Hostess, unions agree to mediation

Hostess Brands Inc agreed in court on Monday to enter private mediation with its lenders and leaders of a striking union to try to avert the liquidation of the maker of Twinkies snack cakes and Wonder Bread.

Hostess, its lenders and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union agreed to mediation at the urging of Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain of the Southern District of New York, who advised against a more expensive, public hearing regarding the company's liquidation.

"My desire to do this is prompted primarily by the potential loss of over 18,000 jobs as well as my belief that there is a possibility to resolve this matter," Drain said.

The 82-year-old Hostess was seeking permission to liquidate its business, claiming that its operations have been crippled by a bakers strike and that winding down is the best way to preserve its dwindling cash. Hostess suspended operations at all of its 33 plants across the United States last week as it moved to start selling assets.

Heather Lennox, a lawyer for Hostess, said it would be hard for Hostess to recover from the damage it sustained due to the strike even if an agreement was forthcoming. Yet following the hearing, Hostess Chief Executive Officer Gregory Rayburn told reporters that there was always a chance Hostess could be saved.

"I think we have to see what unfolds," Rayburn said. "My impression is that the judge wants to understand the parties' positions and some of their logic, but it doesn't change our financial position.

"I'm happy to have the help," he added, referring to Drain's mediation following a breakdown of communication between Hostess and the union. "Maybe the judge will help. But can I handicap how it's going to go? No way."

A lawyer for Hostess' creditors' committee declined to comment.

The court-sanctioned mediation could make both sides more willing to give, said Nick Kalm, a communications consultant specializing in labor relations.

"It makes it much more likely that the company will put forward something that is less draconian... and the union will take it. The union realizes they are out of options," said Kalm.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

The BCTGM called the strike on November 9 after Hostess sought and won court approval to impose wage and benefit cuts.

Unlike other unions representing workers at Hostess, the BCTGM did not contest Hostess's action -- which allowed it to reject a collective bargaining agreement and impose its offer.

Given the fact that the union did not fight Hostess's motion in court, Judge Drain said it was "somewhat unusual to say the least, and perhaps illogical" that the union would then strike against it.

"Its an odd approach," Drain said. "Before thousands of people are put out of work it would seem to me worthwhile for both the union and the debtors to explore why that happened."

Drain also questioned whether the union had held discussions with competitors or potential suitors about a shiftover of jobs, saying the union's response to Monday's motion implied that it sees "meaningful sales available out there beyond the piecemeal sales that this motion contemplates."

A lawyer for the union did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on whether such discussions had taken place.

BUYERS MAY EMERGE

Analysts have said Hostess' brands, which also include Nature's Pride, Dolly Madison and Drakes, are expected to draw interest from rivals including Flowers Foods, Pepperidge Farm owner Campbell Soup Co and Mexico's Grupo Bimbo.

Brian Boyle, a food industry investment banker at D.A. Davidson & Co, said it was hard to gauge the value of the Hostess assets, given that there are a lot of plants that are old and inefficient.

"The other wild card is whether you're going to see different buyers emerge for different segments of the business. So Flowers Foods, for instance, might want the cake segment and Bimbo could want the bread piece. So it comes down to 'are the parts greater than the whole?'," Boyle said. "In either case, significant labor and benefits concessions will be required."

Private equity firm Metropolous & Co said on Friday it was interested in pursuing the company, and on Monday, Fortune reported that Sun Capital Partners was interested. Sun Capital did not return a call seeking comment.

The company did have a potential white knight at one point, according to Hostess. Last spring, an outside equity investor had made a viable proposal that would help the company reorganize, it said, but the Teamsters union refused to agree to changes to the pension program and the outside investor walked away.

The company spent the summer and fall negotiating with all of the 12 unions trying to find a common path to reorganization, and did gain certain agreements with the Teamsters and many of the other unions, though not the BCTGM. At the same time the company started putting together a liquidation plan.

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Antioch dad, daughter killed in Wisconsin plane crash

An Antioch man and his teenage daughter have been identified as the victims killed in a small plane crash in southern Wisconsin Sunday.

An Antioch man and his 14-year-old daughter were killed when their plane crashed as it approached a small airport just north of the Wisconsin-Illinois border, according to police and relatives.

The victims were identified by the family as Todd Parfitt, who just turned 50, and Nicole Parfitt, 14.

A single-engine Grumman plane registered to Parfitt crashed about 1:25 p.m. Sunday as it approached the airport in Burlington, Wis., about 20 miles north of the state line, officials said. Both victims were thrown from the plane, they said.

“The preliminary information is that it crashed while attempting to land,” said Lynn Lunsford, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Lunsford said the Burlington airport has no control tower, and the pilot was not in contact with air traffic controllers when the plane went down in a cornfield.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were at the airport today, according to Burlington Municipal Airport officials. The plane wreckage will be taken into a hanger so investigators can inspect it, an official said.

James McKay, superintendent of Community High School District 117, said Nicole was a ninth-grader at Antioch High School.

“She was a very active student. She was a member of the dance team. Many, many kids know her in other ways.”

Counselors are at the school today helping students grieve and cope with the news, he said.

The principal of the school said many students were wearing purple today, the color of the freshman class and Nicole’s favorite color. The dance team, about 30 to 40 kids, and their two coaches were meeting with counselors.

“Evidently, it’s a pretty emotional meeting,” said Principal John Whitehurst, adding that the hallways were “eerily silent.”

A Facebook page was created Sunday in honor of Nicole.

"They may have not made it to the runway that they intended, but they did land safely in heaven," one message reads.

Bailey Walker, who called herself a best friend of Nicole, said in a post: "Nicole, I love you so much. I will never forget all of our inside jokes and all of the times you made me laugh. How much I loved hanging out with you and just talking to you when I was upset made me feel so much better. You just knew how to cheer people up and you were always such an amazing person."

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Cisco to buy cloud-networking start-up Meraki for $1.2 billion

(Reuters) - Networking equipment company Cisco Systems Inc said it will buy privately held cloud networking company Meraki for $1.2 billion in cash as part of its cloud and networking strategy.

Cisco said the acquisition of Meraki, which was founded in 2006 by members of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, is expected to close in the second quarter of Cisco's 2013 fiscal year and is subject to regulatory approval.

Cisco's second quarter runs until the end of January.

Meraki - funded by Sequoia Capital and Google Inc - offers Wi-Fi technology, switching, security and mobile device management from the cloud with a focus on mid-sized businesses.

"This is a very logical move for Cisco," said ZK research analyst Zeus Kerravala.

He said the deal will allow Cisco to offer alternative solutions to traditional Wi-Fi deployment models like smaller competitors, such as Aruba Networks and Ruckus Wireless, which debuted on Friday.

"Cisco didn't really have anything to counter that before," Kerravala noted.

Meraki's Chief Executive Sanjit Biswas said in a letter to employees posted on the company website that Cisco had approached the company several weeks ago.

The company's founders had at first rejected the offer in favor of continuing Meraki's strategy aimed at an initial public listing.

"After several weeks of consideration, we decided late last week that joining Cisco was the right path for Meraki," Biswas said.

He also said that Meraki had achieved a $100 million bookings run rate, grown to 330 employees and had a positive cash flow.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske, editing by Gary Crosse)

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Maryland leaving ACC to join Big Ten in 2014

NEW YORK (AP) — Maryland is joining the Big Ten, leaving the Atlantic Coast Conference in a shocker of a move in the world of conference realignment.

The university's announcement is to come Monday at a news conference with school President Wallace D. Loh, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany and athletic director Kevin Anderson.

Maryland will become a Big Ten member starting in 2014. Rutgers is expected follow suit by Tuesday, splitting from the Big East and making it an even 14 schools in the Big Ten.

The Terrapins were a charter member of the ACC, which was founded in 1953.

"Our best wishes are extended to all of the people associated with the University of Maryland," ACC Commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. "Since our inception, they have been an outstanding member of our conference and we are sorry to see them exit. For the past 60 years the Atlantic Coast Conference has exhibited leadership in academics and athletics. This is our foundation and we look forward to building on it as we move forward."

There was speculation last week the Big Ten and Maryland were talking. On Saturday, it became clear the discussions were serious.

The addition of Maryland extends the Big Ten farther east and south than it ever has been, and gives the conference a presence in the major media market of Washington. D.C.

Rutgers, in New Brunswick, N.J., and about 40 miles south of New York City, gives the Big Ten a member in the country's largest media market.

For both schools, the move should come with long-term financial gain. The Big Ten reportedly paid its members $24.6 million in shared television and media rights revenues this year.

There will be some financial matters to resolve in the short term though. After the ACC added Notre Dame as a member in all sports but football and hockey in September, the league voted to raise the exit fee to $50 million. Maryland was one of two schools that voted against the increased exit fee.

The Big East's exit fee is $10 million, but the league also requires a 27-month notification period for departing members. That means Rutgers will not be able to join the Big ten until 2015 without working out some kind of deal with the Big East.

Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia have all negotiated early withdrawals from the Big East in the past year.

The ACC could now be in the market for another member and it would not be surprising if it looks to the Big East, yet again. Connecticut would seem a perfect fit after Pitt and Syracuse join next season.

The Big Ten added Nebraska in 2010 to go to 12 members, and Delany had given every indication that the conference was happy to stay at that number. The conference had given no indication it was in the expansion market.

The question now is whether this sparks more realignment from conferences that weren't even affected. The Big 12 has indicated it is comfortable with its current 10 members, including newcomers West Virginia and TCU, but there has always been some sentiment within the conference to at some point go back to 12 — at least.

The Southeastern Conference reached 14 members this season with the additions of Texas A&M and Missouri.

The Big East, which has plans to become a 12-team, four-time zone conference next season, could be in real trouble again — especially if UConn is wooed by the ACC. The Big East was hoping that adding Boise State and San Diego State, and maybe persuading BYU to join, would make it a strong enough football conference to justify its far-flung nature and make up for its lack of traditional powers and rivalries.

But if it sustains more losses, while it's trying to negotiate a pivotal new television deal, will Boise State and San Diego State renege on their commitments to the Big East?

And will Maryland's departure spur other ACC schools — such as Florida State — to eye a new home?

For now, though, Maryland is the latest school to forsake tradition to potentially gain more revenue. The Terps have mostly been a middling football program for several decades, though its men's basketball teams have been consistently strong, winning a national title in 2002.

Maryland this year cut seven sports programs because of budget concerns and has been having a hard time filling its newly renovated football stadium.

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AP Sports Writer David Ginsburg in College Park, Md., contributed to this report.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Best October in 6 years for area home sales

The Chicago area's housing market last month regained the momentum it lost in September, resulting in more homes being sold than in any October since 2006.

Sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums in the nine-county Chicago area totaled 8,326 properties in October, according to figures released Monday by the Illinois Association of Realtors. While below some of the monthly sales totals recorded earlier in the year, the volume was an increase of 11.3 percent over September and 44.1 percent higher than the 5,776 homes sold in October 2011.

Within the city of Chicago, 2,009 homes were sold in October, an improvement of 8.8 percent over September and up 53.1 percent from October 2011. Condos accounted for 60 percent of the city's sales volume.

The strong sales continue to remove excess inventory for the market, which is necessary before price appreciation can truly begin. The number of homes listed for sale is at its lowest point in five years, according to Midwest Real Estate Data LLC, the local multiple listing provider. 

Meanwhile, the number of pending home sales in the Chicago area, meaning properties that are under contract but the sales have not yet closed, totaled 10,364 in October, the highest it's ever been except for April 2010 when home sales were affected by federal homebuyer tax credit programs.

For the Chicago area as a whole, the median price of a home was $153,000, the lowest it's been since March but still ahead 2.1 percent from October 2011's $149,900.  Among local counties, DuPage County was one of those that saw double-digit, year-over-year monthly appreciation, rising 11.4 percent in October, to $195,000.

Within the city, the median price rose to $175,000, up 8 percent from a year ago but again, the lowest monthly price recorded since March. In the condo market, the median price fell 8.7 percent from September, to $210,000. However, that sum was a 13.5 percent increase from October 2011.

Last month, 43 percent of sales within the city were either foreclosures or short sales.

The median is the point at which half the homes are sold for more and half for less.

"There's a great deal of end-of-the year excitement," said Zeke Morris, president of the Chicago Association of Realtors. "Typically our numbers are down in the fourth quarter but we're beginning to catch up to other markets in Illinois."

Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, a University of Illinois economist, attributed the improved sales performance to a slowly improving economy, stronger consumer confidence and continued low mortgages rates.

The monthly average commitment rate for the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage in the Chicago area was 3.36 percent in October, compared with 3.49 percent in September and 4.07 percent in October 2011, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. Last week, Freddie Mac said average mortgage rates hit a new all-time low in its weekly survey, of 3.34 percent for a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage.

mepodmolik@tribune.com | Twitter @mepodmolik

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Notre Dame No. 1 in AP, coaches polls

Notre Dame is, officially, the No. 1 team in the country.

According to almost everyone.

The Irish were a unanimous pick for No. 1 in the new Associated Press poll released Sunday. And while they also landed at No. 1 in the USA Today coaches poll, they earned 56 of 59 first-place votes in doing so.

It's the first time Notre Dame (11-0) is the AP No. 1 since November 14, 1993.

Alabama received two votes and Georgia received one in the coaches' balloting, which is one of two human polls (the Harris poll is the other) that is part of the Bowl Championship Series formula. Notre Dame went 60-for-60 on the AP ballots, for the record.

Still, despite a trickle of holdouts, there should be no issue with Notre Dame landing at No. 1 in the BCS standings released later Sunday and therefore putting themselves just one win at USC away from a berth in the national title game.

None of this was even possible until cataclysm struck Oregon and Kansas State late Saturday, with the Ducks losing in overtime to Stanford and the Wildcats getting thrashed at Baylor.

Alabama and Georgia run No. 2 and No. 3 in both polls released Sunday and also are expected to fill those slots in the BCS standings. Thus an Irish win at USC likely pits them against the winner of the presumed Crimson Tide-Bulldogs matchup in the SEC championship game.

Meanwhile, the last time Notre Dame and Alabama were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the AP poll? The year of 1967.

bchamilton@tribune.com

Twitter @ChiTribHamilton

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Exclusive: Facebook offering e-retailers sales tracking tool

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc wants more credit for making online cash registers ring.

Facebook will begin rolling out on Friday a new tool which will allow online retailers to track purchases by members of the social network who have viewed their ads.

The tool is the latest of the new advertising features Facebook is offering to convince marketers that steering advertising dollars to the company will deliver a payoff.

Facebook, with roughly 1 billion users, has faced a tough reception on Wall Street amid concerns about its slowing revenue growth.

"Measuring ad effectiveness and outcomes is absolutely crucial to all types of businesses and marketers," said David Baser, a product manager for Facebook's ads business who said the "conversion measurement" tool has been a top customer request for a long time.

The sales information that advertisers receive is anonymous, said Baser. "You would see the number of people who bought shoes," he said, using the example of an online shoe retailer. But marketers would not be able to get information that could identify the people, he added.

The conversion tool is specifically designed for so-called direct response marketers, such as online retailers and travel websites that advertise with the goal of drumming up immediate sales rather than for longer-term brand-building.

Such advertisers have long flocked to Google Inc's Web search engine, which can deliver ads to consumers at the exact moment they're looking for information on a particular product.

But some analysts say there is room for Facebook to make inroads if it can demonstrate results.

"The path to purchase" is not as direct on Facebook as it is on Google's search engine, said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with research firm eMarketer. But she said that providing information about customer sales conversion should help Facebook make a stronger case to online retailers.

"It lets marketers track the impact of a Facebook ad hours or days or even a week beyond when someone might have viewed the ad," said Williamson. "That allows marketers to understand the impact of the Facebook ad on the ultimate purchase."

Marketers will also have the option to aim their ads at segments of Facebook's audience with similar attributes to consumers that have responded well to a particular ad in the past, Baser said.

Online retailer Fab.com, which has tested Facebook's new service, was able to reduce its cost per new customer acquisition by 39 percent when it served ads to consumers deemed most likely to convert, Facebook said. Facebook defines a conversion as anything from a completed sale, to a consumer taking another desired action on a website, such as registering for a newsletter.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Shares of Facebook, which were priced at $38 a share in its May initial public offering, closed Thursday's regular session at $22.17.

In recent months, Facebook has introduced a variety of new advertising capabilities and moved to broaden its appeal to various groups of advertisers.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in October that Facebook saw multi-billion revenue opportunities in each of four groups of advertisers: brand marketers, local businesses, app developers and direct response marketers.

Facebook does not disclose how much of its ad revenue, which totaled $1.09 billion in the third quarter, comes from each type of advertiser. Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser estimates that brand marketers and local businesses account for the bulk of Facebook's current advertising revenue.

Earlier this year, Facebook introduced a similar conversion measurement service for big brand advertisers, such as auto manufacturers, partnering with data mining firm Datalogix to help connect the dots between consumer spending at brick-and-mortar and Facebook ads.

And Facebook has rolled out new marketing tools for local businesses such as restaurants and coffee shops, including a revamped online coupon service and simplified advertising capabilities known as promoted posts.

The new conversion measurement tool is launching in testing mode, but will be fully available by the end of the month, Facebook said.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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Tennessee fires football coach Derek Dooley

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Derek Dooley is out at Tennessee.

The university announced the anticipated firing Sunday after Dooley posted the storied program's longest run of consecutive losing seasons in over a century .

Dooley, 44, had a 15-21 record that included an 0-15 mark against Top 25 teams. Dooley was 4-19 in Southeastern Conference competition during his three-year tenure and had lost 14 of his last 15 league games.

The school will hold a news conference Sunday at 2 p.m.

Dooley had four years left on his contract, which includes a $5 million buyout.

"We very much appreciate the effort and energy that Derek Dooley and his staff have poured into our football program at the University of Tennessee," athletic director Dave Hart said in a statement. "Derek and I met early this morning, and I informed him that I believed a change in leadership, despite the positive contributions he has made to the overall health of the program, was in the best long-term interests of Tennessee football. We will immediately begin the search for the best possible candidate to assume this leadership role."

Tennessee (4-7, 0-7 SEC) must beat Kentucky on Saturday to avoid going winless in SEC play for the first time in school history. Offensive coordinator Jim Chaney will serve as the Vols' interim coach for the Kentucky game.

Tennessee's 41-18 loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday guaranteed the Volunteers their third consecutive losing season, which marks the first time they have finished below .500 in three straight years since 1909-11. Tennessee's loss to Vanderbilt marked only the second time in 30 years that the Vols had fallen to their in-state rival.

The Vols will fail to reach a bowl in back-to-back seasons for the first time since being left out four consecutive years from 1975-78.

"I am sorry we could not generate enough wins to create hope for a brighter future," Dooley said in a statement. "Although progress was not reflected in our record, I am proud of the strides we made to strengthen the foundation for future success in all areas of the program. During the last 34 months, I've given my all for Tennessee, and our family appreciates all this University and the Knoxville community has given us."

Dooley's successor will become the Vols' fourth coach in a six-year stretch. Phillip Fulmer was fired in the midst of a 5-7 season in 2008 and ended his 17-year tenure with a 152-52 record. Lane Kiffin stayed for just one year before Southern California hired him away. Now Dooley is leaving after only three seasons.

Tennessee won at least eight games for 16 consecutive seasons from 1989-2004 and posted double-digit wins in nine of those years, but the Vols haven't earned more than seven victories in any of their last five seasons. This will mark their fifth losing season over the last eight years.

"It's real surprising," junior quarterback Tyler Bray said after the Vanderbilt game. "I didn't think we'd have a losing record. I thought we'd only lose a couple of games, maybe two or three, and we've been getting our butts kicked. It's really not fun. "

Tennessee faces some financial issues as it chooses its new coach. The university's athletic department posted a $3.98 million budget deficit for the 2011-12 fiscal year in part because of buyouts it was paying to Fulmer, former athletic director Mike Hamilton, former men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl and former baseball coach Todd Raleigh.

The football program is on probation until August 2015. The NCAA handed Tennessee a two-year extension of its probation Friday after ruling former assistant Willie Mack Garza provided impermissible travel and lodging for an unofficial visit by former prospect Lache Seastrunk, who eventually signed with Oregon and has since transferred to Baylor. Garza worked as an assistant on Kiffin's staff.

Dooley didn't enter an ideal situation when he arrived at Tennessee in January 2010 after going 17-20 in three seasons at Louisiana Tech. Tennessee went a combined 12-13 in the two years leading up to his arrival.

After Dooley led Tennessee to a 6-7 record and Music City Bowl bid in 2010, the Vols went 5-7 last season and closed the year with a 10-7 loss to Kentucky, ending the Vols' 26-game winning streak in that annual series.

Dooley overhauled his coaching staff over the winter, most notably adding Sal Sunseri as defensive coordinator after Justin Wilcox left to take the same position at Washington. The Vols were confident they could turn things around this year. Dooley said during the SEC Media Days that "you're not going to have Tennessee to kick around anymore."

It hasn't worked out that way. The Vols briefly entered the Top 25 after winning their first two games this season, but they've lost seven of nine since.

Although the offense has produced plenty of points, the defense has allowed 37.4 points and 476.8 yards per game. The Vols haven't given up that high a scoring average over the course of a full season since allowing 42.7 per game while playing a six-game schedule in 1893. Tennessee hasn't allowed that many yards per game since at least 1950, the earliest year Tennessee measures that statistic in its media guide.

As the losses piled up, fans started staying away.

Tennessee's average attendance of 94,642 last year was its lowest since 1989. The Vols' average announced attendance through six home games this season is 91,318, more than 11,000 below Neyland Stadium's capacity.

Dooley acknowledged at his Monday news conference that his future as Tennessee's coach was up in the air. Several players spoke out in support of him in the days leading up to the Vanderbilt game. Junior nose guard Daniel Hood noted how Dooley helped him deal with the death of his mother this summer.

"I can't talk to you about X's and O's because the only thing I know is defensive line and offensive line," Hood said. "But I know as a person, he's one of the best people that I've been around in my life, probably the second most important I've had in my life too.

"This summer, going through things with my mom and things like that, I wouldn't be where I am today without someone like Coach Dooley. As a player, it's hard not to take it personal when people are attacking your coach and things like that. It's hard to separate the X's and O's from the actual person."

Dooley often pointed out that the Vols weren't far from turning the corner. They either were ahead or trailed by one score in the second half of losses to Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Missouri. But they didn't put up much of a fight Saturday while posting their most one-sided defeat to Vanderbilt since 1954.

"I don't think you can say where this program is on one game," Dooley said after the game. "We've had a lot of really good games that we didn't win this year, so the program is certainly not near where we need to be. It's not anywhere close to where the fans want it to be, but it's probably a little bit better than what people think it is. That's how I would assess it."

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'Twilight' finale dawns with $141.3M weekend

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The sun has set on the "Twilight" franchise with one last blockbuster opening for the supernatural romance.

"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2" sucked up $141.3 million domestically over opening weekend and $199.6 million more overseas for a worldwide debut of $340.9 million.

The finale ranks eighth on the list of all-time domestic debuts, and leaves "Twilight" with three of the top-10 openings, joining 2009's "New Moon" (No. 7 with $142.8 million) and last year's "Breaking Dawn — Part 1" (No. 9 with $138.1 million).

Last May's "The Avengers" is No. 1 with $207.4 million. "Batman" is the only other franchise with more than one top-10 opening: last July's "The Dark Knight Rises" (No. 3 with $160.9 million) and 2008's "The Dark Knight" (No. 4 with $158.4 million).

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