St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) said Friday its board of directors approved a $300 million stock buyback. The St. Paul, Minn. medical technology company said the purchase plan is in addition to a $600 million share repurchase that was previously announced. In other news, Asset manager T. Rowe Price Group (NASDAQ:TROW) said Friday its third-quarter profit was $169.1 million, or 64 cents a share, compared to $132.9 million, or 50 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Net revenues rose 18% to $586.1 million. Analysts had expected, on average, profit of 60 cents a share on revenue of $575.1 million. As of Sept. 30, assets under management at the Baltimore-based firm were $439.7 billion, up about 12% from the prior quarter-end. T. Rowe said that net inflows to its sponsored mutual funds were $1.1 billion during the quarter, powered by $1.8 billion of net inflows into its bond funds. –MarketWatch
Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) reported earnings of 31 cents per share for the third quarter, compared with 41 cents per share last year. The third-quarter earnings included non-operational charges of 25 cents per share, the largest of which was related to pension settlements. Operating revenues dropped 2.9% to $26.5 billion, the company said in a statement. The results for the third quarter in 2009 included revenue from operation have since been divested. On a comparable basis, third quarter operating revenue rose $550 million from a year earlier. –Daily Finance
Directors at Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), the world’s largest computer maker, were sued by shareholders over claims they permitted or encouraged violations of federal kickback and foreign bribery laws. From 2007 to 2009, HP violated the federal anti-kickback law by paying government vendors “influencer fees” to win contracts to design information technology systems, according to the complaint filed in federal court in San Jose, California. The company is also under investigation for possible violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Current and former directors at HP “consciously condoned HP’s illegal and unethical marketing practices,” according to the Oct. 19 complaint. The misconduct has “put the company at risk of having its U.S. government contracts rescinded,” the shareholders claim, adding that HP sales to U.S. agencies from 2007 to 2009 totaled more than $880 million. –Bloomberg
The dollar climbed Friday as a G-20 meeting of finance ministers got under way in South Korea Friday, as traders brace for the possibility that global powers are edging towards a deal to defuse tensions over exchange rates. The euro, sterling and yen all fell as the greenback pushed higher in European trading hours. Analysts are skeptical that the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations can reconcile their diverse interests before the meeting ends Saturday. Still, it is clear that the finance ministers are at least trying to call a truce in the global exchange-rate battle of recent weeks.
Filed under: 