At current oil prices, several large and small U.S. airlines will default on their obligations to creditors beginning at the end of 2008 and early 2009, according to a study issued today by AirlineForecasts LLC and the Business Travel Coalition. According to the study, $130-per-barrel oil will add $30 billion to yearly airline costs, a figure the carriers will be unable to offset with $4 billion in fare increases and incremental fees.

Wells Fargo Business Credit, a unit of Wells Fargo & Co., said today that its factoring division will acquire operations of Transcap Associates Inc. The operations to be acquired are the wholly owned subsidiaries Transcap Manufacturing Services Inc. and Transcap Trade Finance LLC, Wells Fargo said in a news release. Transcap is the largest purchase order and trade finance company in the United States, providing short-term financing to small and medium-sized businesses.

U.S. consumer prices rose more than forecast in May as Americans paid more for fuel, underscoring the Federal Reserve’s concern that inflation will pick up. The consumer price index increased 0.6 percent, the most since November, after a 0.2 percent gain the prior month, the U.S. Labor Department said today. So-called core prices, which exclude food and energy, increased 0.2 percent, matching the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The Labor Department report showed energy expenses jumped 4.4 percent after being unchanged the prior month. Gasoline prices rose 5.7 percent and fuel oil costs surged 10 percent.

Principal Financial Group Inc. wants to gain scale in Mexico’s retirement savings and mutual fund industries as it sees strong growth potential for asset management services in that country, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Principal Mexico offers defined-contribution pension products, mutual funds, annuities and asset management services for institutional clients. Principal Afore is the company’s largest operation, ranking eighth in the Mexican pension fund industry by assets, with 36.02 billion pesos ($3.45 billion) under management and nearly 3 million accounts at the end of April. Mexico adopted a compulsory retirement savings system in 1997 for salaried private-sector workers and later expanded an individual account system to the self-employed, who can join on a voluntary basis.

Sauer-Danfoss Inc. declared a cash dividend of 18 cents per share for the quarter ending June 30. The dividend is payable on July 15 to stockholders of record at the close of business on June 27. This is the 41st consecutive quarterly dividend paid by the company since its initial public offering in May 1998.