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State regulators approved the merger of Foundation Health Systems Inc.’s two California plans into one that will use the Health Net name, Foundation executives said. The merger marks the last step in the corporate combination last April of two former rival California HMOs--Health Systems International Inc. and Foundation Health Corp.--which formed Foundation Health . . . Burger King estimated it gave away more than 15 million small orders of its new French fries Friday, almost three times as many as it sells on a normal day. The Miami-based company said its “Free FryDay” promotion went off with only minor delays in service at its 7,600 restaurants in the United States and Canada. . . . Columbia/HCA said it will take another charge in the fourth quarter to cover costs of a reorganization and its internal efforts to resolve a wide government Medicare billing probe, an analyst with J.P. Morgan Securities said. While the Nashville company hasn’t given any number for the charge, analyst Joe Chiarelli said he estimated it would be $38 million, or 6 cents a share, which is what the company took in the third quarter.

CPC International Inc., the maker of Hellman’s mayonnaise and Knorr soups which changed its name to Bestfoods and spun off Corn Products International, began trading separately Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. . . . San Francisco-based Transamerica Corp. completed its $1.35-billion purchase of nearly all of Whirlpool Corp.’s consumer finance business. . . . Telecommunications equipment company World Access Inc. said it has agreed to buy a 55% stake in NACT Telecommunications Inc. for $71.8 million in a major step toward achieving its goal of buying the whole business. Atlanta-based World Access already owns about 5% of NACT. . . . New York-based Tower Realty Trust Inc. said it bought a 42-story office tower at the north end of New York’s Times Square for $150 million. The 700,000-square-foot building on 7th Avenue is 91% occupied by such tenants as AT&T; Corp., EMI Entertainment World Inc., PRNewswire and WWOR-TV Inc. . . . NationsBank Corp. expects to cut more than 6,000 jobs in Florida as part of its $13.8-billion purchase of Barnett Banks Inc., a spokesman for Charlotte, N.C.-based NationsBank confirmed.