Business news in brief

Public Service Electric & Gas Co., the New Jersey utility that saw 1.7 million customers lose power when Hurricane Sandy struck two weeks ago, said it had restored the last outages on Monday. Much of the restoration work was only temporary. Ralph LaRossa, PSE&G's president, cautioned that until permanent repairs are done, the system may be less reliable than normal. Almost all of the 88,000 customers still without power from the storm are in New York state, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Sandy and a subsequent winter storm last week knocked out nearly 8.7 million customers in 21 states. - Andrew Maykuth

Chemtura Corp., a Philadelphia chemical company, said it reached an agreement to sell its antioxidant and UV stabilizers business, which makes additives that combat degradation from oxygen and sunlight. SK Capital Partners, a private investment firm with offices in New York and Boca Raton, Fla., agreed to pay $200 million for the business, which had $390 million in revenues in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, Chemtura said. The asset sale includes manufacturing plants in the United States, France, and Germany. In the nine months ended Sept. 30, Chemtura had $2.3 billion in sales. - Harold Brubaker

Hill International Inc., of Marlton, said it won a contract worth $10 million over five years to be construction manager for the first phase of the $1.4 billion Rising Sun Taipei City development in Chongqing, China. The 11.7 million-square-foot development by Rising Sun International Real Estate Venture Investment L.L.C. "marks Hill's first major project management assignment in China," said Abdo E. Kardous, senior vice president and managing director of Hill's Asia-Pacific project management group. Hill employs 3,300 worldwide. - Reid Kanaley

A Radian Group Inc. subsidiary agreed to pay Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. $52.4 million to end its agreement to provide reinsurance to Financial Guaranty on bonds with a face value of $827 million, Philadelphia-based Radian said. The deal, which covers 13 percent of Radian Asset's total reinsurance exposure as of Sept. 30, 2012, requires court approval because Financial Guaranty is undergoing financial rehabilitation in court under New York law. - Harold Brubaker

Jim Paradis was named president of Main Line Health's Paoli Hospital, taking over Nov. 3 from Barbara Tachovsky, who retired after 13 years, the health system said. Paradis has worked at Main Line Health for nine years, most recently as vice president of administration at Paoli, which has 226 beds and outpatient facilities in Exton and Collegeville. - Harold Brubaker

J.C. Penney Co. stock fell nearly 13 percent - the biggest percentage decline by far among big companies in the S&P 500 for the day. The shares lost $2.67 to close at $17.97, its lowest price since March 2009, during the recession. The drop follows Standard & Poor's move on Friday to push Penney's credit rating deeper into junk status. That happened on the same day that the company reported its third consecutive quarter of big losses and sales declines since it decided earlier this year to get rid of hundreds of coupons and sales annually in favor of everyday low prices. Investors had pushed the stock up to about $43 after the company announced the pricing plan in late January. - AP

Eastman Kodak Co. said it arranged $793 million in financing from some creditors to exit bankruptcy as a commercial-printing company by mid-2013. Centerbridge Capital Partners, GSO Capital Partners, UBS AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among second-lien creditors participating in the financing, which will be used during bankruptcy and can partly be converted to fund the emerging company, Kodak said. The agreement requires court approval and the funding is conditional on selling its patent portfolio for at least $500 million. - Bloomberg News

Research In Motion Ltd. said it will hold an official launch event for its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones on Jan. 30. The new phones are seen as critical to RIM's survival. The release comes as the company struggles in North America to hold on to customers who are abandoning BlackBerrys for flashier iPhones and Android phones. RIM's current software is still focused on e-mail and messaging, and is less user-friendly and agile than competitors. - AP

Google Inc. is being pressed by U.S. Federal Trade Commission chairman Jonathan Leibowitz to offer to resolve the agency's antitrust investigation in the next few days or face a lawsuit, two people familiar with the matter said. Google has been in discussions with the agency for about two weeks and hasn't put any remedy proposals on the table, said the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are private. For almost 20 months, the FTC has been probing whether Google is abusing its dominance of the Internet, and it is prepared to sue if Google fails to make an acceptable proposal, the people said. - Bloomberg News

Verizon Wireless says it will pay a dividend of $8.5 billion next month to its owners, Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group. Vodafone, a British mobile phone company, owns 45 percent of Verizon Wireless. Verizon Communications owns the remaining 55 percent. Verizon Wireless paid a dividend of $10 billion to its owners last January. - AP