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.

IBM Corp. acquired Diligent Technologies Corp., a Framingham, Mass., technology company, the Armonk-based computing giant said today.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Diligent, which has operations in Tel Aviv, Israel, develops “de-duplication” software that helps organizations reduce the amount and cost of of physical storage needed in data centers. Diligent will be folded into Armonk-based IBM’s System Storage business unit, Big Blue said.

Separately, IBM said it signed a $2.8 billion agreement with Cetelem, a subsidiary of French banking giant BNP-Paribas, to upgrade Cetelem’s consumer financial services operations in Argentina.

HomeGoods, a discount home-furnishings retailer, plans to open its first Rockland outlet in Nanuet, according to Metro Commercial, a commercial real-estate firm.

HomeGoods signed a lease to occupy the bulk of the space Office Depot once occupied in the Rockland Center shopping center at Route 59 and Smith Street, said Metro Commercial, which represented the landlord, American Continental Properties, in the transaction.

Plans call for the 25,077-square-foot store to open this summer. HomeGoods is a unit of TJX Cos., which also operates TJMaxx, Marshall’s and other stores.

HomeGoods has three existing Lower Hudson Valley stores, in Yonkers, New Rochelle and Somers.

General Patent Corporation International said today it has licensed a cell-phone patent to LG Electronics Inc., the South Korean maker of consumer electronics, including cell phones.

The license gives LG non-exclusive rights to technology to improve communications between cell-phone transmitters and handsets, as well as devices, such as Bluetooth wireless headsets.

The patent is held by a sister company of General Patent, Digital Technology Licensing LLC, both of which are based in Montebello Park in Suffern.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. has entered into a $375 million loan agreement with various lenders as part of an amended credit agreement, the hotelier disclosed in a regulatory filing today.

Proceeds from the loan will be used to repay debt, to pay fees and expenses related to the repayment and for general corporate purposes, the White Plains-based company said.

ON2 Technologies Inc. has signed an agreement to share its video encoding and publishing technology with European sports satellite and cable network Eurosport, the Greenburgh-based company said today.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

ON2’s Flix Engine technology will allow Eurosport to provide high-quality programming through its various Web sites to viewers with slower connection speeds and less powerful computers, ON2 said.

Eurosport programs include major sports events such as the Australian, French and U.S. Open tennis tournaments, the Olympic games and major cycling events, such as Le Tour de France.

Shares on ON2, traded on the American Stock Exchange, were lower in afternoon trading, off 3 cents to 88 cents each.

Mark Stenberg, the newest member of the board of directors of Nutrition 21 Inc. of Purchase, has a three-year employment agreement as senior vice president and holds a 5 percent secured note on the company for $1.25 million, Nutrition 21 said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Stenberg was chief executive officer and owner of 50 percent of Iceland Health, a nutritional supplement marketer that Nutrition 21 bought in August 2006. In the filing this week, the company said it paid Stenberg $500,000 cash and 4.75 million shares of stock, in addition to the note, for his interest in Iceland Health.
As of Monday, accrued interest on the note was $102,000. The note and interest are due in August 2009. Stenberg also qualifies for up to $1.25 million in additional payments if certain sales benchmarks are reached.
Stenberg’s base salary is $225,000, plus a possible bonus. His employment contract ends on Aug. 25, 2009.

Presidential Realty Corp. of White Plains said it dropped Deloitte & Touche LLP as its accounting firm on April 2 and hired Holtz Rubenstein Reminick LLC for financial and other considerations.
Deloitte & Touche had no adverse opinions on the company’s finances over the last two years. It did have one observation on the fiscal 2007, however; it said that it had not audited the financial statements of four limited liability companies related to Presidential Realty, but relied on audits of those statements by other auditors.

Coastal Federal Credit Union of Raleigh, N.C., agreed to a five-year contract that calls for IBM Corp. to provide mortgage loan fulfillment services. As part of the agreement, Armonk-based IBM will provide Coastal with a range of lending services, including loan application processing, underwriting, vendor management and document preparation. Coastal has 172,000 members and nearly $2 billion in assets at the credit union. Financial details of the contract were not disclosed.

Two Lower Hudson Valley businesses were among those that have been awarded state contracts for construction projects in Rockland and Westchester counties, the New York State Office of General Services said today.

Rockland Electric of Nanuet submitted the lowest bid for work on the transformer room building no. 39 at the Nathan Kline Research Institute in Orangeburg, the agency said. The firm’s $22,800 was the lowest bid among six firms. DDC Air Conditioning of Teterboro, N.J., submitted a $178,750 winning bid to perform heating and ventilation services at the institute, beating out seven other firms.

Empire Mechanical Services Inc. of Yonkers was the apparent low bidder out of seven firms to perform heating and ventilation work for expansion of building no. 113, basement, lobby/draft area at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, OGS said. Empire’s winning bid was $136,634.

Two other firms, JTS Construction of Dutchess Inc. in Pawling and J.H.S. Electric Services Inc. of Bellmore, will receive contracts for construction and electrical work at the prison.

JTS Construction’s $284,760 bid was the lowest among 10 firms, while J.H.S. Electric’s $186,019 bid was the cheapest of three bids, the agency said.

IBM Corp. agreed to acquire Encentuate Inc., a privately held maker of authentification software, based in Redwood City, Calif., IBM said today.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

The Armonk-based computing giant also said it was forming a new lab in Singapore, incorporating Encentuate’s development team there, to better serve IBM clients in Asia and elsewhere.

A member of the board at MBIA Inc. is stepping down to take a position as a consultant to help the bond insurer’s senior management assess future risk, the company said today.

Debra Perry, who has served as a director of the company since 2004, was asked by the company to take the position, which will help the board’s credit-risk committee and Chairman and Chief Executive Joseph W. Brown “to refine and implement MBIA’s risk strategy for the global credit markets” as part of its 5-year restructuring plan, MBIA said.

The Armonk-based company has been hard hit by the subprime mortgage crisis.

Perry’s resignation from the board is effective today, MBIA said.

It isn’t known how much Perry will be paid in her new position. An MBIA spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for additional information.

As MBIA director, Perry earned nearly $156,000 in 2006.

Prior to joining MBIA, Perry worked for 12 years at bond-rating agency Moody’s Corp., serving as chief administrative officer and chief credit officer with responsibility over several rating groups.

Purchase-based IntegraMed America Inc., an operator of fertility centers, has added Genesis Fertility & Reproductive Medicine in Brooklyn to its network of fertility clinics.

The agreement, announced today, gives Genesis the right to distribute IntegraMed products and services, and other tools and features.

ENT and Allergy Associates LLP has expanded its presence on  Long Island with the addition of Pediatric Ear, Nose and Throat Associates in Bayside, Garden City and Bensonhurst.

With the merger, Greenburgh-based ENT and Allergy Associates now has 86 doctors in 28 offices. The practice has doubled in size since 2002.

Armonk-based IBM Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., of Tokyo, have embarked on a two-year agreement to speed the innovation of chips, marking the first time the companies have collobarated in developing semiconductors.

The companies will focus on research into the next generation of smaller chips at IBM’s Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights and at the University at Albany’s NanoTech Complex, the companies said today.

The work will focus on developing 32- and 22-nanometer semiconductors, which, the companies noted, is “at near atomic scale.”

Collaboration will help the companies develop the technology at less cost than if undertaken individually, said IBM vice president Bernie Meyerson.

“By combining individual research strength and intellectual property, we reduce the significant costs associated with research needed to advance the next generation of chip technology,” Meyerson said.

The Business Council of Westchester has hired theONswitch of Thornwood to serve as its media representatives and to develop a full-year strategic communications plan.

Terms of the contract weren’t announced.

Select Telecom, a telecommunications company based in Valhalla, recently announced contracts with HH Brown Shoe Company and Paradigm talent agency to upgrade old phone systems. HH Brown Shoe hired Select Telecom to install two Internet-based telephone systems at offices in Andover, Mass., and Greenwich, Conn. Paradigm, a national talent agency, contracted with Select Telecom to install more than 100 Internet-based phone systems in its New York office. Values of the contracts were not disclosed.

IBM Corp. announced an agreement to provide technology services to Aloha Airlines, a major carrier based in Hawaii. Under the agreement, Armonk-based IBM said it will offer the airline’s customers more options for using the Internet. IBM also will provide kiosks for customers to check in at the airport, check baggage and choose amenities such as lounge access and in-flight meals. In addition, the system will allow for the retrieval of passenger records by bar code scan from itinerary or passenger loyalty card. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Government employees who get their health insurance through New York state’s Empire Plan will have a new pharmacy-benefits manager starting Jan. 1, UnitedHealthcare announced this week.

The Minnetonka, Minn.-based insurer, a unit of UnitedHealth Group, was the successful bidder for the $1.5 billion, four-year contract that covers more than 1 million state and local workers and their beneficiaries.

The program will be adminstered by Medco Health Solutions Inc. a pharmacy-benefits manager based in Franklin Lakes, N.J.

PepsiCo Inc. disclosed today it has hired Morgan Stanley & Co. to handle the sale of up to 4.33 millon shares of PepsiAmericas Inc. from time to time on the open market, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Purchase-based PepsiCo would retain a 40.7 percent stake in PepsiAmericas, the second-largest bottler of Pepsi products, if all shares sold under the plan, according to the filing.