D E Shaw Co

FreeRealTime.com Inc., which gives professional and individual investors access to stock market information online, postponed introduction of stock trading services because a business partner is being sold. Los Angeles-based FreeRealTime said its alliance with FarSight Financial Services was delayed pending FarSight's planned sale by its owner, New York-based D.E. Shaw & Co. FreeRealTime had said in October that it would start offering online trading by this week.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to revive a class-action investor lawsuit that accused Bank of America Corp. of hiding losses that led to a $372-million write-off. Bank of America agreed in February to a $490-million settlement. That accord is awaiting approval from a federal judge. The Supreme Court appeal came from a law firm that sought to open a new front by pressing a separate shareholders' suit in California state court. The fight centers on a $1.4-billion payment that BankAmerica Corp.

D.E. Shaw & Co., a New York brokerage firm and hedge fund, will fire 25% of its staff, or 264 people, and sell some businesses as it closes a trading alliance with BankAmerica Corp. The firm, run by former Columbia University computer science professor David Shaw, said it is winding down its alliance, run through D.E. Shaw Securities Trading, after the unit lost $200 million in the first nine months of the year, almost entirely on fixed-income securities. As part of the restructuring, D.E.

Bank of America Corp. settled allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the bank improperly accounted for a business relationship that led to a $372-million write-off in 1998. The commission alleged that the company treated an equity investment in the New York hedge fund, D.E. Shaw & Co., as a loan and failed to adequately inform investors of the risks involved in the bank's business alliance with D.E. Shaw.

A major shareholder of casino operator Riviera Holdings Corp. said that an offer to buy the company for $17 a share was too low and that it would vote against the deal. "We don't think this is the right price," said Marc Sole, senior vice president of New York investment firm D.E. Shaw & Co., whose group of affiliated firms holds a 9.9% stake in Las Vegas-based Riviera. "If this deal fails and if there's no other bid forthcoming, so be it," he said Wednesday. D.E.

Riviera Holdings Corp., owner of a casino on the Las Vegas Strip, received a $336.5-million buyout offer from a group of investors including Barry Sternlicht and Robert F.X. Sillerman. Sternlicht, founder of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., and Sillerman, owner of the "American Idol" television show and Elvis Presley's estate, offered $27 a share in cash, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday.

David Coulter, who quit as president of BankAmerica Corp. a year ago after the largest U.S. bank posted a surprise loss, was hired by the Beacon Group to run the private equity and merger firm's West Coast business. Coulter, 52, will work in Los Angeles for New York-based Beacon, according to a Sept. 17 memo to investors in the firm's funds. The Beacon Group is focusing on developing relationships with the chief executives of mid-sized companies, the memo said.

Leading online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. on Monday filed to sell 2.5 million common shares, a 10.9% stake, in an initial public offering. The Seattle-based company, which is selling all the shares in the offering, plans to raise $29.4 million after expenses if the shares sell for $13 each, according to the S-1 registration statement it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Amazon.com was founded in July 1995 to be "Earth's Biggest Bookstore."

In a huge settlement influenced by Enron Corp.'s meltdown, Bank of America Corp. said Friday that it would pay $490 million to put to rest claims that it misled shareholders before its 1998 merger with NationsBank Corp. The Charlotte, N.C., company, the nation's third-largest bank, said it had set aside reserves for the settlement so future results would not be affected. It admitted no wrongdoing. Within weeks of the takeover of San Francisco's BankAmerica Corp.