MasterCard Inc., the giant credit card company based in Purchase, said Jackson Tai, the former vice chairman and chief executive of DBS Group and DBS Bank Ltd., has been named to the company’s board of directors. Tai, 58, was also managing director in the investment banking division at J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc.

Purchase-based Nutrition 21 Inc., which markets nutritional supplements, lost $900,000, or a penny a share, during the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2008, the company said this morning. That was an improvement over the fourth quarter of 2007, when the company lost $8.2 million, or 13 cents a share. Revenues rose 2 percent to $11 [...]

Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Eastview said it will start tests on an experimental treatment for prostate cancer. The therapy, prostate-specific membrane antigen antibody-drug conjugate, combines a prostate-cancer antibody with a cancer drug. The company said that unlike traditional chemotherapy, the treatment delivers the drug selectively to prostate cancer cells.

With the U.S. economy in a major slump, IBM Corp. of Armonk said today its revenue growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa has not slowed from the first half of the year. The computer services company said in a regulatory filing that Patricia Murphy, its vice president for investor relations, would tell European [...]

MVC Capital Inc., a Purchase company that makes investments in businesses, reported a net operating loss of $1.4 million for the third quarter of its fiscal 2008, compared with net operating income of $2 million year earlier. But not counting $3.9 million the company accrued for incentive compensation, net operating income for this year’s quarter [...]

The Pepsi Bottling Group Inc., the Somers company that bottles Pepsi products, today confirmed it expects to earn $2.30 to $2.38 a share this year. The company said it expects revenues to grow in the mid-single digits. Operating profit growth will be in the low-single digits and operating free cash flow will be about $620 [...]

Haights Cross Communications Inc., the White Plains company that publishes educational and library materials, said it has completed the sale of its Sundance/Newbridge Publishing business to Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Inc. of Lanham, Md. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

White Plains-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., which has been hit hard by the weakness in the U.S. economy, today announced a shake-up of its senior management team. The company said one executive, Matt Ouimet, is leaving the company. Matthew E. Avril, the co-president of Starwood Vacation Ownership, will succeed Ouimet in the role [...]

Eastview-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Bayer HealthCare AG said tests of a treatment for a condition that leads to blindness showed patients made “highly significant improvements” after 52 weeks. The companies said the patients testing the treatment, called the Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Trap-Eye, showed improvements in vision. The treatment, which Regeneron and Bayer are [...]

Acorda Therapeutics Inc., the pharmaceutical company in Hawthorne, said this morning that Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. has exercised its option to buy an additional 600,000 shares of Acorda stock at the public offering price of $28.50 a share. The decision by Deutsche, the underwriter of the offering, increases the size of the offering to 4.6 [...]

A Greenwich, Conn. woman whom authorities say falsely told an investor in White Plains that her company was about to sign several significant contracts was indicted on mail fraud charges. Milana Murcia, who was the vice president of Regenat USA Holding Corp., a company that was purportedly in the business of recycling timber and wood, [...]

ITT Corp. of White Plains said its Communications Systems business has gotten a five-year contract that could be worth up to $490 million to provide communications and electronics equipment and services to international customers. The company got the contract from the U.S. Army Electronics Command through the Foreign Military Sales program. The program allows for [...]

Progenics Pharmaceuticals of Eastview said this morning its $2.4 million second-quarter loss matched its loss from the second quarter of last year. On a per-share basis, the company lost 8 cents, compared to 9 cents last year. Revenues grew to $28.6 million from $25.5 million. The company said it earned a $15 million payment during [...]

A retired U.S. Army general has joined the board of directors of ITT Corp. of White Plains. The company, which makes pumps, night-vision goggles for the military and other high-technology products, said retired Gen. Paul J. Kern, 63, the president and chief operating officer of AM General LLC of South Bend, Ind. and senior counselor [...]

Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., the drug company that has operations in Pomona, earned $57 million, or 52 cents a share, in the second quarter, compared with a profit of $45 million, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenues rose to $779 million, from $634 million. Barr, which is based in Montvale, N.J., has its [...]

Acorda Therapeutics Inc., the Hawthorne company that sells a drug for people with multiple sclerosis, said the 4 million shares that will be offered to the public will carry a price of $28.50 apiece. The shares are being offered by Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. as underwriter. The company has granted the underwriter the option to [...]

Prestige Brands Holdings Inc., the Irvington company that markets Comet cleanser, Compound W wart remover and Prell shampoo, said this morning earnings in the first quarter of its fiscal 2008 dropped 6.5 percent to $7.8 million, or 16 cents a share. Revenues in the quarter that ended in June dropped to $72.92 million from the [...]

Earnings at Gamco Investors Inc., the mutual fund company run by money manager Mario Gabelli, dropped nearly 20 percent to $14.46 million, or 51 cents a share, during the second quarter. Assets under management — which is the investor money the company manages — were $28.3 billion at the end of the quarter. That was [...]

HomeGoods, the chain that sells home fashion items, will open a store in Nanuet Aug. 24. The 25,000-square-foot store is in the Rockland Plaza on Route 59. The store will be the company’s first in Rockland County. The company said it expects to hire 60 people for full-time and part-time jobs.

Noritz America Corp., which makes tankless water heaters, has a new, corporate headquarters for the Northeast region at 12 Skyline Drive in Hawthorne.