New York Times, Dow Jones reduce staff

The New York Times Co., blaming a slowdown in advertising and an uncertain economic outlook, announced Thursday that it would make an unspecified number of staff cuts with buyouts and layoffs. The news came the same day Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, also announced layoffs of 202 people, or 2 percent of its staff. Dow Jones also eliminated 300 open positions. The Journal's five staffers in the Pittsburgh bureau, located in One Mellon Bank Center, are not among those being laid off, said bureau chief Clare Ansberry. The New York Times did not provide any details on the scope of the job reductions other than to say that they would occur across all of the company's business units. A company spokeswoman singled out the company's online unit, which just laid off 17 percent of its staff in January, as one area sure to be affected by the new cost-cutting program. The Newspaper Guild, which represents employees at the newspaper, protested the way news of the job reductions was communicated to the staff.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it will give markets trading Nasdaq stocks three additional months to begin collecting information on the quality of orders executed in that market. The temporary extension for Nasdaq stocks, until August, won't apply to the New York Stock Exchange and exchange-listed stocks, which must begin collecting order-execution quality data May 1. Data on exchange-listed stocks will be made public at the end of June. Results for Nasdaq stocks will be released at the end of September. The Securities Industry Association sought a delay on behalf of its brokerage industry members, telling the SEC that despite brokers' best efforts, it appears they might be unable to meet the original May 1 date for Nasdaq stocks. The SEC said it granted the three-month delay to ensure the integrity of execution-quality data.

Black Box Corp. today announced a merger with Haddad Electronic Supply Inc. Established in 1951 in Fall River, Mass., privately held Haddad provides technical design, installation and maintenance services for telecommunication, premise cabling and related products to customers primarily in New England. Annual revenues of Haddad are approximately $3 million. This transaction is being accounted for as a purchase. The purchase price has not been disclosed. Black Box is a provider of network services and related products to businesses.

The chief executive of H.J. Heinz Co.'s Canadian division is leaving his post after just six months on the job to head the Duracell battery unit of Gillette Co. Gillette named Mark Leckie, 47, as president of Duracell Global Business Management, starting April 23. Leckie joined Heinz in October, having worked previously for Campbell's Soup Co., Kraft Foods and Nabisco. Duracell's sales fell to $2.6 billion in 2000 from $2.7 billion in 1999. For the 52-weeks ended Feb. 25, Duracell had a 42.5 percent share of the U.S. dry cell battery market, down from 44.4 percent a year ago, according to market research firm Information Resources Inc. Leckie is the latest former Nabisco executive to move to Gillette under new chief executive James Kilts, who had been president of Nabisco. Heinz will be seeking its third leader of H.J. Heinz of Canada Ltd. in four years. Leckie's predecessor, Brian Falck, had held the post since 1998.

Rates for 30-year and 15-year mortgages edged up this week, but one-year adjustable rate mortgages dipped to their lowest level in 18 months.

The average interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rose to 7.04 percent, up from 7.01 percent last week, according to a nationwide survey released Thursday by Freddie Mac, the mortgage company. A year ago, 30-year mortgages averaged 8.12 percent. Rates hit a five-year high of 8.64 percent in mid-May of last year. Fifteen-year mortgages, a popular option for refinancing, ticked up to 6.55 percent this week, up from 6.54 percent the previous week. A year ago, 15-year mortgages averaged 7.76 percent.

Swiss-based Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. will pay a total of $63 million in fines and restitution after one of its units pleaded guilty to rigging bids on an Egyptian construction project, the Justice Department said Thursday. A Milan-based subsidiary of the engineering giant, ABB Middle East & Africa Participating AG, entered a guilty plea after the department filed a criminal charge in federal court in Alabama alleging it conspired to rig bids to build a $135 million waste water treatment plant. Even though the work was done overseas, the department said U.S. taxpayers were victimized because the U.S. Agency for International Development funded the project.

BlackRock Inc., buoyed by a strong first-quarter earnings report, said Thursday it wants to expand its equity operations by acquiring another asset-management firm. The company, a subsidiary of PNC Financial Services Corp. of Pittsburgh, is in a ''sweet position'' to make an acquisition because of its fixed-income bond business, which has insulated the firm from stock-market weakness, said Laurence Fink, the company's chairman. The price it would pay for another firm would be lower because of the recent stock-market drop, Fink added. BlackRock, also reported quarterly earnings jumped 33 percent to $25.5 million, or 39 cents a share. Revenue increased 24 percent to nearly $134 million. The company also said managed assets grew 17 percent in the past 12 months and currently stood at almost $202 billion.