Ford up

Ford shares soared 16 percent after the com pany said it completed tender offers that will cut its debt by 38 per cent and shave $500 mil lion off its interest costs this year. Ford retired about $9.9 billion in se curities issued by either the parent company or its finance arm in ex change for cash and shares.

GM bidders

GM intends to get an investor for its European arm within the 60-day deadline imposed by the US government last week, while Commerz bank AG is preparing to send offer documents to as many as seven parties that have expressed in terest as early as this week, the Financial Times said.

HSBC shares

HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank, said shareholders bought about 97 percent of the stock on sale in its 12.85 billion-pound ($19.1 bil lion) rights offer. HSBC sold the remaining 172.7 million shares to new in vestors for 448 pence apiece. HSBC advanced as much as 6.7 percent in London trading.

Sallie jobs

Sallie Mae announced it will bring 2,000 jobs to the US within the next 18 months as it shifts a call center and other opera tions from overseas.

Sun down

Hewlett-Packard said it had no plans to talk with Sun Microsystems after IBM and Sun’s merger talks collapsed after disputes over mil lions of dollars of pay outs to Sun executives and over price, sources said.