Business news in brief

The Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine said yesterday that it had received a $2 million endowment for research at its Center for Chronic Disorders of Aging. The $2 million endowment comes from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation, Columbus, Ohio, and will enable students to work with researchers in areas including obesity, Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, Parkinson's disease, gingivitis, hypertension, inflammation, and multiple sclerosis. The college provided a 25 percent match of $500,000 to receive the $2 million.

- Linda Loyd

J&J Snack Foods Corp. said it had purchased the assets of Radar Inc., a manufacturer of fig and fruit bars in Moscow Mills, Mo. Radar, with annual sales of about $23 million, markets under the Daddy Ray's brand and also makes private-label products for supermarkets and mass merchandisers, J&J said. Ray Henry, former president and co-owner of Radar, will stay with the new subisidiary of J&J, which is based in Pennsauken and is best-known for its SuperPretzel brand of soft pretzels. On Jan. 9, J&J announced another small acquisition, of Hom/Ade Foods Sales Inc., a producer of frozen biscuits in Florida, with annual sales of $30 million.

- Harold Brubaker

CDI Corp., Philadelphia, and two other engineering-staffing companies have formed CTQ Engineering, a joint venture that will be one of two preferred suppliers of engineering talent to GE Infrastructure, a unit of General Electric Co. The five-year contract with GE will involve global engineering in aviation, energy, oil and gas, transportation, and water projects. The size of the contract was not disclosed.

- Jane M. Von Bergen

Haas TCM Inc., a chemical-management-services company in West Chester, has acquired Kemfast Aerospace Ltd., a Britain-based supplier of aerospace chemicals and chemical-management services. The company said the acquisition, for an undisclosed price, would broaden Haas TCM's offering for chemical-management services to the aerospace market, while also establishing logistics and stocking locations in Europe. Kemfast had 2006 revenue of $30 million and has 53 employees. Haas TCM had 2006 revenue of $186 million and has 300 employees.

- Thomas J. Brady

Ulticom Inc., Mount Laurel, said it had been notified that the Nasdaq listing panel had decided to delist the telecommunications-software firm from the Nasdaq Global Market beginning today. The company had been delinquent in filings required by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which were delayed by an internal probe of stock option grants. The company will be listed on the Pink Sheets as of today under the ULCM ticker symbol.

- Thomas J. Brady

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said pressing China to move toward allowing markets to determine the value of the yuan was a "major objective" in his remaining two years in office. Paulson told the Senate Banking Committee that China should "progressively widen the band" that limits daily movements in the yuan. The central bank should "progressively reduce" its purchases of foreign currencies, he added. The Treasury chief also urged that China develop a domestic bond market to help hedge currency risks.

- Bloomberg News

Trying to tighten the federal budget, the Bush administration has proposed reducing farm spending $18 billion over the next five years. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns is not seeking major changes in the nation's farm-subsidy program, which major farm groups and lawmakers in Congress want to retain. However, there is one big change: The administration is seeking to eliminate payments for wealthy producers, limiting subsidy payments to those making less than $200,000 in adjusted gross income annually. The current income cap is $2.5 million. That would rule out payments for about 80,000 producers who currently are eligible. Those producers collect about 4.5 percent of overall farm payments. The limit on payments would save an estimated $1.5 billion over 10 years.

- AP

Record-setting commercial-airplane sales and a strong defense business helped Boeing Co. smash Wall Street forecasts as the airplane-maker delivered a fourth-quarter profit that was more than double its earnings of a year earlier. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, the airplane-maker's net income was $989 million, or $1.29 a share - more than double its $460 million profit for the same period a year earlier. Boeing, based in Chicago, has about 4,800 employees at its helicopter division in Ridley.

- AP

Eastman Kodak Co. posted its first quarterly profit in more than two years as it entered the final stretch of a tough transformation into a digital-photography and commercial-printing company. The world's top maker of photographic film earned $16 million, or 6 cents a share, in the October-to-December quarter. That compared with a year-earlier loss of $46 million, or 16 cents a share, when it took hefty charges linked to its massive overhaul.

- AP

Computer-maker Dell Inc. said chairman Michael Dell would return to the role of chief executive officer, replacing Kevin Rollins, effective immediately. The company also forecast fourth-quarter profit and sales below Wall Street expectations. Dell has been chairman since founding the company in 1984 and was chief executive until 2004. The company said Rollins also resigned as a member of the board. The company forecast that profit and revenue would fall below analysts' average estimates of 32 cents a share on sales of $15.30 billion.

- AP

Google Inc.'s fourth-quarter profit nearly tripled amid another burst of breathtaking growth that enabled the online search leader to sprint past analysts' expectations - a habit that has helped propel its stock price above $500. The Mountain View, Calif., company said it earned $1.03 billion, or $3.29 a share, during the final three months of 2006. That compared with net income of $372.2 million, or $1.22 a share, for the same period in 2005.

- AP

The government, helped by a flood of revenue in recent years, said it was considering scaling back its borrowing operations by possibly eliminating sale of three-year Treasury notes. Anthony Ryan, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial markets, said the government was considering various options with regard to the three-year note, ranging from changing the number of times it is auctioned each year to eliminating it altogether.

- AP

The average seven-day yield on taxable money-market funds nudged up to 4.74 percent this week after holding steady at 4.73 percent for the last three weeks, according to iMoneyNet Inc. A seven-day yield is an annual yield based on the preceding seven days' level of income by the fund. The average yield on tax-free funds fell from 3.05 percent to 3.04 percent.

- Thomas J. Brady