Bunge Ltd., the White Plains-based agribusiness giant, said that its North American operating arm has bought corn dry milling operations from J.R. Short Milling Co. The acquisition includes a plant in Kankakee, Ill., that will be Bunge Milling’s fourth U.S. location. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The Reader’s Digest Association Inc. announced an agreement to sell most of its Books Are Fun business to Imagine Nation Books Ltd. for $17.5 million.

The sale allows Chappaqua-based Reader’s Digest to cut its exposure to a business that has performed poorly in recent years and hurt profits. Books Are Fun sells books and gifts at fairs held at schools and offices.

The sale is expected to close in late December. “This agreement is in the best interest of Books Are Fun’s customers, and we are committed to a seamless transition,” Mary Berner, president and chief executive officer of Reader’s Digest, said in a written statement.

Imagine Nation, based in Boulder, Colo., is expected to offer contracts to roughly 900 independent sales representatives who sell Books Are Fun products around the country. The jobs of about 100 back-office workers at Reader’s Digest in the Chicago area and Iowa will be eliminated as a result of the transaction, said Bill Adler, a spokesman for Reader’s Digest.
The company’s employment of about 800 in Chappaqua is unaffected, according to Adler.

As part of the transaction, the companies agreed to a multi-year strategic alliance in which Reader’s Digest will sell products through Imagine Nation in display marketing channels.

Following the closing of the transaction, RDA will wind down most of the remaining operations of Books Are Fun, but will keep some of the unit’s retail stores.

“We are pleased to announce this agreement, and we appreciate the spirit of cooperation that has enabled us to come together for the greater good of our customers,” said Earl P. Kaplan, president and CEO of Imagine Nation. “We’re committed to making it work.”

Increasing numbers of mergers and acquisitions are falling apart as the global financial crisis, a volatile stock market and economic slowdown alter deal dynamics.

The list of broken buyouts now includes an ill-fated acquisition involving Bunge Ltd., a White Plains-based agribusiness giant.

Bunge officially ended its efforts to buy Corn Products International Inc. today when it announced that its board voted to terminate the deal. As stock markets slumped in recent weeks, the buyout had become less appetizing to Corn Products. The original $4.2 billion value of the buyout had plunged by about 60 percent since it was announced in June because of a steep fall in Bunge’s stock price.

Last week, the board of Corn Products withdrew its support for the acquisition.

“While we continue to believe in the long-term strategic benefits of a merger between Bunge and Corn Products, after careful consideration we have determined that it would not be in the best interests of our company or shareholders to pursue the transaction at this time,” Bunge Chief Executive Officer Alberto Weisser said in a written statement.

A takeover of Corn Products would have expanded Bunge’s product lineup to include corn sweeteners for soft drinks and processed foods.

Corn Products must reimburse Bunge for up to $10 million of transaction expenses under the terms of the merger agreement, according to Bunge.

Bunge Ltd. executives may be left standing at the altar of a busted corporate marriage if their partner follows through with a threat to cancel the wedding.

Four months after Bunge, a White Plains-based agribusiness giant, announced plans to buy Corn Products International Inc., the proposed hookup hit a snag yesterday when the target company said its board withdrew its support for the acquisition.

The setback comes after a sharp plunge in Bunge’s stock price cut the original $4.2 billion value of the deal by about 60 percent since it was announced in June.

“We are disappointed by the Corn Products Board’s decision,” Alberto Weisser, Bunge’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Despite the effect of unprecedented turmoil in the equity markets on our companies’ stocks, Bunge’s board of directors and management continue to believe a merger with Corn Products as currently structured would deliver significant value over the long term to shareholders, employees and customers of both organizations.”

A takeover of Corn Products would expand Bunge’s product lineup to include corn sweeteners for soft drinks and processed foods. Customers for these sweeteners, starches and other ingredients include PepsiCo Inc. of Purchase and the Coca-Cola Co., among other major food and beverage companies.

Yet Bunge’s stock price fell from a high of $135 in January to as low as $27.60 last month as investors grew concerned that the global financial crisis and economic slowdown could hurt demand for agricultural commodities that are Bunge’s specialty.
Because Bunge’s proposed buyout was an all-stock deal, the value of the takeover also plummeted.

Corn Products, based in Westchester, Ill., said the deal terms allowed its board to withdraw its recommendation to adopt the merger agreement following at least five days notice to Bunge. Bunge also can seek seek to recover $10 million in expenses if the buyout is halted, according to Corn Products.

Bunge said it is considering how to respond to Corn Products.

“We have no intention of revising the terms of the transaction,” Weisser said. “We intend to evaluate carefully, with the best interests of Bunge’s shareholders in mind, our options of either terminating the agreement or proceeding to shareholder votes under the existing agreement.”

Bunge shares fell $1.15 to $44.16 in trading yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of Corn Products rose 87 cents to $26.27.

Bedford Funding, a private-equity firm based in White Plains, agreed to buy Authoria Inc., a talent management company in Waltham, Mass., for $63.1 million. In addition to the purchase price, Bedford Funding will invest an additional $8 million in working capital to aid Authoria’s growth. Beford, which reports investment capital of $400 million, specializes in investments in the software and information technology services sectors.

Koren Rogers Executive Search, a White Plains-based executive search firm, recently bought April International, a financial services recruiting firm based in New Rochelle.

April International will become a part of the Koren Rogers brand and serve as the combined company’s financial services division.

The combined companies will be housed at the current Koren Rogers offices at 701 Westchester Ave. that is undergoing an expansion.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

State regulators today approved the $4.5 billion sale of Energy East Corp. to Iberdrola SA., with a requirement that the Spain-based energy conglomerate credit New York customers $275 million.

The sale includes two New York state subsidiaries: Rochester Gas & Electric Corp. and New York State Electric & Gas Corp., which has nearly 90,000 customers in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties.

New York was the last of four Northeastern states to weigh in on the deal. Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine previously approved the buyout.

The Public Service Commission 4-0 vote follows a non-binding determination by an administrative law judge in June that state regulators should deny Iberdrola’s takeover of Portland, Maine-based Energy East, saying the sale wasn’t in the interest of New York state residents.

Further, the judge advised that should PSC officials approve the sale, regulators should place conditions on the deal, including requiring Iberdrola to sell wind-turbine generators to prevent any possibility of electricity price manipulation.

Last month, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urged the commission to drop its insistence that Iberdrola sell all its wind power assets, saying that requirement wasn’t in keeping with the goal of moving the state toward renewable sources of energy.

In announcing its approval yesterday, commission Chairman Garry Brown said in permitting the sale, PSC required that Iberdrola credit ratepayers $275 million as a condition in allowing the company to operate both generation and transmission facilities in the state, which the state generally views as unacceptable.

Iberdrola will also be permitted to own and operate Energy East hydroelectric plants but will be required to sell those that operate on fossil fuels, ordering the company to file a divestiture plan of such assets within 90 days of the buyout’s completion.

Iberdrola must file a written statement of acceptance of the commission’s order before the deal can close, PSC said.

The Insl-X Products Corp. paint plant in Stony Point will close by Dec. 30, eliminating 60-65 jobs in Rockland County, a spokeswoman for the company’s new owner said.
Benjamin Moore & Co. announced in March that it had acquired Insl-X from owner James A. Weil of Scarsdale. Moore spokeswoman Eileen McComb said about two dozen office jobs in Stony Point, the Insl-X headquarters, would be moved to Moore’s headquarters in Montvale, N.J.
Terms of Moore’s acquisition of Insl-X were not disclosed. Moore is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Co.
Insl-X has been in Stony Point for 18 years. It was founded in 1948 by Weil’s father. Insl-x makes and sells its own brand of finishes; a number of acquisitions allowed it to expand from specialty and industrial products to architectural coatings.
In February the company paid off a $5.5 million bond that had been issued through the Rockland County Industrial Development Agency for the acquisition of 15 acres and the plant.
McComb said Moore bought the company because it would complement Moore’s holdings.
“I think we understood that some of the production was redundant,” she said. Moore has six paint plants, including one near Albany and another in New Jersey.
McComb said Moore will continue to operate Insl-X plants in Edgewater, Fla., San Antonio and Fort Worth, Texas, and Elk Grove, Ill.
Ronald Hicks, chief executive officer of Rockland Economic Development Corp., said the business group has offered to help Moore market the 150,000-square-foot property for sale or lease.

Pentegra Retirement Services of White Plains, a provider of retirement products and services in the banking and credit union markets, is in the process of acquiring five subsidiaries of the holding company Retirement System Group Inc. Pentegra has purchased Retirement System Consultants Inc., Retirement System Investors Inc. and RSG Insurance Agency. It has agreed to buy RSGroup Trust Co. and Retirement System Distributors Inc. Financial terms were not disclosed. Retirement System Group operations and employees will continue to work at the company’s Shelton, Conn., and New York offices as well as Pentegra’s White Plains headquarters. Both Pentegra and Retirement System Group were established in the 1940s to offer retirement services for the banking industry.

JMT Consulting Group of Patterson has agreed to acquire St. Louis-based NFP Consultants Inc., said the companies, which both provide consulting and software to nonprofit organizations.

Terms of the deal, announced this week, weren’t disclosed.

“Bringing these two great companies together will allow us to transcend what we have accomplished as separate businesses into one superior consultancy,” said Jacqueline Tiso, founder and chief executive of JMT Consulting.

The purchase is subject to customary conditions and is expected to close within 60 days, the companies said.

JMT has 25 employees, about a dozen of which work at the company’s Putnam offices, a spokeswoman said.

IBM Corp. agreed today to pay about $215 million euros ($340 million) for Ilog SA, a French maker of business software.

The deal will enable the Armonk-based computing giant to combine its business process management, business optimization and service oriented architecture technologies with Ilog’s business rules management systems software, IBM said.

IBM’s offer represents a 37 percent premium above Ilog’s closing price on Friday.

The deal has the approval of the Ilog board, which will make a decision on the deal before Sept. 15, after which the offer will be filed with the French stock exchange authority.

Shares of Big Blue rose fractionally in trading today to $126.48 each.

Billionaire Warren Buffett is scheduled to visit Mount Vernon tomorrow, dropping in on the former Michael Anthony Jewelers that, through a chain of acquisitions in recent years, is now owned by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Buffett will do a ribbon-cutting with Mayor Clinton D. Young at the business, now called Richline Group, at South MacQuesten Parkway, said Mark Hanna, Richline’s chief marketing officer. Buffett will later tour the facility, chat with a few employees, and pose for some pictures, Hanna said.
“Everybody is very, very psyched up about it,” Hanna said. The office employs more than 300.
Publicly-held Michael Anthony Jewelers was acquired in 2005 by Bel-Oro International, a Manhattan-based distributor of fine jewelry. Last year Berkshire Hathaway bought Bel-Oro and another jewelry company, Aurafin LLC, and combined them into Richline Group.
Hanna said the Mount Vernon office is the Northeast headquarters for Richline, which also has administrative offices in Tamarac, Fla. Anthony Paolercio, formerly co-chairman and chief executive at Michael Anthony, is now executive vice president of manufacturing and works out of the Mount Vernon office.
Manufacturing that was done in Mount Vernon is now done overseas, Hanna said.
Buffett is Berkshire Hathaway’s chairman and chief executive.

Prudential Rand Realty has agreed to acquire Nelson Vrooman Real Estate, a White Plains-based firm established more than 50 years ago that has become victim of the downturn in home sales in the Lower Hudson Valley.

“This is a very competitive market, and I knew that the best way to serve my clients and associates was to join a bigger team with more resources,” said Bill Vrooman, Nelson Vrooman founder and chief executive.

Vrooman, along with Nelson Vrooman President Mike Graessle, will join Prudential Rand as associate brokers, Prudential Rand said.

The deal, the terms of which weren’t disclosed, makes Prudential Rand the largest real-estate firm in White Plains, the New City-based company said.

As part of the transaction, Nelson Vrooman’s offices at 709 Westchester Ave. will close and combine with those of Prudential Rand at 1 N. Broadway.

The deal will also result in the transfer of 20 Nelson Vrooman workers to Prudential Rand, which has 20 offices in the Hudson Valley.