Jet Airways signs deal to buy 10 787s

Pacific Northwest

Boeing

India's largest private airline, Jet Airways, said Tuesday it signed a purchase agreement to buy 10 Boeing 787-8 series aircraft.

The Jet Airways order is worth $1.5 billion at list prices. However, aircraft-valuation firm Avitas estimates the actual purchase price after standard discounts at $1 billion.

The jets will be delivered between July 2011 and December 2012, Jet Airways said.

Under the purchase agreement, the airline has the option to substitute other models of Boeing aircraft.

Jet Airways said it is buying the planes to maintain and expand its international operations using wide-body aircraft, and to deploy modern and economically efficient aircraft.

The airline recently started flying to the United States and Thailand.

Nation / World

Nucor

$1.07 billion offer for Harris Steel

Steel-products maker Nucor said Tuesday it has offered $1.07 billion for Canada's Harris Steel Group, whose board is recommending that its shareholders accept the all-cash bid.

Nucor, which makes steel from recycled metal at its "minimill" operations across the United States, said the deal would broaden its geographic reach and give it opportunities to grow.

The tender offer will be open for at least 35 days and has the support of the boards of both companies, the news release said.

Sirius Satellite

Subscribers rose 82 percent last year

Sirius Satellite Radio increased subscribers by 82 percent to more than 6 million last year, in line with a reduced forecast last month.

The operator of the second-largest pay-radio service also had its first quarter of positive free cash flow in the fourth period of 2006, according to preliminary data, New York-based Sirius said Tuesday.

Sirius and its larger rival, XM Satellite Radio Holdings, have spent billions of dollars to compete with each other.

Insurers to pay $222 million in suit

DaimlerChrysler has reached an agreement with insurers over their contribution to a $300 million settlement of an investor lawsuit over the 1998 merger that created the company, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Thomas Froehlich, a spokesman for the U.S.-German automaker in Stuttgart, said DaimlerChrysler and the insurance companies, led by ACE, reached an agreement before the new year.

The Financial Times Deutschland newspaper said the insurers would contribute $222 million, out of an outstanding $231 million, stemming from the 2003 settlement of the lawsuit over the merger of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler.

The newspaper said U.S. insurer AIG already paid $25 million and DaimlerChrysler had paid the rest.

Enron

Former Enron executive Richard Causey was scheduled to begin his 5 ½-year term Tuesday in a federal prison in Bastrop, Texas, for his role in the fraud that destroyed the company.

Causey, 46, who was the chief accounting officer, pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud in December 2005, less than a month before he was to stand trial alongside former Enron chief executives Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, both of whom were convicted.

"A lot of improper things were done at Enron," Causey said as he was sentenced in November. "Some of those were done by me, and for that I am profoundly sorry."

Causey was the last of 16 former executives to plead guilty to crimes at Enron. More than 5,000 jobs and $1 billion in employee pensions vanished virtually overnight when Enron collapsed in 2001. Investors are suing to recover more than $30 billion in losses.

General Mills

2 reduced-sugar cereals to be axed

General Mills, will no longer offer reduced-sugar Trix and Cocoa Puffs because of slow sales and replace them with three new cereals branded with Walt Disney Co. characters.

General Mills will stop selling Trix and Cocoa Puffs with 75 percent less sugar from U.S. supermarkets in March, Thomas Forsythe, a spokesman for Minneapolis-based General Mills, said Tuesday. It will offer cereals featuring Disney's Mickey Mouse, Princess and Little Einsteins starting this month.

It will continue selling a reduced-sugar version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

"It's a tiny market but one that cereal makers must serve," said Bob Goldin, of Technomic, a Chicago food marketing-and-research firm. "They've got to keep not only mom happy, but also the health-interest groups and government regulators."

Philadelphia Media

68 at The Inquirer to lose jobs

The Philadelphia Inquirer, dealing with sharp declines in circulation and ad revenue, said Tuesday it expected to lay off 68 newsroom employees, about 16 percent of its editorial staff.

Several reporters at the Inquirer, Pennsylvania's largest newspaper, said they were told Tuesday morning that their jobs were being eliminated.

All the affected workers will be notified today, said company spokesman Jay Devine.

The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, both long part of Knight Ridder, were sold in March to McClatchy. In turn, McClatchy sold the papers three months later to Philadelphia Media Holdings, an investment group led by Brian Tierney, now the papers' chief executive and publisher.

Sharper Image

Severance slashed by $3 million

Specialty retailer Sharper Image chopped more than $3 million from the severance pay of recently departed Chief Executive Richard Thalheimer to offset his past windfalls from favorably priced stock options, according to documents filed with securities regulators.

The package, disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing late last week, includes retirement benefits of $3.9 million and a severance payment of $1.78 million, below the $5 million minimum guaranteed to Thalheimer under a contract signed in 2002.

Thalheimer, who founded Sharper Image in 1977, stepped down in September as part of the San Francisco-based company's effort to snap out of a prolonged sales funk.

Ford

No more minivans for automaker

Ford Motor, the second-largest U.S. automaker, will abandon the U.S. minivan market by discontinuing its Freestar model and instead seek to boost output of two new so-called crossover vehicles.

Ford decided not to resume Freestar production at its Oakville, Ontario, plant, which was halted in November, spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari said Tuesday. The factory will instead build only Ford's Edge and Lincoln MKX crossover wagons, Gattari said.

"Once we saw what demand for Edge and MKX was, it was the right business decision not to resume production," Gattari said.

Compiled from Bloomberg News, The Associated Press, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services