COMPANIES

When Syms Corporation sought to buy the struggling Filene's Basement in 2009, it partnered with an engimatic building owner that is no stranger to troubled retail: Vornado Realty Trust.

When Dolby Laboratories want to show off the latest and greatest in sound and visual technology, you figure they would turn to one of Hollywood's big-budget, state-of-the-art blockbusters.

Twentieth Century Fox has been shedding production executives at a rapid clip -- five in the past two years, with another two about to jump ship, TheWrap has learned.

Money manager AXA Rosenberg and co-founder Barr Rosenberg agreed to pay $65 million to settle a lawsuit by investors who said they lost money after a computer coding glitch impeded the firm's ability to manage risk.

Shares of Thoratec Corp (THOR.O) fell 10 percent in pre-market trade Wednesday, a day after the cardiac device maker cut its full-year sales forecast, citing slower sales growth of its heart pumps in the United States in the second half of 2011.

Workers were evacuated from a unit at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in California on Tuesday after an ammonia leak, but the incident posed no threat to the public, officials said.

SunPower Corp has settled a lawsuit with environmental and community groups, agreeing that it will abandon the site of a proposed California solar project within 50 years, the company said on Wednesday.

El Paso Electric reported its third quarter revenue grew year over year but fell below market expectations.

Bank of America Corp. employees are flooding rival companies with resumes as a major cost-cutting program gets under way at the second-largest U.S. bank

Iran has fired the head of an oil company because he was discovered to have dual nationality -- a sensitive issue after a top bank manager fled to Canada during a huge fraud scandal, the Vatan-e Emrouz daily reported on Wednesday.

MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) reported third-quarter earnings of $5.63 per share on revenues of $1.81 billion, blowing past analysts estimates that had expected the company to report earnings of 4.82 per share and revenues in the vicinity of 1.71 billion. Increased volume from international consumers played a role, as did U.S. consumers ditching debit for credit.

Kingfisher Airlines on Wednesday sought further cushion from banks to ease its debt burden, but denied it was seeking another debt restructuring.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs. That fact is already evident in Cook's first couple of months on the job filling in for Jobs, who retired in August and died in October at the age of 56 after a long tenure as Apple's CEO.

Microsoft Corp. said hackers exploited a previously unknown bug in its Windows operating system to infect computers with the Duqu virus, which some security experts say could be the next big cyber threat.

U.S. banks have not done enough to ensure they are well capitalized, and getting back to a system where retail and investment banking are separated would be attractive in terms of reform, Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund, said on Tuesday.

Fresh Del Monte Produce's third-quarter net income fell 16 percent from the same period a year earlier, as the company dealt with rising costs of fuel, lower banana prices and a steep fall in melon sales.

Although Bank of America will drop its $5 monthly fee on debit card use that was expected to begin next year, some people have called the move a day late and a dollar short.

Archer Daniels Midland Company reported a 33 percent increase in earnings on Tuesday from the same period a year ago. Still, a low corn supply in the United States and weak conditions in oilseed-segment margins staggered profits for one of the world's largest grain processors.

Prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp and its executives, Jim Hodge and Jeanne Stell, claiming that the company misled the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with bad mortgages.

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, reported third-quarter profit that topped analysts' expectations based on U.S. growth of their cholesterol block-buster drug Lipitor, favorable foreign exchange rates and increases in overseas sales.

U.S. auto dealers are working to undo the Obama administration's fuel efficiency agenda, replacing car companies that for years kept such mandates at bay with the help of allies in Congress.

Wholesale gasoline differentials gained 0.5 cent a gallon on Monday on a malfunction at a Los Angeles refinery, traders said.

Bridgepoint Education and Corinthian Colleges were upbeat about signing up new students entering 2012, signaling that the worst is finally over for U.S. for-profit colleges that had faced dwindling enrollments in the wake of stricter government rules.

Kenya's central bank bared its teeth against stubbornly high inflation on Tuesday with a record rate rise that is seen supporting the shilling, boosting appetite for long-term bonds and helping secure the approval of extra funds from the IMF.

Most retail chain stores had limited growth in New York City during the last year, according to a study by the Center for an Urban Future, a public policy group.

Bank of America will drop its $5 monthly fee on debit card use that was expected to begin next year.

Goldman Sachs has purchased a majority stake in a 10-office building portfolio in Virginia from the estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, Lehman said on Monday.

Business software maker Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) may be setting its sights on Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) but the deal may not be an imminent one, according to an analyst at Global Equities Research.

Air China, Boeing and Chinese and U.S. aviation energy partners have conducted China's first sustainable biofuel flight.