The following were the top stories in the New York Times business pages on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* Private equity firms embarked on one of the biggest spending sprees in corporate history for nearly three years, using borrowed money to gobble up huge swaths of industries and some of the biggest names - Neiman Marcus, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Toys “R” Us.

* The Treasury Department has turned down a request by General Motors Corp for up to $10 billion to help finance the automaker’s possible merger with Chrysler LLC, according to people close to the discussions.

* British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday urged Persian Gulf nations to help bolster the International Monetary Fund’s bailout capacity, as leaders around the world spent another weekend trying to extinguish the brush fires of the economic crisis.

* The trade publication American Banker unveiled its Banker of the Year award last week: It went to Kenneth Lewis, chief of Bank of America Corp.

* After years of unfettered growth in military budgets, Defense Department planners, top commanders and weapons manufacturers now say they are almost certain that the financial meltdown will have a serious impact on future Pentagon spending.

* Workers at Boeing Co began returning to work on Sunday after members of the machinists union voted to end a costly eight-week strike that clipped profits and stalled deliveries by the plane maker.

* Goal Financial is the latest student loan company to have reached a settlement agreement with the New York attorney general, whose investigation of the loan industry found that some were using deceptive tactics and offering prizes to attract borrowers.

* The producers of the reality TV series “Wall Street Warriors” find themselves in a case of life imitating life. The show documents life on Wall Street by focusing on a handful of traders, brokers and fund managers, and the producers, Sean Skelton and Scott Gill, had a front-row seat as the bottom fell out of the financial markets.

Source: http://www.afxnews.com

Related Content