Business news in brief

GMAC ResCap, the mortgage lending arm of GMAC Financial Services, plans to hire from 100 to 150 people at its Fort Washington location, spokeswoman Jeannine Bruin said. ResCap, which eliminated 5,000 jobs last year, is holding job fairs tomorrow and on May 7 at its office in Fort Washington. Bruin said most of the hires will be in loan-origination operations as low-interest rates are driving refinancing demand. - Harold Brubaker

PHH Mortgage, Mount Laurel, is expanding its call center in the Philippines through its relationship with Zenta, a New York company that provides customer service and back-office support. Zenta said it planned to quadruple its workforce in the Philippines to nearly 500, with PHH accounting for some of the increase. A PHH executive said in Zenta's news release that it started using Zenta's services last year. - Harold Brubaker

Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, N.J., said its first-quarter profit dipped only slightly, beating Wall Street expectations, despite falling sales. The company - with operations in the Philadelphia area - posted net income of $3.5 billion, or $1.26 per share. That was down from $3.6 billion in 2008's first quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected, on average, earnings per share of $1.22 and revenue of $15.47 billion. Revenue fell just over 7 percent, to $15 billion. - AP

South Philadelphia cheesesteak entrepreneur Anthony Lucidonio Jr. and his Tony Luke's sandwich chain are named as defendants in a lawsuit filed Monday in Monmouth County Superior Court in New Jersey. The suit by AKL Food Service L.L.C. alleges that Lucidonio and others misrepresented a Tony Luke's franchise opportunity. The complaint alleges that Tony Luke's induced AKL's managing member, Anastasios Linardos, into purchasing the rights to open and operate New Jersey's first Tony Luke's franchise – which debuted in Hamilton Township in December 2007 - by grossly understating start-up and operational costs, artificially inflating sales projections, and making unlawful earnings claims. As a result, AKL has lost at least $9,000 per month for the last two years, the lawsuit alleges. Those losses are forcing AKL to close its Tony Luke's restaurant, the lawsuit alleges. Lucidonio could not be reached for comment. - Diane Mastrull

Sunoco Logistics Partners L.P., a Philadelphia master limited partnership that operates pipelines and terminals for the oil industry, said it boosted the number of units in a previously announced offering to 2.2 million from 2 million. The price for the units is $50.60. - Harold Brubaker

Intel Corp.'s first-quarter profit blew past Wall Street's grim forecasts as the chip maker's CEO proclaimed that personal computer sales had "bottomed out" and have started recovering. Net income was $647 million, or 11 cents per share - less than half what the company earned in the same period last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast profit of just 3 cents per share. Intel's sales of $7.1 billion were about $100 million higher than estimates. - AP

Circuit City will auction its brand, trademarks and e-commerce business next month. A federal bankruptcy judge set a May 11 auction and a sale hearing for May 13. Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City has entered a so-called stalking horse agreement with Systemax, of New York, for $6.5 million plus 21/2 years of payments of a portion of the revenue from the Circuit City Web site. A stalking horse bid is an initial offer for a bankrupt company's assets from an interested buyer chosen by the company. The auction will allow other companies to make bids. - AP

Hallmark Cards Inc. said it will cut its U.S. work force by up to 8 percent as the greeting-card maker struggles with falling sales. The Kansas City, Mo.-based company will lay off between 550 and 750 of its 9,200 full-time U.S. employees over the next six months. - AP

A key advertising forecaster sharply lowered its global ad spending forecast, saying the ad market took a substantial turn for the worse in the last few months. ZenithOptimedia now expects a year-over-year decline of 6.9 percent to $453 billion this year, a pace worse than the 0.2 percent dip for 2009 it had projected in December. U.S. ad spending is forecast to decline by 8.7 percent, worsening from December's projected drop of 6.2 percent for 2009. - AP

Businesses slashed their inventories for a sixth straight month in February as they tried to cope with the steep recession. The Commerce Department said business inventories dropped 1.3 percent in February, matching the January decline and close to the 1.2 percent fall that economists had expected. - AP

Two years after his conviction, former Qwest Communications International Inc. CEO Joe Nacchio reported to a federal prison to start a six-year sentence for insider trading while he appeals his conviction to the Supreme Court. Nacchio reported to a minimum-security prison camp in Minersville, Pa. He was convicted in 2007. - AP

EBay Inc. plans to spin off its Internet communications service Skype through an initial public offering. EBay expects to complete the IPO in the first half of next year, though the timing will be based on market conditions. EBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion in October 2005. It took a major writedown on the business in 2007, essentially acknowledging that it had drastically overvalued it. - AP