[naviga:h3]Dow Chemical and DuPont say share[/naviga:h3]

NEW YORK — Shareholders for agriculture and chemicals companies DuPont and Dow Chemical have approved their merger. After it’s complete, the century-old companies plan to break up into three parts.

The companies held meetings where shareholders voted on the deal. Both Dow and DuPont were pushed by activist investors to break up or find other ways to revitalize their businesses. They agreed to merge in December in an all-stock deal valued at about $62 billion.

They expect the combination to be official by the end of 2016, but regulators will still have to approve it.

[naviga:h3]American Express 2Q earnings jump[/naviga:h3]

NEW YORK — American Express said Wednesday that its second-quarter profit jumped 37 percent, helped by the sale of its Costco credit card portfolio and increased spending on its namesake cards.

AmEx sold the Costco portfolio to Citigroup, providing one-time after-tax gain of $677 million for the April-June quarter.

The credit card company said it earned $2.02 billion in the period, or $2.10 per share. The results topped estimates from Wall Street analysts, who were looking for AmEx to earn $1.96 per share.

[naviga:h3]AB InBev says it has US approval for merger[/naviga:h3]

NEW YORK — Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer maker, announced Wednesday that it has reached an agreement with the Justice Department that clears the way for U.S. approval of its acquisition of SABMiller.

AB InBev, the maker of Budweiser and Bud Light, will sell SABMiller’s entire U.S. business to Molson Coors as previously announced as part of the agreement. That means Budweiser would continue to compete with Miller beer in the United States.

The merger, valued at about $107 billion, had raised concerns that a single company would control too much of the beer market.