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Chiquita Brands International Inc. posted a $6 million loss, or 13 cents per diluted share, on $840 million in revenue for its third quarter, as higher banana prices failed to offset continued weakness in its fresh salads business.

“We are making progress on all the elements of our profit improvement plans for salads, including permanent contract pricing and fuel-related surcharges, to deliver better margins over time,” said Fernando Aguirre, chairman and CEO of the Cincinnati-based consumer-products company. “Looking ahead, we continue to expect to achieve significantly better operating results for the full year versus 2007."

Chiquita’s third-quarter numbers are an improvement over the same period last year, when it posted a $26 million loss, or 61 cents per diluted share on revenue of $785.2 million.

And they were better than analysts were expecting. Those polled by Thomson Reuters in advance of Thursday's announcement were expecting a loss of 56 cents per share.

In a conference call with investors, Aguirre disclosed the company will begin selling fresh food products in China through a joint venture with a distributor "known for for its high-quality products creditreport."

"We believe that their local expertise combined with our strong brand and marketing capabilities will position us to successfully enter this promising market with new products within the next year," he said.

Net sales from its banana segment increased 13 percent to $474 million, driven by improved pricing in North America and favorable exchange rates in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Chiquita’s salads and healthy snacks segment saw a 2 percent increase in net sales, to $325 million. Operating results were adversely impacted by higher fuel and transportation costs.

Chiquita (NYSE: CQB) estimated it would incur one-time costs of up to $25 million for the relocation of its European headquarters from Belgium to Switzerland.

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Parion Sciences announced Tuesday a deal with a South Korean firm that could bring the Durham pharmaceutical company as much as $25 million.

The funding from Seoul-based Kainos Medicines will help Parion Sciences initiated phase II trials on its lead drug, a treatment for the chronic dry mouth condition called Sjogren’s syndrome.

The two companies will collaborate in the clinical development of Parion’s compound, called P-552. Kainos will provide up to $25 million if all milestones are completed.

Parion says that its treatment is a therapeutic agent developed to maintain and stimulate hydration on the body’s mucosal surfaces, such as the surfaces of the lung, mouth, nose, eye and gastrointestinal tract. Parion will oversee the clinical development program while Kainos will provide chemistry, manufacturing and controls expertise.

“Sjogren's syndrome patients are seeking effective relief of their dry mouth,” Parion CEO M 1 hour cash loans. Ross Johnson said in a written statement. “By combining the talents and expertise of two proven development teams, we believe we can accelerate the clinical development of P-552 to effectively address this unmet need.”

Sjogren’s syndrome occurs when a person’s immune system attacks and destroys moisture-producing glands, including the salivary and tear glands.

Privately held Parion focuses on developing therapies for diseases resulting from the failure of the body’s mucosal defenses, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), cystic fibrosis, bronchiactesis and Sjogren’s syndrome.

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Iceland is nearing a deal to borrow up to $2.1 billion from the International Monetary Fund to prop up its economy, the IMF and Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde’s office announced Friday.

The loan would be the first time the IMF has funneled money to a Western European country in 25 years, when it sent funds to Portugal.

The loan is "equivalent to 1,190% of Iceland’s quota in the IMF," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said, but he added Reykjavik deserved it because of the "ambitious economic program" it has put together.

The tiny island nation "aims to restore confidence to the banking system, to stabilize the krona through strong macroeconomic policies, and to help the country achieve medium-term fiscal consolidation following the collapse of its banking system."

Iceland’s stock market crashed earlier this month and the government nationalized three of the country’s biggest banks nevada payday loans. Trading on the country’s stock market was suspended for nearly a week.

The IMF deal must be approved by the organization’s executive board in Washington. Strauss-Kahn said that could happen as soon as early November.

The deal would include an economic stabilization program and access to up to $2.1 billion under a two-year loan. Iceland would have access to $833 million of that money immediately, the IMF said.

"Iceland is now in a much better position to establish a sound economic and financial base for the country," Haarde said in a written statement. 

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Starwood Hotels & Resorts revenue fell 5 percent in the third quarter and the company blamed slowing timeshare sales in Hawaii and Florida.

Revenue for vacation ownership was down 27.4 percent to $183 million, compared to 2007. The company said contract sales of vacation ownership intervals decreased nearly 30 percent mostly due to the sellout of the company’s Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort North on Maui and an overall decline in demand.

The company said it did not sell any vacation ownership receivables during the quarter, from which it had previously anticipated a gain of $10 million to $15 million.

Starwood said it expects operating income from its timeshare business to drop as much as $115 million this year as demand in Hawaii and Orlando, Fla get a free credit report. slows.

The White Plains, N.Y.-based company (NYSE: HOT) reported profits of $113 million for the quarter, compared to $129 million during the same period last year.

Revenue was 5 percent lower, totaling $575 million, down from $605 million during the third quarter 2007.

The company operates 12 properties in Hawaii.

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Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) said most of its wealth management operations will be run from New York city following the $50 billion takeover of Merrill Lynch.

The announcement is a blow to Boston, which became Bank of America’s wealth management headquarters after BofA’s takeover of FleetFinancial in 2004. That business will be run from New York by Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain.

Keith Banks, who was Bank of America’s global wealth and management chief, will now head private bank U.S. Trust and Columbia Management, which includes mutual funds. He will operate from New York.

Greg Fleming, Merrill’s star investment banker and president, will run global corporate and investment banking, which will include commercial banking, from New York cashadvance.

Tom Montag, currently global head of sales and trading at Merrill Lynch, will be head of Global Markets which includes sales, trading and research. He will operate from New York. Capital markets will report to both Montag and Fleming.

Peter Kraus, executive vice president of Global Strategy at Merrill Lynch, has decided to leave the company after the merger to pursue other opportunities.

Merrill vice chairman Bob McCann, who oversees the company’s army of 16,000 or so brokers, will head the combined financial advisor organization. He will operate from New York.

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A Wachovia Corp. investor wants a judge to block the company’s sale to Wells Fargo & Co., contending the proposed $15 billion price is too low and the shareholder vote will be unfair.

The suit contends the bank will force the sale without true approval from shareholders. It says Wachovia “essentially disenfranchised the voters … and locked up the vote in favor of the merger” by giving Wells preferred stock representing 39.9% of Wachovia voting shares as part of the merger agreement.

“If this is such a good deal, we don’t understand why they are doing that,” said Carl Stine, a partner with Wolf Popper, the New York law firm that filed the suit. “Why not have a free and open vote?”

Christy Phillips-Brown, a spokeswoman for Wachovia, said the suit is “without merit and we intend to defend the case vigorously.”

The suit is filed as a class action. The only named shareholder is Irving Ehrenhaus, who would be the lead plaintiff.

It asks a judge in North Carolina business court to block the deal, issuing both a temporary and permanent injunction. No hearings have yet been set, but Stine said his group hopes to have hearings before the deal closes at the end of the year.

If the deal is closed before the case is heard, the suit asks the judge to undo the acquisition or award unpecified monetary damages.

The suit accuses the Wachovia board of breach of fiduciary duty in the deal. It accuses Wells of aiding and abetting that breach.

San Francisco-based Wells (NYSE: WFC) agreed Oct. 3 to buy Wachovia in a deal initially valued at $15.1 billion. This was while Wachovia’s future hung in the balance. The bank faced failure on Sept. 29 and was rescued only by a deal brokered by federal regulators to sell its banking operations to New York-based Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) for $2.1 billion payday advance lender.

That deal, announced Sept. 29, would have left a portion of Wachovia — basically Wachovia Securities and some asset-management operations — surviving as an independent company.

Wells made a higher offer Oct. 2, and the board accepted it shortly after midnight Oct. 3. Citigroup initially challenged that deal but has dropped efforts to block it. Instead Citigroup intends to seek up to $60 billion in damages from Wells and Wachovia over the deal gone sour.

Wachovia was on the verge of failure after a proposed bailout of the banking system foundered in the U.S. Congress. Before that failure, the suit says, Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia (NYSE: WB) was worth about $10 a share.

With the bank facing shutdown or a bargain-basement deal with Citigroup, Stine says, the roughly $7 a share Wells offered might be appropriate. But after the bailout passed, Wachovia was worth more than that. The board, he says, had a duty to renegotiate the price.

Wells, he said, had “a gun to Wachovia’s head” when the deal was made. And it demanded Wachovia enter into an immediate exchange of stock, giving the preferred shares to Wells.

Stine argues that all but assures the deal will be approved. Management and the board of Wachovia own about 2.5 percent of all shares, so Wells starts with a 41 percent stake in the deal, he says.

But granting that large a share of votes to Wells also effectively precludes any other bidder from coming in.

Wolf Popper, which has a national reputation in class-action suits, has asked Judge Albert Diaz in the business court for expedited treatment to allow the argument for an injunction to be heard as quickly as possible.

The suit was filed a little more than a week ago in Mecklenburg Superior Court.

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European Central Bank council member Ewald Nowotny said a “tri-polar'' global currency system is developing between Asia, Europe and the U.S. and that he's skeptical the U.S. dollar's centrality can be revived.

“What I see is a system where we have more centers of gravity'' Nowotny said today in an interview with Austrian state broadcaster ORF-TV. “I see for the future a tri-polar development, and I don't think that there will be fixed exchange rates between these poles.''

The leaders of the U.S., France and the European Commission will ask other world leaders to join in a series of summits on the global financial crisis beginning in the U.S. soon after the Nov. 4 presidential election, President George W. Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Barroso said in a joint statement yesterday.

Nowotny said he was “skeptical'' when asked whether the Bretton Woods System of monetary policy, set up after World War II and revised in 1971, could be revived to aid global currency stability. The U.S. meeting should aim to strengthen financial regulation, define bank capital ratios and review the role of debt-rating agencies.

European leaders have pressed to convene an emergency meeting of the world's richest nations, known as the Group of Eight, joined by others such as India and China, to overhaul the world's financial regulatory systems no qualifying payday advance. The meetings are to include developed economies as well as developing nations.

`Real Economy'

Bush, 62, has cautioned that any revamping must not restrict the flow of trade and investment or set a path toward protectionism. The G8 nations are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. The U.S. hasn't committed itself to the sweeping terms of Europe's agenda, White House press secretary Dana Perino said yesterday.

Sarkozy wants the G8 to consider re-anchoring their currencies, the hallmark of the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement that also gave birth to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The current financial crisis, in which European governments have pledged at least 1.3 trillion euros ($1.7 trillion) to guarantee loans and take stakes in lenders, should be “under control'' by mid-2009, Nowotny said. The economy will suffer longer.

“What comes then, unfortunately in parallel, will be the problems for the real economy,'' Nowotny said. “The growth rate in 2009 will be significantly below what we have in 2008.''

He predicted gross domestic product growth around 1 percent in Austria next year.

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Tesoro Corp. offered an advance estimate of third-quarter earnings that projects earnings-per-share to be in the range of $1.70 to $1.90 per share.

The company says earnings were positively affected by expanded margins for light products at the retail level and heavy products, including fuel oil and coke.

“In addition, the decline in crude and natural gas prices positively impacted the company’s internally produced and purchased energy costs,” Tesoro (NYSE: TSO) said in a prepared statement.

The company reported net earnings of $4 million, or 3 cents per share, on revenues of $8.7 billion for the second quarter ended June 30, 2008. This compares to net income of $443 million, or $3.26 per share, on revenues of $5.6 billion for the same period a year ago.

The company also reported that it had no borrowings on its revolving credit facility as of the end of September due to strong cash flow and that it lowered its net-debt-to-net-capitalization ratio to 30 percent payday advance.

Separately, Tesoro also announced that Goldman Sachs sold 251,100 shares of Tesoro stock owned by company Chairman, President and CEO Bruce Smith.

“The shares were sold in accordance with an existing margin agreement to meet a margin call,” the company said in a prepared statement. “Depending on the direction of Tesoro’s common stock price, further sales may be required.”

The company’s stock closed at $8.36 per share on Friday, Oct. 10; its 52-week trading range is between $7.61 and $65.98 per share.

Tesoro is an independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products. The company operates seven refineries in the western United States, including the one in Kapolei, and operates 900 gasoline stations in Hawaii and the U.S. West.

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Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Saturday that emerging market countries are not immune to the most serious global economic risks in recent memory and must be careful in their policy choices.

In prepared remarks before the International Monetary Fund’s steering committee, Paulson also urged the IMF to stay focused on its core missions, including currency surveillance and helping low-income countries avoid a return to debt distress.

Paulson said the financial turmoil, commodity price shocks and housing price declines were causing a “sharp slowdown in economic growth.”

“The largest advanced economies are feeling this most acutely. Emerging market countries have made impressive strides in strengthening fundamentals, enabling their economic growth to accelerate and their economies to be better cushioned against external shocks,” Paulson said.

“Nevertheless, emerging markets are not immune from the global financial stress, and policy-makers need to be especially attentive to implementing measures to support noninflationary growth, enhance economic resilience, and ensure sound financial systems,” he said.

Paulson reiterated that the United States was taking a number of steps to stem the crisis, including the creation of a $700 billion program that would allow the Treasury to purchase mortgage assets and take equity stakes in financial institutions.

He said the IMF must focus on implementing its recent decision to increase exchange rate surveillance.

“This will require IMF staff to apply its considerable technical expertise to make tough judgments and the (IMF) board to ensure IMF assessments are clearly and candidly conveyed,” he said. 

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India's industrial production grew at the weakest pace on record as interest rates at a seven-year high damped consumer spending and companies cut output amid the global credit crisis.

Output at factories, utilities and mines rose 1.3 percent in August from a year earlier after a revised 7.4 percent gain in July, the Central Statistical Organization said in New Delhi today. Economists surveyed estimated an increase of 6 percent.

The risk of a global recession has risen since August as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression erased $12 trillion from world stock markets. India's central bank today cut the amount of cash lenders need to set aside as reserves to cushion the economy from a global slowdown, after the rupee slumped to a record low and overnight lending rates doubled.

“The record high interest rates are taking a toll on consumer spending,'' Ramya Suryanarayanan, an economist at DBS Bank Ltd. in Singapore. “The outlook going forward is looking very, very bad as the global turmoil will exacerbate India's problems.''

Production fell the most since the current index was first compiled in 1994. Manufacturing, which accounts for about 80 percent of total output, gained 1.1 percent in August from 8 percent in July. Electricity output rose 0.8 percent in August from 4.5 percent. Capital goods production rose 2.3 percent, a tenth of the pace of July.

Bonds rose, causing the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to fall 25 basis points to 7.73 percent as of 12:20 p.m. in Mumbai. The Sensitive Index of stocks plunged 9.4 percent, and is poised for its worst week in almost 18 years.

Global Recession

The International Monetary Fund this week said advanced economies will expand next year at the slowest pace since 1982, sapping growth from India to Russia faxless payday loan online. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the world economy is “on the cusp'' of a recession.

“The continued global financial market turmoil is certainly the biggest threat to industrial production growth in the coming months,'' said Sherman Chan, an economist at Moody's Economy.com in Sydney. “I expect exports to slow sharply in the next six months or so.''

India will grow 6.9 percent in 2009, slower than 8 percent projected in July, the IMF said. Asia's third-largest economy will expand 7.9 percent this year, it said, cooling from 9.3 percent in 2007.

Slowing Exports

Exports grew 27 percent in August from a year earlier, slower than a 31.2 percent gain in July.

The global downturn and slower inflation may give central bank Governor Duvvuri Subbarao room to stop raising interest rates after three increases since June to stem price gains.

Higher borrowing costs and prices have discouraged spending by consumers who rely on loans to buy cars and motorbikes. Passenger car sales in India fell 4.4 percent in August from a year earlier after declining 1.7 percent in July, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers said this week.

Still, factory output may get a boost in the coming months as rising wages for public servants increases spending at home. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced an average 21 percent wage increase for about 5 million government workers in August.

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