Business & Finance
L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., a maker of satellite and marine communication equipment, is buying defense contractor Titan Corp. for nearly $2 billion in a cash deal that will give it a major stake in servicing US military and intelligence agencies. Titan is L-3's largest acquisition to date and will boost the company's ability to compete as a prime contractor for government business. On Friday, Titan said it settled several class-action lawsuits in California and Delaware stemming from a foreign bribery probe. L-3 is based in New York, Titan in San Diego.
India and Pakistan have entered negotiations to build a 1,720-mile natural-gas pipeline from Iran that would supply them with 150 million cubic meters of gas a day, Bloomberg.com said Sunday. The estimated completion date for the $4 billion project is 2009, with India taking about two-thirds of the fuel and Pakistan the rest.
Perdue Farms Inc., one of the largest US poultry compa nies, plans a $17 million expansion of its processing facility in Monterey, Tenn., that will add about 400 jobs, it announced late last week. The company said it will upgrade its existing facility in order to increase production of its sliced, deli-style meats. Perdue Farms, which is based in Salisbury, Md., employs about 20,000 workers.
Honeywell International Inc., an industrial conglomer ate based in Morristown, N.J., said Friday it is reorganizing its aerospace division, a move analysts suggest could lead to around 2,000 jobs being cut. The reorganization is intended to simplify the unit's structure and make it easier for customers to work with the company.
German chemical firm Lanxess AG will cut nearly 1,000 jobs to save $81.5 million a year and shore up its resins and fine-chemicals arm, the company said Friday. German firms have laid off thousands of workers in recent years amid sluggish growth in many of Europe's economies, driving German unemployment up to about 12 percent.
Australia's BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining com pany, announced Friday it had gained a 55.45 percent stake in WMC Resources, a base metals miner that holds significant copper and nickel deposits, and almost 40 percent of the world's known uranium resources at its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia state.