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PARKSIDE DILLARD'S SELLS ALL: The retail fixtures, furniture and store decor items at Dillard's Pinellas ParkSide store will be sold in a garage sale setting starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Prices are marked but negotiable. No credit cards will be accepted by AM Assets, a Cleveland firm hired to supervise the sale at the store in Pinellas Park that closes this week.
BROTHERS WANT HOLLINGER: Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay announced plans this weekend to buy a controlling interest in Hollinger Inc., the Toronto parent company of newspaper publisher Hollinger International Inc. which owns London's Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post. Hollinger International said Saturday it had fired Black as chairman and was suing him for more than $200-million it alleges was improperly diverted to him, an associate and entities he controls. Black in turn asked a Toronto court Monday for an injunction to prevent Hollinger International and some of its directors from interfering in the deal with the Barclays.
BROKERAGES END TALKS: Two of the biggest online brokerages, E-Trade Financial Corp. and TD Waterhouse, announced Sunday that they have ended talks about combining their operations. In a news release, the two companies said they had agreed to abandon negotiations. "Both companies agree that while there were benefits to concluding a transaction that merited serious discussion, they were unable to arrive at mutually agreeable terms," the release said.
AIRLINES DROP "SURCHARGE': AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and Continental Airlines Inc. canceled a $6 roundtrip fare increase after rivals declined to match the move. American rolled back the increase Sunday, three days after trying for a second time this month to boost fares. American had called the increase a "surcharge" and said it was part of an effort to offset rising fuel costs. The increase was in addition to the airlines' existing $20 roundtrip surcharge.
PFIZER SELLS TESTING UNIT: Pfizer Inc. said Monday it will sell its diagnostic testing business to two private equity firms for $575-million as it concentrates on its main operations. The sale of the in vitro allergy and autoimmune diagnostic testing business to Triton, a European private equity firm, and PPM Ventures Ltd., the private-equity subsidiary of Britain's Prudential PLC, will let Pfizer focus on its pharmaceuticals, consumer healthcare and animal health operations, the company said. The agreement is expected to close in the first half of this year.
BEAGLE SNAPS IN E-MAIL: A computer virus named Beagle that propagates through e-mail is spreading, said Network Associates Inc., the maker of McAfee computer-security software. Network Associates raised its alert rating for the program from "low" to "medium" because an increasing number of personal computers are becoming infected, the company said on its Web site. Beagle arrives in e-mail as a message attachment. Once activated, it downloads a second program that receives commands to perform malicious actions on the infected PC. Beagle was named for the attached file and is also known as "Bagle."