Business & Finance

Adelphia Communications Corp., the US's sixth-largest cable TV operator, is being delisted as of today on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The move gives holders of Adelphia convertible bonds the right to sell them back to the cash-strapped Coudersport, Pa.-based company, and could force it into bankruptcy.

IBM has cut as many as 5,000 jobs in two weeks of unannounced layoffs, according to an ex-employee. Lee Conrad is tracking the workforce reductions while leading an effort to persuade former colleagues to unionize. A company spokeswoman confirmed that there have been some job cuts, which she characterized as "skills rebalancing and elimination of redundancies."

McDonnell Douglas will perform $9.2 billion in weapons-system work on F-15 fighter jets, the Financial Times reported. The 15-year contract covers aircraft initially for the air forces of Israel and Saudi Arabia, the paper said. McDonnell Douglas is a subsidiary of aerospace giant and defense contractor Boeing.

Aer Lingus, the cash-strapped national airline of the Irish Republic, will remain grounded until tomorrow at the earliest, officials said, despite the loss of $1.9 million a day and the risk of at least some of its 20,000 overseas bookings this month. The carrier and its unionized pilots are in a standoff over implementation of a survival plan that calls for deep job cuts and shortened rest periods between flights.

Another 800 jobs are to be cut by British Petroleum (BP), the oil giant announced. The layoffs, all involving contract workers, were blamed on a planned tax increase affecting oil and gas revenues from North Sea operations. BP already has cut 1,500 other jobs in recent months.