Capmark's 1,000-plus remaining employees, about half in Horsham, will learn then whether a rival bidder emerges to challenge Berkadia, the partnership between investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Leucadia National Corp.

Berkadia agreed this year to pay a premium of about a half-billion dollars for Capmark if it came to a bankruptcy sale.

Michael Kessler, of New York law firm Dewey & LeBouef L.L.P., representing Capmark, said in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware this week that a rival loan servicer had proposed paying a higher price for Capmark's assets, not including its workers. He told me he wouldn't identify that company.

So who's the mystery shopper? Shmuel Vasser, of Philadelphia-based Dechert L.L.P., has been watching the bankruptcy proceedings for PNC's Midland Loan Services Inc. commercial loan-servicing unit in Kansas City, Mo. It is one of Capmark's major competitors (another is Wells Fargo & Co.), and Midland is asking questions about the pending auction. Vasser wasn't available when I called his New York office yesterday.

PNC's interest has some folks at Capmark worried because, since PNC already owns Midland, it isn't likely to need the people who still work at Capmark, including in Horsham.

Besides jobs, public money is at stake here: Both Capmark and Midland service apartment-building loans for government-supported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which face reorganization and, probably, more federal bailouts next year.

PNC spokesman Brian Goerke says his company doesn't comment on merger speculation. PNC, the fifth-largest U.S. bank, is backed by about $7.6 billion in federal Troubled Asset Relief Program assets, and has been an acquirer of troubled companies, such as Cleveland's National City Bank.

Lots of gas

Hess LNG says it will try to build a terminal for liquefied natural gas at Crown Landing in Logan Township, Gloucester County, where energy giant BP P.L.C. tried and failed to build one.

"It's a very long-term" plan, said Gordon Shearer, president of Hess LNG, owned by New York-based gasoline distributor Hess Corp. and fuel broker Poten & Partners Inc. "We'll be two to three years in permitting and reassessments, three to four years in construction, and run it for 30 years."

The plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a breakwater, piers, tanks, pumps, and pipelines has support from New Jersey politicians eager for what Shearer told me were "several hundred construction jobs over three years," and about 30 full-time and 30 contract jobs long-term.

But it's been opposed by state officials and environmentalists in Delaware, where state law limits development in coastal waters, which extend all the way to the New Jersey Shore.

Shearer told me Hess might "scale back" BP's initial plan, which called for up to three ships unloading chilled and pressurized gas every week.

Union pressure

Shares of CVS Caremark Corp. fell 20 percent yesterday after the Rhode Island-based national pharmacy manager said it lost clients faster than it won new ones in the last year.

Among its losses: $2 billion in yearly business from the state of New Jersey, and $500 million from Ohio.

Labor union activists from the Service Employees International Union, which organizes pharmacy and warehouse workers, and the Change to Win union coalition, which includes SEIU, have targeted some of CVS's biggest customers, telling officials in New Jersey and other states that the company has been enriching itself at public expense by working closely with state consultants and drugmakers.

The company denies the claims. Philadelphia, among other communities, opted to stay with CVS Caremark this year despite a union effort to turn City Council against the company.