an ace up its sleeve in the form of a new partner such as China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec Group).

Repsol has, however, identified Vaca Muerta as “the cause of the pillage”, or the reason Argentina went after its YPF share.

A Chinese website said Sinopec was in talks with Repsol to buy YPF for more than $15 billion, although other sources said the nationalization move would probably get in the way of such a deal. Sinopec dismissed the report as a rumor.

Fernandez said the government would ask Congress, which she controls, to approve a bill to expropriate a controlling 51 percent stake in YPF by seizing shares held exclusively by Repsol, saying energy was a “vital resource”.

“If this policy continues – draining fields dry, no exploration and practically no investment – the country will end up having no viable future, not because of a lack of resources but because of business policies,” she said.

YPF’s market value is $10.6 billion, although an Argentine tribunal will be responsible for valuing the company as part of the takeover. Central bank reserves or state pension funds could be used for compensation.

Fernandez, who still wears the black of mourning 18 months after the death of her husband and predecessor as president Nestor Kirchner, stunned investors in 2008 when she nationalized private pension funds. She has also renationalized the country’s flagship airline, Aerolineas Argentinas.

Such measures are popular with ordinary Argentines, many of whom blame free-market policies such as the privatizations of the 1990s for the economic crisis and debt default of 2001/02.

Her announcement of the YPF takeover plan, however, drew strong warnings from Spain, Mexico and the European Union, a key market for Argentina’s soymeal exports.

Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon said Fernandez’s plan would damage chances for future foreign investment in Argentina and hurt Repsol, in which Mexico’s state oil monopoly Pemex holds a 10-percent stake.

Venezuela, where socialist President Hugo Chavez has nationalized almost all the oil industry, applauded her move.

The row over YPF comes as Fernandez heaps pressure on Britain over oil exploration off the Falkland Islands, over which Argentina claims sovereignty.

(Additional reporting by Andres Gonzalez in Madrid, Tom bergin in London, Karina Grazina, Juliana Castilla and Hugh Bronstein in Buenos Aires, and Daniel Wallis in Caracas; Writing byGiles Elgood)

Goldman Sachs on Tuesday reported earnings that beat analyst estimates, reflecting the better performance in the equity markets.

The firm said its first-quarter profit was $2.1 billion, down 23 percent from $2.74 billion in the same period in 2011. But its earnings per share was $3.92, better than the $3.55 a share that analysts had estimated, according to Thomson Reuters.

Goldman’s revenue fell to $9.95 billion, down from $11.89 billion in the year-ago period.

Analyst estimates have been rising steadily for weeks in anticipation of a stronger quarter.

In the first quarter of 2011, Goldman reported per-share earnings of $1.56, but that reflected a large one-time expense as it moved to pay off a financial crisis lifeline it received from the billionaire Warren E. Buffett, who was awarded preferred shares in the company.

The company also said Tuesday that its board voted to increase the quarterly dividend on common stock to 46 cents a share, from 35 cents a share.

Goldman’s revenue was higher than the fourth quarter, but was down almost across the board from a year ago. Only two main business segments — investment bank and fixed income – performed better than in the first quarter of 2011.

Still, Goldman Sachs and other major banks are faring much better in 2012. Wells Fargo, Citigroup andJPMorgan Chase all beat analysts’ estimates, buoyed by generally improving conditions in the United States. The better economy has led to revenue growth at most banks as demand for items like mortgage loans increased.

“We are pleased with the firm’s solid performance for the quarter,” Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

He credited the better-than-expected earnings to stronger capital markets. “Because client activity remains relatively low in certain areas, especially in parts of investment banking, we believe that our mix of businesses gives the firm significant room for revenue growth as economic and market conditions continue to improve,” he said.

The results come on the heels of a difficult period for the firm. In 2011, Goldman struggled to produce a profit anywhere near where it has historically performed. It has also faced a number of public relations and staffing challenges. It has had higher-than-usual turnover in the firm’s top ranks, with dozens of Goldman partners leaving the bank over the last year.

The firm has also been criticized for trading against its clients. And last month, one of its employees resigned and public criticized the firm for putting its own needs ahead of its clients, an allegation the firm denies.

Two years ago this week, Goldman was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with duping clients by selling mortgage securities designed by a hedge fund that sought to profit from the housing market’s collapse. Goldman later agreed to pay $550 million to settle the charges, without admitting or denying guilt.

Revenue in Goldman’s largest division, institutional client services, which trades bonds, currencies and commodities, was $5.71 billion, down 14 percent from year-ago levels. The division is a powerhouse for the bank, accounting for roughly 57 percent of all revenue generated in the first quarter.

Net revenue for the entire investment banking unit — which includes banking as well as debt and equity underwriting — came in at $1.15 billion, 9 percent lower than in the first quarter of 2011. Investment management net revenue was $1.18 billion, 8 percent lower than in the year-ago period.

In a sign of the challenging regulatory and economic environment, Goldman’s annualized return on equity, a critical measure of profitability, was 12.2 percent in the quarter. In 2006, its return on equity was 32.8 percent.

The firm set aside $4.38 billion, or 44 percent of its revenue, to pay employees. The firm does not actually pay much of that out until early 2013, after it knows the year-end performance.

Goldman’s headcount at the end of the first quarter was 32,400 employees, consultants and temporary workers. That was down 8 percent from the first quarter of 2011.

BY SUSANNE CRAIG DealBook NYT

THE lights dimmed. The crowd hushed. The teleprompters flickered.

Kazuo Hirai stepped up and flashed a winning smile: it was show time. The scene was oddly upbeat inside the Sony Corporation last Thursday as Mr. Hirai, the company’s new chief executive, faced the cameras. He outlined a strategy that, he vowed, would return the troubled electronics giant to profit.

“The time for Sony to change is now,” said Mr. Hirai, who formally took up the C.E.O. post on April 1. He posed for the cameras, one finger held high in a No. 1 sign. “I believe Sony can change,” he said.

Outside Sony — and inside it, too — not everyone is quite so sure.

That is because Sony, which once defined Japan’s technological prowess, wowed the world with the Walkman and the Trinitron TV and shocked Hollywood with bold acquisitions like Columbia Pictures, is now in the fight of its life.

In fact, it is in a fight for its life — a development that exemplifies the stunning decline of Japan’s industrialized economy. Once upon a time, Japan Inc., not to mention Sony itself, seemed invulnerable. Today, Sony and many other Japanese manufacturers are pressed on all sides: by rising Asian rivals, a punishingly strong Japanese yen and, in Sony’s case, an astonishing lack of ideas.

No one was terribly surprised last week when Sony announced that its losses this year would be worse than it had expected. Sony, after all, hasn’t turned a profit since 2008. It now expects to lose $6.4 billion this year. The reason is plain: Sony hasn’t had a hit product in years.

The verdict of the stock market has been swift and brutal. Sony’s share price closed at 1,444 yen ($17.83) on Friday, a quarter of its value a decade ago and roughly where it stood in the mid-1980s, when the Walkman ruled. Sony’s market value is now one-ninth that of Samsung Electronics, and just one-thirtieth of Apple’s.

Even in Japan, where many consumers remain loyal to the brand, some people seem to be giving up on the company.

“It’s almost game over at Sony,” said Yoshiaki Sakito, a former Sony executive who has worked for Walt Disney, Bain & Company, Apple and a start-up focused on innovation training. “I don’t see how Sony’s going to bounce back now.”

WHAT went wrong is a tale of lost opportunities and disastrous infighting. It is also the story of a proud company that was unwilling or unable to adapt to realities of the global marketplace.

Sony’s gravest mistake was that it failed to ride some of the biggest waves of technological innovation in recent decades: digitalization, a shift toward software and the importance of the Internet.

One by one, every sphere where the company competed — from hardware to software to communications to content — was turned topsy-turvy by disruptive new technology and unforeseen rivals. And these changes only highlighted the conflicts and divisions within Sony.

With its catalog of music and foundation in electronics, Sony had the tools to create a version of the iPod long before Apple introduced it in 2001. The Sony co-founder, Akio Morita, envisioned as early as the 1980s marrying digital technology with media content for a completely new user experience.

It didn’t happen. Initially, Sony engineers resisted the power of the company’s media divisions. Then Sony wrestled with how to build devices that let consumers download and copy music without undermining music sales or agreements with its artists. The company went its own way: its early digital music players, for instance, used proprietary files and were incompatible with the fast-growing MP3 format.

By the time the different divisions had been corralled into cooperating, Sony had lost its foothold in two crucial product categories: televisions and portable music devices. It was late to flat-panel displays, as well as to digital music players like the iPod.

After disappointing sales, Sony pulled the plug on its answer to Apple’s iTunes, the Sony Connect online store, after just three years. It has not been able to offer up a comprehensive alternative since.

Lower-cost manufacturers from South Korea, China and elsewhere, meanwhile, are increasingly undercutting Sony and other high-end electronics makers. As Sony’s brand started losing much of its luster, the company found that it had a harder time charging a premium for its products.

(Reuters) – In a mentoring relationship you should be less concerned about showing your mentor how brilliant you are, than listening carefully and absorbing their advice, says Harvard Business Review.

The Management Tip of the Day offers quick, practical management tips and ideas from Harvard Business Review and HBR.org (www.hbr.org). Any opinions expressed are not endorsed by Reuters.

“It might be tempting to use your mentoring sessions to impress your mentor — someone who can potentially advance your career. But most mentors are put off by protégés who do more self-promoting than learning.

Listen to your mentor, show humility, and make it clear that you take the counsel seriously. When you get feedback, don’t respond with, ‘Yes, I already knew that.’ Restate the advice in your own words to make sure you’ve got it right, and ask questions to clarify.

Mentors will often test you by gauging how you respond to feedback; and the better you are at receiving it, the more of it you will get.”

– Today’s management tip was adapted from the book, “Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need.”