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PROFUSION RESTAURANT CLOSES: Profusion, an Asian restaurant, closed Saturday at International Plaza in Tampa. The restaurant said the closing was by mutual agreement with the mall's developer, Taubman Corp., with whom it has had lease disagreements, including a lawsuit over back rent. Clarence Mah, Profusion's co-owner, said he hopes to announce a new location in the Tampa Bay area soon. The Mah family also runs a Profusion restaurant and Le Piment Rouge in Montreal. Keyshawn Johnson, former Tampa Bay Buccaneer, was a part owner of the Tampa restaurant, which opened in 2001.
LENNAR, CENTEX TEAM UP FOR SCRIPPS: Lennar Corp. of Miami and Dallas' Centex Corp. will join to be master developers of a 1,700 acre parcel in Palm Beach County adjacent to the site of Scripps Research Institute's planned Florida campus. The Lennar-Centex partnership has pledged up to $50-million to the county's Economic Development Research Institute for the right to develop the site, known as Vavrus Ranch. Preliminary plans call for about 7,500 homes on the parcel, as well as schools, research and commercial space. Palm Beach County is responsible for developing the Scripps campus, expected to open in 2006.
KNOLOGY SELLS CALIFORNIA UNIT: Knology Inc. said Monday it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its Cerritos, Calif., cable TV operations to Orange Broadband Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., for $14.8-million in cash. The sale price was more than twice the $6.6-million Knology paid Verizon Communications in December for the Cerritos operations. The purchase was part of the same deal in which Knology acquired Verizon's Pinellas County cable business. Knology, of West Point, Ga., said the Cerritos deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
LUCENT BUYS EQUIPMENT COMPANY: Lucent Technologies has agreed to buy Telica, a privately held Internet phone service equipment provider, for about $295-million in stock and options, the telecommunications giant announced Monday. The acquisition of Marlboro, Mass., Telica is expected to strengthen Lucent's Accelerate portfolio, which helps service providers deliver voice, data and multimedia services, such as streaming video, to subscribers over wireless and wireline networks. Lucent also expects the deal to bolster its ability to bridge next-generation and existing networks for its customers.
CONTINENTAL DROPS FARE HIKE: Continental Airlines Inc. again rescinded a fare hike Monday after trying more than a dozen times to boost overall fares. The airline raised fares worldwide by $10 to $20 one-way a week ago. The airline said at the time it is suffering because of high fuel costs, but intense airline competition has left the carriers unable to pass along fuel costs to customers. Meanwhile, low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines raised its fares last week by $1 each way on 90 percent of its routes, its first increase since November 2000.
FEDEX RAISES FREIGHT RATES: FedEx Corp. plans to increase general North American freight rates by 5.9 percent, citing the cost of complying with new environmental standards for diesel engines. The Bush administration approved rules this month to lower emissions from diesel-powered machines by 90 percent during the next eight years. The increase is effective June 14.
RECORD INDUSTRY SUES 493 MORE: The recording industry sued 493 more people Monday that it said were illegally sharing music across the Internet. The latest round of lawsuits raised to nearly 3,000 the number of people who have been sued nationwide by recording companies. As in previous cases, the recording industry filed its latest complaints against "John Doe" defendants, identifying them only by their numeric Internet protocol addresses. It said all 493 defendants were subscribers with commercial Internet accounts in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Texas.
BROKER BARRED FROM WALL ST.: Former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. broker Frank Gruttadauria was barred from the securities industry, less than two years after he pleaded guilty to stealing from clients. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Gruttadauria, 46, stole more than $115-million in a 15-year period when he worked at Lehman and SG Cowen Securities Corp. Gruttadauria admitted in August 2002 to stealing from investors by making sham trades and falsifying account statements. Last year, Lehman and SG Cowen agreed to pay $7.5-million to settle the SEC's allegations that they failed to supervise him.
SHORT-TERM T-BILLS MIXED: The Treasury Department sold $18-billion in three-month securities at a discount rate of 1.050 percent, up from 1.040 percent last week. An additional $15-billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 1.375 percent, up from 1.335 percent. Also, the Federal Reserve said Monday the average yield for one-year, constant-maturity Treasury bills was 1.83 percent last week, unchanged from the previous week.
BofA PRESIDENT GRABS PARACHUTE: Bank of America Corp., the second-biggest U.S. bank, said president Eugene McQuade will resign by the end of next month and get $25-million, including severance, after he leaves. McQuade, 55, was president and COO of FleetBoston Financial Corp. before it was bought by Bank of America in April. He "felt it was time to pursue different challenges and a new chapter in his career," CEO Kenneth Lewis said. The $47-billion FleetBoston deal increased Bank of America's presence in the Northeast and made it the second-largest bank by assets, after Citigroup Inc.
SONY, BERTELSMANN GET EU OBJECTIONS: The European Union's antitrust office sent its objections Monday to a proposed merger of the music units of Japan's Sony Corp. and Germany's Bertelsmann AG, giving the companies two weeks to respond. European Commission spokeswoman Amelia Torres confirmed that the charge sheet had been sent but declined to elaborate. Bertelsmann said it was examining the EU's "remaining concerns" about the proposed 50-50 joint venture. The European Commission has until July 22 to decide on the deal.
MICROSOFT'S LINDOWS TRIAL NEARER: Microsoft Corp.'s trademark infringement case against Lindows Inc. may reach trial this year after a federal appeals court said it would not hear Microsoft's appeal on a key matter in the legal battle until after trial. The request for an appeal centered on whether the word "windows" is a generic term in the technology industry or whether Redmond-based Microsoft can argue that Lindows is violating its trademark by using a term similar to that of its Windows operating system.
DRUG MAKER PAYS $75-MILLION: GlaxoSmithKline PLC agreed to pay $75-million to settle a lawsuit filed by consumers and insurers that said the company illegally blocked a generic form of the arthritis drug Relafen. The accord was reached with consumers and health insurers, including union health funds, according to Prescription Access Litigation, which sues drugmakers over pricing matters. In February, Glaxo agreed to pay $175-million to settle a related suit by direct purchasers.
12-MILLION CANS OF C2 FOR FREE: Coca-Cola Co. will give away more than 12-million samples of its new C2 cola in the company's largest marketing campaign since Diet Coke's debut in 1982. C2, which has half the calories and carbohydrates of regular drinks, will go on sale the weekend of June 11, the soft drink maker said. PepsiCo Inc. is moving up its introduction of Pepsi Edge cola, also with half the calories and carbohydrates, to mid June from September, spokesman Dave DeCecco said. The drinks are intended to appeal to consumers who don't like the taste of diet sodas.
SHELL DOWNGRADES RESERVES AGAIN: The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Cos. downgraded the size of its proven oil and gas reserves Monday for the fourth time this year. The company, which stunned shareholders in January when it reduced confirmed oil and gas holdings by 20 percent, or 3.9-billion barrels, said that it was downgrading 103-million more barrels from "proven" to less certain categories. Shell blamed the reduction on accounting changes involving "royalties paid in cash in Canada." Combined with two other announcements since January, it brings the total of downgraded reserves to 4.47-billion barrels, the company said.
CISCO UNVEILS NEW ROUTER: Cisco Systems Inc. unveiled a long-awaited router for directing traffic at the heart of the Internet, aiming to recapture market share lost to rivals. Cisco's refrigerator-sized Carrier Router System-1, announced Tuesday and expected to be available in July, is designed to shuttle data at the center of telecom carriers' networks. A single CRS-1 can transfer the entire collection of the U.S. Library of Congress in 4.6 seconds, according to Cisco. In its basic setup, the CRS-1 costs about $450,000.
ONLINE RETAIL INDUSTRY IN BLACK: Online retailers collectively made a profit last year for the first time as sales jumped a better-than-expected 51 percent, in a sign of continued resilience in e-commerce, an industry survey found. Online sales surged to $114-billion last year, surpassing forecasts of $96-billion, according to an annual survey of 150 retailers conducted by Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation, and Forrester Research, an Internet research company.
EARNINGSCampbell Soup Co.: The world's biggest soup maker 's profit rose 10 percent in its third fiscal quarter, with favorable currency exchange rates offsetting increased promotional spending and lower volume. But sales of its condensed and ready-to-eat soups were down and its shares fell nearly 5 percent.