News In Brief

Prudential Insurance filed plans to go public in the fourth quarter this year. The initial public offering (IPO) involves distributing shares or cash to about 11 million policyholders and would allow the nation's second-largest underwriter to raise capital in the stock market for acquisitions and other purposes. Prudential's plan follows those of rivals MetLife and John Hancock, both of which went public last year. In addition to its life, car, and homeowners insurance business, the Newark, N.J.-based company owns Prudential Securities. If the IPO is approved by regulators, a holding firm called Prudential Financial Inc. would be created and would be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Texas Instruments plans to lay off 600 workers when it closes a Santa Cruz, Calif., computer chip plant later this year. The Dallas-based company said it's closing the plant as part of a cost-cutting plan to offset a sharp drop in revenue. Texas Instruments, which has 42,481 workers worldwide, said it expects to whittle its payroll even more through a hiring freeze and early retirement offers.

A $2.2 billion state-of-the-art factory planned by Intel Corp. in the Republic of Ireland will be delayed until mid-2003, the company announced. The world's No. 1 chipmaker said 1,400 construction workers will be laid off, although they're expected to be rehired next year. The postponement because of a move to "more advanced semiconductor technology" is the second for the plant at Leixlip in County Kildare. It originally was to have come online late this year, only to be pushed back to late 2002.

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor