Industries

Origin Energy Ltd. (ORG.AU) said Thursday it swung to a first-half profit owing to higher oil and gas prices, an absence of impairment charges, and a fresh contribution from electricity assets acquired in New South Wales state.

A U.S. advisory panel may not vote until next year on whether to recommend the broad use of Pfizer Inc.'s (PFE) Prevnar 13 pneumococcal vaccine in adults age 50 and older, which could curtail its initial use.

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WASHINGTON -- French oil company Total Fina S.A. has agreed to pay $15 million to the U.S. government to settle claims that it knowingly skimped on royalty payments due on natural gas taken from federal lands, the Interior Department said Wednesday.

Express Scripts  reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings on higher costs, including an unexpected tax expense.

BOCA RATON, Fla. -(Dow Jones)- H.J. Heinz Co. (HNZ) will discontinue T.G.I. Friday's frozen single-serve entrees and multiserve meals, whose sales have suffered as consumers opt to buy snacks instead of full meals.

International companies trading in New York closed mostly lower Wednesday as investors remained uninspired by Greece's bailout deal and expressed disappointment with economic data showing business activity in Europe unexpectedly slowed.

Limited Brands revealed a 19% improvement in fourth-quarter profit that beat expectations, however it recorded a hefty tax charge and revealed a disappointing forecast.

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A Novartis AG (NVS) generic-drug manufacturing plant in Canada has halted production of certain drugs to give priority to the production of medically necessary drugs, as the company widens efforts to fix problems identified by U.S. regulators last year.

CME Group Inc. (CME) on Wednesday outlined plans to tie executive pay more closely to performance amid a range of efforts intended to make the world's largest futures exchange company more shareholder-friendly.

(This story has been posted on The Wall Street Journal Online's Health Blog at http://blogs.wsj.com/health.)

The head of General Electric Co.'s (GE) aviation business said Wednesday that he expects its engine deliveries to climb "north of 10%" this year from 2011, boosted by a strong commercial market.

Iconic cleaning-products manufacturer Fuller Brush Co., a pop-culture mainstay of the 1950s, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday, five years after the company was taken over by private-equity firm Buckingham Capital Partners.

Overdraft fees, a profit center for banks, are the latest target of a new U.S. financial watchdog, which said Wednesday it would demand data from banks and work to make checking-account statements easier to understand.

Trade Balance: Jan/12 Dec/11 Nov/11 Jan/11 FY/2011 Forecast: -$115M -$591M -$457M -$291M -- Actual: - +$7M -$232M +$143M -$1.17B By Laurence Iliff

TOP STORIES UPDATE: NY Cotton Futures Fall To More Than 8-Week Low

The head of one of the world's largest aircraft leasing companies issued a stark warning that Airbus and Boeing Co. (BA) are building too many planes, with some recent blockbuster orders unlikely to be completed in full.

Congressional lawmakers can breathe a sigh of relief: Warren Buffett approves of the bill based on the "Buffett rule."

(Updated with final pricing terms and other detail in first four paragraphs.)

All of the good publicity flowing from the crackdown on insider trading has one of the nation’s top law enforcement officials looking at what he might do in the future, and he’s seeing a lot of green.

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Altria is working on developing new products to entice smokers that are open to trying different types of tobacco and want a change from cigarettes. 

Mexican soft-drink bottler Arca Continental SAB (AC.MX, EMBVF) said Wednesday it expects that its profitability will improve this year from 2011 thanks to a more favorable exchange rate and negotiations for lower prices on raw materials.

U.S. weekly gasoline demand rose 3.4% to 8.281 million barrels a day in the week ended Feb. 17, according to a SpendingPulse report released Wednesday by MasterCard Advisors LLC, a division of MasterCard Inc. (MA).

Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) incoming CEO is viewed as having the experience and skills to lead the company out of a difficult period, but he's unlikely to change J&J's basic strategy of fielding a diverse lineup of health-care businesses.

("More Tesoro Refinery Workers Reject Labor Contracts," published on Feb. 21 at 4:01 p.m. EST, misstated the outcome of a vote by Mandan refinery workers on a contract, in the fourth paragraph and misstated Catlettsburg in the last paragraph.. The correct version follows.)

Hedge funds look set to take center stage as European merger-and-acquisition activity starts to pick up after a long drought and as bets on winning prices and bidders trigger dramatic rises in the stock price of target companies.

The new-issuance market for high-grade corporate bonds is seeing a decent follow up Wednesday after $9.35 billion was priced in a robust start to the shortened week Tuesday.

Hovensa LLC completed the shutdown of its 350,000 barrel-a-day refinery on the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix, the company said.

Emerging markets will be key as global demand for cocoa continues to grow, while 2011-12 production is likely to be down from a year ago, Goldman Sachs said Wednesday.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK.LN), a research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare group, said Wednesday it purchased 565,000 of its ordinary shares of 25 pence each, adding that it intends to hold these shares in treasury.