In the Region

Capmark to sell unit to partnership

Capmark Financial Group Inc., the bankrupt Horsham lender to office and apartment builders, agreed to sell its loan-servicing unit to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Leucadia National Corp., a lawyer for Capmark said. The partnership between Berkshire and Leucadia, called Berkadia, won court approval to buy the servicing unit yesterday. The value of the deal climbed to about $468 million from $408 million, attorney Michael Kessler said. - Bloomberg News

US Airways defers aircraft delivery

US Airways, Philadelphia's dominant carrier, said it would delay delivery of 54 Airbus jets until at least 2013 as it tries to bolster its financial strength. The carrier said delaying the deliveries would reduce its aircraft capital expenditures over the next three years by $2.5 billion. US Airways instead will take delivery of 28 planes over the next three years. - AP

Projects to receive federal funding

The U.S. Department of Energy announced that two projects using underground compressed air energy storage systems developed by a New Jersey joint venture will receive $54.5 million in funding. Energy Storage & Power, a joint venture between Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. and energy-storage pioneer Michael Nakhamkin, will directly benefit from the federal funding. The projects are among 32 awarded $620 million in grants to demonstrate advanced smart-grid technologies and energy storage. Two Pennsylvania projects also received a total of $7.2 million for storing grid-scale quantities of power in batteries. East Penn Manufacturing Co. in Berks County will receive $2.2 million to build a three-mega-

watt carbon-lead battery array, and 44 Tech Inc., Pittsburgh, will receive $5 million to develop a large-scale sodium-ion battery system. - Andrew Maykuth

Dismal results from business survey

Business owners in New Jersey are not bullish about the economy in the coming year. Fourteen hundred employers who completed the 2010 New Jersey Business and Industry Association's annual outlook survey said the state was unlikely to rebound quickly from the recession. Most employers said sales, profits, and employment levels fell this year, in some cases hitting all-time lows. Company owners, including many who employ fewer than 49 people, said they would keep a tight lid on spending and are unlikely to increase payroll in the coming year. - AP

Second Fosamax case dismissed

Merck & Co. said a U.S. District Court had dismissed claims against the company in a second key case alleging that the osteoporosis drug Fosamax causes painful jawbone destruction. According to Merck, U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan in Manhattan granted Merck summary judgment in the case. The company said the ruling stated that the plaintiff's physician was unqualified to render an opinion and that the plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence to support her contention that the drug caused osteonecrosis of her jaw. Merck, Whitehouse Station, N.J., employs several thousand people in the Philadelphia region. In September, a federal judge declared a mistrial in a separate case focusing on the same allegations. - AP

Icahn outbids Penn National

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has offered a higher sum than Penn National Gaming Inc., Wyomissing, Pa., to open bidding at a bankruptcy auction for the unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas casino-resort. A clerk in Miami for U.S. Bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol says Icahn offered $105 million Monday to buy the project from debtors plus $51.5 million in funding to resume construction. Penn initially offered $50 million for the resort, which was about 70 percent complete when developers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June. An auction will be Jan. 21. - AP

Reactors at PPL plant get extension

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a 20-year extension of the operating licenses for both reactors at PPL Corp.'s Susquehanna nuclear plant in Salem Township, Luzerne County, the Allentown company said. The 40-year license for Unit 1 has been extended to 2042. The license for Unit 2 has been extended to 2044. PPL applied for the extensions in 2006 and spent $18.2 million on the regulatory process. - Andrew Maykuth

Elsewhere

'Problem' banks at 16-year high

The number of U.S. "problem" lenders climbed to the most in 16 years, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s fund protecting customers against bank failures slipped into a deficit in the third quarter, the agency said. The FDIC had 552 banks with $345.9 billion in assets on the confidential problem list as of Sept. 30, a 32.7 percent increase from 416 lenders with $299.8 billion in assets at the end of the second quarter, the regulator said. Its insurance fund had a negative $8.2 billion balance. The FDIC is asking banks to prepay three years of premiums on Dec. 30 to raise $45 billion for the fund. Regulators are closing banks at the fastest pace in 17 years, seizing 124 so far this year. - Bloomberg News

GM's sale of Saab falls through

A Swedish specialty automaker has backed out of a deal to buy Saab from General Motors Co., casting serious doubt on the future of the troubled brand. Koenigsegg Group AB said it had decided to end the deal, announced in June. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed by GM. The Detroit automaker had been trying to unload the Swedish brand as it restructured under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year. GM chief executive officer Fritz Henderson said the company was disappointed in the decision and will take the next several days to figure out what to do. - AP

Toyota to recall Tundra trucks

Toyota Motor Corp. will recall 110,000 Tundra trucks from the 2000-03 model years to address excessive rust on the vehicle's frame. The government urged owners to remove the spare tire from the frame, concerned it could fall onto the road and create a hazard for other vehicles. The recall announced yesterday involves 2000-03 model-year Tundras registered in 20 "cold weather" states - including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware - and the District of Columbia. Road salts and chemical deicers are typically used to treat roads during the winter and could cause additional corrosion in the trucks. - AP

Two-class stock structure set

Facebook Inc., the social-networking site, said it introduced a dual-class stock structure to let current shareholders maintain voting control. The decision should not be seen as a signal that the company is planning to go public, Facebook said in a statement. - Bloomberg News