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Ashland Inc. is buying specialty chemical maker International Specialty Products Inc. for about $3.2 billion in cash.
The chemical company, based in Covington, Ky., said Tuesday that the acquisition of privately owned ISP will expand its presence in high-growth markets including personal care, pharmaceutical and energy.
Ashland plans to use available cash and committed financing from several […]

More than three-quarters of Germany’s nuclear power plants were offline Saturday due to maintenance work or shutdowns ordered by the government after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, utility companies said.
Only four of the country’s 17 nuclear power plants were online after the energy utility RWE AG took its Emsland plant off the grid Saturday.
Environmentalists […]

A batch of weaker-than-expected earnings that interrupted a two-week rally on Wall Street also sent stocks lower in Asia on Wednesday.
Sentiment for riskier assets also was muted as investors fretted about potential terrorist attacks following the killing of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. commandoes over the weekend.
“The market welcomes the good news, […]

Stocks are set for a higher opening Friday after another round of positive earnings from major U.S. companies.
Caterpillar Inc. and Merck & Co. each beat earnings forecasts for the first-quarter. Merck said its profit more than tripled because of much lower restructuring and merger costs. The company’s stock rose 1 percent ahead of the opening […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission may relax its rules to make it easier for companies to issue shares without making their financial details public.
That could affect tech companies including Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon, which have attracted heavy interest from investors in private stock-sale deals.
But when the number of shareholders grows too large, […]

They have cut the easy stuff: Broadband subsidies, emergency steel loans and the International Fund for Ireland.
Over the past month, Congress has enacted $10 billion in 2011 spending cuts.
Now, with just a week to go before a government shutdown, lawmakers are fighting over a deal that would set spending levels for the final […]

Japan’s prime minister surveyed the damage in a town gutted by a massive tsunami, as officials said Saturday that highly radioactive water was leaking into the sea from the nuclear plant stricken by the disaster.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex has been spewing radioactivity since March 11, when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing wave knocked out […]

The leader of Portugal’s main opposition party says he won’t support the minority government’s latest measures aimed at avoiding a bailout for the debt-laden country.
The decision could force the beleaguered government’s downfall, triggering fresh market jitters just as Europe readies new measures to contain the continent’s sovereign debt crisis.
Many analysts anticipate Portugal’s high debt load […]

U.S. oil prices briefly hit the $100-a-barrel for the first time in over two years Wednesday, as reports of Libyan oil production shutdowns swirled.
Italian oil giant Eni said Wednesday that it had partially shut down its 150,000-barrel-per-day production in the North African country.
Andrew Lebow, an oil broker at MF Global in New […]

The world’s dominant economies on Saturday struck a watered down deal on how to smooth out trade and currency imbalances many say exacerbated the financial crisis, but the difficulty in getting vastly different economies like China and the United States on the same page doesn’t bode well for the Group of 20 rich and developing […]