Also. . .

* The Federal Trade Commission announced cases against several companies, accusing them of bilking consumers out of $25 million by exploiting concerns about credit card theft, losses or problems related to the so-called year 2000 computer bug. The FTC said it has filed complaints against the Arizona corporations of Source One Publications Inc., Liberty Direct Inc. and Ascendix Group Inc. It also announced a settlement with Credit Mart Financial Strategies Inc. of Montreal. Under the consent agreement, Credit Mart will provide $100,000 in refunds to consumers.

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* Aetna Inc., the largest U.S. health insurer, said it will sell most of its NYLCare operations in Texas to Health Care Service Corp. of Chicago for $500 million in cash to meet antitrust requirements for its $1-billion purchase of Prudential HealthCare. The 551,000 members of the operations being sold will be served by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, a unit of nonprofit Health Care Service. Buying Prudential Health, which was a unit of Prudential Insurance Co. of America, would make Aetna the biggest U.S. operator of HMOs.

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* PepsiCo. Inc. said it named Al Bru chief executive and president of Frito-Lay North America and Brock Leach chief executive and president of Tropicana Products. The changes come a week after Philip Marineau resigned as PepsiCo’s North American beverage president to become CEO of closely held Levi Strauss & Co. Marineau was replaced by Gary Rodkin, former CEO of Tropicana.