The bottomline

NEW YORK: US banking giant JPMorgan Chase plans to axe up to 19,000 jobs by the end of 2014 as it seeks to rein in costs, the company said Tuesday in an investor presentation.

JPMorgan Chase intends the majority of the cuts — between 13,000 to 15,000 — in the mortgage banking division, where the company spent $9.1 billion in 2012.

Another 3,000 to 4,000 jobs will be eliminated in the non-mortgage areas of its consumer and community banking division.

JPMorgan Chase estimated its fullyear expenses will drop by $3 billion in 2014 from the 2012 level as the company seeks corporate and investment bank cost synergies, according to the presentation. (AFP) ATLANTA: Home Depot Inc, the largest US home improvement retailer, said Tuesday its fiscal fourth-quarter net income surged 32 percent, beating expectations, helped by strong US sales and the cleanup related to Superstorm Sandy.

The news follows smaller rival Lowe’s Cos results Monday, which also beat expectations, and is the latest sign that Americans are feeling more comfortable spending money on their homes as the housing market slowly recovers.

“We ended the year with a strong performance as our business benefited from a continued recovery in the housing market coupled with sales related to repairs in the areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy,” said CEO Frank Blake in a statement. (AP) NEW YORK: Macy’s reported a fourthquarter profit that beat Wall Street expectations as its strategy of tailoring merchandise to local markets paid off during the holiday season.

The department store chain, which also operates Bloomingdale’s stores, also said Tuesday that it expects that same strategy to help increase revenue at stores open at least a year by 3.5 percent in fiscal 2013. That’s on top of the increase of 3.7 percent for 2012. The measure is a key indicator of health because it strips out the impact of newly opened and closed locations.

Shares of Macy’s rose 4.6 percent at $40.30 in premarket trading. (AP) SAN FRANCISCO: Hewlett-Packard is selling its webOS software to South Korean electronics company LG Electronics, securing a new home for a technological orphan.

The deal announced Monday rids HP of the centerpiece of its ill-fated, $1.8 billion purchase of Palm Inc. three years ago.

HP used webOS as its springboard into NEW YORK: Former Goldman Sachs board member Rajat Gupta was ordered Monday to pay $6.2 million for legal fees incurred by his former employer during his trial, in which he was convicted for insider trading.

Gupta, one of the most senior US businessmen convicted for white collar cheating, was told to foot the bank’s legal bills by federal Judge Jed Rakoff in New York.

“This Court has no difficulty in concluding, by a preponderance of evidence, that nearly all of the expenses Goldman Sachs here claims were the necessary, direct, and foreseeable result of the investigation and prosecution of Gupta’s offense of conviction,” Rakoff wrote in his decision. (AFP) the smartphone and tablet computer market in 2011, but quickly scrapped the mobile devices running on the software amid disappointing sales. (AP) LONDON: Whitbread, Britain’s biggest hotel and coffee shop operator, said it was preparing for more competitive markets in 2013 as two of its big rivals, Travelodge and Starbucks, shake off recent setbacks.

The company said it would meet annual profit forecasts even though heavy snow in January had slowed like-for-like sales growth in its fourth quarter to 2.7 percent, hitting its restaurant business in particular. That was down from a rise of 3.3 percent across the group in the third quarter. (RTRS) LONDON: British housebuilder Redrow reported a 50 percent rise in first-half profit, slightly above analyst expectations, and said it was cautiously optimistic for its second-half as the housing market stabilises.

Redrow said on Tuesday profit before tax for the six months to end-Dec was £23 million ($35 million), compared to 15 million in the same period last year. Analysts expected the company to report a profit of £21 million, Thomson Reuters data showed. (RTRS) LONDON: HICL, one of Britain’s biggest listed infrastructure investment funds, is looking to raise up to 167 million pounds ($252 million) to pay off debt and free up resources for new projects.

HICL, which invests in public infrastructure and concessions such as hospitals, roads and schools, said on Tuesday it will issue 100 million new shares at 119.5 pence, a 5.7 percent discount to Monday’s close.

Of those, 65 million will be offered to investors at a rate of one new share for every 15 share held. The offer will be raised to 140 million new shares if there is demand, said HICL, which announced on Jan 31 it would look to raise funds. (RTRS) LONDON: Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are planning to raise more capital via bonds that convert into shares in times of crisis, to help meet safeguards for taxpayers that are being demanded by regulators.

British bank Barclays could issue up to 7 billion pounds ($11 billion) in so-called contingent convertibles, or CoCos, people close to the matter said on Monday, adding to the 3 billion it raised in November.

The bank could ask for shareholder approval at its annual meeting on April 25, said a source, who declined to be named because proposals for the meeting have not been finalised. (RTRS) MOSCOW: Russian investigators on Tuesday said they were searching the Moscow offices of the world’s largest aluminium producer Rusal as part of a probe into alleged tax violations which the company dismissed as groundless.

“Items and documents (obtained as a) result of the searches... will be made part of the material of the criminal probe,” the powerful Investigative Committee’s Moscow branch said in a statement.

Rusal, owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, said in a statement that the searches in its office were linked to a tax investigation against a subsidiary which it said had no foundation. (AFP)