The Fortune 500 comes out just once a year, but the companies on it make headlines every day. Here then are today’s highlights of news and happenings coming from the biggest names in business.
By Shelley DuBois, reporter
GET YOUR SUPER-SPECIALIZED APPS HERE Fortune 500 companies are readying mobile phone shopping apps in time for this year’s holiday season. Hope Depot (HD), Best Buy Inc. (BBY), and Amazon (AMZN) have started preparing mobile applications for smartphones that scan products to compare prices. Some even let consumers purchase items via phone. [Bloomberg Businessweek.]
G.E. GETS OILY as part of a larger company effort to enter oil transportation, General Electric (GE) is courting Wellstream, a small British company that makes oil pipes. G.E. wants to do for oil what it did for aviation, a top executive at the company said. [New York Times.]
CITIGROUP LOOKING FOR STIMULATION it would seem, since the company has reached out to Peter Orszag, who formerly worked for the White House on the economic stimulus plan following the financial crisis. Orszag has previous professional ties to people at Citigroup (C). [Bloomberg.]
SPEAKING OF THE CRISIS, turns out that Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC) were some of the top borrowers from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility, which offered cheaper loans to failing banks. Other big borrowers include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup’s Citibank. [Bloomberg Businessweek.]
FOR MORE ON JPMORGAN check out the long feature on the company’s CEO Jamie Dimon, and why he believes big bad banks are misunderstood. [New York Times Magazine.]
LET THE CHIPS FALL finally, Intel (INTC) and Nvidia (NVDA) are trying to settle their legal dispute over sharing microchip technology. The two companies have been suing each other since 2009. [Bloomberg Businessweek.]
CAN’T BEET THE USDA Monsanto (MON) discovered Wednesday, when its genetically modified sugar beets were ruled illegal. The major seed-maker had tried to dodge an earlier court ruling that the sugar beet seeds needed USDA approval before going to market. [Fast Company.]
AS IF FORD WASN’T AMERICAN ENOUGH, the company plans to make part of its new cars out of blue jeans. The Ford (F) Focus will feature reclaimed denim in the materials used to sound proof the vehicles. [United Press International.]