Aon agrees to buy Hewitt for $4.9 billion

Insurance broker Aon Corp. said Monday it agreed to buy human resources company Hewitt Associates for $4.9 billion in cash and stock to expand its consulting operations.

The insurance broker said it will pay $50 per Hewitt share, a 41 percent premium over Hewitt's closing price Friday of $35.40. Aon shares closed at $38.34 on Friday.

Aon, based in Chicago, plans to integrate Hewitt with its existing consulting and outsourcing operations and create a new unit, Aon Hewitt, after the deal closes. Russ Fradin, chairman and chief executive officer of Hewitt, will become chairman and CEO of Aon …

CIHR Institute of Gender and Health Celebrates 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

THE FIRST NATIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD, THE INSTITUTE OF GENDER AND HEALTH (IGH) SUPPORTS RESEARCH TO ADDRESS HOW SEX AND GENDER INTERACT WITH OTHER FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE HEALTH TO CREATE CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS THAT ARE UNIQUE, MORE PREVALENT, MORE SERIOUS OR DIFFERENT WITH RESPECT TO RISK FACTORS OR EFFECTIVE INTERVENTIONS FOR WOMEN AND FOR MEN, GIRLS AND BOYS.

IGH contributes to the generation of new knowledge and outstanding research through strategic research initiatives that offer Requests for Applications (RFAs) focused on its five priorities: access and equity for vulnerable populations, promoting health in the context of chronic and infectious …

US new-home sales plunge to lowest level in more than 12 years

Sales of new homes in the United States plunged last month to their lowest level in more than 12 years, a grim testament to the problems plaguing the housing sector.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that new-home sales tumbled by 9 percent in November from October to a seasonally adjusted …

McPier building on hotel room demand

Chicago's convention business is getting a short-term injection of construction jobs and a long-term assist with its competitiveness.

At the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which runs McCormick Place, designs are being finished for an addition to the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place hotel. Construction on the 15-story building at 2233 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive should start by year-end.

The new tower will add 460 rooms for conventioneers who crave proximity to McCormick Place. It'll arise atop a parking deck that was designed for the eventual addition. The existing 800-room Hyatt opened in 1998 and books up quickly for major events. Meeting planners long …

AIChE Student Members Receive Tau Beta Pi Fellowships

The Fellowship Board of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, has selected 35 engineering students for graduate fellowships in 2008-09. Among the honorees are tour AIChE student members.

Boris D. Chemomordik, a chemical engineering student at the Univ. of Louisville, has been awarded Tau Beta Pi's 23rd Centennial Fellowship, which honors the Society's most outstanding Fellow. Also receiving fellowships are Arjun S. Adhikari of Polytechnic Univ., Travis W. Walker of South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and Andrew P. Wilson of Howard Univ.

Tau Beta Pi Fellowships are awarded for high scholarship, campus leadership and service, and the promise of future …

Rice Hints at Openness to Work With Syria

SHANNON, Ireland - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday the United States' poor relationship with Syria is overstated and indicated an openness to working with Damascus to resolve the crisis in the Middle East.

En route to the region, Rice noted that the United States still has a diplomatic mission and State Department officials working in the Syrian capital. That presence, she said, is a "channel for dealing with Syria."

"The problem isn't that people haven't talked to the Syrians. It's that the Syrians haven't acted," she said. "I think this is simply just a kind of false hobby horse that somehow it's because we don't talk to the Syrians.

"It's not …

Madoff's properties in NYC, Florida up for sale

It's where Bernard Madoff broke down and confessed to his massive fraud, frantically wrote checks for millions of dollars as the scheme unraveled and appeared in a bathrobe to greet the FBI agents who arrested him.

Soon the world will see whether Madoff's luxury penthouse apartment _ perhaps the only former crime scene featuring four fireplaces, a wraparound terrace and closet space galore _ also will hit the jackpot on the Manhattan real estate market.

The U.S. Marshals Service plans to put the 4,000-square-foot (371-sq. meter) duplex in a 12-story doorman building on the Upper East Side up for sale this week, betting that exclusivity outweighs notoriety.

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