York Corp

Ford to suspend productionFord Motor Co. said yesterday that it will suspend production for a week at six North American assembly plants because of a shortage of a part used in 1996 vehicles.The suspension will affect 12,950 hourly workers and will result in the loss of 20,600 units for the week beginning Sept. 18. Ford did not specify what the component was.Ford and its suppliers are working closely to resolve the shortage, the automaker said.The plants suspending production are in Dearborn, Mich.

NEW YORK -- Bankers Trust New York Corp.'s first-quarter earnings rose 22 percent, as revenue from securities trading, derivatives and other businesses surged, the company reported yesterday.The nation's seventh largest bank said first-quarter net income rose to $169 million, or $1.89 a share, from $138 million, or $1.52, in the same period last year.The results exceeded analysts' expectations of $1.84 a share, according to a survey of 12 analysts by IBES International Inc. Bankers Trust shares rose 38 cents to $75.38.

NEW YORK -- Citicorp said the Federal Reserve and the Comptroller of the Currency have ended special regulatory oversight of the nation's largest banking company, possibly paving the way for Citicorp to restore its dividend.Citicorp said the regulators terminated a memorandum of understanding because Citicorp's financial condition is much improved from two years ago, when a mountain of bad loans forced closer supervision of the company's activities.The New York-based company suspended its 25-cents-a-share dividend in October 1991, saving about $96.6 million in dividend payments each quarter.

Directors and employees of Alex. Brown Capital Advisory & Trust Co. led a buyout of the company yesterday from parent Bankers Trust New York Corp. for an undisclosed price.Michael D. Hankin, president and chief executive of Brown Capital, said nine directors and 70 employees raised the money to buy the Baltimore-based company, which manages $2.9 billion in assets for institutions and wealthy families."It is a good story," Hankin said. "It is kept local, and the employees end up owning a meaningful part" of the company.

Three weeks after it announced its plans to acquire Baltimore-based Alex. Brown Inc., Bankers Trust New York Corp. signed a definitive agreement yesterday to buy NationsBank Corp.'s $133 billion-asset institutional trust business.The deal will increase Bankers Trust's global assets under custody to nearly $2 trillion. Bankers Trust will gain 465 institutional customers, including corporations, nonprofit organizations, public agencies and union pension plans.Terms of the transaction were not released.

Shares of Alex. Brown Inc.'s stock jumped 7.9 percent yesterday on speculation that it is in merger talks with Bankers Trust New York Corp., the nation's seventh largest banking company.The Baltimore-based brokerage and investment banking firm's stock ended the day up $3.25 a share to close at $44.625. Wednesday the stock closed at $41.375 a share, a low for the year.A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, Alex. Brown's chairman and chief executive, and Mayo A. Shattuck III, president and chief operating officer, were said to be traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Alex. Brown Inc. expects its merger with Bankers Trust New York Corp. to be completed by Sept. 1, Brown's chairman said yesterday.A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, chairman and chief executive of the Baltimore-based brokerage and investment banking firm, said the company has passed all regulatory hurdles."

A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard -- who recently traded in a career in high finance for the mystique of the Central Intelligence Agency -- urged Towson University graduates yesterday to strive for integrity and commitment in their lives."

Eugenia A. "Genie" Kennedy, a former Peace Corps volunteer and teacher, died Jan. 7 of multiple organ failure at her Bel Air home. She was 82. A daughter of a businessman and a homemaker, Sarah Eugenia Asbury, who did not use her first name, was born and raised in Delta, Pa. After graduating from Delta High School in 1947, she earned a bachelor's degree in business education in 1951 from Russell Sage College in upstate New York....

Procter & Gamble Co. said yesterday that it would take a $102 million after-tax charge against its third-quarter earnings as a result of having been "badly burned" in two derivatives contracts.The contracts, which soured as interest rates rose, were entered in hopes of "managing" its interest rate exposures, said Erik G. Nelson, senior vice president and chief financial officer at P&G.The chairman and chief executive of P&G, Edwin L. Artzt, said in a statement last night that the company was considering legal action against Bankers Trust New York Corp.