Raytheon Company announced today that it has signed a definitive acquisition agreement with Applied Signal Technology, a leader in the collection and processing of communications signals to support tactical and strategic intelligence missions. The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

France’s Ingenico, the world’s largest maker of electronic payment terminals, has rejected a €1.4 billion takeover offer.

The bidder is unnamed, though reports suggest it to be the US industrial conglomerate Danaher Corp.

Swedish-owned home appliance manufacturer Electrolux is planning to consolidate the manufacture of cooking appliances in North America by building a new manufacturing facility in Memphis, Tennessee.

After investigating potential locations in the United States and Mexico, Electrolux has chosen Memphis because the site offers an optimal geographical location for customers and suppliers, the company said in a statement.

RPC Group, the UK plastic packaging supplier, has announced it will acquire its Danish rival, packaging maker Superfos Industries, for about €240 million.

RPC said the deal would provide it with factories in Poland and Scandinavia, as well as operations in Turkey and North Africa.

Proterra Inc, manufacturer of zero-emission commercial transit solutions, today announced the completion of its first bus assembled entirely at its Phase 1 manufacturing facility in Greenville, South Carolina.

The Phase 1 facility at 25 Whitlee Court is manufacturing Proterra's EcoRide BE35™ buses and FastFill™ charging stations.

Proterra is working with local support to break ground on its larger state-of-the-art Phase 2 plant located on Clemson University's International Center for Automotive Research campus in the spring of 2011.

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis has bought the remaining shares in US eyecare company Alcon it did not already own for $12.9 billion (£8.2 billion), thus sealing 100 per cent ownership.

Novartis had been trying to assume total ownership of Alcon since January, when it paid $28.1 billion for a 77 per cent stake in the US company from food giant Nestlé.

Alcon is famous for its contact lens solutions and is also a leader in intraocular lenses, tiny lenses that are implanted in the eye to correct focusing problems.

Here’s a lighthearted list of bullet points (but serious, nevertheless).

If you are a new CEO, could any of these be a problem in your organization? How are you going to tackle them?

Or are you one of the employees? If so, are you giving your new CEO a fair chance?

1. Someone else had aspirations for your job, didn't get it, and concluded that the selection process had serious flaws.

Jeff Garr, CEO and Frank Zych, director of HR Services, HR Knowledge, Inc, suggest ten reasons companies are struggling with staffing issues in the current economy.

George Magnus argues that the financial crisis in the West has thrown down the gauntlet of structural reform for emerging markets. The prospects for the global economy, he says, depend not so much on mechanical extrapolations of GDP, than on good politics and robust legal and social institutions.

Why is cash forecasting so critical?