Business news in brief

New Penn Financial L.L.C., the Plymouth Meeting home lender founded amid the 2008 mortgage collapse by former Wilmington Finance Inc. owner Jerry Schiano and a board headed by ex-Salomon Bros. mortgage-backed securities developer Lewis Ranieri, says it opened new offices in Las Vegas; Plano and Universal City, Texas; Knoxville and Maryville, Tenn.; Columbia, S.C.; Manassas, Va.; and Rapid City, S.D., in recent months, boosting its national total to 50. The company says it has financed more than 50,000 loans worth more than $12 billion over the last five years. - Joseph N. DiStefano

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection awarded a $391,445 grant to four Philadelphia firms to acquire or convert 35 heavy vehicles that use compressed natural gas as fuel. The grant partnership was assembled by Lehigh Gas Wholesale L.L.C., which plans to build a public CNG refueling station at 80 W. Oregon Ave. in South Philadelphia. United Parcel Service, Mid-Atlantic AAA, Lehigh Gas, and Philadelphia Gas Works are committing to buying CNG trucks under the grant, said Lynda Rebarchak, a DEP spokeswoman. The money for Monday's grant comes funds generated by the Marcellus Shale impact fee. - Andrew Maykuth

UniTek Global Services Inc., Blue Bell, which said in April that it had terminated several employees after finding "fraudulent activities that resulted in improper revenue recognition" at a subsidiary, on Monday issued delayed 2012 results and restated 2011 financials. For 2012, the company said it lost $77.7 million, or $2.18 per share, on revenue of $437.6 million, compared with a 2011 loss of $9.1 million, or 46 cents per share, on revenue of $351.5 million. The company had reported a 2011 net loss of $15.6 million on revenue of $432.3 million. UniTek provides services to DirecTV, cable providers, and others in the telecommunications industry. - Reid Kanaley

Shares of Alteva Inc., the Philadelphia-based business Internet and phone provider, lost $1.74, or 17.4 percent, to close at $8.26, after the company told investors it was stopping its 27-cents-per-share quarterly dividend to shore up its financial position and "support future growth." The dividend cut - the latest sign of Alteva's attempted transformation from a local wired phone utility into a national mid-market data-hookup info-tech stock - will save $6 million a year, the company said in a statement. - Joseph N. DiStefano

Pinnacle Foods Inc., which sells Vlasic and Duncan Hines foods, is buying Wish-Bone salad dressings from Unilever for $580 million. Combined annual sales, which include the liquid and dry-mix salad dressings under the Wish-Bone and Western brands, total about $190 million. Pinnacle, based in Parsippany, N.J., went public in March. - AP

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled a transportation concept that he said could whisk passengers the nearly 400 miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes - half the time it takes in an airplane. His "Hyperloop" system for travel between major cities would use a large tube. Inside, capsules would float on air, traveling at over 700 m.p.h. Coming from almost anyone else, this would be hard to take seriously. But Musk has a track record of success. He cofounded online payment service PayPal, electric luxury carmaker Tesla Motors Inc., and rocket-building company SpaceX. - AP

Steinway Musical Instruments Inc. said an investment firm had offered to pay $38 per share, or about $477 million, for the company. That tops an earlier bid of $438 million from Kohlberg & Co. The prospect of a bidding war sent Steinway shares up $3.36, or 9.3 percent, to close at $39.59. The stock peaked at $39.90 earlier in the day, an all-time high. The Waltham, Mass.-based company identified the new potential buyer only as an investment firm with more than $15 billion under management. - AP

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto presented a bill to the country's Congress that would split state-owned crude producer Petroleos Mexicanos into two units and end a seven-decade state oil monopoly. Pena Nieto announced a proposal to allow private companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. to pump crude from Latin America's third-largest reserves for the first time since 1938 under a profit-sharing model by changing Articles 27 and 28 of the constitution, he told reporters. The bill to loosen state-owned Pemex's grip on production and attract investment needed to reverse an eight-year output drop would be the economy's biggest overhaul since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and add as much as 2 percentage points to annual growth, according to the Energy Ministry. - Bloomberg News

Greece is beating its budget targets by a wide margin this year, a sign that the country's painful cost cuts and tax increases, combined with international bailout funds, are paying off. Preliminary figures show a budget surplus - excluding interest payments on debt - of $3.5 billion for the January-July period, instead of a deficit. The economy, however, remains in the sixth year of a deep recession and unemployment hit a record high of 27.6 percent in May. - AP

Dole Food Co. Inc. said it would be taken private by its CEO in a deal that values the company at approximately $1.21 billion. Dole shareholders will receive $13.50 per share, a 5 percent premium to its $12.81 Friday closing price. This is a sweetened bid, up from the $12 per share chairman and CEO David Murdock offered in June. The company put the transaction's total value at about $1.6 billion, which includes debt. Shares jumped 5.3 percent, to $13.49. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. - AP