Business news in brief

Campbell Soup Co.

president and chief executive officer

Douglas R. Conant

received only a slight raise in fiscal 2008, according to documents the company filed yesterday. Conant's total compensation was $9.57 million, up by just under 1 percent from what he was paid in fiscal 2007. The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives' salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation, and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During the same period, the company's profit rose 37 percent to $1.17 billion from $854 million despite an increase in soup sales of a modest 2 percent.

- AP

Aberdeen Asset Management Inc.

, a subsidiary of the Scottish investment firm, is doubling the number of employees housed at its U.S. headquarters in Center City, Mayor Nutter's office said. Aberdeen now has 123 full-time employees in its Philadelphia office at the Mellon Bank Center. The firm is adding 69 full-time employees from its Conshohocken office and will hire an additional 60 full-time employees over the next three years, the statement said.

- Rhonda Dickey

International Automotive Components North America

is closing a Pennsylvania plant as auto sales nose-dive. IAC said it would close the Carlisle plant Dec. 12. The plant makes carpet and other parts for cars. Its main customer is Ford. IAC is also closing plants in Indiana, Ohio and Canada as it sheds excess capacity and consolidates operations. The Carlisle plant was formerly owned by

Lear Corp.

and once employed 1,200 people. IAC North America, led by billionaire investor

Wilbur Ross

, acquired majority ownership in

2007. The workforce is currently just over 150.

- AP

Concerns about the health of

American International Group Inc.

were renewed yesterday, a day after the insurance giant said it would receive an additional $37.8 billion loan from the Federal Reserve. "The bottom line is, they need more liquidity than they thought," said

Mark Lane

, an analyst for

William Blair & Co.

The new loan is on top of a two-year, $85 billion loan AIG received last month from the Fed in an effort to stay in business. AIG shares fell 80 cents, or 25 percent, to $2.39 yesterday. The new loan will help AIG cover requests from clients to redeem borrowed securities.

- AP

Oil prices closed at their lowest level in a year, falling below $87 a barrel even after

OPEC

signaled that it may tighten production in an effort to slow crude's downward spiral. At the pump, retail gasoline prices kept falling, with a gallon of regular shedding 4.4 cents overnight to a new national average yesterday of $3.403, according to auto club

AAA

, the

Oil Price Information Service

and

Wright Express

. Fearful that oil prices could fall too far and harm their petroleum-dependent economies, OPEC said it would hold an extraordinary meeting Nov. 18 in Vienna, Austria, to discuss the widening economic crisis and how it's affecting the oil market. The 13-member cartel didn't mention a production cut but hinted that such a move may be coming.

- AP

Reserve Management Corp.

plans to liquidate 14 municipal money-market mutual funds and an enhanced cash account after a loss at its biggest fund sparked a flood of investor redemption requests. The boards of the 15 funds can't yet determine when investors will get their money, the company said in a statement. The funds will liquidate as soon as possible without selling assets "at fire-sale prices," the statement said. The run on Reserve was triggered by its holdings of debt issued by Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., which filed for bankruptcy Sept. 15. The next day, Reserve Primary Fund, the firm's largest and the nation's oldest money-market mutual fund, said losses on Lehman pushed its net asset value below $1 a share, known as breaking the buck.

- Bloomberg News

Rates on 30-year mortgages fell below 6 percent this week, recording the first decline in three weeks.

Freddie Mac

, the mortgage company, reported that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.94 percent this week, down from 6.10 percent last week. It marked the first decline since rates fell Sept. 18 to 5.78 percent, a seven-month low. Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages edged down slightly to 5.15 percent, compared with 5.16 percent last week.

- AP

Boeing Co.

and its machinists union will resume talks to end a monthlong strike that has stopped aircraft production and delayed the new 787 Dreamliner. "We have kept lines of communications open and have agreed to pursue additional talks through the federal mediator,"

Doug Kight

, Boeing's lead negotiator, said in a statement Wednesday night. Boeing has offered an 11 percent raise over three years, while rejecting a reduction in the use of outside contractors. The International Association of

Machinists and Aerospace Workers, whose 27,000 members walked out Sept. 6 in Washington, Oregon and Kansas, want a bigger share of the company's record profits and limits on the outsourcing of work. Negotiations are expected to begin by the end of this weekend, said lead union negotiator

Mark Blondin

.

- Bloomberg News

Restaurant chain

Chick-fil-A

said it had eliminated all artificial trans fats from its chicken and biscuit-laden menu. The Atlanta company said it changed its recipe for its waffle fries and its breakfast biscuits to remove trans fat after two years of testing to make sure the taste of the food was not affected by the switch. Trans fat raises the level of bad cholesterol in the body and can increase the risk of coronary heart disease. Trans fat has been used to improve the taste and texture of foods and to keep food fresh longer.

- AP