NEW YORK | Fri Feb 8, 2013 5:17pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Paintings from the private collection of U.S. singer Andy Williams, amassed over six decades, could fetch more than $30 million when they are sold at auction in May, Christie's said on Friday.

Works by Willem de Kooning and Richard Diebenkorn are expected to be the top sellers of the portion of the collection that will be auctioned at Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art sale on May 15-16.

De Kooning's 1984 "Untitled XVII" and Diebenkorn's 1976 "Ocean Park #92" are expected to sell for about $5 million each.

"Williams' highly personal choices in Post War and Contemporary artworks reflect the dynamic energy of New York and Los Angeles in the 50s and 60s," Robert Manley, an international director at Christie's, said in a statement.

Christie's described de Kooning's "Untitled XVII" as a masterpiece of his final years of painting.

"The lyrical 1984 work demonstrates the artist's supreme confidence at the height of his fame, after six decades of painting," the auction house said.

Williams, best known for his rendition of the song "Moon River," died in September at the age of 84. The paintings in the collection are from his two homes and his Moon River Theater in Branson, Missouri.

Williams was first interested in Modern Art and had purchased works by Picasso, Paul Klee and Henry Moore before turning to the other painters.

Picasso's 1927 painting "Figure Feminine Sur la Plage," from Williams' collection, will be up for sale during Christie's Impressionist & Modern Art sale in New York on May 8-9.

"He had the exceptional ability to recognize quality in every category that he turned his attention to - a rare gift among collectors," Manley said about Williams.

The remainder of the collection will be sold this year in sales in New York, London and Paris.

(Reporting by Noreen O'Donnell; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Eric Beech)

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1 of 2. Sotheby's employees straighten ''Femme assise pres d'une fenetre'' from 1932 by Pablo Picasso at Sotheby's in London January 31, 2013.

LONDON | Tue Feb 5, 2013 7:44pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - A Pablo Picasso portrait of his mistress and "golden muse" Marie-Therese Walter sold for 28.6 million pounds ($45 million) on Tuesday, leading an important Sotheby's auction of impressionist, modern and surrealist art.

The sale was the first of a series held in London this month by Sotheby's, Christie's and smaller auction houses in the latest barometer of the strength of the high-end art market.

Prices for the most sought-after works have soared in recent years despite broader economic concerns, with collectors in China, Russia and the Middle East joining more established patrons in Europe and the United States.

Subtracting the buyer's premium of more than 10 percent, the amount realized for the 1932 Picasso was at the lower end of pre-sale estimates of 25 million-35 million pounds.

Nonetheless, it was comfortably the top lot of an evening when a series of works on paper by Austrian artist Egon Schiele arguably stole the limelight.

Schiele's 1914 "Lovers (Self Portrait With Wally)" fetched 7.9 million pounds, an auction record for the artist for a work on paper.

Also sold by the Leopold Museum in Vienna was his "Self Portrait in Green Shirt with Eyes Closed" which sold for 5.1 million pounds, well above expectations of between 1.8 million and 2.5 million pounds.

The combined tally for Schiele works, sold by the museum to help settle a long-running restitution case involving art deemed to have been stolen by the Nazis in the 1930s, was 14 million pounds.

Other lots fared less well, notably Max Beckmann's "Before the Ball - Two Women With a Cat" which went unsold despite pre-sale estimates of 5 million-8 million pounds.

Overall the evening brought in 121.1 million pounds in sales, within expectations of 103 million-149 million. Sotheby's said it was their second highest total from an equivalent sale in London.

"Bidders, both new to the market as well as seasoned buyers, reacted with great enthusiasm, in particular to the selection of impressionist works that were considered to be the strongest offering in many years," said Helena Newman, chair of Sotheby's impressionist and modern art in Europe.

Christie's, the world's largest auction house, holds its sale in London on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Christopher Wilson)

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A plug is seen coming from the Chevrolet Volt electric car during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan January 13, 2009.

WASHINGTON/DETROIT | Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:28pm EST

WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday eased off President Barack Obama's stated goal of putting 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015, and laid out what experts called a more realistic strategy of promoting advanced-drive vehicles and lowering their cost over the next nine years.

Since Obama announced the goal in his 2011 State of the Union speech, auto analysts and executives have doubted American consumers would buy a million electric vehicles by 2015.

"Whether we meet that goal in 2015 or 2016, that's less important than that we're on the right path to get many millions of these vehicles on the road," an Energy Department official said, in advance of remarks by Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a speech at the Washington D.C. auto show.

The proposal to lower electric vehicle costs represents the first look at how U.S. auto policy may take shape during Obama's next four years. His first term saw a flurry of initiatives related to the auto industry, beginning with government rescues of General Motors Co and Chrysler Group LLC.

Chu told reporters after his speech that he was excited by the advances in vehicle technology.

Asked about the 1 million electric vehicles goal, Chu said: "It's ambitious, but we'll see what happens."

Promoting plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles has been another long-running focus for the White House, which has also pushed for more stringent standards on fuel economy. Overall, U.S. federal policies to promote electric vehicles will cost $7.5 billion through 2019, the Congressional Budget Office said in September.

That includes $2.4 billion in grants to lithium-ion battery makers and projects to promote electric vehicles as well as $3.1 billion in loans to auto companies, intended to spur production of fuel-efficient vehicles.

But demand for hybrids and electric vehicles has been weaker than expected. Last year, nearly 488,000 hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric cars were sold in the United States, accounting for 3.3 percent of the overall auto market, according to green-car website Hybridcars.com.

For the administration to meet its 2015 goal, electrified vehicles would have double their market share to roughly 6 percent of the U.S. auto market, which automotive consulting firm Polk estimates will reach 16.2 million vehicles that year.

Poor demand has hurt lithium-ion battery makers, pushing two DOE grant recipients, A123 Systems Inc and EnerDel, to file for bankruptcy protection.

Dow Chemical Co took a $1.1 billion charge last year, related in part to a writedown of its lithium-ion battery business, Dow-Kokam LLC.

Under the new strategy outlined on Thursday, the DOE is supporting research into new battery technologies and manufacturing methods that would lower the cost of lightweight materials and improve vehicles' fuel-efficiency.

Chu stressed that it was important to set high goals for electric car technology, because advanced vehicles will eventually be competing with internal combustion vehicles that get 45 miles per gallon fuel economy.

The DOE also confirmed its goal to lower the cost of lithium-ion batteries to $300 per kilowatt hour by 2015 from the present $650. The department eventually hopes to get the cost down $125 per kilowatt hour.

Ultimately, the department's goal is to have about 500 companies offer workplace charging over the next five years. Several companies are already on board, including Google Inc, Verizon and General Electric Co.

(Editing by Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio)

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n">(Reuters) - Storage and data security company Imation Corp bought Nexsan Corp, a privately held provider of disk-based storage systems, for about $120 million in cash and stock.

Imation will pay $105 million in cash and $15 million in stock, the company said in a statement.

Shares of Imation closed at $4.67 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

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Austrian Telekom's company logo is pictured in front of their company headquarters in Vienna August 12, 2010.

VIENNA | Thu Jan 3, 2013 6:25am EST

VIENNA (Reuters) - Telekom Austria is eyeing a hybrid bond issue of up to 800 million euros ($1.06 billion) to help finance major investments, Austrian magazine News reported, citing Chairman Rudolf Kemler.

In an interview published on Thursday, Kemler pointed to an Austrian auction of next-generation radio frequencies due in the second half of this year and the need to prolong existing frequency contracts.

"We presumably don't have (funds for this) in the Telekom group. That does not arise from current liquidity," he was quoted as saying.

"But we will employ capital market instruments. We have also authorized management to take steps on this."

Asked if he was referring to a hybrid issue of up to 800 million, Kemler said: "That is the range."

A Telekom Austria spokesman declined comment.

Telekom Austria shares fell 1.1 percent to 5.80 euros by 3:48 a.m. ET, the biggest decliners in the Stoxx 600 European telecoms sector index, which was barely changed.

Telekom Austria officials have previously played down prospects of raising fresh capital or selling assets to cut debt faster.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)

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n">(Reuters) - Netflix Inc doubled Chief Executive Reed Hastings' 2013 salary to $4 million, after a pay cut this year, the video rental company disclosed in a regulatory filing late on Friday.

Of the $4 million, Hastings will receive half in cash and half in stock options. This compares to $500,000 in cash and $1.5 million in stock options the company gave its CEO for 2012, and a combined payout of $3.5 million for 2011. (r.reuters.com/dev84t)

Netflix's high-profile Silicon Valley CEO Hastings took a pay cut this year in the wake of an ill-fated attempt to split the DVD and streaming operations, even as the company missed its own subscriber guidance.

The stock has tumbled more than 70 percent since touching a high of $304.79 in July 2011, although it has risen about 23 percent since the beginning of 2012.

The final value of the stock options, which vest on a monthly basis to Netflix employees, depend on how its shares perform. The company, however, does not give out performance based incentives like many other listed entities.

Chief Financial Officer David Wells' total payout rose slightly to $1.1 million, including $770,000 in cash. (Reporting by Himank Sharma in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Richard Chang)

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An Air Asia Airbus A320-200 aircraft approaches its parking space at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) in Sepang, outside Kuala Lumpur March 21, 2012.

KUALA LUMPUR | Sun Oct 14, 2012 10:29pm EDT

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - AirAsia (AIRA.KL), Asia's largest budget carrier, has scrapped a $80 million deal to buy Indonesia's Batavia Air because the move would have carried too many risks, AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said.

Malaysia-listed AirAsia had announced plans in July to acquire Batavia in a bid to expand in Southeast Asia's biggest economy. It would have been AirAsia's first major airline acquisition and would have ratcheted up competition in Indonesia among low-cost carriers such as Lion Air and flag carrier Garuda's (GIAA.JK) Citilink unit.

"Our aggressive focus in Indonesia remains and we will push our Indonesian IPO plans while still maintaining close co-operation with Batavia Air," Fernandes said in a statement on Monday.

"The company's decision was based on a thorough evaluation by many parties into Batavia Air. In our minds, the timing was perhaps not appropriate as it would have induced too many risks and would ultimately be earnings dilutive to our shareholders."

Fernandes in the past has expressed caution towards acquisitions, calling them "value-destroying" in an interview with Reuters last year.

AirAsia will now collaborate with Batavia Air on other aspects of the aviation business, including a training joint venture to address an expected skilled pilot shortage in Indonesia, the statement said.

AirAsia shares were down 0.3 percent in early trade.

(Reporting by Niluksi Koswanage; Editing by Chris Gallagher)

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Fri Oct 12, 2012 6:49pm EDT

n">(Reuters) - Plans to save Big Bird, the fuzzy yellow character on U.S. public television's "Sesame Street," from possible extinction are taking shape in the form of a puppet-based protest next month dubbed the "Million Muppet March."

The demonstration is planned for November 3 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., three days before the general election.

Before the presidential debate between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney had concluded on October 3, two men who had never met each floated the Million Muppet March idea on social media. They immediately united to defend public broadcasting.

Romney pledged during the debate to end the U.S. federal government's subsidy for the Public Broadcasting Service despite his professed love for Big Bird, one of the characters on PBS's 43-year-old children's educational program "Sesame Street," which features the Muppets.

Michael Bellavia, 43, an animation executive from Los Angeles, and Chris Mecham, 46, a university student in Idaho, separately came up with the Million Muppet March idea in response.

Big Bird, played by actor Carroll Spinney in an 8-foot (2.5-metre) bird costume, is strictly speaking not a member of the group of puppet characters known as the Muppets.

Bellavia bought the Internet address www.millionmuppetmarch.com during the debate and discovered Mecham had already started a Facebook page by the same name.

Within 30 minutes of the end of the debate they were on the phone with each other, planning the march.

"I figured, why just make it a virtual show of support? Why not take this opportunity because it seemed like there was already a growing interest in it and actually make it an active, participatory event," Bellavia said. "I literally just said, 'It's happening.'"

Both men consider themselves fans of "Sesame Street," perhaps the best-known program on PBS, which received $445 million of $3.8 trillion in federal budget outlays in 2012.

Coming from rural Idaho, Mecham said he was aware how important public broadcasting was in sparsely populated areas that receive no other signals over the air.

"Romney was using Muppets as a rhetorical device to talk about getting rid of public broadcasting, which is really so much bigger than Sesame Street," Mecham said. "While he was still talking I was thinking of ways I could express my frustration at that argument. Before the debates were over I had put up the Million Muppet March Facebook page."

The two men said they immediately decided to work together.

Mecham is a writer who is studying political science at Boise State University out of his interest in healthcare policy.

Bellavia is president of the animation studio Animax Entertainment, founded by former Second City actor Dave Thomas.

They may fall short of attracting a million people, or Muppets, to the event, but they do hope to create what Bellavia called a "lovefest" featuring skits and musical performances with Muppets.

"It does seem like we might get close to the biggest ever assemblage of puppets in one place," he said, "and probably the most ever puppets marching on Washington."

The Million Man March was a gathering held on the National Mall on October 16, 1995 to promote civil rights, with an emphasis on African Americans, and was led by rights advocate Louis Farrakhan. (Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Pablo Picasso's ''Nature morte aux tulipes'', an oil on canvas painted in March 1932 is seen in this handout photo.

NEW YORK | Fri Oct 5, 2012 4:20pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 1932 portrait by Pablo Picasso of his young lover and a pioneering 3-D Andy Warhol painting of the Statue of Liberty are expected to sell for at least $35 million each, but could fetch much more when they are auctioned next month.

The two works, Picasso's "Nature morte aux tulipes," and Warhol's "Statue of Liberty" will be the highlights of New York autumn sales at Sotheby's and Christie's.

The Picasso masterpiece is one of several renderings of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter and considered by art experts to be one of his most important works. It carries a pre-sale estimate from $35 million to up to $50 million ahead of the November 5 sale at Sotheby's.

"The young woman, with her Grecian profile and athletic, statuesque frame, inspired Picasso's greatest achievements in a variety of media," said Simon Shaw, Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art department in New York.

"Nature morte aux tulipes is exceptional within the series for its double-meditation on this subject, demonstrating the influence of Surrealism on his output: the artist builds a sculpture of Marie-Thérèse, and then paints that sculpture as a sexually-charged still life, allowing him to dissect her form on many levels," he added in a statement.

Marie-Thérèse, who was just 17 years old when she met the already married Picasso, featured in many of his works and bore him a daughter in 1935.

Another painting of her, "Femme à la fenêtre" from 1936, will also be included in the Sotheby sale with a pre-sale estimate of up to $20 million.

"Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur" a 1932 painting of Marie-Thérèse was sold to anonymous buyer at a 2010 auction for $106.5 million.

The sale of the Picasso portraits coincides with a new exhibition of the works of the renowned Spanish artist at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

ICON OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

The following week, on November 14, Warhol's "Statue of Liberty," will go under the hammer at Christie's. It is the first of its kind in 3-D and the only example of the artist's experimentation with the technique still privately owned.

A child of immigrants, Warhol painted the red and green work showing multiple misaligned images of the iconic landmark in 1962 as a prelude to his Death and Disaster series, according to Christie's.

"Andy Warhol's 'Statue of Liberty' is one of the most important statements on America and on painting in the 1960s," said Brett Gorvy, the chairman and international head of Post-War and Contemporary Art.

"It is a famous icon of the American dream, alongside Warhol's most popular American subjects such as the Coca-Cola bottle, the Campbell's soup-cans and his Marilyns and Elvis."

Two other paintings from the 3-D series are part of museum collections in Switzerland and Pittsburgh.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts announced last month that it would sell paintings, photos and other works by the pop artist in a series of auctions, private sales and online. Proceeds from the sales will be used to help the foundation expand its support of the visual arts.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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A trader works at the Knight Capital kiosk on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange August 1, 2012.

NEW YORK | Thu Aug 2, 2012 11:12am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Knight Capital Group Inc is being forced to raise money after an erroneous trading position wiped out $440 million of its capital, the firm said on Thursday, causing its shares to shed half of their value.

Problems at Knight, one of the largest firms that buys and sells stocks to provide liquidity to the markets, emerged at the beginning of trading on Wednesday.

"The company is actively pursuing its strategic and financing alternatives to strengthen its capital base," Knight said in a statement. Its shares were down 49.7 percent at $3.49 in morning trading after hitting an all-time low of $3.15.

Knight has already approached JPMorgan Chase & Co for financing, according to a report on Fox Business Network. But it was unclear if that financing would be granted. A spokesman for JPMorgan declined to comment.

Wednesday's technology breakdown roiled the prices of some 140 stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange, undermining fragile investor confidence in the stability of U.S. stock markets.

Speaking on Bloomberg Television, Knight Capital Chief Executive Officer Tom Joyce said the firm had "excess capital right now." On Tuesday night, it had put in new software that had a bug, he said.

The firm said it was in compliance with capital requirements and that it had traded out of the entire position.

"This issue was related to Knight's installation of trading software and resulted in Knight sending numerous erroneous orders in NYSE-listed securities into the market," Knight said. "This software has been removed from the company's systems."

The trading glitches are the latest in a series of market snafus that have eroded retail investors' confidence.

Others include the botched Facebook Inc initial public offering, the 2010 "flash crash" in which nearly $1 trillion in market value disappeared in minutes, and the failed public offering of BATS Global Markets, a rival to the NYSE and the Nasdaq.

Specialists in securities industry operations issues said the wave of recent problems pointed to an unsettling reliance on automated trading facilities that is robbing investors of confidence in the markets.

"We're losing the human control in our business," said Joe Anastasio, a founding partner of financial services consulting firm Capco who specializes in stock trading issues. "We've been so focused on automated throughput of orders and high-volume execution with no human intervention that we have lost the human logic factor when things go wrong."

One of the problems, he said, is that millions of orders stack up overnight for automatic execution at the opening of trading, with a single error potentially creating a deluge of bad trades.

Knight said its principal broker-dealer subsidiaries were fully compliant with their net capital requirements despite the pretax loss of about $440 million that has "severely impacted" the parent company's capital base.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority are looking into Knight's trading error, according to William Brodsky, CEO of top U.S. options market CBOE Holdings Inc.

"It's obvious that it appears that there was a technology glitch in the trading algorithm," Brodsky told analysts on Thursday. "All markets have rules to address these types of situations."

On July 18, Knight reported second-quarter earnings of $3.3 million, down 81 percent from a year earlier after recording a $35.4 million pretax trading loss from the Facebook initial public offering. The company has not yet filed its second-quarter report with regulators.

Knight's average daily U.S. equities market-making volume has fallen from a year ago as trading volumes have declined across the stock market. Daily market-making volume was $19.5 billion in June, a 12 percent decline from a year earlier.

More than 83 million shares of Knight stock have changed hands on Thursday, making it the most actively traded issue on U.S. exchanges.

(Additional reporting by Jed Horowitz, Sam Forgione, John McCrank, Ann Saphir and David Henry; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Von Ahn)

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