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Wal-Mart Stores Inc is considering bids from retirement plan managers to run its $15.6 billion 401(k) program, which has been administered by Bank of America's Merrill Lynch unit for 15 years, according to three sources familiar with the situation. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer is talking to Wells Fargo & Co's retirement division about managing the program, the largest U.S. private sector plan, said the sources, who wished to remain anonymous because they are not permitted to speak to the media. Bank of America is also in the running, they said. It was unclear if other plan providers were also being considered. Wells Fargo, the No. 4 U.S. bank by assets; Bank of America, the No. 2 U.S. bank; and Wal-Mart declined to comment.   While Wal-Mart accounts are much smaller than the average retirement account, the sheer size of the company makes it a coveted - and closely watched - client in the retirement industry. It could not be learned when Wal-Mart last conduc

The European Union will seek on Friday to forge rules to force losses on large savers when banks fail, a sensitive reform that could shape how the euro zone deals with its sickly banks. Finance ministers in Luxembourg will try to resolve one of the most difficult questions posed by Europe's banking crisis - how to shut failed banks without sowing panic or burdening taxpayers. "The costs of future restructurings can't be wished away," said a senior EU official involved in the talks. "We need a mechanism to shift the burden away from taxpayers." The European Union spent the equivalent of a third of its economic output on saving its banks between 2008 and 2011, plundering taxpayer cash but struggling to contain the crisis and in the case of Ireland , almost bankrupting the country. But France and Germany are divided over how strict the new rules should be, with Paris worried that imposing losses on depositors could prompt a bank run.   A draft EU law t

Sprint Nextel Corp raised its buyout offer for Clearwire Corp to $5 per share on Thursday and announced support from a key group of dissident shareholders, likely ending a bitter battle with rival suitor Dish Network Corp. Sprint, currently Clearwire's majority shareholder, has been fighting publicly with Dish over Clearwire since January as both companies want Clearwire's vast trove of valuable wireless airwaves to help them compete in wireless services.   Clearwire put its support behind the latest offer, representing the second major blow in a matter of days against Dish Chairman and founder Charlie Ergen, who wants to expand his satellite TV company into the wireless market. Earlier this week Ergen had to back out, at least for now, from a battle with Japan's SoftBank Corp to buy Sprint itself. Dish declined comment on the new Clearwire offer. Several analysts said they now expect Sprint to prevail. "We believe Clearwire shareholders will approve the $5 off

U.S. efforts to forge a "21st Century" trade agreement with Vietnam and 10 other countries in the Asia Pacific region are running into problems mired in the past, including a textile trade policy that U.S. industry does not want to give up. The United States hopes to finish talks on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact by the end of the year, but Vietnam says the sides are nowhere close on its biggest priority: market access for its clothing and footwear exports.   The latest U.S. offer "is really, really difficult for us to accept," Nguyen Vu Tung, deputy chief of mission at Vietnam's embassy in Washington, said on Wednesday during a panel discussion at The Wilson Center, a foreign policy think tank. Unless the two sides can reach a breakthrough, "I'm really concerned about the prospect of Vietnam to conclude the successful negotiation of TPP," Tung said. The problem is rooted in decades of tariff protection for the U.S. textile

Oracle Corp missed expectations for software sales and subscriptions for the second straight quarter, sending its shares plunging as investors worried CEO Larry Ellison may have trouble getting the technology giant back on track. On Thursday, Oracle executives forecast that new software sales and subscriptions will rise 0 percent to 8 percent this quarter and blamed weakness in the past quarter on disappointing sales in Asia and Latin America. Oracle, which is trying to fend off Salesforce.com and other increasingly aggressive rivals focused on providing software over the cloud or Internet, plans to move its stock listing to the New York Stock Exchange in July from the Nasdaq , a major win for the older bourse. Executives said the move was in shareholders' best interests, without elaborating. Oracle also said it would double its quarterly dividend to 12 cents a share. "Organic growth is slowing and the company has a lot of pressures it has to deal with. They're late

Rockwood Holdings Inc ( id="symbol_ROC.N_0"> ROC.N ) has canceled a combined auction of its titanium dioxide and performance additives units after failing to attract the offers it was hoping for, four people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. _0"> The Princeton, New Jersey-based chemicals maker was in talks with private equity firms to sell the assets for between $1.5 billion and $2 billion but ended the process after it became apparent that such offers were not attainable, the people said.   Spinning off the assets instead is now an option that Rockwood is considering, one of the people said. All the people asked not to be identified because the talks were confidential. Rockwood declined to comment. The canceled sale process comes less than a week after Rockwood agreed to sell one of its other businesses, industrial ceramics developer CeramTec, to European private equity firm Cinven Ltd for 1.49 billion euros ($1.98 billion). (Reporting by Greg Roume

Stocks fell more than 2 percent on Thursday, extending the previous day's sharp decline as investors fretted over the Federal Reserve's plan to begin reducing its stimulus later this year if the economy strengthens. The S&P 500 recorded its biggest daily decline since November 11, 2011, on the year's heaviest day of trading. All 10 S&P sectors were sharply lower, with 94 percent of stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange down for the day and more than four-fifths of Nasdaq -listed shares ending lower.   The Dow Jones industrial average dived 353.87 points, or 2.34 percent, at 14,758.32. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 40.74 points, or 2.50 percent, at 1,588.19. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 78.57 points, or 2.28 percent, at 3,364.64. The Fed's program of bond-buying has fueled stock market gains this year, sending indexes to a series of all-time highs. A trend emerged of investors buying on market dips and limiting stocks' de