Business highlights

The top managers of R. H. Macy & Co., the nation's 10th-largest retailer, said Monday they intend to take the company private in a deal worth $3.58 billion. Under the leveraged-buyout proposal, Macy's chairman and chief executive officer, Edward S. Finkelstein, its president and chief operating officer, Mark S. Handler, and other senior executives would pay $70 a share in cash for the company's approximately 51.2 million shares outstanding, they said.

The buyout is subject to the group's arranging financing, the executives said.

The board of directors of Beatrice Companies Inc. has unanimously rejected a New York investment firm's leveraged-buyout offer, worth an estimated $4.9 billion. Beatrice, one of the world's largest food and consumer-products companies, has turned down a proposal by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. for $40 cash and $5 in preferred stock for each share of common stock to make Beatrice a private company.

The company described the offer by Kohlberg Kravis as ``inadequate.''

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is proposing a new regulation to require more banks to make detailed public disclosure of their financial health, acting Comptroller Joe Selby said. Mr. Selby told the American Bankers Association convention here Sunday that the regulation would require the federally chartered banks regulated by the comptroller periodically to disclose to their customers information ranging from financial data to executive salaries.

``We want to propose something that allows banks to say, `Hey, here are some pitfalls you should be aware of,' '' Selby said.