Business Digest

Offer to aid Greece

BRUSSELS

Trying again to halt a debt crisis that has hammered the euro, fellow eurozone governments tossed struggling Greece a financial lifeline Sunday, saying they would make euro 30 billion in loans available this year alone — if Athens asks for the money.

The International Monetary Fund stands ready to chip in another euro 10 billion, said Olli Rehn, the EU monetary affairs chief.

The promise — filling in details of a March 25 pledge of joint eurozone-IMF help — was another attempt to calm markets that have been selling off Greek bonds in recent days.

Profits to trickle in from first quarter

NEW YORK

For stock market investors, everything outside of what companies earn is pretty much noise.

Profit reports for the January-March quarter will start to trickle in this week and they are sure to look good. That’s because business is improving, but also because the economy was so bad last year that it won’t take much for companies to post better numbers.

What investors want to know now is whether companies can keep the good news coming.

The early recovery in earnings came from heavy cost-cutting.

Mirant, RRI Energy join in $1.61B deal

atlanta

Energy providers Mirant Corp. and RRI Energy Inc. said Sunday they are combining in a $1.61 billion stock-swap deal, renaming the company and creating a utility powerhouse that will become one of the nation’s largest independent power producers.

The combined company will be called GenOn Energy and will be led by Mirant Chairman and CEO Edward R. Muller until 2013, when he will retire and the top post will be taken by Mark M. Jacobs, RRI Energy’s current president and CEO. Jacobs will serve as GenOn’s president, chief operating officer and a director until that time.

There likely will be job cuts among the two companies’ 3,600 employees, but how many has not been decided, Jacobs told The Associated Press.

Associated Press