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Byline: - Staff and Wire Reports

Mentor may inject more for Medicis

Cosmetic-surgery product maker Mentor Corp. said Monday it would be open to beefing up its rejected $2.2 billion takeover bid for Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp.

The move came as Medicis, an acne-medicine maker, vies with Allergan Inc. to take over another cosmetic products firm and gain competitive leverage in the lucrative cosmetic augmentation and treatment market.

In March, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Medicis made a $2.8 billion cash and stock bid for cosmetic surgery product maker Inamed Corp. Last week, Allergan, maker of the popular Botox anti-wrinkle treatment, trumped that bid with a $3.2 billion cash-and-stock offer.

Santa Barbara-based Mentor then jumped in with its attempt to buy Medicis, whose board rejected the offer Sunday, saying it was committed to completing its proposed deal with Inamed.

Intel, Micron join for flash memory

SAN JOSE - Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Inc. agreed Monday to form a joint venture to produce flash memory for consumer electronics and said the new company has a $500 million deal to supply chips to iPod-maker Apple Computer Inc.

IM Flash Technologies LLC will focus on a form of memory known as NAND flash, which is used in a growing number of popular devices such as the iPod Nano and other music players, digital cameras, storage gadgets and handhelds.

Apple said it will pay $250 million each to Intel and Micron to supply the memory for iPods. The company also reached long-term supply agreements with Hynix Semiconductor Inc., Samsung Electronics and Toshiba Corp.

Holiday forecast rosy for retailers

NEW YORK - The sales outlook looks brighter for the holiday season, a retail trade group says.

The National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail trade organization, raised its growth forecast Tuesday for the Christmas season to 6 percent from its September forecast of 5 percent.

``When we had made the forecast, Katrina had just hit,'' said Rosalind Wells, economist for the Washington-based trade group.

Wells cited stronger-than-expected retail sales in October and falling gasoline prices as the catalysts for upgrading the holiday forecast.

Short-term T-bill rates are mixed

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills were mixed in Monday's auction with rates on three-month bills rising to the highest level since April 2001.

The Treasury Department auctioned $18 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 3.940 percent, up from 3.910 percent last week. An additional $16 billion in six-month bills brought a discount rate of 4.155 percent, down from 4.195 percent last week.

Wal-Mart's errors exceed standards

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. charged the wrong price to shoppers in California and the Midwest at a rate that exceeds those set by federal guidelines, according to two union-commissioned university studies released Monday.

Researchers said random purchases at 60 Wal-Mart stores in California found that the wrong price came up 8.3 percent of the time. At 78 stores in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, checkout scanners rang up the wrong price 6.4 percent of the time. In both states, some prices rang up higher and some were lower.

The National Institute for Standards and Technology says that for every 100 items scanned, no more than two should have the wrong price. The NIST's last industrywide study, in 1998, found the rate at 3.35 per 100.