Contifinancial Corp

ContiFinancial Corp., a New York finance company, said Thursday it will acquire the remaining 44% stake in Huntington Beach-based Triad Financial Corp. from minority shareholders by the end of the week. Financial terms weren't disclosed. ContiFinancial had acquired a majority stake in Triad in November 1996. Privately owned Triad, founded in 1988, specializes in providing consumer finance packages for auto dealers.

ContiFinancial Corp., a New York finance company, said Thursday it will acquire the remaining 44% stake in Huntington Beach-based Triad Financial Corp. from minority shareholders by the end of the week. Financial terms weren't disclosed. ContiFinancial had acquired a majority stake in Triad in November 1996. Privately owned Triad, founded in 1988, specializes in providing consumer finance packages for auto dealers.

Triad Financial Corp., a privately owned regional auto finance company, said that publicly traded ContiFinancial Corp. has acquired a 53.5% stake and intends to ultimately acquire all of Triad's stock. Terms of the cash transaction were not disclosed. ContiFinancial is a New York-based consumer and commercial finance company. Triad, based in Huntington Beach, was founded in 1988 and specializes in providing consumer finance packages for auto dealers.

Triad Financial Corp., a privately owned regional auto finance company, said that publicly traded ContiFinancial Corp. has acquired a 53.5% stake and intends to ultimately acquire all of Triad's stock. Terms of the cash transaction were not disclosed. ContiFinancial is a New York-based consumer and commercial finance company. Triad, based in Huntington Beach, was founded in 1988 and specializes in providing consumer finance packages for auto dealers.

Lachlan Murdoch, the 25-year-old son of News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch, has been promoted to managing director of the media conglomerate's Australian operations, News Corp. said. Lachlan Murdoch and his older sister Elisabeth Murdoch have been given high-ranking posts in their father's empire as they move into consideration as successors to the News Corp. leadership. Lachlan Murdoch succeeds Ken Cowley as managing director of News Ltd. effective immediately.

The financing arm of General Motors Corp. said Tuesday that it had agreed to pay $1.8 billion for the commercial finance unit of Bank of New York in a bid to diversify its business away from automotive financing. The cash acquisition of BNY Financial Corp., expected to close by the end of the second quarter, would enable Detroit-based General Motors Acceptance Corp. to boost its asset-backed lending business globally and enter the factoring market to serve as a credit collection service.

The troubled parent of Huntington Beach-based Triad Financial Corp. has agreed to sell the auto lender to a unit of Ford Motor Co. to help it pay off debt. New York-based ContiFinancial Corp. said Monday that it will sell Triad, which makes car loans to people with spotty credit records, to Fairlane Credit LLC. Fairlane is a unit of Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford Credit Co., Ford's finance subsidiary.

First Union Corp. agreed Wednesday to buy The Money Store Inc. for $2.1 billion in a move that would enable the big banking company to establish a coast-to-coast presence in the consumer home-equity and small-business loan industries.