COMPANIES

Shares in embattled British bank Northern Rock tumbled 20 percent to an all-time low on Wednesday as speculation of a cut-price takeover bid combined with stake sales from two investors stoked concerns over its future.

General Mills Inc. on Wednesday reported a rise in quarterly earnings that matched a better-than-expected view the company gave earlier this month, helped by a move to reduce the size of cereal boxes and charge consumers more per ounce.

Toymaker Mattel Inc's recent recalls involved toys that had nearly 200 times the amount of lead in paint as allowed by U.S. law, the company said in a letter released to a congressional subcommittee on Tuesday.

General Motors Corp would give new union members 401(k)-style retirement plans instead of traditional pensions for the first time under a proposed United Auto Workers contract, Bloomberg News said on its Web site, citing people with knowledge of the talks.

Banks have always lent out more than their clients have on deposit but just once in a while savers lose trust and demand all their money back, exposing one of the optical illusions at the heart of finance.

The mortgage lending crisis deepened on Tuesday, as Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc said it will quit most lending and cancel its dividend, while Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co posted a big quarterly loss and said its survival remained in doubt.

Boeing Co said on Tuesday that China will require 3,400 new airplanes worth about $340 billion over the next 20 years, raising its forecast for the country's booming aviation arena.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc's Japanese unit, Seiyu Ltd, boosted its annual loss forecast by 76 percent due to a charge to cut about 7 percent of its work force as it battles sluggish sales.

India's top drug makers are in the race to acquire U.S.-based generic drug maker, Par Pharmaceutical Co Inc, two Indian newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Indian outsourcing companies are shifting some of their operations to China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Kenya in a bid to stay competitive as higher wages, expensive property prices and a rising rupee eat into profits.

China Construction Bank, the country's second-biggest bank by assets, said on Tuesday it had raised 58 billion yuan ($7.7 billion) in the country's largest domestic IPO.

A group of institutional investors, state officials and environmental groups called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday to force publicly-traded companies to disclose climate-related risks along with other factors that affect their business.

News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said on Tuesday that he was leaning toward making online Wall Street Journal free, but had made no decision yet.

Commerzbank is bracing itself for a higher-than-predicted loss from investments related to risky U.S. mortgages that is set to knock a hole in profits, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co, a struggling subprime mortgage lender, on Tuesday posted a $260.2 million quarterly loss and said it remained unsure it would survive the fallout from a slumping U.S. housing market.

Embattled British bank Northern Rock said a majority of customer calls it had received on Tuesday were to reinvest money in accounts, and queues for cash withdrawal were considerably down from past days.

Negotiators for the United Auto Workers union and General Motors Corp were scheduled to resume discussions later on Tuesday as GM factory employees went to work as usual on the fourth day without a new contact.

A U.S. federal judge tossed out a lawsuit by California's attorney general on Monday seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from six automakers for damaging the state with climate-changing greenhouse gases.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. posted a 3.2 percent decline in quarterly earnings on Tuesday as the U.S. investment bank wrote down mortgage and leveraged loan assets, but the results beat expectations and its shares rose. The results soothed investors concerned that the widening U.S. subprime mortgage crisis would wallop investment bank earnings.

The New York Times Co said on Monday it will end its paid TimesSelect Web service and make most of its Web site available for free in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue.

Ford Motor Co may accelerate cost cutting if a slowing U.S. economy puts the auto maker at risk of missing key financial goals in 2008 and 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Tuesday, citing an interview with an executive.

A Royal Bank of Scotland-led consortium will be given Dutch Finance Ministry approval later on Monday for its bid to take over Dutch bank ABN AMRO, a source close to the deal said.

Britain will guarantee all existing deposits at embattled mortgage bank Northern Rock, finance minister Alistair Darling said on Monday.

Top U.S .phone company AT&T Inc said on Monday that it was ordered to pay $156 million after losing a jury verdict in a patent infringement case brought by TGIP Inc.

Hartford Financial Services Group Chief Financial Officer David Johnson said on Monday the insurer will generate $140 million of surplus in the second half of 2007, giving it a total of $640 million available.

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc will start selling life and retirement products to small business owners who already buy its commercial insurance, and on Monday named the former head of its Japanese unit to run the operation.

Negotiators for the United Auto Workers union and General Motors Corp were back at the bargaining table on Monday after breaking in the early hours of the day, as thousands of GM factory employees went to work without a new contract.

Lines of Britons bent on getting their money out formed at Northern Rock Plc's bank branches for a third working day on Monday in defiance of reassuring words from government and management.

Eli Lilly & Co, the U.S. maker of antidepressant Prozac and erectile dysfunction drug Cialis, said its China sales were rising about 26 percent a year, on track to become the company's tenth biggest global market by 2010.