Private equity buying Unilever detergents Unilever NV said Monday it has agreed to sell its North American laundry detergents business, including the All, Snuggle, Wisk and Surf brands, to a private equity investor for $1.45 billion. The buyer, Vestar Capital Partners, plans to combine the businesses with its Huish Detergents Inc. business that includes the Sun and White Rain brands and call the company the Sun Products Corp. Unilever is the Anglo-Dutch maker of Dove soaps, Lipton teas and Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
Oracle accuses rival SAP of buying illegal biz Business software maker Oracle Corp. accused rival SAP AG on Monday of knowingly buying and then embracing an illegal operation set up to steal Oracle's products and customers. The allegations emerged in the latest documents filed in a fraud case that Oracle brought against SAP last year in San Francisco federal court. Oracle fired its volley the day before Germany-based SAP is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings. The 16-month-old lawsuit focuses on TomorrowNow, a software maintenance specialist that SAP bought in 2005 to counter Oracle's $11.1 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft.
Turmoil in Nigeria and Iran drives up oil prices Oil prices rose Monday after militants sabotaged two oil pipelines in Nigeria and Iran claimed that it had doubled the size of its nuclear program but signaled a willingness to work with the United States. Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose $1.47 to settle at $124.73 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier rising as high as $125.22 a barrel. In another sign that high fuel prices are curbing consumption, the average price for gasoline in the United States fell just over a penny to $3.958 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.
GM to cut 1,760 jobs in Ohio, Louisiana General Motors Corp. said Monday it will cut shifts at plants in Ohio and Louisiana, eliminating 1,760 jobs, as part of the automaker's previously announced plan to reduce vehicle production because of weak demand for trucks and sport-utility vehicles. GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said the Detroit automaker will eliminate one shift each at its Moraine, Ohio, SUV plant and Shreveport, La., truck plant, cutting production by about 117,000 vehicles. The cuts bring GM's truck and SUV production cuts to just under the 300,000 units company officials had hoped for this year, Sapienza said.
Dallas News publisher cutting 500 jobs A.H. Belo Corp., publisher of the Dallas Morning News and three other papers, reported a second-quarter loss Monday and said it was cutting 500 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce. It said the staff cuts are part of an effort to save $50 million a year in operating costs. The Dallas-based company reported a loss of $3.2 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with net income of $12.3 million, or 60 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue fell 15 percent to $163.3 million from $192.3 million a year ago.
