fortune brands

Between 2002 and 2011, companies spent a whopping $2.5 billion on Super Bowl advertising; this year, a 30-second commercial cost an average of $3.5 million. But what do you get for all that cash. In the case of these eight major advertisers, not as much as they'd hoped.

Wall Street's endless parade of buyouts and mergers, divisions and revisions has created a tangled landscape in which companies that are famous for one thing often own brands that are completely different -- or even diametrically opposed. Here are seven of our favorite mismatches.

Fortune Brands (FO), maker of Jim Beam whisky, plans to split into three separate units. Fortune Brands will continue to focus on its distilled spirits business, the company said in a statement. Fortune's home and security business will be spun off into an independent, publicly traded company...

By the time the world's smartest investors tell the SEC what stocks they hold, most of the gains they were after are already priced in. But a few of the companies Warren Buffett, George Soros, and their billionaire buddies have bought into still have a lot further to rise. Which ones? Read on ...

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) on Friday reported lower quarterly earnings of 40 cents a share, but that surpassed analyst estimates by 8 cents a share. The maker of Windows software and Xbox games reported fiscal first-quarter earnings fell 18 percent to $3.57 billion from $4.37 billion a year ago....