Book list Web site receives financing

Pacific Northwest

Amazon.com

Online retailer Amazon.com will invest an undisclosed amount in closely held Shelfari, a Web site that allows readers to share their book lists.

Stefan Pepe, Amazon's director for books and magazine stores, will join the company's board, Seattle-based Shelfari said Wednesday. The book site also received financing from other investors.

Shelfari was co-founded last year by Josh Hug and Kevin Beukelman, former executives at RealNetworks, operator of the Rhapsody online music service. The company said it has "tens of thousands" of customers.

Neither Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener nor Shelfari spokesman Robert Nachbar would disclose details about Amazon's investment.

Nation / World

Take Two Interactive

Loss reported; profit seen later

Video-game company Take-Two Interactive Software said Wednesday it would take $42 million in charges related to stock options and posted a quarterly loss in a delayed report, but it expected to bounce back this year.

Take-Two, which has wowed investors with games such as the "Grand Theft Auto" series but worried many with financial and management missteps, restated reports from April 1997 through August 2003 and forecast a return to profit in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007.

A scandal over backdating of stock options engulfed Take-Two last year as it was starting to recover from a controversy over undisclosed sexually explicit content in its blockbuster "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" game.

Before that, in June 2005, four top executives paid $14 million to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit alleging fraudulent accounting practices.

Chrysler Group

Union agrees to buyout plan

Chrysler Group and the United Auto Workers union said Wednesday that they have reached agreement on a buyout and early-retirement plan aimed at helping the ailing automaker slash 9,000 hourly jobs from its U.S. payroll.

In letters sent this week to thousands of the company's manufacturing workers, Chrysler is offering a $100,000 cash buyout or, to eligible workers, an early-retirement package that includes a $70,000 cash payment.

Spokesman Mike Abrerlich said the automaker, the U.S. arm of DaimlerChrysler of Germany, expects about 4,500 workers to accept one of the deals this year. Chrysler Group will offer new buyout and retirement plans next year and in 2009 as it completes a restructuring plan announced last month, he said.

Chrysler Group, which builds and markets the Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep brands, lost $1.5 billion last year as U.S. sales of its large pickups and sedans slumped amid heightened demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Compiled from Bloomberg News, Reuters and the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service