Marie Heitmeyer blog

Starbucks forecast takes hit from coffee costs

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Starbucks Corp forecast full-year earnings below analysts' expectations as the company expects rising coffee prices to hit profits more than it previously thought.

The world's largest coffee chain said it now expects earnings of $1.43 to $1.47 a share for fiscal year 2011, compared with the average analyst expectation of $1.49 a share. The company expects commodity costs to cut earnings by about 20 cents a year, compared with a forecast of 8 cents to 10 cents a share in November.

For the fiscal first quarter ended January 2, profit was $346.6 million, or 45 cents a share, up from $241.5 million, or 32 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts, on average, were looking for a profit of 39 cents per share for the latest quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales at Starbucks cafes open at least 13 months were up 8 percent in the United States and up 5 percent internationally for the holiday quarter, which traditionally is Starbucks' biggest for revenue.

Starbucks shares were down 2 percent at $32.40 in after-hours trading.

(Additional reporting by Brad Dorfman; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Motorola warns of 1st quarter net loss, shares fall

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (MMI.N) posted a profit for the fourth quarter, but its shares fell almost 4 percent after it warned it would revert to a loss again in the current quarter, as it faces new competition from the Apple Inc (AAPL.O) iPhone.

In its first quarterly report as a separate company, Motorola said on Wednesday it had a profit of $80 million, or 27 cents per share compared with a loss of $204 million, or 69 cents per share in the year-ago quarter before it became a stand-alone company.

Revenue rose to $3.4 billion from $2.8 billion in the year ago quarter.

Motorola said it shipped 11.3 million phones in the quarter, including 4.9 million smartphones. The average estimate was for sales of 5.2 million smartphones and total shipments of 10.7 million, according to six analysts contacted by Reuters.

Its shares fell to $33.50 in late trade after closing at $34.83.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Andre Grenon)

J. Crew settles shareholder suit

NEW YORK – Clothing retailer J. Crew Group Inc. said Tuesday that it has settled a shareholder lawsuit challenging its proposed $3 billion takeover by private equity firms TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners LP.

As part of the settlement, J. Crew said in a statement that on Tuesday it extended until Feb. 15 the deadline for competing offers, and it will reduce the fee that it must pay a suitor for canceling a deal to $20 million in certain circumstances.

J. Crew originally had until Jan. 15 to solicit other offers. It said no other proposals have come in.

The company also agreed that it or its insurers would pay the plaintiffs $10 million after the buyout closes.

It set a special shareholder meeting for March 1 to vote on the deal.

TPG and Leonard Green offered $43.50 per share for the company in late November.

J.Crew's shares slipped 42 cents to $43.40 in late morning trading.

Who Will Design Kate Middleton's Wedding Dress?

With the world looking to Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding later this year, soon-to-be Princess Kate will need a wedding dress that exemplifies her new royal status, as well as reflect a modern and youthful Britain. Middleton is no stranger to the fashion world as she has been seen as a trendsetter and fashion icon in the U.K.

The navy blue Issa dress she wore at the announcement of her engagement to Prince William has already inspired dozens of knock-off and copycat dresses into production. Girls all over the U.K. look to Middleton as a style maven; her engagement merely broadened her celebrity and fashion icon status to the rest of the English speaking world. Even this week, 13 U.K. university students stood in front of Buckingham Palace in , complete with fake blue sapphire rings. In one news conference, Middleton's look defined how the world perceives her.

Additionally, Middleton chose a dress off the rack from U.K. department store Reiss rather than a top-name designer, for her official engagement portraits with Prince William. This choice by Middleton demonstrated her eye for fashion while making her choices and lifestyle seem more accessible to the general population. Middleton's wedding dress will need to demonstrate the same amount of style-savviness, while avoiding the extravagance and old world charm of .

Additionally, the designer that Middleton chooses to create the wedding gown that will be seen and emulated by countless people all over the world must reflect a sense of British patriotism.andhave suggested a few up and coming British designers that Middleton could potentially select to design the wedding dress.

The front-runner, verified by U.K. designer Ben de Lisi, is British . He has been designing clothes since the early 1970s and even helped style Princess Diana. As he already has been "royal approved," Oldfield is seen as a likely choice over popular American wedding designers like Vera Wang. Diana wedding dress designer David Emanuel became a household name after his 1981 creation for her; Middleton has the combined power of a style icon and a royal, which could send Oldfield to the top of the fashion world.

R. Sargent Shriver remembered at wake in DC

WASHINGTON – R. Sargent Shriver, the ever-upbeat Kennedy in-law who served as the nation's first Peace Corps director and later led a national assault on poverty, was remembered Friday evening as an energetic idealist who left a legacy of public service.

"Sargent Shriver was the kindest, most cheerful, most optimistic person I knew in 50 years of public life," said former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, referring to his running mate that year. "It's remarkable that those virtues could all be combined in one person. I don't ever recall seeing him down in the dumps. He must have had days like that, but nobody ever saw them if he did."

Hundreds filled Holy Trinity Catholic church in Washington to pay their respects at a wake to Shriver, the brother-in-law of President John Kennedy and the late Sens. Robert and Edward Kennedy. He died Tuesday at a Maryland hospital at 95, eight years after announcing that he had Alzheimer's disease.

Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton were scheduled to speak at a funeral Mass on Saturday at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac, Md. First lady Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey will also attend

On Friday, some of Washington's most prominent figures filed past the casket and photos from Shriver's life to extend condolences to family members including his daughter, former NBC reporter Maria Shriver; her husband, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; and Shriver's four sons.

Some of those who attended the wake had met Shriver through his work and others only knew him by his reputation.

"He was the finest man I think I ever met in my life," said Gene Theroux, 72, of Loudoun County, Va., who worked at the Office of Economic Advancement where Shriver served as director in the 1960s. "He was full of positive energy."

"He took a thankless job at President Johnson's request to run the poverty program," Theroux said. And though many of the programs were unpopular, Shriver was able to bring people together to get them off the ground, he said.

The outpouring of praise for Shriver and support for his family since his death on Tuesday was extraordinary because he had not been in the public eye for years, said Bill Moyers, a journalist and former Johnson aide who wrote the foreword to a Shriver biography and worked with him at the Peace Corps.

"I believe it happened because...he gave us permission in the 1960s to be idealists," he said. "This distressed, this disillusioned country ... knew intuitively when the word came of his death that it was OK to be an idealist. He was — as a documentary about him said — the American idealist."

The descendant of a prominent Maryland family, Shriver was also remembered in eulogies by House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland; former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut; C. Payne Lucas, former president of development aid at nonprofit Africare; Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth; and Colman McCarthy, a journalist and former Shriver speech writer.

Also attending were Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, AOL co-founder Steve Case, musician Wyclef Jean, White House senior adviser David Axelrod, and singer and actress Vanessa Williams.

A businessman and lawyer, Shriver helped his late wife, Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, run the organization that allows disabled people to participate in sports. She died in 2009 at age 88. The couple had 19 grandchildren.

Shriver will be buried late Saturday in the same cemetery in Hyannis, Mass., as his wife, according to Rev. Daniel W. Lacroix, pastor at St. Francis Xavier Church.

"We take comfort knowing that Mummy and Daddy are together now in heaven," Maria Shriver told the gathering, as her four brothers stood behind her. "While we miss him, he talked about how he was excited to go to heaven. Living the last year and a half without Mummy was difficult for him and that's where he wanted to be."

Known as "Sarge," Shriver helped fulfill one of President Kennedy's campaign promises to start the Peace Corps and ended up building an international institution. He later ran the War on Poverty, part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Shriver was McGovern's running mate in the 1972 presidential election, but the Democrats lost in a landslide to President Richard M. Nixon. In 1994, Shriver received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.