PepsiCo Inc. Chief Financial Officer Richard Goodman is reported to leave by the month end and be succeeded by 20-year company veteran Hugh Johnston as the soda and snack-food giant initiates integrating its two largest bottlers into its operations.

Pepsi last month reportedly shut its purchase of the stakes in Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas.

CallPlus, which has named its general manager Mark Callander as its new CEO, is all set to unbundling six exchanges in Hamilton.

Mr. Callander has announced that the telco and ISP is building its own local loop unbundling in Hamilton to introduce in April. Under the plans, the company will put its own equipment into Telecom’s exchanges.

The process of unbundling that will begin from Hamilton next month will continue to expand in other regions such as Tauranga, Christchurch and Wellington.

Next-generation mid-sized Volvo S60 has been unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show.

The Volvo S60, which is a replacement for the original S60 that was launched in 2000, has new steering column created from solid steel that provides more precise steering.

The new car is equipped with stiffer bushings than the S80. Its re-engineered front struts resist cornering forces in a better way.

Original S60, which hit the roads in 2000, had gained some attraction in the beginning but later on lost that attraction too.

Avis Budget Group Inc. is reported to raise the size of its planned note offering by $50 million to $450 million as the offering was priced.

The car-rental giant last week announced that it planned the sale to pay down other debt.

The eight-year notes will bear a 9.625% coupon, below market expectations on Friday.

According to the deal, Avis will conclude an amendment to its senior credit facility that squeezes its maximum size to $1.5 billion and raises the maturity of about $1.25 billion by two years.

One of the leading recruiting firms in London has said that Banks have resumed hiring at a much higher level when compared to last year.

A professional services recruiter, Michael Page has said that it is seeing requests to fill twice the number of banking jobs when compared to a year ago. Resumed hiring shows the difficult period in the sector is coming to an end.

Steve Ingham, chief executive of the firm said that banks which cut payrolls severely during the financial crisis are now beginning to scale up operations in London again.

Forth Ports, UK's last independently listed port operator has rejected an acquisition bid from a consortium which valued the company and its assets at £612m.

The consortium which launched the bid already has a 27.4 per cent stake in the company. It indicated that it would consider raising the bid price further however under stringent conditions.

Britain's Prudential Plc has agreed to pay $104 million per month if the deal to acquire the Asian unit of American International Group does not close by August 31 along with a termination fees of $231 million.

According to a filing with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Prudential has agreed to pay 0.4 percent, of the cash consideration outstanding per month from September 1 to American International Assurance incase the deal breaks down.

The Prudential is spending billions on acquiring AIA to become a big player in the Asian insurance market, but its rival Aviva shrugged off Prudential’s growth plans, saying it would focus on Europe rather than Asia.

Britain's second-largest insurer Aviva’s chief executive Andrew Moss has described Prudential’s planned takeover of AIA for $35.5 billion as "audacious".

Mr. Moss added that European insurance market would grow faster than Asian.

British defence services firm VT Group dropped on Thursday its plans to acquire smaller rival Mouchel and announced that it would open its books to Babcock International, moving a step closer to the potential deal.

VT had offered 330 million pounds for Mouchel on February 15, the same day that Babcock International showed its interest in acquiring VT.

Babcock International had been asking VT to provide it access to its books so that it could identify the level of synergies available from the possible deal.

US insurance giant American International Group has reportedly agreed to sell its Asian life insurance unit AIA to British insurer Prudential in a deal worth around $35.5 billion.

People familiar with the matter said that the deal had already been signed off by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department.

Troubled AIG is selling off some of its assets to repay $182.3 billion in taxpayers’ money, which was pumped into the insurer by the Government to bail it out at the peak of financial crisis in 2008.

Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev will reportedly pay a token money of £1 this week to gain control of the Independent and Independent on Sunday. Alexander Lebedev, the former KGB agent, said that he expected the takeover deal to complete shortly as major differences over the deal had been resolved.
Mr. Lebedev has also agreed to the condition that Trinity Mirror would continue to print the Independent after the acquisition of the titles, removing the last obstacle to the deal.

The administrators of Reader's Digest UK have revealed that they have managed to find "significant interest" in potential buyers of the publication, and confirmed that the magazine would continue to be in print until April at least.

The 72 year old British edition of the popular magazine had collapsed into administration earlier during the month, when its American parent Reader's Digest Association said that it was no longer able to support the UK arm, following a crisis in its pension fund.

Reports have confirmed that Samsung has jumped the Skype bandwagon, along with LG and Panasonic, and embedded the VoIP software into its high-end TVs, bringing video calling into people's living rooms.

Back in January, LG and Panasonic had announced plans for Skype-enabled television sets, but the announcement by Samsung, which is the bigger brand, has been received with renewed enthusiasm. The company has, however, only announced two models which would feature Skype functionality.

Shares in Serco, the FTSE 100 support services provider, registered a rise of more than 6 per cent as it posted more than expected annual results and a £28bn pipeline of work.

The support services group, which runs the Docklands Light Railway in East London, operates prisons and handles air traffic, revealed a 30 per cent jump in pre-tax profits.

Buoyed by the results, it believes that pressure on Government budgets will boost opportunities in new and existing markets at home and abroad worth about £28 billion.

Deutsche Telekom is revealed to be in talks with banks discussing options for its U. S. operations and the development of the U. S. market in general, said Andreas Leigers, a spokesman for the German company, who confirmed comments made by Chief Financial Officer Timotheus Hoettges to Dow Jones.

In 2009, T-Mobile USA contributed about 24 percent of the group's revenue and 21 percent of adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.