CHARLES KRUPA / Associated Press
A clerk loads a shopping cart at the BJ's Wholesale Club store in Salem, N.H. The company said yesterday that profit rose 24 percent in its fiscal third quarter.
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Posted on Thu, Nov. 20, 2008
Business news in brief
In the Region
Proposed skyscraper gets variances
A proposed Center City tower that could overshadow the Comcast Center obtained the necessary variances and approvals from the City Planning Commission, according to the company managing the project, Hill International Inc. The proposed height of the American Commerce Center, 1800 Arch St., is 1,510 feet, compared with the 975-foot Comcast Center. Hill will invest in the construction project but has not disclosed a total cost. A bill to rezone the parcel and approve the construction will go to the City Council Rules Committee on Dec. 3. - Bob Fernandez
Tengion raises $21 million
Tengion Inc., East Norriton, said it had received $21 million from a private sale of stock to existing institutional shareholders and one new institution. The new investor is Safeguard Scientifics Inc., of Wayne. Other participants include Bain Capital Partners L.L.C., Quaker BioVentures Inc. and Johnson & Johnson Development Corp. Tengion now has raised $140 million in venture capital. It is a clinical-stage regenerative-medicine company, focused on developing organs and tissues. - Paul Schweizer
Teva, Barr to allow early generic sales
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. settled a patent lawsuit with Sanofi-Aventis over the allergy drugs Allegra and Nasacort, allowing sales of certain generic doses of the medicines early. Israel-based Teva, with North American headquarters in North Wales, is buying Barr, of Montvale, N.J. Teva said it would pay Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis royalties on future sales. The companies did not disclose details, but they said each company would pay Sanofi-Aventis about $30 million. - AP
More layoffs at Pilgrim's Pride
A week after Pilgrim's Pride Corp. finished laying off 116 employees at its plant in Franconia, the nation's largest chicken producer said it would cut 335 jobs nationally by the end of the month. Spokesman Ray Atkinson declined to say how many jobs would be cut at each facility, but he said the reductions would average about 10 per site and total less than 1 percent of the Texas-based company's workforce. The Franconia plant, he said, now employs 100. - Jane M. Von Bergen
Elsewhere
CPI plunge is largest in 61 years
Consumer prices plunged in October by the largest amount in 61 years, led by a record decline in gasoline prices. The Labor Department said consumer prices fell 1 percent last month, the biggest one-month decline on records that go back to February 1947. The drop was twice as large as the 0.5 percent decrease analysts had been expecting and marked the third straight month that prices had either fallen or been unchanged. The big drop in inflation reflected not only a huge fall in gasoline and other energy costs, but also widespread declines in other areas. Core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy, fell 0.1 percent last month, their first drop in more than a quarter-century. - AP
CEO: Microsoft won't buy Yahoo
Microsoft Corp. is no longer interested in buying all of Yahoo Inc., Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer said, though he told shareholders the company would still be "very open" to a search-related collaboration. His comments sent Yahoo shares diving. Yahoo spurned a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft in May, and it later rejected Microsoft's bid to buy only its search engine. - AP
FDA opens office in China
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration opened an office in China's capital - its first outside the United States - as part of a new global strategy to ensure the safety of imports. Product safety has become a key issue as foreign producers make inroads in the United States. Worries about the quality of Chinese exports to the United States have become a major concern, with substandard Chinese food and toxin-laced toothpaste among recent cases. - AP
Mortgage applications decline
Mortgage applications fell 6.2 percent during the week ended Nov. 14, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's weekly survey. Refinance volume decreased 2.6 percent, while purchase volume declined 12.6 percent. Mortgage-application activity is 3.986 times higher than it was when the MBA began tracking the data in 1990. - AP
Philanthropist convicted in swindle
Alberto Vilar, once a pillar of philanthropy for opera and cultural institutions worldwide, was convicted on fraud charges for swindling investors out of millions of dollars. Federal prosecutors in New York accused Vilar, 67, and a business partner, Gary Alan Tanaka, 65, of falsely telling investors their money would be safe. The government said the men poured millions of dollars into risky technology stocks before the shares crashed. The men could face up to 20 years in prison. - AP
Southwest to buy LaGuardia slots
Southwest Airlines Co. will pay $7.5 million for bankrupt ATA Airlines Inc.'s landing slots at New York's LaGuardia Airport, a move expected to raise Southwest's profile in the nation's largest air market. Southwest, which shuttles 12 percent of passengers at Philadelphia International Airport, will get 14 slots next year, enough for seven takeoffs and seven landings per day at LaGuardia. - AP
Money fund yields down
The average seven-day yield on taxable money market funds was 1.18 percent this week, down from 1.26 percent last week, according to iMoneyNet Inc. A seven-day yield is an annual yield that is based on the preceding seven days' level of income by the fund. The average yield on tax-free funds was 0.89 percent, down from 1.04 percent last week. - Paul Schweizer
BJ's Wholesale profit soars on bargain hunting
Warehouse-club operator BJ's Wholesale Club Inc., Natick, Mass., said its fiscal third-quarter profit rose 24 percent, helped by shoppers seeking bargains on food and other staples. The firm also raised its outlook for the year. It said profit for the three months ended Nov. 1 rose to $28.2 million, or 48 cents a share, from $22.7 million, or 35 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 13 percent, to $2.46 billion from $2.17 billion, beating analysts' estimates. - AP
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