ALSO
* Cummins Inc., the world’s largest maker of high-power diesel engines, said it expects to report a fourth-quarter loss because of declining North American demand for heavy-duty trucks. The loss will be 35 cents to 45 cents a share, said spokeswoman Dorothy Brown Smith, and doesn’t include a pretax charge of about $160 million. The Columbus, Ind.-based company was expected to earn 66 cents a share, the average estimate of eight analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial. Shipments of heavy-duty truck engines are down more than 50% from last year and are at least 5% to 10% below third-quarter levels, Cummins said.
* Norfolk Southern Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. railroad company, said it is cutting more than 1,300 union jobs and is weighing the first firing of managers in at least 15 years to cut costs. The cuts in hourly jobs that cover 5% of union workers include a mix of firings and temporary layoffs of maintenance employees and trainees, spokeswoman Susan Terpay said.
* Omnicom Group Inc., the second-largest advertising company, said its Griffin Bacal agency will fire about a third of its 68 workers after the agency lost most of its accounts with toy maker Hasbro Inc. Another third of the work force will be transferred to DDB Worldwide, a unit of Omnicom and parent of Griffin Bacal, DDB spokeswoman Pat Sloan said. Actual numbers of employees to be fired or transferred from New York-based Griffin Bacal weren’t available, she said.
* American Greetings Corp., the No. 2 U.S. greeting cards maker, reported a 41% drop in fiscal third-quarter profit to $32 million, or 50 cents a share, and said it plans to reduce costs. The maker of American Greetings, Carlton Cards, Ripple Effects and Forget Me Not cards said sales rose 23% to $766.1 million. American Greetings said it will announce cost-cutting measures when it reports fourth-quarter results in March. The company said it will examine facilities and product lines to determine which steps to take. American Greetings also said job cuts are possible. The latest results matched the revised average estimate of analysts.
