IN BRIEF
PITTSBURGH
Alcoa earnings rise by 3 percent in quarter
Aluminum producer Alcoa said Tuesday that its third-quarter profit rose more than 3 percent, helped by the sale of its stake in China’s largest aluminum maker.
Net income for the period ended Sept. 30 grew to $555 million, or 63 cents per share, from $537 million, or 61 cents per share, a year earlier. Results were limited by charges linked to planned asset sales and restructuring, higher petroleum and energy costs, and other costs. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had predicted earnings of 65 cents per share.
Revenue fell 3.1 percent to $7.39 billion from $7.63 billion.
DETROIT
Strike deadline nears for Chrysler workers
As a strike deadline drew closer, thousands of Chrysler workers nationwide awaited word Tuesday on whether they would be spending their next work day on picket lines or assembly lines.
They also wondered whether a walkout by 49,000 members of the United Auto Workers would be long or short. And they’re a little leery of Chrysler’s new owners, the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, which may not behave like auto companies of the past.
At factories and union halls across the Detroit metro area Tuesday, workers filled out paperwork for strike pay and signed up for picket duty as the 11 a.m. today strike deadline approached.
Negotiators continued to talk at Chrysler’s Auburn Hills headquarters, working most of Monday night and into Tuesday.
SAN FRANCISCO
Ex-HP chief to work for Fox News channel
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co., has signed on as a contributor with Fox News’ soon-to-launch business news channel, the media company announced Tuesday.
Fiorina was one of Corporate America’s most divisive figures during nearly six years at Palo Alto-based HP. Fox did not specify her role at the new channel, which debuts next week.
HP severed its ties with Fiorina in February 2005 amid concern that benefits from her hard-won $24.2 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp. in 2002 were not materializing quickly enough.
Her firing netted Fiorina a severance package of more than $21 million and helped fuel publication last year of her best-selling memoir, “Tough Choices.”
Jackson-Hewitt replaces top officer
Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, the second-largest U.S. tax preparer, replaced its chief executive officer after the company was forced to shut 125 branches accused of filing fraudulent returns and revenue growth slowed.
Chairman and CEO Michael Lister left Jackson Hewitt Tuesday, the Parsippany, N.J.-based company said in a statement. Michael Yerington will be the new CEO, and Margaret Richardson will serve as a nonexecutive chairman of the board, the firm said. The company didn’t give a reason for Lister’s departure.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Jackson Hewitt at the height of the U.S. tax preparation season in April accusing offices owned by a franchisee of submitting thousands of falsified returns.
MEXICO CITY
Taco Bell heads south of the border, for real
It sounds like a fast-food grudge match: Taco Bell is taking on the homeland of its namesake by reopening for the first time in 15 years in Mexico.
Defenders of Mexican culture see the chain’s re-entry as a crowning insult to a society already overrun by U.S. chains from Starbucks and Subway to KFC.
“It’s like bringing ice to the Arctic,” pop culture historian Carlos Monsivais said.
The company’s branding strategy — “Taco Bell is something else” — is an attempt to distance itself from any comparison to Mexico’s beloved taquerias, which sell traditional corn tortillas stuffed with an endless variety of fillings, from spicy beef to corn fungus and cow eyes.
Taco Bell, a unit of Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands, is projecting a more “American” fast-food image by adding french fries — some topped with cheese, cream, ground meat and tomatoes — to the menu at its first store, which opened in late September in the northern city of Monterrey.
WASHINGTON
Interest rates increase in Treasury auction
Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in Tuesday’s auction to the highest levels in three weeks.
The Treasury Department auctioned $16 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 3.925 percent, up from 3.84 percent last week. Another $15 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 4.095 percent, up from 4 percent last week.
NEW YORK
Treasury prices mixed; investors chew data
Treasury prices closed mixed Tuesday after investors interpreted minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting as showing that the central bank was unusually uncertain about the economic outlook.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury closed unchanged at 100.78 with a 4.65 percent yield, little changed from its Friday’s close.
The 30-year long bond gained 0.47 points to 102.19 with a 4.86 percent yield, down from 4.87 percent on Friday.
