Shares in Delphi Financial Group, Wilmington, rose yesterday after the Wilmington insurer said Thursday that its board of directors had approved a 3-for-2 stock split and a 20 percent increase in the company's regular cash dividend. Both the stock split and dividend increase will take place June 1 for shareholders of record as of May 18. On a pre-split basis, the new quarterly dividend will be 12 cents a share; on a post-split basis, it will be 8 cents. The moves "reflect our confidence in the longer-term outlook for our insurance business as well as our strong financial position," Robert Rosenkranz, Delphi's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. Delphi's shares closed up 82 cents, or 1.58 percent, yesterday at $52.82. Its 52-week high is $54.64.

Penn Virginia Corp. said its board of directors had approved a 13 percent increase in the company's 2006 budget for capital expenditures, to $235 million from $208 million. That brings the total increase from 2005 to 38 percent. The Radnor company said the additional money would be used primarily to drill more natural-gas wells, drill deeper wells in eastern Texas, and expand leasehold positions.

Sunoco Inc., Philadelphia, said it would redeem its remaining 93/8 percent sinking-fund debentures on June 5. The final maturity date was June 1, 2016, for the original issue of $200 million from 1986. The outstanding amount is $56.45 million. The redemption price is 100 percent of the principal amount, plus accrued interest to the redemption date of June 5, 2006.

Americans increased their borrowing in March at the slowest pace in four months as people cut back on their credit-card charges. The Federal Reserve reported that consumer borrowing rose at an annual rate of just 1.4 percent in March. That was down from a 2.5 percent pace in February and represented the smallest increase since November, when consumers actually sliced their borrowing. That moderation in March was led by a cutback in borrowing on credit cards. Use of revolving credit, primarily credit cards, dipped at a 0.2 percent pace in March, after a tiny 0.1 percent growth rate in February. The Fed's report does not include debt from home mortgages, home-equity loans, or other loans secured by real estate.

El Paso Corp., operator of the nation's largest gas-pipeline system, reported first-quarter earnings more than tripled from a year ago, sending its stock price up 13 percent. The Houston oil and gas company's shares rose $1.69 to close at $15.18, after reaching a new 52-week high of $15.25 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. El Paso chief executive officer Doug Foshee told analysts the quarter's results represented a three-year effort to narrow the company's focus to natural-gas distribution. El Paso's earnings, after preferred dividends, rose to $346 million, or 49 cents a share, from $106 million, or 17 cents a share, a year ago. Profit from continuing operations totaled $375 million, or 52 cents a share. The latest quarter included gains of 14 cents a share from derivatives to hedge prices for natural-gas and oil production. A year earlier, the company's results included a loss from such derivatives. The year-ago results also included gains from asset and investment sales, and a charge for early payment of a settlement. Analysts expected earnings of 27 cents a share, according to a poll by Thomson Financial. Revenue climbed 41 percent, to $1.53 billion from $1.09 billion, helped by growth in pipeline, exploration and production, and marketing and trading operations.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued Liberty Mutual Group as part of a nationwide investigation into bid-rigging in the insurance industry. Spitzer accused the major property and casualty insurer of making payoffs to insurance brokers and independent agents to steer customers to Liberty Mutual, Boston. Spitzer said the incentives and payoffs worked, and brokers and agents violated their duty to help customers get the lowest-priced and most-suitable insurance coverage. A Liberty Mutual spokesman had no immediate comment.

Sanofi-Aventis SA, the drugmaker with operations in the Philadelphia area, said first-quarter profit rose 54 percent on higher revenue from its Plavix blood-thinner and a one-time gain from the sale of a diabetes medicine. Earnings climbed to 2.17 billion euros ($2.76 billion), or 1.62 euros a share, from 1.42 billion euros, or 1.06 euros a share, a year earlier, Paris-based Sanofi said. The earnings exclude costs tied to the $74 billion merger that created the company. First-quarter revenue rose 9.6 percent to 7.03 billion euros. Sales growth in the United States has stalled. Revenue in Europe increased about 5 percent, while sales in the rest of the world climbed 13 percent.

An appeals court reversed the sentence of Malcolm "Tadd" McVay, a former HealthSouth Corp. chief financial officer who pleaded guilty in the company's $2.7 billion accounting fraud, calling six months' probation too lenient. The sentence was an "extraordinary" departure from federal guidelines for McVay's crime, signing a false 10-Q statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled. U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon of Birmingham, Ala., must resentence McVay to "reflect the seriousness of the crime, promote respect for the law," and "provide just punishment," the court said. "We thought the original sentence was fair, and we hope we can convince the judge of that" when the case is sent back to the trial court for resentencing, McVay's lawyer, J. Don Foster, said. "He was only CFO for one quarter," said Foster, who hadn't read the decision. "He was relatively a lightweight."

DaimlerChrysler AG said it was recalling about 45,000 Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger sedans and Dodge Magnum wagons for repairs to prevent brake-fluid leakage that could lead to engine-compartment fires. DaimlerChrysler said the recall affects 2006 model-year vehicles with 2.7-liter engines. In some cases, the exhaust-gas recirculation tube could come into contact with the brake tubes, leading to brake fluid leaking and a fire.

The Washington Post Co. reported a 16 percent increase in first-quarter profit, fueled by increasing revenues in its online publishing and education divisions. Earnings after preferred dividends rose to $76.4 million, or $7.95 a share, from $66.1 million, or $6.87 a share, a year earlier. Revenue grew 14 percent, to $948.3 million from $833.9 million. The latest results included a 53-cent-a-share charge from accounting related to stock-based compensation, while the year-ago period included gains of 56 cents a share from land and securities sales. Despite a decline in both daily and Sunday circulation, the newspaper-publishing division's revenue totaled $243.5 million for the first quarter of 2006, a 4 percent increase from the first quarter of 2005.

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