Business highlights. Chemical Bank to buy out failed Home State

Chemical New York Corporation has stepped forth as the rescuer of Home State Savings Bank in Cincinnati. The New York banking concern, parent of Chemical Bank, has announced that it has signed a letter of intent with the State of Ohio to buy the business of Home State. The move is seen as a big bargain for Chemical, which will be paying only around $50 million to recapitalize Home State and to pay a premium for the failed thrift. The Home State purchase will also let Chemical into Ohio as a full-service commercial bank with branches in major cities across the state and the capability of further expansion. This situation contrasts with that of Citicorp, on which federal regulators have placed restrictions when it has crossed state lines to acquire ailing thrifts.

Japan is to announce today a package of measures intended to open the Japanese market to products from the US and other trade partners. But US officials in Tokyo have expressed doubt whether the package would quell rising anger in Congress over the US trade deficit with Japan, with reached $36.8 billion last year. Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, meanwhile, has told Japanese political leaders that the trade imbalance will remain hard to correct as long as US interest rates remained high.

Further developments on professional football in St. Louis: Team spokesman Michael Menchel told the Monitor Monday, ``The Cardinals will definitely play in St. Louis in 1985, and [team owner William V.] Bidwill is hopeful that the county executive or the mayor will be able to put together financing for a domed stadium within the next two or three years.'' Local government officials have been trying to fund a new stadium with private financing. But Mr. Menchel told the Monitor, ``They haven't ruled out industrial bonds.''

AT&T and MCI Communications, combatants in a long-distance legal war, return to federal court in Chicago Monday to select a jury to hear the damage portion in a 10-year-old antitrust lawsuit. MCI was awarded $600 million in 1980, after a jury found AT&T had attempted to monopolize the long-distance telephone market by refusing to grant certain telephone connections to MCI. In this new trial, MCI wants $5.8 billion in damages, contending AT&T's actions cost the company that since 1974. AT&T says its liability totals about $10 million.