Business & Finance

Retail giant Target Corp. will sell its Marshall Field's department store division, a Chicago institution, and nine other outlets in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to May Department Stores Co. for $3.24 billion, the parties announced Wednesday. Target had been seeking to unload the properties since March to concentrate on its more profitable discount stores. The deal gives May, which operates the Lord & Taylor and Filene's chains, 62 more stores, for a total of 500 in 39 states. May outbid larger rival Federated Department Stores Inc., the parent of Macy's and Bloomingdales.

By a 2-to-1 margin, steelworkers at the Northrop Grumman shipyard in Newport News, Va., accepted a new contract offer Wednesday. The complex, which employs 8,500 steelworkers and 18,500 people overall, is the only one in the US that builds aircraft carriers. The agreement includes an average wage increase of $2.59 an hour, or about 3.3 percent annually. The current contract was set to expire at midnight Sunday.

Buyers of increasingly popular hybrid cars, notably the Toyota Prius, should be aware that some local dealers are marking up the purchase price by $5,000 or more, The Wall Street Journal reported. It cited a dealer in Plano, Texas, as calling the increase "a fair market adjustment." According to the Toyota.com website, the suggested retail price for the basic Prius is $20,810, but option packages can push that to more than $26,000. The Journal said the markups contrast with rebates averaging almost $3,000 that Toyota offers on conventional models. The report said Toyota USA has a backlog of 22,000 orders for the Prius. The rival Honda Civic hybrid is down to a 10-day supply, the Journal said.