Business news in brief

Qlik Technologies Inc., a Radnor business intelligence software developer, said Tuesday it had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed secondary public offering of 10 million shares of its common stock. All the shares are being offered by stockholders, including venture capital investors, management, and employees, who will receive the proceeds. An additional 1.5 million shares from the selling stockholders will be made available to underwriters. Shares closed down 77 cents, or 3.4 percent, at $21.89. - Chris Mondics

Pittsburgh has become the first Pennsylvania city to approve a total ban on natural gas drilling. The Pittsburgh City Council on Tuesday voted 9-0 to approve a ban within city limits. City Councilman Doug Shields introduced the bill earlier this year. He said before Tuesday's vote that drilling companies were putting jobs and making money before people's health. Attorneys representing gas companies have said they may sue to challenge the ban because they say drilling is rightly regulated by state and federal agencies. - AP

EOG Resources Inc., the natural gas company cited because a fire in one of its Marcellus Shale wells spewed gas and wastewater for 16 hours before it was brought under control, signed an agreement to sell 50,000 net acres, mostly in Bradford County, Pa. EOG reached the $405 million deal with Newfield Exploration Co., which will more than double its land holdings in the Marcellus region. Both companies are based in Houston. - Roslyn Rudolph

PolyMedix Inc., a Radnor biotechnology company focused on drugs to treat infectious diseases and acute cardiovascular disorders, and the University of Massachusetts have received approval from the U.S. Army Research Office for phase-two testing of antimicrobial compounds to treat multidrug-resistant bacteria. PolyMedix will receive $524,000 under this phase of the contract. - Chris Mondics

A person briefed on the matter says General Motors Co. will expand its initial public offering by 113 million common shares. The person says the U.S. government will sell most of the additional shares. The move would expand the IPO by 31 percent. Shares are still expected to be priced at about $33 each when they are sold Thursday. The person did not want to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the sale. - AP

U.S. homebuilders battered by the worst summer for home sales in a decade are looking ahead to spring. The National Association of Home Builders said its monthly index of builders' sentiment edged up in November to 16, the highest reading since June. Readings below 50 indicate negative sentiment. The last time the index was above 50 was in April 2006. The report reflects a survey of 420 residential developers nationwide. - AP

China, the biggest buyer of U.S. Treasury securities, has boosted its holdings for the third straight month. China's holdings of Treasury debt rose to $883.5 billion in September, the Treasury Department said in a report. That's a 1.7 percent increase from August. For much of this year, China has been increasing its holdings of Treasury debt. The report shows that China and other countries still have a robust appetite for Treasury debt even as the U.S. government is running annual budget deficits topping $1 trillion. - AP

The Internal Revenue Service ended the legal action that forced Swiss bank UBS AG to disclose thousands of account-holders suspected of cheating on U.S. taxes, a landmark case the IRS commissioner, Doug Shulman, called only the beginning of a global offshore tax-evasion probe. The IRS withdrew its Miami federal court summons seeking identities of suspected U.S. tax dodgers at UBS after receiving more than 4,000 names as required under an August 2009 agreement that also included the Swiss government. - AP

The growers who produce the bulk of the country's winter tomatoes have reached a major deal with farmworkers on better pay and conditions. The new deal activates agreements with food chains such as McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Burger King, which have been on hold for years because the farmers who supply the tomatoes to the chains have refused to implement them. Workers will receive an extra penny for every pound of tomatoes they pick under the deal announced Tuesday by the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange and pickers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. - AP

Panel approves Diamond to Fed, again

Peter Diamond, the Nobel Prize-winning economist whose nomination to the Federal Reserve Board has been held up by Republican lawmakers, won approval from the Senate Banking Committee for a second time. The panel voted, 16-7, to recommend Diamond to the full Senate, overcoming an objection by Alabama Sen. Richard C. Shelby, the committee's senior Republican, that Diamond's nomination violates a law saying no two Fed governors can be from the same region. All opposition came from Republicans. - Bloomberg News

Online brokerage TD Ameritrade will offer up to $2,500 to each of the more than six million current and former customers affected by the theft of their contact information more than three years ago. But the proposed settlement, which will cost from $2.5 million to $6.5 million, still must be approved by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco. Last year, Walker rejected an earlier class-action settlement because it didn't do enough to benefit the Ameritrade customers affected. - AP