Nestle, the world’s largest packaged food firm, said it would reorganise its infant nutrition business to improve performance, five months after the new CEO listed the category as one of its priorities for growth.

Nestle plans to switch in or out of businesses with combined sales of almost 10bn Swiss francs (€8.7bn) as chief executive Mark Schneider focuses on coffee, bottled water, and pet care to prioritise profitability over scale.

Several private equity groups and hedge funds have expressed interest in public finance specialist Depfa, which the state-rescued German bank Hypo Real Estate has put on the block.

Yahoo has swept out embattled chief executive Scott Thompson to try to clean up a mess created by an exaggeration about his education that destroyed his credibility as he set out to turn the long-troubled internet company around.

A major Yahoo shareholder has made a legal demand for internal records about the embattled internet company’s hiring of chief executive Scott Thompson.

US stocks closed sharply lower after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke offered no new insight into whether the central bank will act soon to prop up the economy.