IBT Staff Reporter

Fiat SpA may have to close factories in Italy, given sharp falls in auto sales which have changed the sector dramatically, Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said on Friday.

Nomura Asset Management said on Friday it will suspend new subscriptions of a popular U.S. REIT investment trust fund as heavy inflows from retail investors boosted its size beyond the appropriate level to manage the fund.

Malaysia has awarded a commercial bank license to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest bank, Malaysia's central bank said on Friday.

Ford Motor Co, the No. 2 U.S.-based automaker, plans to invest 2.8 billion reais ($1.61 billion) in Brazil to boost output at two plants by 20 percent, a top company executive said on Friday.

A Florida jury on Thursday ordered cigarette maker Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million in damages to a 61-year-old ex-smoker named Cindy Naugle who is wheelchair-bound by emphysema.

Royal Caribbean has released the world's largest cruise ship, Oasis of the Seas, which is five times bigger than the titanic arrived at its home port, Port Everglades in Florida today.

Shares of Chinese discount hotel chain 7 Days Group Holdings Ltd jumped as much as 28.6 percent in their New York Stock Exchange debut on Friday.

Private equity-backed Archipelago Learning Inc's shares rose in their first trading session following the company's initial public offering, which priced in line with expectations on Thursday.

Global Defense Technology & Systems Inc shares hovered near their initial public offering price on Friday in their first session on Nasdaq after the company's IPO priced below expectations.

Despite the worst U.S. recession in decades, sales of organic and sustainable products have continued to grow, experts say, with shoppers willing to spend a few more dollars in a bid to become more green.

J.M. Smucker Co , best known for its peanut butter and jelly, posted higher-than-expected quarterly results, driven by strong margins at its Folgers coffee business, and raised its full-year profit outlook, sending its shares up 5 percent.

Hungary's K&H Bank, the local unit of Belgium's KBC Group, said risk provisions rose and lending dropped sharply in the first three quarters, eroding net profit.

The one-way bet in the U.S. dollar that has lasted several months may be over for now despite distress over its malaise that has stretched from Washington to Paris.

Met-Pro Corp posted third-quarter results that missed market estimates, but said new orders were up sequentially.

European regulators extended their review of Oracle Corp's proposed $7-billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc, giving the software maker more time to address anti-competitive concerns.

A suicide bomber in southwestern Afghanistan killed 17 people Friday, and an Afghan lawmaker escaped a separate blast on the outskirts of Kabul but five of his bodyguards were killed, officials said.

Talks on the sale of Vivendi SA's NBC Universal stake to General Electric Co hinge on when Vivendi would get paid as well as how much, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Colombia will not be provoked into armed conflict with Venezuela despite the neighboring country's aggressive rhetoric and its dynamiting of two cross-border pedestrian bridges, Colombia's defense minister said on Friday.

Deutsche Telekom is keeping its options open for its U.S. business and is not close to making a decision on the unit's mid-tem future, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

European Union leaders named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, who is little known outside his own country, as the bloc's first president on Thursday to lead efforts to make it more influential on the world stage.

Europe's biggest carmaker, Volkswagen, will almost double exports from its South African plant in 2010 under a 27 billion rand ($3.59 billion) global contract for right-hand drive models of its new Polo.

Heavily-indebted Russian carmaker AvtoVAZ appointed Sergei Kogonin, head of truckmaker Kamaz, to its board of directors, increasing the prospect for the creation of a state-controlled autos giant.

Ford Motor Co plans to invest 2 billion reais ($1.15 billion) in Brazil through 2015, most of it on a plant in the northeastern Bahia state, to expand production and benefit from expected growth in Latin America's largest economy, the state governor said on BandNews radio on Friday.

South Africa's existing automobile industry programme and its replacement scheme is expected to cut the trade deficit and contribute billions of dollars to gross domestic product by 2020, a government minister said on Friday.

Women's clothing retailer AnnTaylor Stores Corp reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue on Friday and gave a cautious forecast for the current holiday quarter, sending shares down 2.2 percent in premarket trade.

U.S. stocks fell on Friday after worse-than-expected quarterly results from computer maker Dell Inc and homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc underscored that the road to recovery would not be smooth.

Barack Obama's first presidential trip to Asia was also his first big step in recasting U.S. ties with a region in flux, and showed this will demand patience and compromise from a superpower used to pushing its weight around.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to boost Medicare payments to physicians in a move that could help shore up support from doctors for a sweeping Democratic-backed healthcare overhaul.

New electronic record systems installed in thousands of U.S. hospitals have done little to rein in skyrocketing healthcare costs, Harvard University researchers said in a study released on Friday.