Following a run of fairly strong U.S. economic data, investors are increasingly confident that the world’s largest economy is over a soft patch from last summer, helping to offset the global economic impact wrought by Europe’s ongoing debt crisis.

Figures released Friday provided further evidence that the eurozone is heading for a recession. Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, said retail sales dropped 0.4 percent during the month, in contrast to expectations for an increase of the same amount.

The December data reinforced expectations that the eurozone contracted during the fourth quarter of the year. Eurostat is due to publish its first estimate for the quarter on Feb. 15.

The highlight of the day in the markets will be the monthly U.S. nonfarm payrolls data. Expectations are that the U.S. economy generated around 150,000 jobs during January. Though that is unspectacular for an economy recovering from its worst recession since World War II, the amount of jobs being created is up from levels seen just a few months ago.

“Volatility is likely to remain low until these figures are out, with traders opting to sit and await news rather than heavily commit themselves,” said David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.5 percent at 5,823 while Germany’s DAX rose 0.4 percent to 6,682. The CAC-40 in France was 0.5 percent higher at 3,394.

Wall Street was also poised for a solid opening, though how it actually performs will hinge on the payrolls data, which are released an hour before the bell free credit score. Dow futures and the S&P 500 futures were both up 0.2 percent.

The euro was also garnering support alongside stocks _ when appetite for risk is elevated, the euro often finds favour. It was trading 0.3 percent higher at $1.3177 despite the retail sales disappointment.

The focus on the U.S. has proved a welcome diversion for some traders from monitoring the daily grind of Europe’s debt crisis, where much hinges on whether Greece can secure a deal with its private creditors, as is anticipated. A deal is expected soon, though that has been the official line for a few weeks.

Earlier in Asia, the picture was mixed.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.5 percent to close at 8,831.93 but Hong Kong’s Hang Seng ended marginally higher at 20,756.98.

Mainland Chinese shares extended gains fueled by news of fresh support for the farming and small-business sectors, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rising 0.8 percent to 2,330.41 while the Shenzhen Composite Index added 1.5 percent to 878.29.

Oil markets were also relatively subdued. Benchmark oil for March delivery was up 40 cents to $96.76 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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Senate leaders are poised this week to sink Nixon’s nomination of St. Louis attorney Jason Hall to lead the Department of Economic Development, claiming the 36-year-old lacks the experience necessary for the job. The Senate committee that approves nominations declined to take up Hall’s on Wednesday. And if they don’t by week’s end, not only will his nomination expire, but Hall will be barred for life from holding the post.

Senate President Pro Tem Robert Mayer, R-Dexter, said Wednesday he has no plans to approve Hall this week, and people familiar with the talks said his nomination is basically dead.

But there was no official word from Nixon’s office, which put out a statement saying Hall is “highly qualified.” Hall himself did not return messages seeking comment.

The son of a Granite City steelworker and founder of a group for gay lawyers in St. Louis, Hall was an attorney at Bryan Cave before Nixon tapped him to lead the quasi-governmental Missouri Technology Corp. in 2009. In December, Nixon picked Hall to replace outgoing DED director David Kerr, calling him “exactly the type of bright, energetic leader we need to help create jobs and move Missouri’s economy forward.”

But Hall’s nomination came on the eve of an election year, on the heels of a legislative special session where lawmakers couldn’t agree on job-creation tools, and amid probes into DED’s handling of a sweetener plant deal that collapsed in Moberly last fall.

All those factors likely played a role in Senate opposition to Hall, said Dan Mehan, president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“This appointment became that much more critical and focused on,” Mehan said. “It was going to get attention because there is this opinion out there, rightly or wrongly, that [DED] needs to be fixed.”

Mehan is one of several business leaders who’ve said they support Hall’s nomination. He called Hall well-qualified, and pointed out that Missouri has had many officials - from both parties - who served in top roles while in their 30’s.

“[Hall’s] a quality guy and would be a great benefit to the state,” Mehan said.

Mayer sees it differently. Talking to reporters in Jefferson City today, he noted the nominee has “very little experience in private industry or business.”

“Most senators believe he’s a bright, articulate young man,” Mayer said. “But at this stage in his life, I don’t think he’s ready to take on the position of the Department of Economic Development.”

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The arrests spread the scandal over tabloid wrongdoing _ which has already caused the closure of one tabloid, the News of the World _ to a second Murdoch newspaper.

London’s Metropolitan Police said two men aged 48 and one aged 56 were arrested on suspicion of corruption early in the morning at homes in and around London. A 42-year-old man was detained later at a London police station.

Murdoch’s News Corp. confirmed that all four were current or former Sun employees.

A fifth man, a 29-year-old police officer, was arrested at the London station where he works.

The investigation into whether reporters illegally paid police for information is running parallel to a police inquiry into phone hacking by Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World.

Officers were searching the men’s homes and the east London headquarters of the media mogul’s British newspapers for evidence.

Police said Saturday’s arrests were made as a result of information provided by the Management and Standards Committee of Murdoch’s News Corp.

News Corp. said it was cooperating with police.

“News Corporation made a commitment last summer that unacceptable news gathering practices by individuals in the past would not be repeated,” it said in a statement.

A dozen people have now been arrested in the bribery probe, though none has yet been charged.

They include former Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of Murdoch’s News International, ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson _ who is also Prime Minister David Cameron’s former communications chief _ and journalists from the News of the World and The Sun.

Two of the London police force’s top officers resigned in the wake of the revelation last July that the News of the World had eavesdropped on the cell phone voicemail messages of celebrities, athletes, politicians and even an abducted teenager in its quest for stories.

Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old tabloid, and the scandal has triggered a continuing public inquiry into media ethics and the relationship between the press, police and politicians.

An earlier police investigation failed to find evidence hacking went beyond one reporter and a private investigator, but News Corp. has now acknowledged it was much more widespread.

Last week the company agreed to pay damages to 37 hacking victims, including actor Jude Law, soccer star Ashley Cole and British politician John Prescott.

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Eastman, a chemical manufacturer based in Kingsport, Tenn., is acquiring Solutia for $3.4 billion in cash and stock, and assuming $1.3 billion in debt. The deal is set to close in mid-2012, pending shareholder approval.

Solutia makes specialty films and chemicals for the automotive and architectural industries, and employs 3,400 people worldwide, including 450 locally.

With $2.1 billion in revenue last year, Solutia is one of the largest public companies based in the St. Louis region.

Solutia has two local facilities - the Town and Country headquarters, with 300 employees, and a Sauget manufacturing plant where 150 people work.

A Solutia spokeswoman said there was no information yet on the fate of local workers, though headquarters jobs are often a cost-cutting target in mergers. On Friday, Eastman said the headquarters of the combined companies will be in Kingsport.

Menawhile, the Sauget plant - which makes chemicals for tire manufacturing - runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Sauget Mayor Rich Sauget said he spoke with Solutia employees as recently as last week who were unaware that a sale was in the works.

“They mean a lot to us,” Sauget said of Solutia’s local workforce. “We hope, whoever comes in, that they see an opportunity with Solutia and their properties here.”

Despite the uncertainty, Eastman won’t be leaving the region, Solutia’s chairman, president and CEO Jeffry Quinn predicted.

“I certainly would expect the combined company to have a significant presence in St. Louis for some time,” Quinn said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch. Quinn, who joined Solutia in 2003, will leave the company once the sale finalizes.

In the sale announcement, the companies did not disclose how much Quinn stands to gain when the deal closes. However, Solutia’s most recent proxy statement stated last year that Quinn’s compensation, including cash severance and stock options, would have totalled $21.6 million based on the company’s stock price at the end of 2010.

Under the deal, Solutia shareholders will receive $22 in cash and 0.12 shares of Eastman stock for each share of Solutia that they own. Based on Solutia’s closing price Thursday, Eastman offered a 42 percent premium for Solutia’s stock.

Eastman, which had $7.2 billion in revenue last year, plans to fund the cash portion of the buyout with available cash and debt.

After the early morning announcement, Eastman’s stock soared. Based on Friday’s closing prices, Solutia shareholders will receive cash and stock valued at $28.05 for each Solutia share.

Meanwhile, Solutia’s stock jumped more than 41 percent after the sale was announced, closing Friday at $27.52 a share.

Eastman expects about $100 million in annual cost savings by the end of 2013, as the acquisition is expected to help lower costs and help the company purchase raw materials at lower prices payday loans. The company said the deal will immediately boost earnings.

Global push

The original Monsanto Co. spun off Solutia in 1997 in an effort to focus on drugs and agriculture. Solutia, burdened with heavy debt loads and retirees’ benefits dating before the spin-off, floundered as raw material prices rose and environmental legal costs increased.

In 2003, Solutia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It didn’t emerge out of bankruptcy until 2008.

During the years in bankruptcy, Solutia grew its international reach while divesting underperforming or non-core brands and businesses such as nylon, acrylic fibers and feed ingredients.

In 2003, only 30 percent of Solutia’s revenue came from international sales. Today, that has jumped to 75 percent.

“We’ve really transformed the company into one of the preeminent specialty chemical companies in the world,” Quinn said. “Many of the products we make are expensive to ship, so we built around the world to serve our customers.”

Growth in the company’s technical specialties division, for example, paralleled the development of infrastructure in places such as China. With the new roads, demand for radial tires - which use a chemical made by Solutia - is on the rise.

That global reach drove the Tennessee company’s interests in Solutia, Eastman’s chairman and CEO Jim Rogers said in a conference call with analysts Friday.

“With the addition of Solutia, Eastman will be adding manufacturing capacity in Asia over the next couple of years to meet growth,” Rogers said.

Eastman, which has 10,000 employees globally, was itself a product of a spin-off. The company was spun-off from camera and film maker Kodak in 1994.

In the conference call, Rogers said Eastman began exploring acquisition opportunities last summer.

“Solutia was number one then, and it has stayed number one through this whole process,” he said.

Talks with Solutia’s board began in the fall and intensified in the past 30 days, Quinn said.

The deal came on the same day Solutia announced fourth quarter and full-year financial results. Solutia’s fourth-quarter net income rose 15 percent to $54 million, or 45 cents per share, from $47 million, or 39 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue increased 8 percent to $526 million.

For the full-year, Solutia earned $262 million, or $2.16 per share. That compares with earnings of $78 million, or 65 cents per share, in the previous year. Annual revenue climbed 8 percent to $2.1 billion.

Tim Logan of the Post-Dispatch and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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After 33 years at the Swedish home-ware chain, the 54-year-old chief executive is an expert at configuring IKEA’s famous flat-pack furniture.

But Ohlsson is not bragging about the fact that he can beat the assembly time the company itself advertises by some 10 minutes. What makes him proud is that the Ektorp can be flat-packed at all.

Seated on a “Blekinge white” example of the Ektorp in a cozily furnished exhibition room at an IKEA store in Zaventem, Belgium, Ohlsson recounts how, until recently, the popular couch also came packed in one of the company’s biggest cardboard boxes _ a pain for customers to squeeze into their cars or carry up narrow staircases.

But then in 2010, IKEA’s product designers came up with a way of breaking the Ektorp into different pieces. The results was a package half its former size, which the company claims took some 7,477 trucks off the roads and cut its yearly CO2 emissions by 4,700 tons. Savings in production and transport costs knocked euro100 ($128) off the price IKEA charges its customers, Ohlsson pointed out.

It’s innovations like these, the CEO says, that make IKEA so successful even in the uncertain economic times that some of its biggest markets are facing.

On Friday, IKEA reported a 10.3 percent jump in net profit to euro2.97 billion ($3.81 billion) for the year ended Aug. 31, even though it cut prices by 2.6 percent. Revenue rose 6.9 percent to euro25.17 billion in the same period and Ohlsson says the sales pace has been accelerating since then _ even as stock markets around the world have taken a dive amid the worsening financial crisis in Europe.

“We are becoming a more natural choice when people are looking after their spending or are concerned about the future,” says Ohlsson, his black trousers, black sweater and half-rimmed glasses all possessing the understatement of a Billy bookcase.

“A lot of people see that home is a very important place, maybe the most important place in their lives.”

While sales have fallen in some Southern European countries like Greece, Ohlsson says IKEA has gained market share in all of them.

Over the past decade, the company expanded into big emerging markets like Russia and China, although 79 percent of its sales are still generated in Europe. In the next two or three years, IKEA wants to open stores in Serbia and Croatia and it has recently bought land in South Korea.

But the biggest opportunity may lie in India, a fast-growing country of around 1 bad credit unsecured personal loans.2 billion people, that Ohlsson says IKEA has been eyeing “patiently but also impatiently” for years.

“The impatience is that of course there are a lot of people that are moving into the city, have better incomes and want to furnish their homes and that’s why there is space for us,” says Ohlsson. “And patient because we wanted FDI (foreign direct investment) legislation to change.”

That change happened last week, when the Indian Commerce Ministry announced it would allow foreign companies that sell products under a single-brand name, such as IKEA, to own 100 percent of their stores there.

Ohlsson and his chief financial officer, Soeren Hansen, say the company is still studying the fine print, to make sure, for instance, that requirements to source a certain percentage of products locally won’t interrupt its cherished value chain, where it controls design, production, storage and retail.

In contrast to other companies, which are under pressure to quickly produce new value for shareholders, IKEA can move more slowly. The retailer is not traded on the stock market, but is owned by a foundation controlled by the family of its octogenarian founder Ingvar Kamprad.

That structure not only protects IKEA from being split up or taken over, but, says Ohlsson, allows him to make investments in new markets or store upgrades that may not pay off for several years.

Throughout the conversation, the CEO stresses IKEA’s eco-friendly policies and humble origins in a poor area of Sweden. In the Zaventem store on the outskirts of Brussels, solar panels on the roof provide up to 20 percent of the energy. The company owns several wind parks and one of its Berlin stores uses local wastewater to control internal temperatures.

IKEA has come a long way from its start in the Smaland region in Southern Sweden. Today it employs 131,000 people in 41 countries and its 287 stores drew in 655 million customers last year.

Ohlsson says he believes the urge to upgrade and become more comfortable does not seem to recede during an economic downturn. Asked whether IKEA’s business was “recession-proof,” Ohlsson laughs somewhat embarrassed.

“I wouldn’t say it like that and it would not be humble to say it,” he said.

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