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Billionaire Merckle Died Within Sight of Factory He Founded 36 Years Ago German billionaire Adolf Merckle committed suicide by stepping in front of a train a few hundred yards from the factory he founded 36 years ago.

Marbella's Crooked Billionaire Spent Bribes on Stud Farm Guarded by Tiger As an urban planning adviser in the sun- drenched Spanish resort town of Marbella, Juan Antonio Roca had after- tax income of less than 150,000 euros a year.

Ameriprise Clients Left in Lurch With Paris Hilton Flop Among Rogue Deals Working out of an Ameriprise Financial Services Inc. branch in Orlando, Florida, Christopher Coulther offered his clients a deal that was hard to resist. Promising a 100 percent return on Costa Rican real estate, he enticed 98 people to invest almost $12 million.

Morgan Stanley Loses Ground in M&A Advisory to Moelis, Perella Boutiques Morgan Stanley lost ground counseling companies on takeovers last year as boutique advisory firms Moelis & Co. and Perella Weinberg Partners gained market share in the slowest period for deal-making since 2003.

Coal-Ash Spill May Strip TVA of `Exaggerated Deference' From U.S., States The deluge of ash from a coal-fired power plant that buried 300 acres of eastern Tennessee is sparking new state and federal scrutiny of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest U.S. public power company.

U.S. Stock Repurchases Plunge More Than Stock Prices: Chart of the Day U.S. companies pulled away from stock repurchases last year at an even faster rate than share prices dropped, according to figures compiled by Birinyi Associates.

Intel Seeking Payoff in 2009 From Push Into Internet-Television Products Intel Corp., resurrecting a stalled bid to make its chips the key component in home-entertainment devices, expects to make headway this year as consumers use their televisions to surf the Web, chat with friends and shop online.

Univision May Lose Top-Rated Shows in Spanish at Televisa Royalties Trial Univision Communications Inc., the largest Spanish-language television network in the U.S., may lose its top-rated prime-time shows in a royalties dispute with Mexico’s Grupo Televisa SA that’s about to go to trial.

Israel Soldiers Train in Fake Gaza to Learn From Lebanon Invasion Failures The mosques, squares and narrow alleyways Israeli troops are fighting through in their invasion of the Gaza Strip should be familiar: Many of the soldiers trained in a mock Arab city built on a base in southern Israel.

Banks' `Catatonic Fear' Means U.S. Consumers Get No Relief From TARP Plan As the new owner of $172.5 billion of preferred shares and warrants in 208 U.S. financial institutions, the Treasury Department hasn’t succeeded in thawing frozen credit markets, leaving taxpayers propping up an industry that won’t lend to them.

Dollar Rally Fizzles in Emerging Markets as Fed Awakens Appetite for Risk The dollar, yen and Swiss franc may weaken this year against 2008’s biggest losers in the currency markets as the global economy starts to recover, the largest foreign-exchange strategists and investors say.

Berlusconi Plan Saps Italian Pensions With Privatized Funds Bush Promoted Italy did for retirement financing what President George W. Bush couldn’t do in the U.S.: It privatized part of its social security system. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

Big S&P 500 Rallies Reveal Low Probability of IPOs Rebounding Before 2011 Even if the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rallies 24 percent this year, there’s little chance of a similar rebound in U.S. initial public offerings.

Madoff Investor Awaits Client Verdict on Whether He's `Imbecile' or `Dupe' Patrick Littaye, co-founder of Access International Advisors, lost his savings after investing with Bernard Madoff, expects to lose his house in his hometown of Saint-Malo, France, and says he’ll canvass investors over the next few weeks to see whether he has also lost his business.

Gaza's Civilians Find Safety Elusive as Israel Strikes at Hamas Fighters Akram al-Ghoul gave up his job as a military judge for the Palestinian Authority 18 months ago. A supporter of the Fatah movement, which favors negotiating peace with Israel, al-Ghoul was forced to abandon his legal career when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip.

Buffett's Berkshire Has `Nowhere to Hide' Amid Worst Drop in Three Decades Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. slumped 32 percent last year, the worst performance in more than three decades, as the U.S. recession forced down the value of the firm’s equity holdings and derivative bets.

Linklaters Tops Law Firm Deal Advisers in 2008 as M&A Volume Plunges 38% Linklaters, hired to advise on four of the 10 biggest deals in 2008, led all law firms in mergers and acquisitions during the smallest deal market in four years.

Aberdeen Lured by India Rupee Bonds as Investec Becomes Bullish on Brazil International investors are buying Brazilian, Indian and Indonesian bonds, driving the biggest monthly gain in emerging-market debt in at least three years, as central banks cut interest rates to support their economies.

Obama May Move to Counter China's Space Ambitions With Pentagon-NASA Link President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.

Journal of a Plague Year: Faith in Markets Cracks Under $30 Trillion Loss It has been a year of record misery: the largest bankruptcy, bank failure and Ponzi scheme in U.S. history; $720 billion in writedowns and losses by financial institutions; $30.1 trillion in market valuation wiped out.