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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“It’s a bold step into the future - a win-win for employees, shareholders and consumers of both companies.”

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive officer, on the company’s purchase of Nokia Corp.’s smartphone business Article, 1D

3rd parties said interested in Smithfield

Starboard Value LP, the investor that’s advocating a breakup of Smithfield Foods Inc., said it received interest from third parties in buying the individual assets of the world’s largest pork supplier.

The investment firm is working with the parties, which it didn’t identify, to form an alternative to a $34-a-share takeover offer from China’s Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd., Starboard said Tuesday in a filing.

Starboard holds a 5.7 percent stake in the Smithfield, Va.-based meat processor and said it will vote the shares against Shuanghui’s $4.7 billion bid at a Sept. 24 shareholder meeting. The investor also said it’s trying to compel Smithfield to delay the meeting because, under the terms of the Shuanghui merger agreement, Smithfield’s board can’t consider alternative bids after the Chinese deal is approved by shareholders.

Shuanghui agreed to acquire Smithfield in May in what would be the largest Chinese purchase of a U.S. company.

The transaction is subject to a review from the Commission of Foreign Investment in the U.S.

Boeing’s cargo-jet sales hit 2009 low

Boeing Co., the world’s largest maker of air freighters, is on pace to receive its fewest cargo-jet orders since the 2009 recession as demand wanes for the overnight shipments that once drove purchases.

With 13 sales through July, Boeing’s tally was just one fifth the total of six years earlier. Airbus SAS, which didn’t begin shipping A330 freighters until 2010, has no orders this year, and the market for secondhand passenger aircraft to be converted to fly cargo has dried up.

Air-freight operators are deferring acquisitions and parking older planes after worldwide shipment volumes were unchanged in this year’s first six months, according to the International Air Transport Association trade group. A persisting order drought may threaten the $240 billion in industry wide freighter sales that Chicago-based Boeing predicts over the next 20 years.

The global air-cargo fleet is 6 percent smaller than a year ago and has shrunk almost 14 percent from a pre-recession peak, according to Air Cargo Management Group, a Seattle-based consultant. Freight haulers such as FedEx Corp. have reduced flights to Asia, parked older jets and are shipping cargo in the bellies of wide-body passenger jets like Boeing’s 777.

  • Bloomberg News

Yankee Candle to sell for $1.75 billion

Jarden Corp. agreed to buy Yankee Candle for $1.75 billion, making its biggest acquisition to add the 43-year-old scented-candle maker to its collection of more than 120 consumer brands.

Jarden will use cash to acquire the largest U.S. scented candle company from a fund managed by private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, according to a statement Tuesday. The company expects the deal to be completed in the fourth quarter.

The purchase may help Jarden, whose products include Mr. Coffee machines and bathroom scales, revive sales growth that last year slowed to 0.2 percent after increasing 11 percent in 2011. Madison Dearborn bought Yankee Candle, which sells items in more than 35,000 retail stores in North America, for about $1.4 billion in 2007.

Shares of Rye, N.Y.-based Jarden rose $4.48, or 10.4 percent, to close Tuesday at $47.43.

  • Bloomberg News

United Auto, VW meet over council plan

DETROIT - A German newspaper said Tuesday that United Auto Workers union officials met last week with Volkswagen to discuss representing workers at VW’s Chattanooga, Tenn., plant.

The Handelsblatt business daily said United Auto Workers President Bob King and five other officials were at Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, to meet with the employee relations chief.

The newspaper cites “trustworthy circles” in saying that they discussed a German-style works council.

The union has been trying to organize the factory’s roughly 3,000 workers. King has said organizing plants of foreign-based automakers is crucial to the union’s survival.

Volkswagen spokesman Tony Cervone said the company is looking at ways to give workers a voice in plant operations. He said a decision on union representation would be up to the workers.

Maine to pump up lobster branding effort

PORTLAND, Maine - California has its raisins, Florida its oranges and Vermont its maple syrup. Now, Maine’s lobster industry is trying to market its brand more broadly and increase sales of what’s already the state’s best-known seafood.

A state law taking effect in October will raise the annual marketing budget for lobsters to more than $2.2 million, a sixfold increase. The goal is to grow demand in the U.S. and abroad, while increasing prices to help fishermen boost their income.

The law creates what’s known as the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, which replaces the Maine Lobster Promotion Council.

Its budget is projected to grow from $750,000 for the current fiscal year to $1.5 million next year and $2.2 million after that. The council’s budget this past year was about $370,000. - The Associated Press

Lower China growth by choice, Xi says

Chinese President Xi Jinping said China’s slower economic growth this year was a conscious choice by the government to allow it to adjust the nation’s economic structure.

China would “rather bring down the growth rate to a certain extent in order to solve the fundamental problems” hindering long-term development, Xi said in an interview Monday with eastern European media outlets, according to a transcript distributed by the official Xinhua News Agency.

The comments follow government efforts this year to curb excess lending and close inefficient plants in industries including metals and cement. Data this week showed manufacturing strengthened last month, and trade and industrial production topped analysts’ estimates in July, adding to signs that China will meet its 7.5 percent growth target this year.

  • Bloomberg News

Business, Pages 26 on 09/04/2013

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