WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama hosted another in a series of private lunches with company chieftains Thursday, part of an intensified effort to close rifts with the business sector over White House interventions in the private sector. The meeting brought Jewelry together chief executives Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc.; Lew Hay of FPL Group Inc.; Antonio Perez of Eastman Kodak Co. and Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft Foods Inc. White House aides said the group discussed financial-sector recovery, health-insurance reform, climate change, and job-creation policy. The executives, who all declined to comment, furnished credit-card numbers to pay for their lunches, the White House said. White House officials describe the lunches -- Thursday's was the third hosted by the president since June -- as an effort to smooth relations after a stormy spring and summer marked by collisions between the administration and the corporate world over issues ranging from the Silver Jewelry auto bailouts and corporate salary controls to proposed overhauls of the health-care and energy sectors. Many CEOs have also complained about what they perceive as Mr. Obama's anti-business rhetoric. Participating executives have described the lunches as intimate, off-the-record conversations, and a welcome shift from the scripted, group sessions with business leaders that the Obama White House often held in its first months. After those meetings, some executives complained that they were treated as "props" and not asked for input. The lunch sessions, aides say, have also offered the president a chance to gather comment from top business leaders on some of his biggest initiatives, above all the drive to remake the nation's health-care system and to push legislation to limit industrial emissions. Similar meetings in the Pandora Jewelry White House this summer produced accords with pharmaceutical manufacturers and hospitals to cut their own costs, and help lower the overhaul's price tag. After Thursday's lunch, Mr. Perez of Kodak released a statement through the Business Roundtable, a corporate lobbying group, praising the Democratic health-care bill now in the Senate Finance Committee. The statement said the bill must be revamped to "reduce overall costs sooner." On Tuesday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama's top aide for business outreach, who also attended Thursday's lunch, met for dinner with CEOs Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner Inc.; Dan Neidich of Dune Capital Management; Paul Otellini of Intel Corp.; Jim Turley of Ernst & Young LLP; and Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical Co. Business leaders described as "close to the administration" by a White House aide also attended, including Penny Pritzker, chief executive of Pritzker Realty Group and a top fundraiser for Mr. Obama's presidential campaign; Mark Gallogly, managing partner of Centerbridge Partners; and Robert Wolf, chief executive of the UBS Group Americas and another big Obama fundraiser. "We are looking for ways of having an opportunity to sit down and have constructive dialogue with the business community," Ms. Jarrett said in an interview. Mr. Obama's two Panodra Beads earlier luncheons with corporate executives were on June 25 and July 31. Guests at those gatherings ranged from Howard Schultz of Starbucks Corp. and Mike Duke of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to Jeff Kindler of Pfizer Inc. and David Cote of Honeywell International Inc. Several CEOs went on to meet with Obama cabinet secretaries to discuss policy issues such as job training and high-school dropout rates. With more small White House sessions in the works, Obama aides say that the president is building a cadre of trusted corporate CEOs to whom he can turn for strategic direction. That focus reflects this administration's Wholesale Watches continuing discomfort with corporate lobbying shops such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The White House asks trade groups for lists of executives to consult, but less often for policy expertise, their leaders say.