Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with word firm. 14 news.

A prominent Canadian eco-marketing firm is issuing a "buyer beware" warning to consumers after a recent survey found an overwhelming number of empty boasts on the labels of products claiming some sort of environmental benefit. TerraChoice Environmental Marketing examined 1,018 c …

Internetwork Engineering has opened an office in eastern Tennessee.

Added Value, WPP's brand-development business, has acquired Cheskin, an innovation consulting firm. The renamed Cheskin Added Value brings a strong presence in the tech sector, design strategy expertise and a solid understanding of the U.S. Hispanic market to its parent company.

The founder of South Korean industrial firm Daewoo is pardoned as part of an annual New Year amnesty.

Paris-based Publicis Groupe led a tumble in European media stocks this morning, following a negative report on the sector from a big Wall Street securities firm. Shares of Publicis were off 1.2% to $37.89, following the release of the report from Citigroup's equity research team.

Tracinda will take a 35% stake in Delta Petroleum, under an agreement for the firm to make a $684 million investment in the energy company and acquire shares at a price representing a 23% premium from Friday's closing price.

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Magic Software Enterprises Ltd., the Or Yehuda, Israel, provider of business-integration and application-development technology, sold its Advanced Answers on Demand subsidiary to Fortissimo Capital for $17 million. Fortissimo is the Rosh ha'Ayin, Israel, investment firm. Magic expects to post a more than $9 million gain on the sale of AAOD, which develops software for application in long-term health care, including retirement facilities as well as home-health and rehabilitation agencies. As part of the deal, Magic has licensed to AAOD the right to continue to sell its product portfolio for three years.

A third pharmaceutical giant is being investigated over alleged breaches of the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

CHINA'S Internet search firm Baidu.com said yesterday that its chief financial officer, Shawn Wang, died in an accident while on vacation in China. Wang, who joined Baidu in 2004 and helped the company successfully list on the Nasdaq stock market in 2005, died on December 27 during a Christmas-New Year holiday. Company officials declined to give further details. The company said it plans to replace him but also gave no further details. "Under Wang's leadership, this year Baidu became one of the four biggest firms in the US by stock transaction volume and the first Chinese company to join the Nasdaq 100 index," Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li said in an e-mail to employees. "Besides his contribution to financial affairs, he also led the company's legal and human resources departments to fruitful achievements," Li said. Baidu had a 60.5-percent share of China's search engine market in the third quarter, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys

Written document can focus efforts Like many other small entrepreneurs, you may not have the budget to hire an advertising or marketing firm to promote your business.

At the beginning of 2007, Marriott International was dazzling Wall Street, with the firm's shares hitting all-time highs in February after beating analysts' expectations -- yet again -- for quarterly earnings.

St. Louis-based advertising firm Drive Agency Inc. has won an $800,000 account from the Strategic Tourism Development and Marketing Partnership for Northern Ontario in Canada.

A start-up hopes to pump up the "recreational oxygen" market. Oxygen Plus hasn't taken a breather since it began developing its fatigue-fighting products.

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Tokyo-listed supermarket and department store operator Seiyu Ltd. will undergo a restructuring that will see the firm refurbish stores and open new ones, while targeting a return to profitability within two years, according to the Nikkei business daily. As part of its transformation to a wholly-owned subsidiary Wal-Mart Stores Inc. this spring, the firm will consolidate five regional units, up the pace of its refurbishment plans to include more than 70 stores in 2008 and make other adjustments to its supply chain and payroll procedures, the Nikkei reported. Seiyu will open about 60 new stores by 2012 and target annual group sales of more than 1.2 trillion yen. The report said the strategy set out the goals as part of five-year plan.