business

GMAC no longer will extend auto leases to consumers with the lowest credit ratings, according to several General Motors Corp. (GM) dealers who were told of the change. The move by GMAC, the biggest auto lender in North America in terms of volume, comes as auto lending companies are losing billions on bad lease deals and taking steps to adjust leasing terms, or even abandon leasing altogether. Chrysler, which like GMAC is controlled by Cerberus Capital Management, said last week its Chrysler Financial arm will suspend subsidized leasing in the United States. GMAC is doing the same in Canada; as of Tuesday it hadn't moved to end U.S. leasing.

Mining giant Teck Cominco said Tuesday it will buy all of the Fording Canadian Coal Trust for close to $14 billion in cash and stock. The deal is the latest in a growing string of giant acquisitions centered on coking coal, a key raw material for certain steel mills. Coking coal prices have gained more than 50 percent since April 1 to $250 a ton or more, driven by tight supplies and demand from China, India, Russia, Europe and Brazil. Teck Cominco is the world's largest producer of zinc and metallurgical coal. The deal is expected to close in late October, pending regulatory and investor approval.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel on Tuesday overturned a lower court ruling from last year that allowed organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market Inc. to acquire Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats Markets Inc. The 2-1 ruling sends the case back to the lower court for further consideration, but doesn't halt Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods' integration of the Wild Oats chain or require that the deal be undone. However, if the district court ultimately rules in favor of the Federal Trade Commission, which sought last year to block the deal, it could disrupt Whole Foods' efforts to combine the companies.

Billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens has sold all of his holdings in Yahoo Inc. in a pique over the way the Internet company's management handled sales talks with Microsoft Corp. Pickens told the San Francisco Chronicle that he sold all 10 million of his Yahoo shares at a loss. "I think that Yahoo management was pathetic," Pickens told the Chronicle in a story published Tuesday. Pickens declined to quantify his losses, but he acquired his stake in mid-May when Yahoo was trading between $24 and $28 per share. Yahoo's stock price hasn't climbed above $22.50 for the past week, meaning Pickens probably lost tens of millions of dollars.

British Airways PLC and Spain's Iberia SA said they are in talks about combining. BA and Iberia, long-term partners in the oneworld alliance, said agreeing on terms of a planned all-stock deal could take months but that it has both boards' approval.