Finance & Business World

The good news for the producers of "Two and a Half Men" is that Charlie Sheen’s meltdown happened during the show’s eighth season, and not the first.

With 177 episodes in the can, the hit show can live on for years in reruns, throwing off cash in syndication revenue for production company Warner Brothers — and plenty of spending money for the troubled actor.

"’Two and a Half Men’ will bring in more than $600 million in syndication for Warner Brothers Television" in the years to come, said Brad Adgate, senior vice president of research at Horizon Media.

Industry insiders estimate that the show has already grossed $400 million in reruns, putting total syndication fees at a cool $1 billion.

"They have so many seasons of those episodes; it’s one of the most successful shows in syndication," said David Joyce, media analyst for Miller Tabak. He estimates that the show will bring in $250 million annually in upcoming syndication revenue. "They’ll be generating plenty of cash flow in years to come."

The future of "Two of a Half Men," the most popular and highly-rated comedy on television, is uncertain. Sheen’s recent radio rant targeted the show’s creator and bordered on anti-Semitism, prompting the network CBS (CBS, Fortune 500) and Warner Brothers to cancel production of the current season’s four remaining episodes.

"Based on the totality of Charlie Sheen’s statements, conduct and condition, CBS and Warner Brother Television have decided to discontinue production of ‘Two and Half Men’ for the remainder of the season," the network and the studio said in a joint statement.

This is after Warner Brothers — a unit of Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500), which is also the parent of CNNMoney — went on a production hiatus in January while Sheen was in drug rehab following an emergency room visit.

"Two and a Half Men" will be a money making property for years to come, but plenty of people are getting hurt by its cancellation.

Sheen, whose representatives did not return a call for comment, will have to kiss his fat $1.2 million per episode paycheck goodbye.

And Warner Brothers spokesman said that at least 250 members of the cast and crew will be out of work since the season’s last four episodes were cancelled. It has yet to be decided whether there will be a ninth season, according to Time Warner.

The blow is also painful for CBS, which pulled in about $160 million in annual advertising revenue from the show, according to Adgate. He said the average price for a 30-second ad was $200,000.

But CBS will still continue to generate ad revenues through reruns. And analysts insist that the show, like other long-running successful comedies, still has legs.

"Comedy repeats well," said Adgate. "People are still watching ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Friends.’"

CNN reporters Alan Duke and Brittany Kaplan contributed to this report. 

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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has reported a 43 percent jump in fourth-quarter profit thanks to the strong performance of BNSF railroad and a paper gain of $1.4 billion on the company’s derivative contracts and investments.

Buffett said Saturday in his annual letter that the acquisition of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad was the highlight of 2010 for his Omaha, Neb.,-based company.

Berkshire reported $4.38 billion net income, or $2,656 per Class A share, in the fourth quarter instant credit report. That’s up from the $3.1 billion net income, or $1,969 per Class A share, a year ago.

The three analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Berkshire to report earnings per Class A share of $1,690 in the fourth quarter.

Berkshire’s revenue grew nearly 20 percent to $36.2 billion from $30.2 billion last year.

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Ameren Missouri concedes that investments in conserving energy are far cheaper than building new plants to generate it

Most 401(k) accountholders continue to plug away at setting aside a portion of their pay. That consistency, along with a rising stock market helped push balances in plans managed by Fidelity Investment to a 10-year high, the retirement plan provider said Wednesday.

An analysis based on 11 million accounts showed the average balance rose to $71,500 at the end of December.

For participants continuously active in saving for the past 10 years, average balances rose to $183,100 at the end of last year from $59,100 at the end of 2000, Fidelity said.

To put the numbers in perspective, however, keep in mind baby boomers between 46 and 54 should have about 14.6 times their final salary saved in order maintain a similar lifestyle in retirement, according to calculations by human resources consultant Aon Hewitt.

Let’s say you’re a baby boomer making $60,000 a year. That’s means you would need about $876,000 set aside. Total savings should include workplace accounts like a 401(k), accumulated Social Security benefits, and any pension or other retirement savings you may have available.

Younger workers will need even more, advises Aon Hewitt. Those between 31 and 45 will need about 16 times their final pay and the youngest workers _ those between 18 and 30 _ should save 18.7 times their final salary.

The Fidelity study shows workers are remaining consistent with their contributions. The average amount workers defer from their paychecks into their 401(k) plans remained at 8.2 percent for the eighth straight quarter.

That contribution level still falls short of the common advice of planning experts who recommend setting aside 10 to 15 percent of your salary. That figure includes an employer match, which is most often about 3 percent. Assuming most workers receive the common match, they are at least reaching the low end of the suggested savings range.

About 8 percent of the companies offering 401(k) plans through Fidelity reduced or eliminated the employer match at the height of the recession. Since then 55 percent of those have indicated they plan to reinstate the match within 12 months.

“At the end of the day saving at appropriate levels, saving continuously and ensuring that you have the appropriate asset allocation are the most critical components to help ensure that you have sufficient savings for retirement,” said Beth McHugh, vice president of market insights at Fidelity.

The Fidelity study also indicated the recession and stock market downturn may have turned the focus of more workers toward retirement planning. About three out of four active participants contacted Fidelity by telephone or Internet in 2010 and more than 1.1 million took advantage of online tools.

Of those who used the savings tools, 47 percent increased contributions to their 401(k)s by an average of three percentage points from 4 percent to 7 percent.

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Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded its outlook for Japan’s credit rating because of concerns over its massive national debt.

The rating agency changed its outlook for Japan’s Aa2 rating from stable to negative.

In January, Standard & Poor’s cut Japan’s credit rating from AA to AA- for the first time in almost nine years due to concerns over ballooning debt.

Moody’s said the downgrade was due to “increasing uncertainty” over Japan’s ability to implement effective measures to rein in rising debt guaranteed payday loan.

Japan’s debt ratio is already among the highest in the developed world.

The finance ministry estimated in January that the country’s public debt would swell to 997.7 trillion yen ($12 trillion) by March 2012, up from 943 trillion yen this year.

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Would you rather follow an elephant or a jackrabbit into the stock market?

Elephant-size stock mutual funds trumpet loudly and leave big footprints but often trail the more agile smaller funds that can hop around swiftly with the trends.

Nonetheless, these behemoths remain core components in an individual’s portfolio because reliability and brand-name holdings keep conservative investors coming back for more. They fit especially well in retirement accounts left alone to grow.

“It is easier to build a good track record when a fund’s assets are small, so a large fund with a good record is really something to remember,” said Mark Salzinger, editor of The Investor’s ETF Report (www.noloadfundinvestor.com). “The chance of a large fund outperforming is limited because it would have to take outsized risks in a sector to accomplish that.”

The $75.7 billion Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX), up 28 percent over the past 12 months with a three-year annualized return of 4 percent, is Salzinger’s favorite biggie. Unlike many big funds that are computer-run indexes, it has a star portfolio manager.

The growth fund has been managed for more than two decades by the somewhat contrarian investor Will Danoff, who has more than $1 million of his own money in it. As its assets became elephantine, Danoff shifted out of small- and mid-cap stocks to focus more on big-company stocks.

“Danoff will take moderate risks to beat the stock index, but not huge risks because that’s not what his investors expect,” explained Salzinger. “The huge stock funds aren’t going to set the world on fire, but there aren’t too many ways for investors to get hurt, and doing ‘average’ in these financial markets is actually pretty good.”

Its primary holdings are familiar: Apple Inc., Google Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. A, McDonald’s Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Coca-Cola Co., Walt Disney Co., Noble Energy Inc., Nike Inc. B and Amazon.com Inc. There are nearly 500 stock names in this “no-load” (no sales charge) fund that has an annual expense ratio of 1.01 percent and requires a $2,500 minimum.

There are pros and cons to the biggest stock funds.

“There is a lot of research available on the largest funds, and you can easily keep up on the banter that surrounds them,” noted Jeff Tjornehoj, senior research analyst with Lipper Inc. in Denver, Colo.

“Because of their size, they usually have better economies of scale in terms of low expenses, and they have a cadre of analysts so you don’t depend on the best ideas of just one person.”

The cons include the fact that it becomes difficult for the manager of a large fund with billions of dollars in assets to change direction quickly, he said. When there’s bad news, it becomes difficult to unload a stock quickly because selling would drive down the entire market. The result is that the very large funds usually have a hard time differentiating themselves from their benchmark index.

“The overall market has a greater effect on the large stock funds rather than stock-picking does because they are fairly limited in how far they can go outside their benchmark,” said Tjornehoj.

Some of the giants are index funds, such as the broad-based $155 billion Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTSMX), up 28 percent over the past 12 months and 3 percent the past three years. This no-load fund has a miniscule 0.17 percent expense ratio and requires a $3,000 minimum.

“Performance over the past three years of the biggest funds has been decent, if unexciting,” said Russel Kinnel, director of mutual fund research for Morningstar Inc. in Chicago.

“Modestly positive numbers don’t seem exciting until you stop to think that people have recouped their losses from the market meltdown

Malaysia’s economy expanded 4.8 percent last quarter, spurring full-year growth to the quickest pace in a decade and putting pressure on the central bank to take more steps to curb inflation.

Gross domestic product expanded for a fifth consecutive quarter even as exports eased, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. The gain was more than the 4.6 percent median estimate of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The economy grew 7.2 percent last year, the most since 2000.

Malaysia’s government expects growth this year to hold near the 2010 level, an expansion that may prompt the central bank to tighten its monetary policy. Nations from Indonesia to China have boosted interest rates this year, and the International Monetary Fund says the region may need to raise borrowing costs further to limit the risk of overheating.

“Despite the orderly deceleration in growth, the solid contribution from investment and consumption should continue to buoy domestic demand,” Chandara Lim, an economist at Moody’s Analytics in Sydney, said before the report. “Though interest rates have remained on hold, the central bank could raise rates at its next policy meeting to curb rising inflation pressures.”

Asia’s recovery from the 2009 global recession eased toward the end of last year as the European sovereign-debt crisis and U.S. unemployment damped the outlook for exports.

“This performance is better than expected and should carry through into the first quarter of this year,” said Wan Suhaimi Saidi, an economist at Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur. “It’s leaning toward the top-end of my growth forecast.”

‘Commodity Bonanza’

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who plans to boost growth by attracting investment, forecasts the economy will expand as much as 6 percent this year. Malaysia, the world’s second-largest palm oil producer behind Indonesia, is also benefiting from higher commodity prices.

Surging palm oil and rubber prices may create a “commodity bonanza” that will benefit Malaysian banks, builders and property stocks, according to Credit Suisse Group AG analyst Stephen Hagger. Malaysia’s growth has lured funds and investment and pushed the ringgit up more than 11 percent against the dollar in the past year.

The ringgit, the best performing currency in Asia in the past year, was at 3.0340 per dollar as of 5:20 p.m. local time yesterday. The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index closed 0.6 percent higher ahead of the growth announcement.

Financial Imbalances

Bank Negara Malaysia Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz increased the benchmark overnight policy rate by 0.75 percentage point from March to July last year to reduce what the central bank said was the risk of financial imbalances that may be caused by keeping borrowing costs too low for too long no credit check payday loans.

Vietnam on Feb. 17 joined countries from China to India and Indonesia in raising rates this year as the region’s growth and rising global commodity prices boost inflationary pressures. Stocks and bonds across Asia have declined this year amid concern that accelerating price gains will erode purchasing power and spur further tightening.

Malaysia’s benchmark rate of 2.75 percent has been left unchanged at the past three meetings, most recently in January when the central bank signaled it may use other monetary policy tools to manage excess cash that’s building up in the financial system.

The policy stance is “appropriate and consistent” with the current assessment of growth and inflation prospects, the central bank said last month. While the inflation rate rose to a 19-month high of 2.2 percent in December after the government reduced subsidies on fuel and sugar, price gains are still among the slowest in Asia.

Commodities Inflation

“Inflation will creep higher on higher food and fuel- related prices in early 2011 but still remain manageable,” said Chua Hak Bin, a Singapore-based economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “The last round of fuel and sugar subsidy cuts in December was relatively small. The next round of subsidy cuts may have to be larger and occur before mid-2011 given soaring global oil prices.”

Malaysia’s manufacturing industry grew 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, and exports of goods and services gained 1.5 percent, according to yesterday’s report.

Najib’s government unveiled an economic transformation program in September aimed at attracting investment, including $444 billion of projects from mass rail to nuclear power involving companies such as Dialog Group Bhd. and IOI Corp.

Factory Investment

Approved factory investment surged 44.8 percent in 2010 as a recovery in the global economy prompted companies to announce new projects and spurred a 13.5 percent expansion in the country’s manufacturing industry, the government said last month.

Investment as measured by gross fixed capital formation advanced 9.2 percent last quarter, while the construction industry grew 5.6 percent, the central bank said yesterday.

“Growth is a tad higher than expected, indicating how the economy has recovered well cyclically from the global slowdown,” Wellian Wiranto, an economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Singapore, said in a note yesterday. The data may not prompt an interest-rate increase, though “they might start to normalize reserve requirement ratios soon as they have guided previously,” he said.

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Egyptians staged protests and strikes Wednesday over a host of grievances from paltry wages to toxic waste dumping, defying the second warning in three days from the nation’s military rulers to halt all labor unrest at a time when the economy is staggering.

The military-led caretaker government gave its first estimate of the death toll in the 18-day democracy uprising that ousted longtime leader Hosni Mubarak. Health Minister Ahmed Sameh Farid said at least 365 civilians died according to a preliminary count that does not include police or prisoners.

Mubarak’s departure set off a chain reaction of revolt around the Middle East with anti-government demonstrations in Libya, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and Iraq on Wednesday.

“We urge citizens and members of professional and labor unions to go back to their positions, and each play their part,” the military said in a text message sent to Egyptian cell phones.

The new warning raised expectations of an outright ban on protests and strikes, but it was ignored by people angered over a long list of woes. One of the youth groups that helped organize the anti-Mubarak revolt tweeted Wednesday: “Strikes and protests should NOT stop.” It said Mubarak’s men were still running the government.

The group also promoted a planned march this Friday to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the democracy movement’s key gathering point.

The military council that took power from Mubarak on Friday says strikes and protests are hampering efforts to salvage the economy and return the nation to normal life. The uprising has led to extended bank and stock market closures along with an evaporation of tourism _ a key source of income for the country.

Banks will have been closed two out of the past three weeks by Thursday, the last day of the business week in Egypt. There was no word on whether they would reopen Sunday, the start of the business week.

The stock market has been closed for the past three weeks and, again, and it’s uncertain when it will resume operating. The market lost nearly 17 percent of its value in two tumultuous sessions in late January before it was ordered shut to halt the slide.

As the economy falters, a wide array of groups are making it known they want change now.

Hundreds of airport employees protested inside the arrivals terminal at Cairo International Airport to press demands for better wages and health coverage. The protest did not disrupt flights.

In the industrial Nile Delta city of Mahallah al-Koubra, workers from Egypt’s largest textile factory went on strike over pay and calls for an investigation into alleged corruption at the factory, according to labor rights activist Mustafa Bassiouni.

More than 60 women’s and community groups condemned the new panel formed by the Armed Forces Supreme Council to amend Egypt’s constitution, saying it is an all-male group which “excludes half of society.”

“This casts doubt on the future of democratic transformation in Egypt after the revolution, and raises questions about … whether the revolution was seeking to free the whole society or only certain segments,” the statement said.

In Port Said, a coastal city at the northern tip of the Suez Canal, about 1,000 people demonstrated to demand that a chemical factory be closed because it was dumping waste in a lake near the city.

In the wake of protests Monday and Wednesday outside the office of the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, a spokeswoman for the group said it has started giving each refugee a small, one-time payment to help with their immediate needs.

The refugees demonstrating at the UNHCR office on the outskirts of Cairo complained they have been stuck in Egypt for several years, sometimes as long as a decade. Wilkes said there are some 40,000 registered refugees in the country, many from East Africa.

The European Union said Wednesday that its foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton would visit Egypt next week after the Egyptian Foreign Ministry asked the international community for aid. Ashton, already in the region, would be the most senior foreign official to come to Cairo since Mubarak’s Feb. 11 ouster. Details of her visit and who she would meet while in Cairo were yet to be announced.

There was one crumb of good news for Egyptian authorities.

The country’s chief archaeologist announced the recovery of three of 18 pieces reported missing from the famed Egyptian Museum during the anti-Mubarak uprising.

“God almighty saved the antiquities from this hell because God loves Egypt,” Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass said.

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Associated Press Writer Maggie Michael contributed to this story.

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Delta and American are raising the price of some tickets favored by business travelers up to $120 per round trip.

Fare experts said Delta started the increase on Monday and was matched by American.

It’s the second big increase in fares in as many weeks. Airlines eliminated many flights when oil prices were high and the economy was weak, giving them power to raise fares now that planes are more crowded and travel demand is rebounding low interest rate personal loans.

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Japan confirmed Monday that China’s economy surpassed its own as the world’s second largest in 2010 and said a late-year downturn was Japan’s first quarterly contraction in more than a year.

Japan’s real GDP expanded 3.9 percent in the calendar year in the first annual growth in three years, but it wasn’t enough to hold off a surging China. Japan’s nominal GDP last year came to $5.4742 trillion, less than China’s total of $5.8786 trillion, the Cabinet Office said.

Gross domestic product shrunk at an annualized rate of 1.1 percent in the October-December quarter, a sharp reversal from a revised 3.3 percent expansion in the third quarter, the government said.

A slowdown in exports and weaker consumer demand at home led to the unsurprising downturn, which is expected to be temporary. The result was better than Kyodo news agency’s average market forecast of an annualized 2.2 percent decline.

China was acknowledged last year as having grown to the world’s second-largest economy, but the Japanese data confirming it were not available until Monday. The switch underscores the nations’ stark contrasts: China is growing rapidly and driving the global economy, while Japan is struggling with persistent deflation, an aging population and ballooning public debt.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has pledged to revive the economy and make major reforms in the country’s tax and social welfare systems. His approval ratings are eroding quickly, however, as voters question his government’s ability to lead the country through its pressing problems.

The fourth-quarter figure translates to a 0.3 percent fall from the previous three-month period, according to the Cabinet Office’s preliminary data. Consumer spending, which accounts for some 60 percent of GDP, fell 0.7 percent. Auto sales slumped during the quarter after government subsidies for “green” vehicles expired in September.

Exports fell 0.7 percent from the previous quarter amid a strong yen and waning global demand. A rise in the Japanese currency reduces the value of exporters’ profits overseas and makes Japanese goods pricier in foreign markets.

The road ahead looks brighter, with economists saying GDP will expand this quarter in tandem with global growth. The head of Japan’s central bank, Masaaki Shirakawa, said last week that that recent signs indicate Japan is emerging from the “pause” and performing at par with other advanced economies.

Ryutaro Kono, chief economist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo, says exports and production have escaped their “soft patches.”

“The economy seems to be recovering again from December, so the negative growth in (the fourth quarter) need not become the basis for pessimism about Japan’s cyclical outlook,” he said in a report this month.

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