Business briefs for Jan. 29

Facebook may file for its initial IPO Wednesday

Facebook Inc., the largest social-networking site, may file for its initial public offering on Wednesday and is close to hiring Morgan Stanley to handle the deal, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people.

The company is considering a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will probably play a major role in the IPO, the newspaper reported.

FDA detains orange juice imports with fungicide

The Food and Drug Administration has detained several shipments of imported orange juice after finding traces of the illegal fungicide carbendazim.

The government said the juice is safe to drink. But carbendazim is not approved for use in the United States. It is used in other countries to combat mold on orange trees. The FDA said Friday it had detained about 11 percent of orange juice and orange juice concentrate imports since it started testing for the fungicide this month.

Profit picture mixed for Ford in fourth quarter

Strong sales and profits in the U.S. bolstered Ford in the fourth quarter but the European debt crisis and flooding in Thailand hurt results elsewhere.

Ford reported $13.62 billion in net income, but investors brushed off the result because most of that came from an accounting change. Otherwise, earnings totaled $1.1 billion, or 20 cents a share, missing Wall Street expectations by 5 cents.

California adopts new zero emission rules

California will require automakers to sell millions of zero emission vehicles — battery-electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen-powered — setting new standards also followed by other states.

The rules adopted Friday by the California Air Resources Board mean manufacturers will have to produce about 1.4 million advanced vehicles for sale in that state alone by 2025, more than 40 times the number on the road from 1996 through 2010.

From wire reports