Toymaker Hasbro has seen its results beat market expectations, despite seeing its losses widen as it continues cost-cutting efforts.
The US company made a net loss of $6.7m ($4.4m) in the first quarter of 2013, compared with a loss of $2.6m a year earlier.
Much of the losses came as a result of restructuring charges linked to the $100m per year cost reduction programme.
Hasbro's revenues were up 2% to $664m.
The company said that sales of its Monopoly board game were lifted by an online poll urging fans to vote on replacing one of the playing pieces. The clothes iron has subsequently made way for a cat.
Hasbro's other toy brands include Transformers, My Little Pony and GI Joe.
The $6.35 price per share agreed by ABB represents a 57% premium over the Nasdaq-listed Power-One's closing share price on Friday, although it is still well below the $13 level its shares traded at back in 2010.
The $1bn total price tag is more than eight times the $120m in profit earned by the Californian company in 2012.
The global solar industry has suffered in recent years from a glut of government-subsidised supply from China, the US and Europe, as well as weak demand in Europe and other core markets due to the economic downturn.
However, the cost of solar energy has fallen rapidly since the 1970s, and is on course to become cheaper than other sources of energy on national grids by the end of this decade.
"Solar [photovoltaic] is becoming a major force reshaping the future energy mix, because it is rapidly closing in on grid parity," said ABB chief executive Joe Hogan.
Power One will add $1bn in annual inverter sales to ABB's current $100m, as well as valuable research and development expertise and $266m in cash on its balance sheet.
The US firm has 3,300 employees, spread across China, Italy, the US and Slovakia.
News Corp has reached a $139m (£91m) settlement with shareholders over complaints filed against the company's board of directors.
The 2011 suit related to the company's UK phone-hacking scandal and the purchase of a UK TV production firm.
The money will be covered by the insurance policies of the directors, who are the defendants in the suits.
News Corp said it "acknowledges the meaningful role the plaintiffs" played in improving corporate governance.
The company agreed to adopt enhanced measures as part of the derivative settlement. In a derivative suit, shareholders, acting on behalf of the company, sue against executives to rectify a wrong in a firm.
We are proud of this historic settlement... of encouraging corporate reform and improved corporate governance”
End QuoteEdward GrebowPresident and chief executive, Amalgamated Bank
"We are pleased to have resolved this matter," News Corp said in a statement.
"The agreement reflects the important steps News Corporation has taken over the last year to strengthen our corporate governance and compliance structure and we have committed to building on those efforts going forward."
'No effective oversight'
Trustees of Amalgamated Bank of New York and the Central Laborers Pension Fund, which are both News Corp shareholders, first filed a lawsuit in March 2011.
It was directed against News Corp's directors for overpaying when the company bought Shine Group, a UK TV production company, from News Corp's chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth.
They claimed that the takeover deal was "unfairly" priced and that the News Corp board of directors failed to challenge Mr Murdoch about the terms of the transaction.
The pair then expanded their lawsuit in July 2011, to accuse the board of providing "no effective review or oversight" and permitting a "culture run amok" at the News of the World, which News Corp owned. The extent of phone hacking at the tabloid, then owned by News Corp, led to its closure in 2011.
"We are proud of this historic settlement, which continues the 20 year history of Amalgamated Bank encouraging corporate reform and improved corporate governance," Amalgamated Bank president and chief executive Edward Grebow said in a statement.
News Corp is expected to start a new life as a publishing company when it splits from its TV and film interests in June this year.
News Corp has reached a $139m (£91m) settlement with shareholders over complaints filed against the company's board of directors.
The 2011 suit related to the company's UK phone hacking scandal and the purchase of a UK TV production firm.
The money will be covered by the insurance policies of the directors, who are the defendants in the suits.
News Corp said it "acknowledges the meaningful role the plaintiffs" played in improving corporate governance.
The company agreed to adopt enhanced measures as part of the derivative settlement. In a derivative suit, shareholders, acting on behalf of the company, sue against executives to rectify a wrong in a firm.
"We are pleased to have resolved this matter," News Corp said in a statement.
"The agreement reflects the important steps News Corporation has taken over the last year to strengthen our corporate governance and compliance structure and we have committed to building on those efforts going forward."
Trustees of Amalgamated Bank of New York and the Central Laborers Pension Fund, which are both News Corp shareholders, first filed a lawsuit in March 2011.
It was directed against News Corp's directors for overpaying when the company bought Shine Group, a UK TV production company, from News Corp's chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth.
They claimed that the takeover deal was "unfairly" priced and that the News Corp board of directors failed to challenge Mr Murdoch about the terms of the transaction.
The pair then expanded their lawsuit in July 2011, to accuse the board of providing "no effective review or oversight" and permitting a "culture run amok" at the News of the World, which News Corp owned. The extent of phone hacking at the tabloid, then owned by News Corp, led to its closure in 2011.
"We are proud of this historic settlement, which continues the 20 year history of Amalgamated Bank encouraging corporate reform and improved corporate governance," Amalgamated Bank president and chief executive Edward Grebow said in a statement
Boeing has admitted that it may never know what caused the battery malfunctions that resulted in all its 787 Dreamliner aircraft being grounded.
The admission came from Boeing's Larry Loftis, the general manager of the company's 787 division.
Replacement battery systems are now being fitted to all 50 Dreamliners that had been in operation with airlines around the world.
Boeing expects the planes to resume service in the coming weeks.
'Best practice'
On Friday, US aircraft regulators approved a revamped battery design for the aircraft, paving the way for the fleet to return to the skies.
Speaking at a media briefing in London, Mr Loftis said: "It is possible we will never know the root cause.
"It is not uncommon not to have found the single root cause. So industry best practice is to look at all the potential causes and address all of them."
The groundings of all Dreamliners in January followed two major incidents concerning the plane's two lithium-ion batteries.
Firstly, on 7 January, a battery overheated and started a fire on a Japan Airlines 787 at Boston's Logan International Airport.
Nine days later, an All Nippon Airways 787 had to make an emergency landing in Japan after a battery started to give off smoke.
'Exhaustive study'
The two lithium-ion batteries are not used when the 787 is in flight.
Mr Loftis said Boeing had addressed all "potential causes" and expected the 787 to remain popular
Instead they are operational when the plane is on the ground and its engines are not turned on, and are used to power the aircraft's brakes and lights.
Mr Loftis said Boeing had put 200,000 engineer hours into fixing the problem, with staff working round the clock.
Improved batteries are now being introduced. Mr Loftis explained that the newer batteries did not have to work so hard, and therefore operated at a cooler temperature.
In addition, the new batteries are enclosed in stainless steel boxes which have a ventilation pipe that directly goes to the outside of the plane. So Mr Loftis said that any future "rare cases" of battery failure would be "100% contained", with any smoke immediately leaving the plane.
I flew on the Dreamliner when it first came to the UK last year.
It's one of those planes that breaks the mould, taking airliners to a new level technologically, but all of that state-of-the-art kit is what's caused Boeing so much grief.
The 787 is the first airliner to use lithium-ion batteries. They're smaller, lighter, and pack a bigger punch than other batteries, but they have a history of overheating.
Airbus was planning to use them in its new plane, the A350, but has decided against it after watching Boeing struggle to prove they are safe.
The general manager of the Dreamliner programme, Larry Loftis, told me recently that he's seen no compelling reason to move away from lithium-ion, and many compelling reasons to stay with the technology.
Still, Boeing's decision to try something new has cost them hundreds of millions of dollars and put a big dent in their reputation.
He added: "We did an exhaustive study of potential causes, and addressed all of them. We do feel that with all the work we have done, we have tackled the potential problems."
Expanding production
A total of 300 Boeing engineers, pooled into 10 teams, have now started fitting the replacement batteries and battery systems to the 787s in service around the world, and also to those that have been built by Boeing since January.
Mr Loftis said it would take five days per plane to do the necessary work, and that it would be carried out by the order in which airlines first received the planes. For this reason, Japan's All Nippon Airlines will be the first to get its 787s fixed.
Boeing is likely to release details of how much fixing the battery problem has cost the company when it releases its latest quarterly results on Wednesday.
Mr Loftis said he did not expect the issue to have any lasting negative impact on the popularity of the Dreamliner among either airlines or passengers.
He said that Boeing had continued to make five 787s per week, and that the company was about to increase that to seven, raising output to 10 per week by the end of this year.
All businesses face their ups and downs along the way to success.
But the Hangzhou Zhang Xiaoquan Company can claim a history longer and more tumultuous than most.
Imperial dynasties have come and gone, wars and revolutions have passed, and the economy has morphed from capitalist to communist and back again.
But through it all, Zhang Xiaoquan's workshops and factories have been quietly making one humble, household utensil - scissors.
In the dying years of the Ming Dynasty, a craftsman by the name of Zhang Jiasi found a way to make scissors that were both beautiful and durable.
He continued to use iron for the body of the scissors, allowing the handles to be easily moulded and shaped.
But the new trick, adapting an ancient sword-making technique, was to mix molten steel into the cutting edges of the blades - using a high temperature and a lot of careful hammering - to give the scissors a much harder, sharper bite.
Seventeenth century Chinese housewives suddenly had a powerful new weapon in their kitchen armoury - bad news indeed for 17th century Chinese chickens.
Ding Chenghong, Zhang Xiaoquan's current general manager, says the firm focuses on quality
A few decades later Zhang Jiasi's son, Zhang Xiaoquan, inherited the business and moved it to the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, and in 1663, his namesake company was born.
Modest prices
Ding Chenghong, Zhang Xiaoquan's current general manager, tells me that the business is still trying to maintain the connection to its history.
"Our founder had a motto," he says. "Good steel and excellent workmanship."
"Today, the steel we use is different from many other manufacturers. Cheap steel is around 7,000 to 8,000 yuan (£736; $1,132) a ton. Our steel costs between 11,000 to 12,000 yuan a ton."
There are even a few craftsmen who can still fashion a pair of scissors the old way, bashing the molten steel and iron together entirely by hand, and a few of those techniques have been retained in some of the modern-day factory-made products.
But as I'm given a tour of one of the modern factories, I wonder if something is slightly amiss.
With the giant metal presses hissing and clanking inside the hangar-like building, and overall-wearing workers resembling something out of a communist propaganda poster, there is little sign of any of that heritage.
This is the mass production that China is famed for, with the company today employing a total of 1,500 people and making around seven million pairs of scissors and three million knives a year.
The average pair of household snips being churned off the production line sells for around $3 to $5 (£2 to £3.25) a pair.
Anywhere else in the world, you might think, a brand with the pedigree of Zhang Xiaoquan would have positioned itself as something a little more high-end, and maybe even built an upmarket international reputation.
But exports account for less than half of one per cent of the company's total sales revenue of around $40m a year.
'Voluntary nationalisation'
Zhang Qian: "A scissor heiress marooned among the paper clips"
The answer lies perhaps, once again, in a corporate history that has mapped the changing fortunes of China itself.
I find Zhang Qian, an administrative manager, in a small office on the second floor of the factory.
She has little to complain about it seems, with a good job and a small apartment provided by the company.
And yet Ms Zhang - note the name - could have had so much more.
I wasn't even born then so I can't say I'm regretful [of the forced nationalisation], but surely my life would be different now if history had been different.”
End QuoteZhang QianDescendant of the company's founder
She is the direct descendant, the 13th generation ancestor, of none other than the esteemed founder Zhang Xiaoquan.
In 1958 her grandfather, the 11th generation, and the then capitalist boss of a thriving scissor-making business, found himself very much on the wrong side of history.
The communist government was busy abolishing private property and the family business and all of its assets, including the family home, were "volunteered" into the hands of the state.
"You had to volunteer," Zhang Qian tells me. "I wasn't even born then so I can't say I'm regretful, but surely my life would be different now if history had been different."
A scissor heiress marooned among the paper clips, just one of many millions of lives altered by the turbulent course of Chinese politics.
Transformation plans
So began decades of state control of the company, a period from which it is has only recently emerged.
By the 1990s the payroll had mushroomed to 2,500 employees, and the cutting and sharpening machines were running full tilt, producing 20 million pairs of scissors and knives a year.
The factory is planning to bring in more advanced machinery from Germany
They included some rather low-end products, and that's how things could well have remained were it not for another turn of history.
By the late 1990s, China had begun the large-scale restructuring and privatisation of many of its state-owned companies.
In the year 2000 the state divested itself of 75% of Zhang Xiaoquan's shares.
Like many Chinese businesses that emerged, blinking, into the bright new economic reality, it has had to find its feet.
About 1,000 jobs were shed - gradually and through natural wastage they tell me. The volume of items being produced was dramatically reduced.
"The history of the private company and professional chief executive is short in China," Jiang Shashan, manager of the company's branding department, tells me.
"Our main plan is to transform ourselves from a manufacturer to a brand operator. In the past we believed that 'good wine sells itself,' and focused only on production."
Earlier this year, for the first time, representatives took the company's products to the Frankfurt Trade Fair, one of the world's largest.
They are also now, of course, using the internet to help sell their goods and are developing new product lines.
Global ambition
But there still remains one major obstacle in the way of building an export market.
Ding Chenghong explains why his company's scissors are a cut above the rest
"Chinese scissors are different from western scissors," Mr Ding tells me. "In Europe and America, the blade is longer and the handle is shorter because they are mainly used to cut paper.
"But in China scissors are used to cut paper, food, cloth and even to repair shoes."
The company is now in discussions to import advanced machinery from Germany to help make products of a size and shape more suited to the foreign market.
A total of 350 years after it was founded, Zhang Xiaoquan still faces challenges. There is an on-going trademark dispute and - inevitably for China - the scourge of counterfeit goods.
But perhaps now it has a chance to really capitalise on its heritage and turn itself from a well-known Chinese name into a truly global brand.
After all, marketing folk will tell you, a story is much easier to sell than a product and Zhang Xiaoquan has quite a story to tell.
Hasbro was boosted by a rise in sales of its Monopoly board game
