The Fortune 500 comes out just once a year, but the companies on it make headlines every day. Here then are today’s highlights of news and happenings coming from the biggest names in business.
By Shelley DuBois, reporter
THE COST OF GROWTH becoming clear at Amazon (AMZN), which reported better sales for this past year’s holiday season than many of its competitors, but disappointing profit. While the company’s sales numbers for the fourth quarter of 2010 grew by 36%, profit for the same time period only increased by 8%. Profit growth slowed, Amazon says, because of the company’s continued investment spending–something that has frustrated analysts, who are ready to see some returns. [Wall Street Journal]
RUSSIAN OIL TEMPTS THE MAJORS BP (BP) and ExxonMobil (XOM) just signed deals with Russian state oil company Rosneft, despite a long history of tense or flat out botched partnerships. But big multinationals simply can’t resist Russia, now the world’s biggest oil producing country, mostly because it’s open to the idea of exploring its petroleum-rich offshore assets. [New York Times]
HEY, WE STREAM TOO! Giant retailers are chasing the market for the streaming and download model of selling music and DVDs. Giant retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT), Sears Holdings (SHLD) and Best Buy (BBY) all have set up their own platforms to do so, but they’re still far from threatening the foothold of companies like Apple (APPL), Netflix and Amazon. [Wall Street Journal]
GM ALFALFA GETS THE GREEN LIGHT from the U.S. government. Some farmers had been concerned that growing Monsanto’s (MON) genetically modified, pesticide-resistant alfalfa strain could damage profits. That’s because if the plant cross pollinates with non-modified alfalfa, farmers can no longer sell the latter as organic, and would have to charge less. But Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack approved Monsanto’s version, saying that further research and dialogue should help preserve the purity of the alfalfa genome. [New York Times]
FOREIGN INFRASTRUCTURE GROWTH IS A LIFESAVER for U.S. companies whose sales numbers may not be growing impressively at home, but are taking off overseas. Caterpillar (CAT), the world’s biggest construction and mining equipment maker has posted fourth quarter earnings four times that of the previous year. Other Fortune 500 companies including 3M (MMM) and GE (GE) are also banking on major growth in developing countries. [Wall Street Journal]
KINECTING THE DOTS Microsoft (MSFT) fourth quarter sales are up, thanks largely to good consumer response to its controller-free Xbox attachment. The company sold 8 million of the device, which helped boost Microsoft sales 5% to $20 billion. [CNNMoney]
