Business News in Brief

Kindred Healthcare Inc. said it would close a 39-bed long-term acute-care hospital that it has been operating within Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby. In a statement, the Louisville, Ky., hospital company said the closing was the result "of a strategic decision by our parent company not to renew the leases of some of its facilities." According to a filing with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry, the closing of Kindred Hospital Delaware County will eliminate 74 jobs as of Aug. 24. Kindred said some employees may be offered jobs at its other specialty hospitals in the Philadelphia area. The publicly held company operates two hospitals in Philadelphia and one in Haverford Township. — Mike Armstrong

Five Below Inc., the Philadelphia teen specialty retailer, seeks to raise as much as $135 million in an initial public offering that would value the company at as much as $756 million. The retailer and existing owners are offering 9.62 million shares for $12 to $14 apiece, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The offering is scheduled for July 19, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The retailer plans to sell half of the stock in the offering, while the remainder will be sold by owners including London-based private-equity firm Advent International Corp., which is trimming its stake to 52 percent from 63 percent, according to the filing. Estimated net proceeds to the company of about $54 million will be used to repay debt. — Bloomberg News

OraSure Technologies Inc. said it had begun an underwritten public offering of its common stock of as much as $75 million. The Bethlehem company, whose at-home HIV test recently won Food and Drug Administration approval, expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 15 percent of the shares in the public offering. Shares of OraSure closed up 19 cents at $13.38.

— Inquirer staff

Health insurer WellPoint Inc. will raise its stake in a market poised for substantial growth with its $4.46 billion acquisition of Medicaid coverage provider Amerigroup Corp. WellPoint, the nation's second-largest insurer, said it would pay $92 per share in cash for Virginia Beach, Va.-based Amerigroup, which runs Medicaid coverage in 13 states, including New Jersey. Many states have been moving residents who qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare into managed-care programs that coordinate care. The "dual eligible" patients generally have chronic or expensive medical conditions. States want to improve their care and cut wasteful spending. — AP

Americans stepped up their borrowing in May, helped by the largest one-month gain in credit-card debt in more than four years. But overall credit card use is still well below where it was just before the Great Recession began. The Federal Reserve said consumer borrowing rose by $17.1 billion in May from April. The increase drove total borrowing to a seasonally adjusted $2.57 trillion. That's just below the all-time high of $2.58 trillion reached in July 2008, seven months after the recession began. — AP

A senior Bank of England official denied that he had given any hint to Barclays that it should manipulate reports of its borrowing costs. Paul Tucker, the Bank of England's deputy governor, also told British lawmakers that no one in government had leaned on him to put pressure on Barclays to "lowball" its reporting. Barclays has been fined $453 million by U.S. and British agencies for feeding false data that went into calculations of the London interbank offered rate (LIBOR), which influences the costs of a wide range of financial instruments internationally, including home mortgages. Tucker appeared before the House of Commons Treasury Committee to give his version of a conversation with former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond on Oct. 29, 2008. Diamond's version last week raised questions about whether Tucker had encouraged Barclays to cheat on its rate submissions. — AP

More than 11,000 Isuzu SUVs are being recalled because parts in the rear suspension can rust and break away from the frame. The recall affects Amigo SUVs from the 1998 to 2001 model years and Rodeo Sport SUVs sold as 2001 and 2002 models, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. Isuzu said the rear suspension link brackets can rust and become detached from the frame. The recall covers SUVs sold or registered in 21 states — including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware — where salt is used to clear the roads. — AP

Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills fell in Monday's auction to the lowest levels in a month. The Treasury Department auctioned $30 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.090 percent, down from 0.10 percent last week. Another $27 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.145 percent, down from 0.150 percent last week. The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,997.73, while a six-month bill sold for $9,992.67. — AP

The Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable-rate mortgages, edged down to 0.20 percent last week from 0.21 percent the previous week. — AP