Boys rule at Hasbro as superheroes, Transformers lift 4Q

PAWTUCKET, R.I. — The appetite for superheroes and robots in disguise led to a healthy fourth-quarter at Hasbro even as a shift toward electronics has challenged the traditional toy industry.

Hasbro said Monday that sales of toys geared toward boys increased 21 percent, with a strong showing from Transformers, Nerf and Marvel.

The company boosted its quarterly dividend and increased the number of its own shares targeted for buybacks.

There were two hurdles during the quarter: the strong U.S. dollar and declining sales in toys for girls. Hasbro's rival Mattel, which makes the Barbie doll, has seen a similar decline recently.

Hasbro said revenue would have climbed 7 percent if it weren't for a $93.4 million drag from foreign exchange.

Net income reached $169.9 million, or $1.34 per share, for the quarter. Earnings adjusted for pretax gains came to $1.22 per share, which was in line with Wall Street expectations, according to a poll by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue climbed to $1.3 billion from $1.28 billion, but that was still short of the $1.34 billion analysts were looking for, according to Zacks.

Sales of merchandise for girls fell 10 percent during the quarter and game sales declined 4 percent.

Last month Mattel Inc. said that weak Barbie doll sales weighed down its fourth quarter. That company's chairman and CEO resigned.

Hasbro in September wrested the rights from Mattel for the dolls of Disney's blockbuster "Frozen," and will begin producing them next year.

For 2015, Hasbro reported a profit of $415.9 million, or $3.20 per share. Its adjusted profit was $3.15 per share, which was better than expected. Revenue was $4.28 billion and, like the quarter, fell a bit short of projections.

Hasbro raised its quarterly dividend by 7 percent to 46 cents per share, from 43 cents per share. The dividend will be paid on May 15 to shareholders of record on May 1.

Hasbro Inc., based in The Pawtucket, Rhode Island, also authorized an additional $500 million in share repurchases.

"Hasbro's results were better than Mattel's and exceeded our expectation," wrote Drew Crum, an industry analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. But he left his rating unchanged due to the rising prices of the company's stock.

The company's stock jumped more than 4 percent to $58.22 in early trading.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap ) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on HAS at http://www.zacks.com/ap/HAS

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Keywords: Hasbro, Earnings Report

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Dish's Sling TV to add AMC to $20 monthly internet package, launches nationwide

Dish Network soon will add AMC -- home of shows like "The Walking Dead," "Better Call Saul" and "Mad Men" -- to the core $20-per-month Sling TV service, which it is launching nationwide in the U.S Monday with 14 cable channels including ESPN.

The satcaster is targeting younger consumers with the over-the-top service who have shunned traditional pay-TV services, typically priced at least three times higher. However, among the service's current limitations, it currently excludes ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and broadcast channels; and Sling TV does not provide DVR features (although certain programming is available on-demand).

The Sling TV full live lineup currently includes: ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network, ABC Family, Disney Channel, CNN, AMC, and Univision's El Rey Network and Galavision.

The addition of AMC to Sling TV stands to make the service -- which has been perceived as essentially a way to get ESPN without paying for a full cable or satellite TV subscription -- more attractive.

"We flipped the switch this morning opening up Sling TV to all consumers, and we're giving them something they've been asking for: AMC," Roger Lynch, CEO of Dish's Sling TV division. "Soon Sling TV will deliver hits like 'The Walking Dead' and 'Mad Men' with AMC included in our core package."

Sling TV will announce the launch date of AMC, as well as additional information regarding package availability of other AMC Networks channels, in the coming weeks.

Also Monday Dish said it will offer the WatchESPN multiplatform live sports service for Sling TV customers at no additional cost. It's also launching a $5 per month sports tier, Sports Extra, with ESPNews, ESPNU, SEC Network, Universal Sports, Univision Deportes, beIn Sports, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN Bases Loaded and ESPN Goal Line. Sling TV's other optional packages are Kids Extra and News & Info Extra, each priced at $5 monthly.

Sling TV, on top of live cable TV and VOD, includes content culled from Disney's Maker Studios, one of the largest YouTube multichannel networks. At launch, Sling TV subscribers have access to a Maker playlist featuring a selection of short-form videos from the MCN's network of 55,000 independent creators. The service soon will add Maker's Polaris+ videogame-oriented channel, which features long-form original programming, to available in an exclusive first-run window on Sling TV. Polaris+ is an extension of Maker's existing Polaris brand, the no. 1 online gaming network attracting more than three billion views every month.

Dish announced a deal for the OTT service with Univision last week, after reaching agreements last year with Disney/ESPN, Turner Broadcasting System and Scripps Networks Interactive. Dish also has a deal with A+E Networks but currently none of that programmer's networks are in the Sling TV lineup.

At launch, Sling TV is available on Roku players and TV models, via iOS and Android apps, and on PCs and Macs. Dish plans to add support for Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick soon, with Google Nexus Player, LG and Samsung smart TVs, Microsoft Xbox One and other devices to follow.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Food scares cost McDonald's in China, Japan; sales fall

OAK BROOK, Ill. — Food-quality scares are hurting McDonald's in China and Japan, where weakness contributed to a key global sales figure falling 1.8 percent.

The world's largest hamburger chain said sales dropped 12.6 percent in January at locations open at least 13 months in the division that includes the Asia region. That overshadowed a 0.4 percent rise at U.S. locations and a comparable 0.5 percent increase in Europe.

McDonald's shares fell $1.16 to $92.83 in morning trading.

McDonald's Corp. said its performance in Asia was hurt by customer perception issues in Japan, where a human tooth, plastic pieces and other objects have been found in its food. In China, McDonald's is trying to recover from the ongoing fallout from another food-safety scandal.

Over the summer, an undercover TV report in the country showed one of McDonald's major suppliers repackaging meat that was alleged to be expired. The claim has not been publicly confirmed by the supplier or the government. But the plant stopped operations, and many of McDonald's restaurants in the country were left unable to sell burgers, chicken nuggets and other items. The chain's reputation took a hit as well.

Chief Financial Officer Peter Bensen said during a January conference call that McDonald's estimates it will take at least three to six more months for its business in China to return to normal. He said worsening perceptions are expected to hurt Japan's results for "the foreseeable future."

Back in the U.S., McDonald's said breakfast items performed well but that it was offset by tough competition. The chain is dealing with competition on a number of fronts, including convenience stores that are selling more food and smaller chains such as Chipotle that market themselves as being of higher quality.

The rise in Europe reflected strength in the U.K. and Germany largely offset by softness in France and Russia.

As it struggles to fix its business, McDonald's Corp. said late last month that it was replacing CEO Don Thompson with Steve Easterbrook, its chief brand officer.

The announcement came after McDonald's reported a drop in its fourth-quarter earnings and sales and said it was making major changes in 2015 to win back customers. The company said it will cut down new restaurant openings in certain markets. It's also simplifying its menu and looking to offer customers more ways to customize their burgers and giving them multiple ways to order, such as at a self-order kiosk or with a mobile device.

McDonald's has more than 36,000 locations in more than 100 countries. Its stock shed 83 cents to $93.16 in premarket trading about an hour before the market open.

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Boys rule at Hasbro as superheroes, Transformers lift 4Q

PAWTUCKET, R.I. — The appetite for superheroes and robots in disguise led to a healthy fourth-quarter at Hasbro even as a shift toward electronics has challenged the traditional toy industry.

Hasbro said Monday that toys geared toward boys increased 21 percent, with a strong showing from Transformers, Nerf and Marvel.

The company boosted its quarterly dividend and increased the number of its own shares targeted for buybacks.

There were two hurdles during the quarter: the strong U.S. dollar and declining sales in toys for girls. Hasbro's rival Mattel, which makes the Barbie doll, has seen a similar decline recently.

Hasbro said revenue would have climbed 7 percent if it weren't for a $93.4 million drag from foreign exchange.

Net income reached $169.9 million, or $1.34 per share, for the quarter. Earnings adjusted for pretax gains came to $1.22 per share, which was in line with Wall Street expectations, according to a poll by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue climbed to $1.3 billion from $1.28 billion, but that was still short of the $1.34 billion analysts were looking for, according to Zacks.

Sales of merchandise for girls fell 10 percent during the quarter and game sales declined 4 percent.

Last month Mattel Inc. said that weak Barbie doll sales weighed down its fourth quarter. That company's chairman and CEO resigned.

Hasbro in September wrested the rights from Mattel for the dolls of Disney's blockbuster "Frozen," and will begin producing them next year.

For 2015, Hasbro reported a profit of $415.9 million, or $3.20 per share. Its adjusted profit was $3.15 per share, which was better than expected. Revenue was $4.28 billion and, like the quarter, fell a bit short of projections.

Hasbro raised its quarterly dividend by 7 percent to 46 cents per share, from 43 cents per share. The dividend will be paid on May 15 to shareholders of record on May 1.

Hasbro Inc., based in The Pawtucket, Rhode Island, also authorized an additional $500 million in share repurchases.

The company's stock jumped more than 4 percent to $58.22 in early trading.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap ) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on HAS at http://www.zacks.com/ap/HAS

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Keywords: Hasbro, Earnings Report

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Food scares cost McDonald's in China, Japan; sales fall

OAK BROOK, Ill. — Food-quality scares are hurting McDonald's in China and Japan, where weakness contributed to a key global sales figure falling 1.8 percent.

The world's largest hamburger chain said sales dropped 12.6 percent in January at locations open at least 13 months in the division that includes the Asia region. That overshadowed a 0.4 percent rise at U.S. locations and a comparable 0.5 percent increase in Europe.

McDonald's shares slipped in premarket trading.

McDonald's Corp. said its performance in Asia was hurt by customer perception issues in Japan, where a human tooth, plastic pieces and other objects have been found in its food. In China, McDonald's is trying to recover from the ongoing fallout from another food-safety scandal.

Over the summer, an undercover TV report in the country showed one of McDonald's major suppliers repackaging meat that was alleged to be expired. The claim has not been publicly confirmed by the supplier or the government. But the plant stopped operations, and many of McDonald's restaurants in the country were left unable to sell burgers, chicken nuggets and other items. The chain's reputation took a hit as well.

Chief Financial Officer Peter Bensen said during a January conference call that McDonald's estimates it will take at least three to six more months for its business in China to return to normal. He said worsening perceptions are expected to hurt Japan's results for "the foreseeable future."

Back in the U.S., McDonald's said breakfast items performed well but that it was offset by tough competition. The chain is dealing with competition on a number of fronts, including convenience stores that are selling more food and smaller chains such as Chipotle that market themselves as being of higher quality.

The rise in Europe reflected strength in the U.K. and Germany largely offset by softness in France and Russia.

As it struggles to fix its business, McDonald's Corp. said late last month that it was replacing CEO Don Thompson with Steve Easterbrook, its chief brand officer.

The announcement came after McDonald's reported a drop in its fourth-quarter earnings and sales and said it was making major changes in 2015 to win back customers. The company said it will cut down new restaurant openings in certain markets. It's also simplifying its menu and looking to offer customers more ways to customize their burgers and giving them multiple ways to order, such as at a self-order kiosk or with a mobile device.

McDonald's has more than 36,000 locations in more than 100 countries. Its stock shed 83 cents to $93.16 in premarket trading about an hour before the market open.

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Report reveals extent of tax dodging by HSBC global clients

LONDON — HSBC's Swiss private bank hid millions of dollars for drug traffickers, arms dealers and celebrities as it helped wealthy people around the world dodge taxes, according to a report based on leaked documents that lifts the veil on the country's banking secrecy laws.

The report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and several news organizations comes as governments seek to crack down on tax evasion to bolster treasuries depleted by the financial crisis and staunch criticism that the rich aren't paying their fair share.

The leaked documents cover the period up to 2007 and relate to accounts worth $100 billion held by more than 100,000 people and legal entities from 200 countries.

Some details of such operations were disclosed previously, when HSBC was fined in 2012 by the U.S. for allowing criminals to use its branches for money laundering. Monday's report discloses a more detailed cache of data and information.

Academics estimate that $7.6 trillion is held in overseas tax havens, depriving governments of $200 billion a year in tax revenue, according to the ICIJ report.

The French government received the files from a whistleblower in 2010 and passed them onto tax authorities around the world, including the U.S., Britain and Germany.

In Britain, where HSBC is based, the report sparked criticism that tax authorities hadn't done more to penalize tax evaders. The tax agency clawed back 135 million pounds ($236 million) from some of the 3,600 Britons identified as using the Geneva branch of HSBC, but only one has been prosecuted. France, by contrast, launched 103 actions.

British lawmakers reacted with outrage.

"You are left wondering, as you see the enormity of what has been going on, what it actually takes to bring a tax cheat to court," Margaret Hodge, chair of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee, told the BBC.

Hodge also said the former chairman of HSBC, Stephen Green, who became the government's trade minister after he left the bank in 2010, must face serious questions about whether he was "asleep at the wheel, or he did know and he was therefore involved in dodgy tax practices."

HSBC stressed that the documents were from eight years ago and said it has since implemented initiatives designed to prevent its banking services from being used to evade taxes or launder money.

Franco Morra, CEO of HSBC's Swiss subsidiary, said the new management had shut down accounts from clients who "did not meet our high standards."

"These disclosures about historical business practices are a reminder that the old business model of Swiss private banking is no longer acceptable," he said in a statement.

Crawford Spence, a professor of accounting at Warwick Business School, said the latest revelations are damaging to HSBC in that they suggest complicity in tax evasion rather than simply tax avoidance. Besides that, the latest revelations are particularly damning to tax authorities.

"It appears that we need to rely on computer hackers, investigative journalists and corporate whistleblowers to expose tax evasion," he said, adding that tax authorities "must be lacking either in resources, political will or both."

The HSBC files were analyzed by the French daily Le Monde, The Guardian in Britain, the BBC and the Washington-based consortium.

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Associated Press Writers Frank Jordans in Berlin and Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this story.

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ABC beats Brian Williams' newscast in ratings Friday

NEW YORK — Brian Williams' nightly newscast on NBC was beaten soundly in the ratings by ABC's "World News Tonight" on Friday, two days after Williams apologized for telling a false story about being in a helicopter hit by a grenade in Iraq 12 years ago.

The Nielsen company said that ABC's broadcast had 8.46 million viewers on Friday, while NBC's "Nightly News" had just under 8 million. Williams anchored the newscast for NBC.

While it's not unusual for ABC to win some individual days in the ratings, NBC has been consistently winning on a week-to-week basis. On the previous Friday evening, ABC also won in the ratings by almost 400,000 viewers. News of Williams' Iraq tale came out on Wednesday of last week.

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Stocks head lower as concerns mount over China, Greece

NEW YORK — Concerns about the world economy helped tug U.S. stocks down early Monday. Major indexes followed European markets lower as worries mount over Greece's standoff with its creditors.

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average fell 46 points, or 0.3 percent, to 17,777 as of 11:24 a.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor's 500 slipped two points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,053, while the Nasdaq composite fell five points, or 0.1 percent, to 4,740.

MICKEY D: Before the market opened, McDonald's reported that a key measure of global sales shrank last month, as sales slumped across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The world's biggest hamburger chain dropped 95 cents, or 1 percent, to $93.05.

SUPERHERO: Hasbro jumped $3.98, or 7 percent, to $59.72 after the toy company turned in stronger quarterly results. Sales of toys geared toward boys increased 21 percent, led by Transformers, Nerf and Marvel-brand action heroes. Hasbro also raised its dividend and expanded plans to buy back its own shares.

OVERALL: It's just past the half-way mark for the fourth-quarter earnings season, and the results are shaping up better than Wall Street had expected. Seven out of 10 big companies have turned in higher profits than analysts had forecast, putting overall earnings on track to rise 7 percent for the full quarter, according to S&P Capital IQ.

CRUDE: U.S. crude oil surged $1.63 to $53.32 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That lifted stocks in companies tied to the oil industry. Nabors Industries and NRG Energy each gained more than 4 percent.

EUROPE: Major markets in Europe fell. France's CAC-40 lost 1.3 percent, and Germany's DAX fell 1.9 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 was down 0.5 percent.

GREECE, AGAIN: On Sunday, Greece's new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, set his government on a collision course with the country's creditors. Tsipras proclaimed an end to a regimen of budget cuts and tax increases and said he would push for a "bridge agreement" that would give Greece and its creditors time to negotiate a new lending arrangement by June. Greece and its European creditors were expected to discuss the issue later this week.

CHINA TRADE: Investors reacted to Chinese trade data released Sunday that showed imports fell nearly 20 percent over a year earlier. Exports were also weak, dropping 3.2 percent from a year earlier, heightening concerns about the world's second-largest economy.

ASIA'S DAY: Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.6 percent while South Korea's Kospi slipped 0.4 percent. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.1 percent. Benchmarks in Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand also closed lower. Japan's Nikkei 225 added 0.4 percent.

BONDS: In the market for U.S. government bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.93 percent.

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Massachusetts gas prices jump 11 cents per gallon

BOSTON — After months of steep drops, Massachusetts gas prices are on the rise again.

AAA Northeast reports Monday that self-serve, regular has risen 11 cents per gallon the past week to an average of $2.17.

It's the first weekly increase in prices locally since early September.

Despite the jump, prices are still 8 cents per gallon lower than a month ago and $1.19 lower than a year ago.

The Massachusetts average is a penny below the national average.

AAA found self-serve, regular selling for as low as $1.99 per gallon to as high as $2.49.

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Bernie Madoff trustee returns $355 million more to investors

NEW YORK — The New York trustee recovering money for investors cheated in Bernard Madoff's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme has distributed $355 million more to victims.

Trustee Irving Picard said in a release Monday that over half of Madoff's investors with allowable claims have been fully compensated.

He adds that everyone with an allowable claim of less than $976,000 has been fully paid.

Picard says the latest distribution to investors was the fifth and represents another significant step forward.

Picard says the average payout in the latest round was $330,000. The smallest is $431 and the biggest is $67 million.

So far, Picard's office has recovered over $10.5 billion. More than $7.2 billion has been paid out.

Investors lost about $20 billion.

Madoff was arrested in 2008. He is serving a 150-year prison sentence.

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