GM to Temporarily Close 20 Plants

On Friday, General Motors Corp. stated that it will temporarily close 20 of its factories across North America and reduce vehicle production while it tries adjust to the decline in automobile demands. The company will cut 250,000 vehicles from its production schedule for the first quarter of 2009. They normally produce 750,000 automobiles for that quarter. Many of the plants will be closed for the whole month of January and employees will be temporarily laid off and will receive part of their normal wages. They could be able to apply for state unemployment benefits. GM reported that its sales are down 41 percent for November and are down 22 percent for the first 11 months of 2008.

General Motors currently trying to obtain Government loans to be able to stay in business. The White House says that it might go into its $700 billion Wall Street Bailout fund to help GM and Chrysler. The entire automobile industry is having to make cuts due to the decline in the demand of automobiles.

Singer Prince Being Sued by Perfume Maker

The singer Prince is being sued by a perfume company named Revelations Perfume and Cosmetics Inc. that claims that he and his music publisher didn't honor a contract to help market a fragrance named after the album "3121." The company says that it licensed Prince's name, likeness, and the "3121" album to market the fragrance. The company says that it spent $2.5 million and agreed to pay Universal half of the net profits from the sales of the perfume but Universal and Prince haven't participated in promotions since the fragrance launched in July of 2007.

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Coors and Miller Brewing Companies Join Forces Against Busch

Coors and Miller brewing companies plan to combine their operations to compete against Anheuser-Busch. The new name will be MillerCoors. Right now their biggest competitor is Anheuser-Busch.

The change will save the two companies about $500 million dollars and will come from reducing the shipping distances, finding economies of scale in brewing operations, optimizing production, and getting rid of duplicate corporate and marketing services. They expect the company to have annual beer sales of about $6.6 billion dollars. With the money that they save they plan to invest more to market their products and be able to compete better and more efficiently.

Pepsi Set to Launch New Drinks

Pepsi is set to launch a couple new drinks. They are going to launch the caffeinated Propel Invigorating Water and a lighter version of Gatorade, called G2. G2 will have fewer calories than the original Gatorade and is aimed for when people are not working out.

The new products will be delivered to convenience stores, independent retailers, and gas stations later this year. Pepsi hopes to boost the sales growth of Gatorade since its sales have been down recently due to cooler weather and an increase in prices. They also feel that the lower calorie G2 will keep customers from moving to other lower-calorie drinks.

They expect the products to boost earnings for the Pepsi company and its shareholders. They expect shares to go up by 2 cents in 2008 and 3 cents in 2009.