Xerox

Shares of Xerox Corp. fell after the provider of printers and business services cut its full-year profit forecast as the economic slump in Europe crimped demand for technology. Excluding some items, profit will be $1.07 to $1.12 a share this year, Norwalk, Conn.-based Xerox said Friday. That compared with a previous forecast of as much as $1.18. Analysts had estimated $1.11. The economic slowdown, especially in Europe, led to a 4% second-quarter decline in Xerox's sales of printers, supplies and other technology, when adjusting for currency changes.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama, who has faced criticism that he has been hostile to big business, reportedly is considering two major corporate chief executives for positions in his second-term Cabinet. American Express Co. Chief Executive Kenneth Chenault has been approached by White House officials about succeeding Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury secretary or serving in another role, such as Commerce secretary or a top advisor to Obama, Bloomberg News reported. Xerox Corp. Chief Executive Ursula Burns also is being considered for Commerce secretary, Bloomberg said.

Xerox Corp. replaced an accounting firm that had found fault with its management after investigating the finances of the struggling copier and printer company. Xerox said PricewaterhouseCoopers will replace KPMG as its independent accounting firm effective Dec. 31. KPMG said in documents Xerox filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its review found evidence that Xerox management "was not successful in setting the appropriate tone with respect to financial reporting."

Shares of Xerox Corp. fell after the provider of printers and business services cut its full-year profit forecast as the economic slump in Europe crimped demand for technology. Excluding some items, profit will be $1.07 to $1.12 a share this year, Norwalk, Conn.-based Xerox said Friday. That compared with a previous forecast of as much as $1.18. Analysts had estimated $1.11. The economic slowdown, especially in Europe, led to a 4% second-quarter decline in Xerox's sales of printers, supplies and other technology, when adjusting for currency changes.

Xerox Corp. on Wednesday flatly denied a report in Advertising Age that the firm is dropping out of the personal-computer market. Spokesman Sandy Lanzarotta said the firm will announce new personal-computer products within the next few months. Xerox, however, is in the process of discontinuing the manufacture of its two current personal-computer models, the 820 and 16/8. Xerox said it has enough of the two models in inventory to take care of customer needs until new computers are introduced.

Xerox Corp. has developed versions of its highly successful line of laser printers that it will sell to other companies for resale under the purchasers' labels. The two products Xerox is offering as an original-equipment manufacturer are versions of its 4046 Laser CP desk-top printer and its 3700 laser-printing system. A laser printer is similar to a xerographic copier, except it uses a laser beam instead of a light lens to form an image on a drum.

Xerox Corp. posted a greater-than-expected 79% profit jump on increased demand for equipment and supplies. Fourth-quarter net income climbed to $382 million, or 41 cents a share, from $214 million, or 22 cents, a year earlier, the Norwalk, Conn., company said. Sales increased 11% to $4.88 billion, and the company extended its share buyback program by $1 billion. Xerox shares rose $1.08 to $14.33, the most since Oct. 21, 2005.

Xerox Corp. has settled a lawsuit brought by representatives of current and former black sales employees accusing it of racial bias, the company said. The agreement includes the payment of $12 million to 1,100 former and current employees and the creation of a task force to ensure that black sales reps are compensated fairly. Xerox denied that it engaged in unlawful discrimination or other illegal conduct but said a settlement was in the best interests of shareholders and employees.

Lendco Acceptance Corp., a Calabasas provider of auto leases, said it plans to join forces with LMV Leasing, a unit of Xerox Corp., in 11 Western states. Under their agreement, LMV will use the financial resources of Xerox to fund loans and leases originated by Lendco. Lendco said the deal will enable it to expand into financing auto sales as well as leases.

The company says the $1,995 Xerox 1012 desktop copier is the first in the industry with a warranty providing free repairs for three years of normal use. Xerox hopes that it will double or triple the company's share of the desktop copier market, said Roy Haythorn, vice president of reprographics marketing. Xerox has always been one of the market leaders in large, high-volume copiers, but it has been unable to do as well in the low-volume market.

Jacob E. Goldman, the former Xerox chief scientist who created the company's famed Palo Alto Research Center, whose scientists and engineers invented the modern personal computer in the 1970s and developed an array of other pioneering computing technologies, has died. He was 90. Goldman, a resident of Westport, Conn., died Tuesday at a hospital in nearby Stamford after a short illness, said his son, Melvin. A physicist, Goldman had been the head of the research and development laboratory at Ford Motor Co. before joining Xerox, then based in Rochester, N.Y., as chief scientist in late 1967.

Borrowing its title from a Langston Hughes poem, Los Angeles artist Mike Saijo presents a new exhibition examining the ethnographic histories of the Boyle Heights neighborhood ? to Hughes' Harlem ? vis-à-vis the Japanese American, Latino and Jewish communities that resided there in the 1940s. "A Dream Deferred" sets forth a series of multimedia works in the artist's distinctive style of layered photographs, drawings, Xerox transfers and text in bold black-and-white. Caporale/Bleicher Gallery, 355 N. La Brea Ave., L.A. Opening reception 6 p.m. Sat. Free.

Question: I am impressed with the results of Xerox Corp. but wonder if it can continue on this course. Answer: As impressive as "the document company" has been lately, it isn't overconfident. Xerox has seen an improvement in spending on hardware and services by big business. But Chief Executive Ursula Burns, who became president in 2007 and CEO in 2009, has said she can't be sure that such improved conditions "will stay forever. " As a result, the firm is cutting 2,500 jobs worldwide in 2011, on top of 2,500 cuts announced last January.

THE ECONOMY Consumer confidence rebounds U.S. consumer confidence rebounded in March after falling sharply last month, the Conference Board said. The consumer confidence index rose to 52.5 in March from 46.4 in February. Confidence had dropped significantly in February from 56.5 in January. The gain in confidence was above forecasts. Economists expected the index to rebound to 51.0. The February confidence index was revised up from the initial estimate of 46.0.

NEW YORK -- Xerox Corp. has agreed to buy Affiliated Computer Services Inc. for about $6.4 billion in cash and stock in a deal that will boost the size of its services business and take it another step away from its roots as a printer company. In a deal announced Monday, Xerox said it will pay $63.11 per share for each ACS, creating a $22 billion business that combines Xerox's document management services with the business process outsourcing of Dallas-based ACS. The price is a 33 percent premium over ACS's closing stock price on Friday.

TECHNOLOGY Twitter has applied with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for dibs on the word "tweet." The San Francisco micro-messaging pioneer's action raises the perennially tricky question of whether a company can own the rights to a word that has so penetrated the English lexicon. That's what happens when a trademark is "genericized." Think Xerox, Kleenex, Jacuzzi, Q-Tip and, of course, Google. All are silly words that became synonymous with their products, often to the chagrin of the owner, whose legal claim to the much-beloved mark becomes increasingly slippery as the word burrows into the vernacular.

Tandon, the leading independent U.S. maker of disk drives for the microcomputer industry, announced Tuesday that it will manufacture computer components for Xerox and Tandem. The agreements will bring the Chatsworth-based company as much as $100 million a year in new revenue for each of the next three years, according to industry sources.

Shares of Xerox Corp. fell after the company cut its profit forecast nearly 80% on restructuring costs and slowing technology spending. First-quarter profit will be 3 to 5 cents a share, down from an earlier forecast of 16 to 20 cents, Xerox said. Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings both revised their outlook for the Norwalk, Conn., company to negative, reflecting challenging economic conditions. Xerox shares fell $1, or 19%, to $4.34.

Xerox Corp. said Thursday that Chief Executive Anne Mulcahy would retire July 1, to be succeeded by Ursula Burns, the printer and copier maker's president. She will make Xerox the largest U.S. company to be headed by a black woman. The move has been in the works since Burns, 50, became heir-apparent and company president in April 2007. No company in the Fortune 500 has ever had a black woman as CEO, according to magazine spokesman Daniel Kile.