IBT Staff Reporter

Cadbury Plc suitors Ferrero and Hershey Co have weighed breaking the UK confectioner up into separate businesses as part of a friendly, all-cash bid, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

Chrysler Group LLC on Friday launched a year-end sale for nearly all of its 2010 model year vehicles with zero percent financing or up to $4,000 cash to draw customers during the typically slower winter months.

Nov 20, 2009

Fiat SpA may have to close factories in Italy, given sharp falls in auto sales which have changed the sector dramatically, Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

Nomura Asset Management said on Friday it will suspend new subscriptions of a popular U.S. REIT investment trust fund as heavy inflows from retail investors boosted its size beyond the appropriate level to manage the fund.

Nov 20, 2009

Malaysia has awarded a commercial bank license to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest bank, Malaysia's central bank said on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

Ford Motor Co, the No. 2 U.S.-based automaker, plans to invest 2.8 billion reais ($1.61 billion) in Brazil to boost output at two plants by 20 percent, a top company executive said on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

A Florida jury on Thursday ordered cigarette maker Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million in damages to a 61-year-old ex-smoker named Cindy Naugle who is wheelchair-bound by emphysema.

Nov 20, 2009

Royal Caribbean has released the world's largest cruise ship, Oasis of the Seas, which is five times bigger than the titanic arrived at its home port, Port Everglades in Florida today.

Nov 20, 2009

Shares of Chinese discount hotel chain 7 Days Group Holdings Ltd jumped as much as 28.6 percent in their New York Stock Exchange debut on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

Private equity-backed Archipelago Learning Inc's shares rose in their first trading session following the company's initial public offering, which priced in line with expectations on Thursday.

Nov 20, 2009

Global Defense Technology & Systems Inc shares hovered near their initial public offering price on Friday in their first session on Nasdaq after the company's IPO priced below expectations.

Nov 20, 2009

Despite the worst U.S. recession in decades, sales of organic and sustainable products have continued to grow, experts say, with shoppers willing to spend a few more dollars in a bid to become more green.

Nov 20, 2009

J.M. Smucker Co , best known for its peanut butter and jelly, posted higher-than-expected quarterly results, driven by strong margins at its Folgers coffee business, and raised its full-year profit outlook, sending its shares up 5 percent.

Nov 20, 2009

Hungary's K&H Bank, the local unit of Belgium's KBC Group, said risk provisions rose and lending dropped sharply in the first three quarters, eroding net profit.

Nov 20, 2009

The one-way bet in the U.S. dollar that has lasted several months may be over for now despite distress over its malaise that has stretched from Washington to Paris.

Nov 20, 2009

Met-Pro Corp posted third-quarter results that missed market estimates, but said new orders were up sequentially.

Nov 20, 2009

European regulators extended their review of Oracle Corp's proposed $7-billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc, giving the software maker more time to address anti-competitive concerns.

Nov 20, 2009

A suicide bomber in southwestern Afghanistan killed 17 people Friday, and an Afghan lawmaker escaped a separate blast on the outskirts of Kabul but five of his bodyguards were killed, officials said.

Nov 20, 2009

Talks on the sale of Vivendi SA's NBC Universal stake to General Electric Co hinge on when Vivendi would get paid as well as how much, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

Colombia will not be provoked into armed conflict with Venezuela despite the neighboring country's aggressive rhetoric and its dynamiting of two cross-border pedestrian bridges, Colombia's defense minister said on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

Deutsche Telekom is keeping its options open for its U.S. business and is not close to making a decision on the unit's mid-tem future, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

European Union leaders named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, who is little known outside his own country, as the bloc's first president on Thursday to lead efforts to make it more influential on the world stage.

Nov 20, 2009

Europe's biggest carmaker, Volkswagen, will almost double exports from its South African plant in 2010 under a 27 billion rand ($3.59 billion) global contract for right-hand drive models of its new Polo.

Nov 20, 2009

Heavily-indebted Russian carmaker AvtoVAZ appointed Sergei Kogonin, head of truckmaker Kamaz, to its board of directors, increasing the prospect for the creation of a state-controlled autos giant.

Nov 20, 2009

Ford Motor Co plans to invest 2 billion reais ($1.15 billion) in Brazil through 2015, most of it on a plant in the northeastern Bahia state, to expand production and benefit from expected growth in Latin America's largest economy, the state governor said on BandNews radio on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

South Africa's existing automobile industry programme and its replacement scheme is expected to cut the trade deficit and contribute billions of dollars to gross domestic product by 2020, a government minister said on Friday.

Nov 20, 2009

Women's clothing retailer AnnTaylor Stores Corp reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue on Friday and gave a cautious forecast for the current holiday quarter, sending shares down 2.2 percent in premarket trade.

Nov 20, 2009

U.S. stocks fell on Friday after worse-than-expected quarterly results from computer maker Dell Inc and homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc underscored that the road to recovery would not be smooth.

Nov 20, 2009

Barack Obama's first presidential trip to Asia was also his first big step in recasting U.S. ties with a region in flux, and showed this will demand patience and compromise from a superpower used to pushing its weight around.

Nov 20, 2009