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Business Today

By wire services
Published March 12, 2005

JABIL COMPLETES ACQUISITION: Jabil Circuit Inc. said Friday it has completed its acquisition of the electronics manufacturing business of Varian Inc. Jabil, a global electronics manufacturer in St. Petersburg, is paying about $195-million in the deal. Varian, a California scientific instrumentation company, makes electronics for the medical, communications, industrial and aerospace industries. There is little overlap with Jabil's customer base.

DAVID WEEKLY HOMES GETS NEW CEO: David Weekly, the 51-year-old head of Houston-based David Weekly Homes, is turning over the reins of a company he built into the second-largest private homebuilder in the country. John Johnson, president and chief operating officer, has been promoted to chief executive officer effective immediately, the company said Friday. Johnson, 54, will oversee growth and long-term strategy. Weekly will remain board chairman. David Weekly Homes closed on 236 homes in the Tampa Bay region last year. The company is building homes in nine bay area communities.

AIRLINES INCREASE FARES: Several major airlines have increased fares in the past two weeks by as much as $20 each way to offset the soaring cost of jet fuel. The second fare increase in as many weeks was initiated Thursday by Northwest Airlines and broadly matched by many of its competitors, including American, America West, Continental, Delta and Air Canada.

QWEST TO SWEETEN MCI OFFER: Qwest Communications International Inc. plans to sweeten its $8-billion offer for MCI Inc. next week, but revised terms were not available.

FEDERAL AGENCY TO GUARANTEE UNITED PENSIONS: The federal agency that guarantees employee pensions said Friday it plans to assume responsibility for the pension payments of 36,000 United Airlines' ground workers and retirees. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. said the pension fund has $1.2-billion to cover $4.1-billion in promised payments. The agency said it could guarantee $2.1-billion of the shortfall.

MICROSOFT REACHES DEAL: A California software company suing Microsoft for allegedly stealing its multimedia streaming software said on its Web site it has reached a tentative settlement with the world's largest software company. The agreement between Burst.com and Microsoft Corp. should be completed within a week, Burst said. A Microsoft spokeswoman would not provide specific details.

BREACH AFFECTS 1,651 FLORIDIANS: A recent security breach at LexisNexis affects 1,651 consumers in Florida, according to the data broker. Next week, LexisNexis is expected to send letters notifying those consumers that their personal information may have been stolen. Updates on the breach will be posted at http://privacyfacts.lexisnexis.com

EBBERS DELIBERATIONS CONTINUE: Jurors in the trial of former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers Friday reviewed testimony by Cynthia Cooper, the woman credited with exposing the telecommunications company's $11-billion fraud but adjourned without reaching a verdict. The jury will return Monday.

COURT UPHOLDS PHONE-SWITCHING RULES: A federal court on Friday upheld the bulk of Federal Communications Commission rules that allow consumers to keep their phone numbers when they switch providers. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that smaller traditional phone companies didn't have to honor customer requests to transfer a landline number to a cell phone.

[Last modified March 12, 2005, 01:01:55]