The bid was due to expire yesterday, but has been extended as Maple seeks approval for the bid from regulators.

The deal values TMX Group at roughly $3.8 billion.

The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 picked Morgan Stanley to take the coveted “lead left” role in what is expected to be the largest IPO ever to emerge from Silicon Valley.

The $5 billion is a preliminary target and could be ramped up in coming months in response to investor demand, IFR added.

The other four bookrunners chosen were Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and JP Morgan, although the underwriting syndicate could be expanded later, IFR cited the sources as saying.

Prices dropped in November from October in 19 of the 20 cities tracked, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index released Tuesday.

The biggest declines were in Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit. Phoenix was the only city to show an increase. The decline partly reflects the typical fall slowdown after the peak buying season.

Still, prices declined in 18 of the 20 cities in November compared to the same month in 2010. Only Washington and Detroit posted year-over-year increases. And prices have fallen 33 percent nationwide since the housing bust, to 2003 levels.

The Case-Shiller index covers half of all U.S. homes. It measures prices compared with those in January 2000 and creates a three-month moving average. The November data are the latest available.

Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, said the rate in December was unchanged, as November’s was revised upwards from a previous estimate of 10.3 percent. Unemployment has been steadily rising over the past year — in December 2010, it stood at 9.5 percent — largely because of Europe’s debt crisis.

The biggest increases over 2011 were recorded in Greece, Cyprus and Spain. All three, to various degrees, have had to impose tough austerity measures — such as public sector layoffs and spending cuts — in an effort to regain investor confidence lost during the crisis.

The agency said just under 16.5 million people were unemployed in the eurozone, up 751,000 on the year before.

The highest unemployment rate remains in Spain, where 22.9 percent of the working population were without work, though Greece is nearing with 19.2 percent rate. The lowest rate in the eurozone is Austria’s 4.1 percent.

Americans spent more on cars and trucks, and companies built up their stockpiles. But growth in the October-December quarter — and all of last year — was held back by the biggest annual government spending cuts in four decades.

The Commerce Department said Friday that the economy grew just 1.7 percent last year, roughly half of the growth in 2010 and the worst since the recession.

In the final three months of last year, consumer spending grew at a 2 percent annual rate. That’s up modestly from the third quarter.

Much of the growth was powered by a 14.8 percent surge in sales of autos and other long-lasting manufactured goods. Incomes, which have been weak all year because of high unemployment, grew at a modest 0.8 percent rate. That followed two straight quarters of declining incomes.

Source: CBC

Fitch cut Italy to A minus from A plus, while Spain was downgraded to A from AA minus. Belgium was cut to AA from AA plus, Cyprus was cut to BBB minus from BBB and Slovenia was downgraded to A from AA minus.

Ireland’s BBB plus rating was affirmed.

All six countries continue to carry a negative outlook, which means there is a slightly greater than 50% chance of a further downgrade over the next two years, Fitch said.

“In Fitch’s opinion, the eurozone crisis will only be resolved as and when there is broad economic recovery. It is evident that further substantial reforms of the governance of the eurozone will be required to secure economic and financial stability, including greater fiscal integration,” the ratings firm said.

The social networking giant is looking at a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, the Journal reported, citing an unnamed source.

Morgan Stanley is close to winning the IPO deal, while Goldman Sachs is expected to play a key role, according to the Journal report.

Gold February futures, which rose $35.60 to end just above $1,700 an ounce on the Comex division of New York Mercantile Exchange overnight, added another $12.20, or 0.7%, to $1,712.30 an ounce during Asian trading hours

Source: MW

In its latest economic outlook, the Washington-based monitor of global financial affairs predicted the Canadian economy will likely now grow by only 1.7 percent — three notches lower than the Bank of Canada’s estimate just last week — and two-tenths of a point lower than its own previous call in September.

And the IMF doesn’t see much improvement in 2013, forecasting 2 percent growth, again lower than the central bank’s prediction of 2.8 percent.

The IMF also predicted global growth of 3.25 percent, slower than the 4 percent pace it projected in September.

Source: CBC