National Business Digest

NATION

PNC told to sell branches of National City Corp.

NEW YORK — PNC Financial Services Group Inc. said Thursday it is being told by the federal government to sell 61 branches of National City Corp. in western Pennsylvania as a condition for acquiring the bank.

National City’s nearly 30,000 employees, from top managers to bank tellers, were being informed during the afternoon that the Department of Justice would announce the order later in the day.

It was not immediately known which branches would be affected, or what the impact might be on employees or account holders. It was also too early to tell who might be potential buyers. It is fairly common for the government to make branch sales a condition of antitrust approval for a merger between banks that are located close to one another.

CEO: Procter & Gamble isn’t ‘recession-proof’

NEW YORK — Procter & Gamble Co. said Thursday it will miss a second-quarter sales target as the consumer products company acknowledged it isn’t immune to the recession.

The maker of such products as Tide detergent, Pampers diapers and Gillette shavers, P&G said organic sales — that is, sales not linked to acquisitions — won’t meet the 4 percent to 6 percent growth goal in the quarter ending in December. But the Cincinnati-based company still expects organic sales to grow between 4 percent and 6 percent over its fiscal 2009, which ends in June.

P&G leaders, in a meeting with Wall Street analysts, said households, retailers and distributors are cutting back worldwide. “P&G is recession-resistant, but not recession-proof,” A.G. Lafley, chairman and CEO, told analysts.

Associated Press