Shares of struggling Armonk-based bond insurer MBIA Inc. rose for a second straight day today after the company said it might pay out a special dividend, buy back shares or start a new insurance company.

MBIA shares closed at $5.87, up 56 cents, or 10.56 percent. On Thursday, MBIA shares rose 46 cents, or 9.48 percent.

The company is looking for a way to use $900 million in a way that increases shareholder value. MBIA said in February that it would contribute the money to its insurance subsidiary.

But Standard & Poors this week took away the insurer’s top rating. That action came less than a week after Moody’s Investors Service indicated it might cut the rating.

The rating agencies’ announcements prompted MBIA chief executive Jay Brown to say Thursday in a letter to shareholders that the company might use the money for a new insurance company.

Brown added: “Most of you have correctly identified that we can significantly increase shareholder value by either a special dividend or a share buy-back, in addition to buying back a variety of debt instruments.

“And we intend to pursue all strategies to maximize shareholder value, while executing against our objective to maintain financial flexibility,” he wrote.

Shares of MBIA have dropped 90.92 percent the last year, mainly due to the company’s exposure to subprime mortgage loans.

MasterCard Inc., the giant credit card company based in Purchase, said this week it will drop 40-year-old transaction fees that European regulators have declared illegal.

The European Commission said last December the company had to devise an alternative to its interchange fees that doesn’t harm consumers. The commission said MasterCard would face a daily penalty of up to 3.5 percent of sales if it did not revise the interchange fees.

The interchange fees are paid from bank to bank on each cross-border payment transaction. The fees cost consumers as much as 13.5 billion euros (about $21 billion) a year, according to the European Retail Round Table, a lobby group for 14 retailers.

MasterCard said it would drop the fees as of June 21, but will continue discussions with the commission about a better way to structure the fees.

The company is also appealing the commission’s decision to the European Court of First Instance.

Nutrition 21 Inc., the Purchase-based company that markets nutritional supplements, this morning confirmed its earnings forecast for its fiscal fourth quarter. The company said it continues to expect revenues for the quarter to be in the range of the $10.8 million reported for the third quarter, which ended in March.

Nutrition 21 also said it expects its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the quarter to approach break even.

The company said it expects to produce consistently positive EDITDA in fiscal 2009, with revenues matching 2008 revenues.

Drew Industries, the White Plains-based company that supplies parts for recreational vehicles and manufactured homes, said Fredric M. Zinn, who has been chief financial officer since 1986 and executive vice president since 2001, has been promoted to president. He was also elected to the board of directors.

Leigh J. Abrams will give up the president’s role but remain chief executive and continue to serve on the board.

Drew also announced the promotion of Joseph S. Giordano III, formerly the corporate controller and treasurer, to chief financial officer and treasurer. Christopher L. Smith, who was the assistant controller, was named corporate controller.

The independent members of the board of directors of Hudson Technologies Inc., the Pearl River company that decontaminates refrigeration equipment, has approved raises for the company’s top executives, including Kevin Zugibe, the chairman and chief executive.

Zugibe’s base annual salary became $192,800, effective May 5, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He previously earned a base salary of $187,096, according to public filings.

Brian F. Coleman, the president and chief operating officer, receives $170,700. His salary had been set last year at $165,672. Charles F. Hawkins, the vice president of sales, got a raise to $159,700 from $154,960.

Stephen P. Mandracchia, the secretary and vice president for legal and regulatory matters, had his salary set at $145,900. His salary had been $141,570.

The board set the salary of Chief Financial Officer James R. Buscemi at $134,000, compared his previous salary of $122,824.
The base salary does not include bonuses, stock options or any other compensation.

Computer giant IBM Corp. of Armonk has opened a center in Pune, India to provide customers worldwide with business consulting services. The company said the new center is the fourth that IBM Global Business Services has opened in Pune. Pune is home to a number of equipment makers and auto industry experts, meaning the new center is a strategic location for IBM’s automotive clients, the company said.

Gamco Investors Inc., Mario Gabelli’s Rye-based money-management company, named Nicholas F. Galluccio to serve as president and chief executive of its Teton Advisors Inc. subsidiary, effective July 1.

Galluccio was formerly with Trust Co. of the West where he served as the group managing director and a portfolio manager for $4.5 billion in assets. He is also a former staff writer at Forbes magazine where he wrote a column on investment management.

Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Eastview said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Dr. Alton B. Kremer, its senior vice president of clinical research, had resigned on May 20 to pursue other interests.
Kremer had joined the company in October 2004. Last year he was paid $380,000 in salary and a $245,000 bonus, among other compensation, according to Progenics’ proxy statement.

IntegraMed America Inc., the Purchase-based company that runs vein clinics and fertility centers, said Dan P. Doman has been promoted to president of the Vein Clinics of America division. The move became effective Thursday, the company said this morning. He replaced Kush Agarwal, who retired but remains a board member. Doman was chief financial officer of Vein Clinics of America since April 2006.

Hudson Technologies Inc., the Pearl River company that decontaminates large refrigeration equipment, said Kevin Zugibe, the chairman and chief executive, has adopted a plan to sell some of his Hudson shares.

The plan allows Zugibe to sell up to $1 million shares over a one-year period.

Zugibe said he plans to use some of the money he gets from the sales to pay off personal debt he ran up last year when he and other executives bought more than 9 million shares. Those purchases allowed the company to buy back and retire 6.9 million shares, resulting in a 26 percent reduction in shares outstanding, he said.

Hudson shares were trading at $2.41, up 48 cents, in early trading this morning.

Two businesses in the Lower Hudson Valley have placed the low bids on construction work at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, the state Office of General Services said. Southeast Plumbing Corp. of Brewster was the apparent low bidder, out of seven companies, with a bid of $262,000 to replace a domestic water system in Building No. 6. S & O Construction Services Inc. of Pleasant Valley was the apparent low bidder, out of four companies, with a bid of $410,830 for a heating and ventilation contract to rehabilitate a condensate return system.

SmartWatt Energy Services, a Clifton Park, N.Y.-based company that helps businesses reduce their energy consumption and expenses, has opened its third office on Mamaroneck Avenue in Harrison. Pete DeMartis of Somers is the general manager. The company has a third office in Rochester, N.Y. For more information on the company, visit www.smartwattinc.com.

MVC Capital Inc., a Purchase-based company that makes private debt and equity investments, has gotten a $50 million, two-year revolving line of credit from Branch Banking and Trust Co. The line is in addition to MVC’s existing $100 million credit agreement with Guggenheim Corporate Funding LLC.

MVC said the $50 million line will be used to gain better financial flexibility in managing its investment portfolio.

IBM Corp.’s success selling computers, software and services to businesses despite the slowing economy will likely be the centerpiece message tomorrow as the computer giant’s leadership faces investors in Charlotte, N.C.

In one of his rare public appearances, IBM’s chairman, president and chief executive, Samuel J. Palmisano, will give his yearly update on the health of the company he joined as a salesman in 1973.

He has plenty of good news to deliver. In 2007, IBM’s revenue rose 8.1 percent to $98.78 billion. Net income rose 9.7 percent to $10.42 billion. Earnings per share were up 17.5 percent to $7.18.

The strong results continued this year when IBM’s first-quarter profit rose 26 percent to $2.32 billion and revenue was up 11.2 percent to $24.5 billion.

“We feel good about the rest of the year,” Palmisano said earlier this month.

IBM, the largest private employer in Westchester County, provides about 7,500 local jobs.

As the world’s largest technology company, IBM is considered a bellwether not only for the computer business but for the U.S. economy in general.

Palmisano has frequently discussed IBM’s success transforming Big Blue into a globally integrated business with employees around the world cooperating to grow sales.

In a spring report to analysts, Palmisano noted that 65 percent of IBM’s workers are employed outside the United States with about 30 percent of those workers in Asia. The work force in Brazil, Russia, India and China has doubled the last two years.

The growth of work in other countries has drawn criticism from activist groups that rally for U.S. workers, including members of the Alliance@IBM, a branch of the Communications Workers of America Local 1701 that has been seeking to unionize IBMers for several years.

The group plans an informational picket for 8:30 a.m. today and will hold a rally at the close of the meeting.

In addition to offshoring, the Alliance@IBM will focus its protest on executive compensation and the lack of a cost-of-living increase for retirees, among other issues.

For more information about the annual meeting and to read IBM’s annual report and proxy filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, visit www.ibm.com/investor.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. said that a new Four Points by Sheraton has opened in Tempe, Ariz. Four Points by Sheraton is one of the White Plains hotel giant’s brands, which also include St. Regis, Westin, W and Le Meridien. The new hotel, which is owned and operated by Twenty4Seven Hotels Corp. has 187 rooms and is walking distance from Arizona State University’s main campus.

IntegraMed America Inc. of Purchase said this morning it has a 25-year agreement to provide its fertility services to Southeastern Fertility Center in Mount Pleasant, S.C. near Charleston.

Under the contract, IntegraMed has purchased the assets of Southeastern Fertility and promised to commit other resources to grow the business. IntegraMed, which runs fertility centers and vein clinics in the United States, will receive fees based on the business at the South Carolina center.

The deal was effective last Thursday.

The lawyer representing the former portfolio manager of Gabelli Global Growth Fund said his client “never violated any rule or regulation and always managed the mutual funds under his direction lawfully and in the best interests of shareholders.”

Lewis J. Liman, the lawyer, said Marc Gabelli will “respond forcefully in court” to a government lawsuit alleging Gabelli allowed a hedge fund to make so-called “market timing” trades of his mutual fund’s shares.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday sued Gabelli, the son of famed stockpicker Mario J. Gabelli, for allegedly having a market-timing arrangement with Folkes Asset Management, which is now called Headstart Advisers Ltd.

Market timing means rapid buying and selling of mutual fund shares to take advantage in inefficiencies in the way the shares are priced. Then-state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2003 uncovered numerous instances of mutual fund companies allowing such trading and launched a crackdown on the practice.

“We are not prepared to agree to a public statement that Mr. Gabelli did anything wrong,” Liman said. “He did not.”

Gabelli Funds, which is the adviser to Gabelli Global Growth Fund and a subsidiary of Rye-based Gamco Investors Inc., agreed to pay $16 million to settle separate charges related to the incident, which allegedly took place from 1999 to 2002.

Gamco, the company Mario Gabelli founded and runs, said in a regulatory filing that Gabelli Funds did not admit or deny any allegations.

Shares of Eastview-based Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. shot up again this morning after the company and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an application to market a drug for constipation in patients taking certain pain medications.

The shares were trading at $13.89, up $3.25, or 30.55 percent, at 9:51 a.m.

The companies announced the approval of Relistor last night. Earlier in the day, they announced that regulators in Europe had offered a positive opinion of the drug.

The shares rose 32.5 percent yesterday on news news of the favorable opinion in Europe.

“The approval of Relistor is a transformative event for Progenics Pharmaceuticals,” Dr. Paul J. Maddon, the company’s chief executive, said. “This is our first U.S. product approval.”

The company said more than 1.5 million Americans each year receive pain medication due to advanced illnesses such as cancer, end-stage heart and lung disease and AIDS. Many of these patients receive opiods for the pain and experts have found serious constipation strikes nearly all of them, the company said.

Wyeth, which has a campus in Pearl River, will make a $15 million payment to Progenics as a result of the approval. The companies have a 2005 agreement to develop and market the drug.

Jarden Corp., the consumer products company based in Rye, said it has been listed in the new Fortune 500 listing of the nation’s largest companies. The company said its sales grew 21 percent to $4.7 billion last fiscal year. That moved the company from 544th on the list to 492nd.

Shares of MBIA Inc., the Armonk-based bond insurer, bounced back a bit today after dropping 33.8 percent yesterday. The shares rose $1.01, or 11.5 percent, to close at $9.80. The shares dropped yesterday on news that another bond insurer, Ambac Financial Group Inc., posted a larger quarterly loss than Wall Street analysts expected. MBIA has taken a beaten due its exposure to subprime loans. The company’s shares are down 86.5 percent since the start of last year.