Merger news, analyst upgrades drive stocks higher
NEW YORK (AP) _ Another wave of corporate dealmaking stoked investors' confidence in the economy and carried stocks sharply higher Monday.
Analyst upgrades of Alcoa Inc. and Intel Corp. and positive momentum on President Obama's health care overhaul also helped drive a broad advance on the stock market. Major indexes closed off their highs of the day but still rose about 1 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 85.25, or 0.8 percent, to 10,414.14, after rising as much as 130 points earlier in the day.
Bond prices tumbled as stocks rose, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note up to its highest level since August. The dollar strengthened, hurting commodities prices.
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Sanofi-Aventis to buy Gold Bond maker Chattem
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) _ French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA said Monday it plans to buy U.S. health-care company Chattem Inc., maker of over-the-counter mainstays like Gold Bond skin products, for $1.9 billion in cash.
The deal also gives Sanofi-Aventis a distribution base for its popular allergy drug Allegra, which is awaiting approval to switch from prescription-only to an over-the-counter version, and for future switches of other drugs approaching the end of their patents.
Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis said it will offer $93.50 per share _ 44 percent more than Chattem's average price over the past six months. The Chattanooga, Tenn., company makes two dozen consumer health care products, including Icy Hot pain relief medicine and Selsun Blue shampoo.
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Ford offers retirement, buyouts to factory workers
DETROIT (AP) _ Ford Motor Co. has offered buyout or retirement incentive packages to all of its 41,000 U.S. hourly workers as it tries to further reduce its factory work force.
Ford, the healthiest of Detroit's three automakers and the only one to avoid government aid and bankruptcy protection, still has more workers than it needs to produce cars and trucks at current sales levels, said company spokesman Mark Truby.
He would not say how many workers Ford expects to take the packages, which include cash payments and other incentives such as vouchers to buy cars and short-term health insurance coverage.
Ford currently has 634 blue-collar workers on layoff in the U.S.
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GM taps Microsoft CFO to run finances
DETROIT (AP) _ General Motors Co. has hired the chief financial officer of Microsoft Corp. to take over the troubled automaker's books, tapping a cost-cutter who is now widely seen as a potential candidate to be GM's next CEO.