Business news in brief

Pearl Properties has purchased the Art Institute of Philadelphia building at 1618-22 Chestnut St. and will rent three of its lower stories to Gap Inc. for the retailer's second Center City Old Navy store. Gap has leased 23,464 square feet for a flagship store in the art deco building, according to Steven H. Gartner, an executive vice president at commercial real estate services firm CBRE Inc., who brokered the lease. Pearl closed on its purchase of the building, the former headquarters of radio station WCAU, on Monday, Gartner said. The Art Institute will move its lower-story functions to other parts of the building, where it will remain as a tenant, he said. Old Navy will continue to operate at the Gallery at Market East after the Chestnut Street location opens in mid-2016, Gartner said. - Jacob Adelman

An insurer of taxicabs in the Philadelphia region has been ordered liquidated by a Washington court. Pinelands Insurance Co. Risk Retention Group Inc. is the second taxi insurer in less than a year to fail, following the insolvency of First Keystone Risk Retention Group Inc. last October. In Philadelphia, 94 of the city's 1,600 cabs are insured by Pinelands, and they have been told by the Philadelphia Parking Authority they must replace their insurance by next Friday. The District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking was ordered by the court to take over the assets of Pinelands and begin liquidation proceedings. - Paul Nussbaum

South Jersey-based Burlington Stores Inc. posted second-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates and raised its forecast for earnings this year. Burlington increased sales and cut expenses over the same quarter last year, which helped push profit to $10.9 million for the quarter. CEO Tom Kingsbury is working to entice price-conscious shoppers by improving stores and adding fresh brands. Burlington saw particular success in its home and shoe categories, the company said on its earnings conference call. The company plans to continue opening stores, with a target of 1,000 overall. - Bloomberg News

Comcast Corp. is seeking proposals for two independent Hispanic American-owned cable channels to be distributed on its cable systems. The proposal deadline is Oct. 9. Comcast agreed to launch 10 independent cable channels as a condition for government approvals to acquire news and entertainment giant NBCUniversal in 2011. Among the independent channels already launched on the Comcast cable systems are Revolt TV, El Rey, BabyFirst Americas and BBC World News. The two Hispanic American-owned channels are expected to launch in January 2017. - Bob Fernandez

Kansas City Federal Reserve president Esther George said it was too soon to tell whether market volatility is going to affect the U.S. economy, and added that every policy-setting meeting is a live option for the Fed to begin raising interest rates. "At this point, for me, I have not seen something that would change my own sense of how the economy is doing," George said on Bloomberg Television from Jackson, Wyo., where the central bank's annual retreat got underway Thursday night. "I thought there was scope to consider rate increases before now, but we'll wait and see what the committee's thoughts are." The central bank is weighing whether to increase its main policy interest rate for the first time since 2006, against a backdrop of stock market volatility sparked by concerns over slowing growth in China. - Bloomberg News

Dole Food Co. CEO David Murdock and a former executive of the fresh-fruit producer were ordered to pay $148.1 million over allegations that they drove down the value of the company so Murdock could take it private on the cheap in a $1.2 billion deal. Murdock received an "improper personal benefit" from the deal, in which he paid $13.50 a share to regain control of one of the world's largest sellers of fresh fruit and vegetables, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Travis Laster ruled Thursday. The judge also found that Michael Carter, Dole's former president, should be held personally liable for investors' losses on the buyout. The executives' actions "deprived shareholders of the ability to consider the merger on a fully informed basis," the judge ruled. - Bloomberg News

Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes climbed in July for the sixth time in the last seven months, signaling further momentum in residential real estate. The pending home sales index increased 0.5 percent after a revised 1.7 percent decline in June, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. Consistent employment growth and still-cheap borrowing costs are bolstering household balance sheets, helping Americans feel more comfortable about signing for big purchases. - Bloomberg News

Amgen Inc. won U.S. approval for its powerful cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha for certain patients, making it the second in a new class of treatments to come to market. The Food and Drug Administration limited sales of Repatha to people with hard-to-treat levels of bad cholesterol, according to a statement from the agency. The injection will cost $14,100 a year. Repatha belongs to a category of drugs known as PCSK9 inhibitors, designed to help patients with ultrahigh bad, or LDL, cholesterol who cannot get their condition under control with widely used statins. Express Scripts Holding Co., the largest U.S. manager of prescription drug benefits, said PCSK9s could be the most expensive therapies ever seen, costing as much as $100 billion a year "if not managed properly." As many as 10 million Americans may have conditions that would make them eligible for the drugs. - Bloomberg News