Also. . .

The FBI is trailing a former Bloomberg employee to see if he stole information and gave it to rival Reuters Holdings, a law-enforcement source told the Associated Press. Investigators also are trying to determine which executives of the British news and financial information agency may have received the information, the source said. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors reportedly have obtained more than 100 written communications between Reuters Analytics Inc.--the U.S. subsidiary at the center of the investigation--and a consulting company that investigators believe was hired to steal data from Bloomberg. Reuters spokesman Robert Crooke declined to discussed the probe but said Reuters was cooperating.

* General Motors Corp. and Daewoo Group signed a memorandum of understanding that calls for exclusive talks on shared vehicle production, part of GM’s effort to expand its Asian business and Daewoo’s plans to reduce debt.

* Nabisco Holdings Corp. said it named Richard Lenny to succeed James Postl and lead its cookie and crackers division, as part of a plan to reverse declining sales at the company’s biggest operation. Lenny, 46, former head of Diageo’s Pillsbury unit, was named president of Nabisco Biscuit Co.

* St. Louis-based Mercantile Bancorp Inc. said it has agreed to buy Firstbank of Illinois Co. for about $697 million in stock in a deal that would make it the biggest Illinois bank outside of Chicago.