Joint Venture

General Motors Co. has agreed with its main Chinese partner to restructure their joint venture and give the American automaker an equal stake. The president of GM's China unit, Kevin Wale, said Sunday that the partners were seeking Chinese government approval of the change. GM and Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp. had a 50-50 partnership, but GM sold 1 percent to SAIC in 2009 to raise cash. That allowed SAIC to record the venture's revenues on its own books under Chinese financial rules.

Dow Chemical has been awarded $2.16 billion in damages by an international arbitration court over for a Kuwaiti joint venture that collapsed four years ago as the global recession took hold. Company shares rose nearly 3 percent, or 82 cents, to $31.34 in early trading Thursday. Dow put together a $17.4 billion joint venture with Petrochemical Industries Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp., to produce plastics for consumer products, automotive parts and drug processing in 2008.

Defense contractor SAIC Inc. and Tetra Tech Inc., an engineering and construction consultant for water and energy projects, said Wednesday that their joint venture received a contract to provide civilian police and criminal justice assistance to the U.S. Department of State. Under the contract, Integrated Justice Systems International LLC will compete for task orders to provide technical assistance, training, logistics and infrastructure services to help the Department of State strengthen criminal justice systems in foreign countries.

Sony Corp. is ending its joint venture with rival electronics maker Sharp Corp. to produce and sell large liquid-crystal displays for TVs — part of its new strategy to buy panels rather than invest in manufacturing them. Sony said Thursday it will sell back to the joint venture Sharp Display Products Corp. all 7 percent of the stake it has held since 2009. Sony won't lose any money as it will receive 10 billion yen ($126 million), the same as what it paid for shares in the Sharp subsidiary, which produces panels in Sakai city, western Japan.

PPG Industries Inc. said Friday that it has formed a joint venture with Harsha Exito Engineering Private Ltd. of India to make fiber glass. PPG said the joint venture's products will be for infrastructure, transportation and wind energy. The venture will be based in the state of Tamil Nadu and serve mostly the Indian market. The companies did not disclose terms of their agreement. PPG Industries makes paints, coatings and a number of specialty products. Its shares rose $1.17 to $72.25 in afternoon trading.

Dow Chemical Co. said Monday its European subsidiary has agreed to form a joint venture with Turkey’s Aksa Akrilik Kimya Sanayii to make carbon fibers. Strong and lightweight, carbon-fiber based materials are in demand for use in alternative energy projects like wind power. They’re also used in vehicle and infrastructure products. Dow is based in Midland, Mich.

Industrial gases and chemical producer Air Products and Chemicals Inc. will buy out DuPont's stake in their 50-50 joint venture that makes components for the semiconductor industry. Air Products and Chemicals did not disclose financial terms of the deal Thursday. Wayne Mitchell, vice president of electronics for Air Products, said owning all of the venture — called DuPont Air Products NanoMaterials LLC, or DA NanoMaterials — will boost Air Products' presence in the market of chemicals used to manufacture electronics devices.

Japan's Sony and South Korean rival Samsung are dissolving their joint venture in liquid crystal display panels as Sony tries to stanch years of losses in its TV business. Samsung Electronics Co. will buy all of Sony's shares in the joint venture for about 1.08 trillion Korean won ($935 million) subject to a final agreement, Sony Corp. said Monday. The joint venture called S-LCD was set up in 2004. Sony, which fell behind in flat panel TVs, invested in a Samsung panel factory to ensure a steady supply of panels for its LCD TVs. Sony's TV operation has lost money for seven...

The movie studio behind "Kung Fu Panda" says it is tying up with three Chinese companies on a joint venture entertainment company that will make Chinese animated and live action content. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. will have a 45 percent stake. The rest of the company will be owned by China Media Capital, Shanghai Media Group and Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd. The company will be capitalized with cash and intellectual property valued at $330 million. It plans to begin operations in Shanghai later this year.

Sony Corp. is ending its joint venture with rival electronics maker Sharp Corp. to produce and sell large liquid-crystal displays for TVs — part of its new strategy to buy panels rather than invest in manufacturing them. Sony said Thursday it will sell back to the joint venture Sharp Display Products Corp. all 7 percent of the stake it has held since 2009. Sony won't lose any money as it will receive 10 billion yen ($126 million), the same as what it paid for shares in the Sharp subsidiary, which produces panels in Sakai city, western Japan.

BioMed Realty Trust Inc., a California real estate firm that is a Kendall Square landlord, said Thursday that AVEO Pharmaceuticals Inc. has signed a 12-year lease to relocate its operations to 650 East Kendall St. in Cambridge. AVEO currently occupies space at three Cambridge addresses on Sidney and Emily streets near Massachusetts Avenue, an AVEO spokesman said. Moving to Kendall Square, a hotbed for life sciences companies, will enable AVEO to consolidate operations under one roof and have more room.

Finnair PLC says it has opened a route from Europe to the southwestern central Chinese city of Chongqing and that it is the first airline to do so. The national carrier says the new destination is part of its policy to increase short connections between Asia and Europe via Helsinki. Finnair CEO Mika Vehvilainen said Wednesday that Chongqing airport will be able to serve 45 million annual passengers by 2015, with 140 routes and connections to 80 cities in China and Asia. The Finnish national carrier, which is in talks with several airlines to create a joint venture in the Nordic...

Targeting the growing number of bilingual Hispanics in the United States who watch English-language television, Univision and the ABC News division of the Walt Disney Co. are teaming up to start a cable channel with news and lifestyle programming. Through the joint venture, both companies see an opportunity to grow: Disney, by negotiating a per-subscriber fee for the channel that will support ABC News, and Univision, by expanding into English-speaking media for the first time.

NEW YORK - ABC News and Univision on Monday announced a joint venture to create an English-language news network aimed at Latinos that will offer online content this summer and be on television next year. The venture, which does not have a name yet, is aimed at establishing a beachhead within one segment of the rapidly growing Latino marketplace: those people born in the United States who prefer to get their news in English. "It's not the future of America," said ABC News president Ben Sherwood.

NEW YORK - Howard S. Turner - who helped oversee construction of Madison Square Garden in New York as president of Turner Construction Co., the builder founded by his uncle - has died. He was 100. He died of pneumonia April 25 at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Pennsylvania, according to company spokesman Christopher McFadden. Dr. Turner was a resident of Newtown Square, a suburb of Philadelphia. Turner Construction, one of the largest US builders, has erected world landmarks including the new Yankee Stadium in New York; the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla.; and the...

US Senator Scott Brown, who played a critical role in the battle over the 2010 financial regulatory overhaul, has used a joint fund-raising committee to collect $2.9 million in political donations over the last year, nearly half of which came from the nation's financial sector. A Globe analysis of the money raised by this joint committee, which was launched without fanfare or publicity in March 2011, indicates that this sector's deep reservoir of support for the Republican senator extends far beyond the contributions made to his campaign committee.

The state’s highest court overturned yesterday the murder conviction of a man found guilty under a “joint venture’’ theory, saying the legal instruction judges use to explain the theory to jurors is confusing. Timothy Zanetti was convicted in the July 2004 shooting of Hector Rivera in Worcester. The fatal bullet was fired from a car in which Zanetti was a passenger. The jury convicted him as a joint venturer, but he argued in his appeal that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove he deliberately premeditated the murder as part of a joint venture.

Alcoa Inc. and the Saudi Arabian mining company Ma'aden said Sunday that their $10.8 billion aluminum joint venture signed financing agreements worth nearly a billion dollars. Ma'aden Bauxite and Alumina Co.'s agreements with 13 local and international banks include a combination of conventional and Islamic allocations totaling $991.5 million, the companies said. Alcoa owns 25.1 percent of Ma'aden Bauxite and Alumina, while Ma'aden owns the rest. The project will include a bauxite mine with an initial capacity of 4 million metric tons per year, an alumina...

US Senator Scott Brown, who played a critical role in the battle over the 2010 financial regulatory overhaul, has used a joint fund-raising committee to collect $2.9 million in political donations over the last year, nearly half of which came from the nation's financial sector. A Globe analysis of the money raised by this joint committee, which was launched without fanfare or publicity in March 2011, indicates that this sector's deep reservoir of support for the Republican senator extends far beyond the contributions made to his campaign committee.

The DuPont Co. has acquired full ownership of Solae LLC, a soy ingredients producer that had been a joint venture with Bunge Ltd., an agribusiness and food company based in New York. DuPont, which previously owned 72 percent of Solae, acquired the 28 percent stake held by Bunge for about $440 million. DuPont Executive Vice President James Borel said Tuesday that full ownership of St. Louis-based Solae, coupled with DuPont's acquisition of Danish food ingredients company Danisco last year, boosts DuPont's position in the food ingredients business.