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

Transmeridian Exploration agreed to be acquired by its chief executive's Trans Meridian International in a deal that values the energy company at $350 million.

Chief financial officer of China's leading search engine dies over holiday.

At age 77, Edward "Ned" Johnson III can't keep this pace up forever. But it sometimes seems the Fidelity Investments chief hopes to.

MC Hammer hasn't topped the music charts since the early 1990s, but the former rap star says he has another hit in him ? only this time around he'll produce it as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Hammer, whose real name is Stanley Burrell, is choreographing a new career as co-founder and chief strategy officer of Menlo Park, Calif.-based DanceJam.com.

The chief financial officer of Chinese search engine Baidu.com died after an accident while on vacation in China.

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- M/I Homes Inc. Monday said it has sold land located primarily in Florida to various buyers for $82 million and that it is exiting the West Palm Beach housing market. The home builder said as a result of the lot sales, it will book pretax land impairment charges of about $80 million in the fourth quarter, and expects to see a $50 million cash tax refund in the second quarter of 2008. M/I Homes said it is "likely" that further impairment charges will be recorded in the fourth quarter. The company said the land sold represented 3,700 lots; at the end of the third quarter, it owned 16,767 lots. "Today's announcement supports and advances our strategic objectives of strengthening our balance sheet, reducing our debt, reducing operating costs, and focusing on markets where we believe we have the best opportunity for acceptable and consistent returns," said Chief Executive Robert Schottenstein in a statement.

Zimbabwe's central bank chief has extended a deadline to exchange bills of Z$200 000 just hours before they were to cease being legal tender.

South Korea announced a New Year's Eve amnesty Monday for 75 politicians and businessmen, including the former chairman of collapsed conglomerate Daewoo Group.

Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin is in line for a £45m payout thanks to this year's turnaround in the mobile phone giant.

American Tower Corp. sued Jide Zeitlin, an ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. manager who runs a competing cellphone tower company, claiming he impersonated American Tower's chief executive officer to send negative e-mails to two of its biggest investors.

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

Guy Hands, the chief of Terra Firma, is planning to tell the staff of EMI in mid-January what he sees in the company that the legions of doubters do not. Some of his...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Chinese government has said it will allow direct election of Hong Kong's governmental leader, called the chief executive, by 2017, according to a media report. The decision, while seen as a concession to growing pro-democracy forces, disappointed advocates who had hoped for a direct election in 2012, when current executive Donald Tsang's term ends, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. The chief executive now is picked by an 800-member assembly that includes dignitaries and legislators appointed by the Beijing government, according to the report. Free election of the chief executive were promised when China took possession of the territory from the United Kingdom in 1997, the Journal said.

Vodafone sought last night to play down suggestions that Arun Sarin, its chief executive, is set to reap a £45 million windfall from the turnaround in the mobile phone operator’s fortunes. Reports claimed that Mr Sarin’s potential windfall had been boosted by the 33 per cent jump in the company’s share price over the past year.