AP Executive Morning Briefing

The top business news from The Associated Press for the morning of Monday, August 27, 2007:

Home Depot Accepts $1.8B Less for Unit

ATLANTA (AP) _ The Home Depot Inc. has tentatively agreed to sell its wholesale distribution business to a group of private equity firms for $1.8 billion less than originally planned, and it will retain a small stake in the unit, a person with direct knowledge of the situation said Sunday. The deal, which also includes Home Depot guaranteeing $1 billion of the debt the buyers will take on to complete the transaction, was hammered out during several days of talks that continued into the weekend, the person said.

___

Dunkin' Donuts Dumping Most Trans Fats

BOSTON (AP) _ Dunkin' Donuts, the food-on-the-go chain whose name celebrates a treat that's symbolic of unhealthy eating, is trying to refresh its image by largely eliminating trans fat across its menu, Homer Simpson be damned. Dunkin' planned to announce Monday that it has developed an alternative cooking oil and reformulated more than 50 menu items _ doughnuts included. The Canton, Mass.-based chain says its menu will be "zero grams trans fat" by Oct. 15 across its 5,400 U.S. restaurants in 34 states.

___

Taiwan's Acer Plans to Acquire Gateway

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) _ Acer Inc. plans to acquire U.S. computer maker Gateway Inc. for $710 million in a deal that will push the Taiwanese company past China's Lenovo Group as the world's third largest vendor of personal computers. Acer said Monday it is offering to buy Gateway for $1.90 per share in a deal expected to close by December, pending regulatory approvals in Taiwan and the U.S.

___

U.S. Stock Futures Pointed Lower

NEW YORK (AP) _ Wall Street, coming off a solid week of gains, appeared headed for a lower open Monday as traders awaited data on existing home sales. Stock futures fell ahead of The National Association of Realtors' report, scheduled to be released at 10 a.m. EDT. It is expected to show that sales of existing homes inched upward in July, the first increase after four straight months of declines, according to the consensus forecast of economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR. A much weaker-than-anticipated figure could worry investors who are still jittery about mortgage defaults and deliquencies causing lenders to make credit less available.

___

NABE: Bad Credit Biggest Risk to Economy

NEW YORK (AP) _ Bad credit has supplanted terrorism as the gravest immediate risk threatening the economy, a key national research group reported Monday. Borrowers' withering ability to pay their bills and the subsequent fallout in the credit markets this summer topped the list of short-term risks on peoples' minds, according to a survey of 258 members conducted by the National Association of Business Economics.

___

China Defends Quality of Exports

BEIJING (AP) _ China strongly defended the quality of its exports Monday, saying some problems were a result of varying global product standards and that a mass recall of toys was largely a result of faulty U.S. designs not Chinese workmanship. Li Changjiang, the head of one of China's quality watchdogs, said "the different standards that China and the United States apply to different products" have been at the root of some of the recent tensions.

___

Oil Prices Drop on Profit Taking

VIENNA, Austria (AP) _ Oil prices slipped Monday as traders took profit after crude futures rose more than $1 a barrel in the previous session. But signs that gasoline supplies were growing tight, along with last week's moderately bullish U.S. economic news, kept a relatively high floor under the market.

___

Plants' Cleanup May Create Side-Effect

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) _ As the nation's coal-fired power plants work to create cleaner skies, they'll likely fill up landfills with millions more tons of potentially harmful ash. More than one-third of the ash generated at the country's hundreds of coal-fired plants is now recycled _ mixed with cement to build highways or used to stabilize embankments, among other things.

___

Blast Lowers Profile for Virgin Galactic

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ As a female voice coos, "Welcome to space," six passengers in skintight spacesuits unbuckle their seat belts and somersault in zero gravity, occasionally peeking back at Earth through the private spaceship's large portholes. Virgin Galactic showed off this animated video promoting the weightless joys of commercial space travel at a trade show for experimental aircraft last month. But the excitement was overshadowed three days later when a deadly flash explosion rocked a Mojave Desert facility where top-secret tests were under way for Virgin's yet-unbuilt spaceship.

___

Efforts to Change Flood Insurance Stall

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Despite promising changes, Congress has shown little enthusiasm for taking the unpopular steps that experts say are necessary to fix the nation's main flood insurance program. Recent flooding in the Midwest has brought the issue back to the forefront. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, back-to-back storms in 2005, dispelled any notion that the insurance program was self-sustaining. They threw it roughly $20 billion into debt and called attention to major structural flaws.

___

Gold Prices

HONG KONG (AP) _ Gold closes at $667.35 an ounce in Hong Kong, up $7.50 an ounce from Friday.

___

Japan Markets

TOKYO (AP) _ Japanese stocks advanced in thin trade Monday, led by real estate stocks on news Goldman Sachs is finalizing a deal to buy Tiffany & Co.'s flagship Tokyo property.

___

Dollar-Yen

TOKYO (AP) _ The dollar was largely flat against the yen in Asia Monday as non-Japanese short-term investors sold the U.S. currency to lock in profits after it rose Friday amid a recovery on Wall Street and stronger-than-expected U.S. economic data.

A service of The Associated Press. Copyright 2007 All rights reserved.