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Miners Won't Marry

A year can be an eon in business—just ask BHP Billiton (BHP). On Nov. 25 the Anglo-Aussie mining behemoth finally shelved its all-stock bid for rival Rio Tinto (RTP) after trying to clinch the deal since November 2007. At the peak of the commodity boom, the offer was worth more than $150 billion, but that shiny number had fallen to $60 billion as tumbling commodity prices tarnished BHP's share price. The company blamed its decision on the global economic downturn, falling demand for metals, and regulatory hurdles.

See "BHP Billiton Ends Rio Tinto Takeover Battle"

—Edited by Harry Maurer & Cristina Linblad

Forgive Me, Taxman

U.S. citizens who'd rather not pay taxes are apparently concluding they'd even more rather not go to jail. The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 24 that wealthy clients of Swiss bank UBS (UBS), which is accused by the U.S. Justice Dept. of helping customers evade taxes, are signing up for an IRS amnesty program that allows them to avoid prosecution if they admit wrongdoing and pay their fair share, plus penalties. People with guilty consciences began coming forward after former UBS private banker Bradley Birkenfeld began singing to the feds about a year ago, raising the odds that tax cheats would face the music.

—Edited by Harry Maurer & Cristina Linblad

How Global Are You?

They may call themselves multinationals, but you wouldn't always know it from looking at their boards of directors. New research from executive search firm Egon Zehnder International finds that fewer than half the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index have a foreign national on their boards. Egon Zehnder devised a "global board index" that averages the percentage of foreign nationals on the board and the percentage of directors with meaningful international experience (those who've had a senior post outside the U.S. and Canada or responsibility for foreign operations). BusinessWeek then used the index scores to rank the companies that get more than 50% of their revenues from international sources.

The 5 Most Global Boards

COMPANY                  INTERNATIONAL     GLOBAL BOARD
                         REVENUE*          INDEX SCORE
Philip Morris Intl.      100%              83%
MasterCard               50%               67%
Schlumberger             77%               64%
News Corp.               50%               59%
Colgate-Palmolive        76%               50%

The 5 Least Global Boards

COMPANY                  INTERNATIONAL     GLOBAL BOARD
                         REVENUE*          INDEX SCORE
Cameron Intl.            63%               6%
Manitowoc                51%               5%
Halliburton              56%               5%
Adobe Systems            56%               5%
Unisys                   57%               4%

* Revenue from sources outside the U.S. or, if unavailable,
from outside North America

Data: Egon Zehnder International; Bloomberg; company reports