Business news in brief

Lincoln National Corp., Radnor, said it boosted its cost-cutting target to an annual rate of $250 million by the end of this year. The insurance and investment management company said it had already identified $150 million in savings as part of a restructuring started at the end of last year. In January, Lincoln announced the elimination of 540 jobs, or 5 percent of its workforce. Some of the additional $100 million in savings is expected to come from more job cuts, spokeswoman Laurel O'Brien said. Lincoln's shares fell 90 cents, or 10 percent, to close at $8.13 on the New York Stock Exchange. - Harold Brubaker

Peco Energy Co. said it would invest about $400 million this year, about the same as last year, on capital improvements to its electricity and natural-gas distribution systems. The Philadelphia utility, a subsidiary of Chicago's Exelon Corp., said many of the infrastructure investments were part of multiyear projects aimed at improving its systems' reliability and performance. The company said its largest new project, expected to cost $45 million, would be a new electricity substation in Worcester Township, Montgomery County. Peco said the substation would bolster the regional electrical grid's reliability during peak demand in the summer. - Jeff Gelles

Four of the nation's largest labor unions will team up to kick-start stalled contract talks with casinos in four states, starting with New Jersey, officials announced. The United Auto Workers, the AFL-CIO, the Transport Workers Union, and the Service Employees International Union are forming a Gaming Workers' Council, designed to put the combined muscle of 15 million union members behind casino unionization drives across the country. The council will concentrate on dragged-out contract talks in Atlantic City but will also try to revive stalled negotiations in Nevada, Indiana, and Connecticut. The UAW has won representation elections at four Atlantic City casinos but has not reached a contract with any of them after two years of bargaining. - AP

Neose Technologies Inc., the Horsham biopharmaceutical company that is dissolving itself, said its board had approved an initial liquidating distribution of 33 cents per share of common stock. The payment is expected to be made on or about March 24 to stockholders of record March 2, the day the company filed its certificate of dissolution in Delaware. The company estimates that the combined distributions should amount to 36 to 55 cents a share, for a total of $19.6 million to $30.1 million. - Roslyn Rudolph

Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C. and its senior creditors agreed at a bankruptcy hearing to postpone a hearing on debtor-in-possession financing for the owner of The Inquirer, the Daily News, and Philly.com. This third postponement of the hearing was agreed to because the two sides continue talking about ways to resolve their dispute over the financing, though the two sides are "not particularly close at the moment," Lawrence G. McMichael, a Dilworth Paxson L.L.P. lawyer who represents Philadelphia Newspapers, told Bankruptcy Judge Jean K. FitzSimons. The new date for the financing hearing, which had been scheduled to start next Tuesday, is March 31, FitzSimons said in court. McMichael said at yesterday's hearing that the company's day-to-day finances were in good shape and that it could continue funding its operations from cash flow until the end of April. In other business, the company reached an agreement with Peco Energy to provide a $275,000 deposit for its utility bill. - Harold Brubaker

IGI Laboratories Inc. said it had completed a private placement for $6 million of preferred stock as well as promissory notes and warrants to buy shares of preferred stock with funds affiliated with Signet Healthcare Partners G.P. The Buena, Atlantic County, maker of products for pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical companies said it expected to use the proceeds for pharmaceutical-product development and general corporate purposes. Two Signet officials are expected to join IGI's board. The preferred shares are convertible into common stock. IGI shares closed up 9 cents, or 15.5 percent, at 67 cents. - Roslyn Rudolph

The National Association of Home Builders says its market index hovered unchanged near historic lows in March as builders continue to see the economy as a major drag on their prospects for improved sales. The trade association said the index stood at 9, one point off the all-time low hit in January. Index readings lower than 50 indicate negative sentiment about the market. Builders' gauge of current sales conditions and expectations for sales over the next six months remained unchanged from February. But builders' assessment of buyer traffic dropped two points. - AP

The nation's industrial output fell for the fourth straight month in February with the factory operating rate dropping to the lowest level in more than a half-century of record keeping. The Federal Reserve reported that industrial output dropped by 1.4 percent last month, slightly worse than the 1.2 percent decline that economists had expected. The weakness included a 0.7 percent fall in manufacturing output, which pushed the operating rate at the nation's factories down to 67.4 percent of capacity last month, the lowest level on records that go back to 1948. - AP

Mexico says it will increase tariffs on about 90 U.S. products in retaliation for last week's decision to cancel a pilot program that allowed some Mexican trucks to transport goods within the United States. The Mexican Economy Department says the U.S. decision violates a provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Department officials told a news conference that the measure would affect about $2.4 billion in trade: 90 agricultural and industrial products from 40 U.S. states. Activists in the United States had argued that Mexican trucks were unsafe, something Mexico denies. - AP