Business news in brief

Talen Energy Corp., Allentown, will acquire Mach Gen L.L.C. for $1.2 billion, adding three large combined-cycle, natural gas-fired power plants in New York, Massachusetts and Arizona to its portfolio. The addition of 2,500 megawatts of generation capacity will increase Talen's capacity to 17,600 megawatts. Talen was created in June from the generation assets of PPL Corp. Riverstone Holdings.
- Andrew Maykuth

H. Baird Whitehead, chief executive officer of embattled Radnor oil producer Penn Virginia Corp. since 2011, announced plans Monday to retire. Whitehead, 65, who worked with Penn Virginia for more than 14 years, oversaw the company's transformation from a multi-region gas producer to largely an oil producer concentrated in the Eagle Ford shale formation in Texas. Like many smaller oil producers, Penn Virginia has come under investor pressure since oil prices plunged at the end of 2014. Penn Virginia says it has retained an executive search firm to find a replacement. Whitehead, who received total compensation of $3.7 million in 2014, will continue to serve as CEO until a successor is named, the board announced. - Andrew Maykuth

Fresh off of her victory against Apple Inc., Taylor Swift is taking on an even more ambitious challenge: conquering China. The singer is teaming up with JD.com Inc., the second-largest e-commerce company in China, to sell a new fashion line designed specifically for Chinese shoppers. Dresses, sweatshirts and other tops will be available in August on the website, ahead of Swift's "1989" tour visit to Shanghai in November. JD is looking to Swift to help expand deeper into clothing, where it's chasing China's No. 1 e-commerce company, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. As part of the push, JD is wooing U.S. brands by eschewing the knockoff merchandise that's common in some Chinese marketplaces. - Bloomberg News

Hackers are threatening to expose information on more than 30 million users of AshleyMadison.com, a website for cheating spouses famous for its tagline "Life is short. Have an affair." A group of hackers called the Impact Team reportedly has posted some data already and is demanding that parent company Avid Life Media shut down AshleyMadison and a sister site, EstablishedMen.com, according to Krebs on Security, a blog run by former Washington Post reporter Brian Krebs. The Toronto-based Avid Life Media said it closed the breach in its computer system and was working with law enforcement. In a manifesto obtained by Krebs, the hackers said: "Avid Life Media has been instructed to take Ashley Madison and Established Men offline permanently in all forms, or we will release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers' secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and e-mails." - Los Angeles Times

Two of Gawker's top editors resigned after management deleted a story about an executive at Conde Nast who tried to book a male escort. Tommy Craggs, executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, editor-in-chief of Gawker.com, said they quit because they could no longer guarantee that editorial integrity would trump the company's perceived business interests. "Advertisers such as Discover and BFGoodrich were either putting holds on their campaigns or pulling out entirely" as a result of the story, Craggs said in a memo to editorial staff. Gawker Media management, including company founder and owner Nick Denton, voted Friday to remove the post about David Geithner, chief financial officer of media giant Conde Nast. The story was criticized for outing a man married to a woman for seeking a male escort. In a blog post Friday, Denton said he regretted ever posting the story. - Los Angeles Times

Christie's sales of art and collectibles rose to a record 2.9 billion pounds ($4.5 billion) in the first six months of the year as demand from new clients increased. The tally at London-based Christie's, the world's largest art broker, increased 7.4 percent from the same period in 2014 as collectors favored impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary works, the company said in a statement. In May, Christie's sold the most expensive artwork at auction, Pablo Picasso's 1955 Les Femmes d'Alger, (Version "O"), for $179.4 million. A growing number of wealthy collectors are entering the market, focusing particularly on contemporary works they consider good investments. New clients increased to 24 percent of all buyers in the first half, and in the middle market, defined as lots priced 100,000 pounds to 1 million pounds, they rose 14 percent, Christie's said. - Bloomberg News