Business News brief

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The Select Committee on Ethics told Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Kent Conrad of North Dakota in separate letters that it found “no substantial credible evidence” after a yearlong investigation that their mortgages from Countrywide Financial Corp. broke Senate gift rules. The two influential Democrats got their mortgages through a VIP program for friends of then-Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.
But the committee found that the loans they received would have been available to a wide variety of borrowers with comparable financial profiles.
Less borrowing in June
Consumers paid down their credit cards and cut other debt in June for the fifth straight month as they rebuild savings battered by the recession.
Outstanding U.S. consumer debt fell by $10.3 billion, or 4.9 percent at an annual rate, to $2.5 trillion, the Federal Reserve said. That’s a much steeper cut than the $4.7 billion analysts expected.
June’s reduction follows a 2.6 percent cut in May and a steep 8.2 percent drop in April, when consumers reduced their borrowing by $17.4 billion.
AIG earns $1.82B profit
Troubled insurer American International Group said Friday it earned $1.82 billion in the April-June quarter as some of its soured assets regained value. But its core insurance business deteriorated sharply amid the recession. And AIG cautioned that unwinding its $1.3 trillion worth of derivatives will take a long time, and that future results will be volatile as it accounts for restructuring.
The government owns about 80 percent of the company because of a bailout.
Drugmaker merger OK’d
Shareholders of drugmakers Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough on Friday both overwhelmingly backed a huge tie-up of the New Jersey neighbors, and shares of both companies jumped.
The acquisition of smaller Schering-Plough allows Merck, the world’s eighth-biggest drugmaker by prescription medicine sales, to leapfrog to No. 2 worldwide, just behind Pfizer. The new Merck would have about $42.4 billion in annual sales.
Merck and Schering-Plough already are partners on the blockbuster cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia.
Disneyland union: No deal
Disneyland hotel workers have rejected a contract offer from Walt Disney Co. because of a dispute over health care premiums.
Union spokeswoman Paulina Gonzalez said Friday that more than 90 percent of voting union members rejected the contract. She says the union has not ruled out a strike of its 2,100 members at the Paradise Piers, Disneyland and Grand California hotels.
The union has been without a contract for 18 months.