Business briefs, October 19

Published October 19, 2006 at midnight

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NATIONAL

Guide closings to cost 2,150 jobs in La., Ind.

Guide Corp. notified city officials in Anderson, Ind., on Wednesday that it plans to close its factories in Anderson and Louisiana, putting more than 2,000 employees out of work.

A shutdown in Anderson would close a lengthy chapter for the auto industry in the central Indiana town that once employed 27,000 General Motors Corp. workers.

Guide, which makes auto and truck exterior lighting systems, employs 2,150 workers companywide, including 1,325 in the Anderson area, Smith said. About 800 work at a Monroe, La., plant that Guide plans to close next year.

AOL closing facilities, eliminating 1,300 jobs

AOL announced Wednesday it will lay off 1,300 employees by closing call centers in New Mexico and Arizona as part of a previously announced restructuring plan.

AOL, the Time Warner Inc. online unit formerly known as America Online, also plans to sell its call center in Ogden, Utah. The cuts include 900 layoffs at an Albuquerque call center and 400 jobs at the center in Tucson, AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said.

Time Warner's cable unit files for IPO

Time Warner Inc.'s Stamford, Conn.-based cable-TV unit filed for an initial public offering of shares Wednesday, creating cash that the No. 2 cable operator could use in acquisitions.

The filing had been expected following the completion of Time Warner's three-way deal with industry leader Comcast Corp. to acquire the cable systems of Greenwood Village-based Adelphia Communications Corp., which is in bankruptcy proceedings. Time Warner said in the filing that the cable shares being sold in the offering belong to Adelphia.

Microsoft announces upgrade of IE browser

Microsoft Corp. is giving its Web browser software its first major upgrade in years amid signs Internet Explorer's market share is eroding.

The release late Wednesday brings Microsoft's browser more in line with competing products such as Opera Software ASA's Opera and Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox. Internet Explorer 7, or IE7, adds features such as tabbed browsing, which lets people open several Web pages without cluttering their desktop with multiple open browser windows.

IPod, Macintosh sales lift Apple's Q4 profit

Apple Computer Inc. said Wednesday its fiscal fourth-quarter profit rose 27 percent, well past analyst expectations, boosted by sizzling sales of its iPod music players and Macintosh computers.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple earned $546 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30, or 62 cents a share. That compared with net income of $430 million, or 50 cents a share, in the same period last year. Revenue for the quarter totaled $4.84 billion, a 32 percent jump from last year.

• EBay Inc. reported Wednesday that third-quarter profit increased 10 percent from the same period last year, beating Wall Street's moderate expectations and encouraging executives to raise earnings forecasts for the full year. The San Jose, Calif.-based online auction company earned $280.9 million, or 20 cents a share, for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with $254.97 million, or 18 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

LOCAL

Casino revenues rise 9.6% year-over-year

Colorado casino revenues rose 9.6 percent to $69.8 million in September, the state's gaming division reported.

Central City gaming parlors reported the biggest monthly increase vs. a year ago. Casinos there generated $7 million last month, a 25 percent jump from the previous year. Black Hawk revenues rose 9.1 percent to about $48.7 million, while Cripple Creek proceeds increased about 4.9 percent to $14 million.

Somera Capital buys $26.7 million of space

Somera Capital, a private real estate investment firm, has acquired two southeast metro-area office properties for $26.7 million.

Somera partnered with Denver-based Equity West Investment Partners on the acquisitions totaling 258,487 square feet.

Equity West will represent ownership locally and oversee management and leasing at the 123,796- square-foot Quorum office complex in the Denver Tech Center and the 134,691-square-foot 304 Inverness Way South building in the Inverness Business Park.

ECONOMY

Consumer prices decline in September

Consumer prices, helped by big declines in gasoline and other energy products, fell in September by the largest amount in 10 months.

The Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index dipped by 0.5 percent last month, which was better than the 0.3 percent decline that Wall Street had been expecting. It was the biggest decline since a 0.7 percent fall last November and reflected a sizable 7.2 percent drop in energy prices.

In a further indication that price pressures are moderating, core inflation, which excludes energy and food, edged up by 0.2 percent, the third straight month of modest gains following higher readings earlier in the year.

The 0.5 percent decline in consumer prices last month followed a 0.2 percent August increase with the improvement coming primarily from the big drop in energy costs.

Gasoline prices fell by 13.5 percent last month, the biggest one-month decline since a drop of 16.1 percent last November, a period when prices were retreating after having spiked sharply with the shutdown of Gulf Coast refineries following Hurricane Katrina.

In a hopeful sign for the upcoming winter heating season, home fuel oil prices fell by 6.1 percent, although natural gas and electricity prices were up for the month.

Food prices rose by 0.4 percent last month with vegetable prices jumping 6.6 percent, the biggest increase since April 2005.

• Construction of new homes and apartments posted an unexpected gain of 5.9 percent in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.772 million units.

Housing construction had fallen for three consecutive months, reflecting the significant cooling of the once-hot housing market.

THIS JUST IN...

• Kathy Dack, of Lakewood, has been named to the board of trustees of Woman's Life Insurance Society, a fraternal benefit society based in Port Huron, Mich.

• Arapahoe County-based ControlPath Inc., a developer of automated compliance management systems, said Christopher Poelma has joined the company as its new CEO.

• Alexis Templeton, an assistant professor in the University of Colorado's geological sciences department, is among this year's recipients of Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering. Each scientist will receive an unrestricted research grant of $625,000 over five years.

• Arapahoe County-based Jeppesen was inducted into the newly formed Edelman Academy by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. The honor is only bestowed upon organizations that have been named winners of the Franz Edelman Award, which recognizes outstanding examples of management science and operations research practices. Jeppesen won the award in 2000.

• California-based BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse is slated to open its third Colorado location Tuesday at Aurora City Place. The chain has operated a Boulder eatery for nine years and opened another in Westminster in April.

• Dollar Tree Stores Inc. opened two new Colorado stores recently, at Bear Valley Shopping Center in Denver and Eastbank Shopping Center in Aurora.

• Jamba Juice will open its 22nd Colorado smoothie store on Nov. 2. It will be at Northfield Stapleton in Denver.

• Denver-based St. Mary Land & Exploration Co. said its board of directors has declared a semiannual cash dividend of 5 cents per share of common stock. The dividend will be paid Nov. 13 to stockholders of record as of the close of business Nov. 3. St. Mary has about 54.9 million shares of common stock outstanding.

• Arapahoe County-based Dynamic Card Solutions, developer of CardWizard, the leading instant issue and PIN selection software application for financial institutions, said Wednesday that Pay Linx, a financial solutions corporation offering contemporary payment processing products, is using DCS' CardWizard technology to provide government institutions with the ability to instantly issue prepaid debit cards.

• Denver-based ViaWest, a provider of adaptable colocation and managed hosting solutions, announced the addition of WealthTouch Inc., a full-service wealth management company, to its roster of Denver-based customers.

Compiled from News staff, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Scripps Howard News Service.

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