CIT (NYSE:CIT) the formerly bankrupt small business lender run by John A. Thain, said it sold $500 million of corporate assets, raised $800 million for customer financing and completed a planned payment on first-lien debt. The actions show “significant progress” in funding the company and streamlining its portfolio, Thain said in a company statement today. CIT was reorganized in bankruptcy in December after being unable to continue funding itself profitably with borrowings in the capital markets. The company aims to develop a cheaper source of funding, such as insured bank deposits. It is currently limited by regulators from taking certain deposits. CIT announced plans to make the $1.25 billion debt payment in a June 24 filing. The New York-based company began the year with $7.5 billion of first-lien debt out of $51.6 billion of liabilities. –Bloomberg
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) said Friday that it would roll out new software for its iPhone 4 to correct the formula it uses to calculate bars of signal strength after complaints from users. "Some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band," the technology company said in a statement. "This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design." The new software, which users will be able to download for free sometime in the next several weeks, will make the iPhone’s bars more accurate, the company said. –MarketWatch
Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE:SNY) is preparing a major acquisition in the U.S. worth $20 billion or more, according to Bloomberg, which cited five people with knowledge of the situation. Like many pharmaceutical firms, Sanofi is facing a looming patent cliff — when major drugs lose their patent protection and cheaper generics flood the market. And, like many pharmaceuticals, Sanofi doesn’t have a large enough pipeline of new drugs to make up for the lost sales. As for the target, Reuters reports that analysts cite Allergan (NYSE:AGN) and Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:BIIB) as possibles. Those companies have market values of $17 billion and $12.7 billion respectively. –Daily Finance
The U.S. economy shed jobs in June for the first time this year and the unemployment rate remained high, moves that will likely add to concerns that the pace of the recovery could slow in the second half. Nonfarm payrolls fell by 125,000 last month, as 225,000 government workers that were hired for the 2010 census in recent months lost their temporary jobs, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. Only 83,000 private-sector jobs were added last month. –The Wall Street Journal
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