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Playboy Wants Partners to Make Brand Bigger Over Next Decade, Hefner Says Playboy Enterprises Inc. needs to make strategic decisions to expand the men’s magazine publisher in the coming decade, according to former Chief Executive Officer Christie Hefner.

Kindle, Sony Electronic Readers May Get Biggest Payoff From Textbook Sale As Sony Corp.’s e-book devices vie with the Kindle to win over readers, the real showdown may come later: when a shift to electronic textbooks at schools threatens to eclipse the current market for the products.

Murdoch Targets Sulzberger as Newspaper Ad Slump Shifts Fight to Readers The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are pursuing readers from regional U.S. newspapers in their fight to survive the worst advertising declines in the industry’s history.

Cadbury's Carr Stared Down Goldman and RWE as Preparation for Kraft Duel Roger Carr, Cadbury Plc’s chairman, once thwarted Goldman Sachs Group Inc., then led by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, from bidding for pub chain Mitchells & Butlers Plc in 2006.

China Banks Filling Syndicated Loan Void as Royal Bank, Citigroup Retreat Foster’s Group Ltd., Australia’s biggest brewer, never borrowed from China until this year, when Bank of China Ltd. helped arrange $500 million in loans to refinance debt.

Sell Japan Stocks, Buy Bonds as Loan Costs Climb: Chart of the Day Investors should sell Japanese stocks and buy government bonds as deepening deflation caused real interest rates to diverge from stock prices for the first time in 18 years, according to MU Investments Co.

Lithuanian Chernobyl-Type Reactor's Closure May Produce Economic Fallout In a cavernous hall in northeast Lithuania, workers tear apart the first of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant’s four two-story turbines. The growing piles of steel parts, tubes and cowlings will soon fill nearby storage buildings the size of aircraft hangars.

Carney Shows How Canada Controls Risk So Central Banks Worldwide Can Too Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, the former investment banker who helped the country avert the worst of the financial crisis, says Canada’s experience provides lessons for the world.

Whitney Says Goldman Sachs Lost `Tremendous' Talent to Hedge Funds Meredith Whitney, the analyst who cut her rating on Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last month, said the bank has lost some of its top-performing employees as executives left to start their own investment companies.

Malone Doesn't Rule Out DirecTV Takeover by AT&T or Verizon Communications DirecTV Group Inc. Chairman John Malone won’t rule out a possible takeover by AT&T Inc. or Verizon Communications Inc., saying they will likely have closer ties to his company as they develop packages of phone and television service.

Facebook Common Stock Value Jumps 42% to $9.5 Billion on Private Market The price of Facebook Inc. stock on exchanges for private companies has jumped as much as 42 percent in the past four months as membership of the site topped 300 million users and the company turned cash flow positive.

AOL Will Eliminate 2,300 Jobs as It Seeks to Lower Costs by $300 Million AOL, the Internet unit being spun off from Time Warner Inc. in December, plans to cut about one- third of its workforce over the next several months.

Elizabeth Warren Winning Means Banks Won't Sell When They Can't Explain It In Elizabeth Warren’s world, credit card contracts would be so simple a teenager could read and understand them in four minutes. Loans would be as easy to compare as toasters, and online credit scores would be free.

Electric Cars Push `Old-Guard' Japanese Engine Parts Makers to Crisis Mode Auto supplier NTN Corp. knew its gasoline engine parts wouldn’t be needed in Nissan Motor Co.’s Leaf electric car. So the component maker’s engineers built a mock model to test a motor-and-brake system it developed for electric vehicles.

L.A. Mayor Pitches Obama for $9 Billion to Prevent 7 Mile-an-Hour Gridlock Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said his goal to speed up construction of 12 transit projects and ease congestion in the second-biggest U.S. city requires “creative” funding help from Washington.

Boeing May Lose $7.5 Billion Sale to Brazil as Senate Blocks Obama's Envoy Boeing Co. may lose a $7.5 billion jet fighter sale to Brazil unless the U.S. Senate lifts a four- month delay in confirming President Barack Obama’s nominee for ambassador to Latin America’s biggest country, a former top U.S. diplomat to the region said.

Tufts President Says Wealthy College Endowments Should Take Much Less Risk American colleges and universities with the largest endowments should abandon an investment strategy that has contributed as much as 49 percent to their annual operating budgets because such risk-taking resulted in disruptive cost-cutting in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow said.

Azeris May Send Natural Gas to Asia as EU Caspian Pipeline Plans Languish Azerbaijan, Europe’s closest energy ally in the Caspian basin, is threatening to sell its gas to Asian markets, pressuring the European Union to complete pipeline accords to boost its own deliveries from the region.

Allianz Credit Insurer Says Record Insolvencies Won't Wipe Out 2009 Profit Euler Hermes SA, the world’s largest trade-credit insurer and a unit of Allianz SE, expects to remain profitable, even as it forecasts insolvencies due to the global economic slump in 2010 will match this year’s record high.

Lender That Really Does God's Work Is Slowed as Mortgage Funding Dries Up Mark Holbrook helped fuel a church construction boom by originating more than $3 billion of mortgages in the past decade, transforming a $2 million credit union he joined after Bible college into the largest U.S. evangelical lender.