Business Briefing, June 3

Rocky staff and wire reports

Published June 2, 2008 at 6 p.m.

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Nicole Milstein

Paul Tate

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NATIONAL

FedEx plans to drop Kinko's name, book $891 million charge

FedEx plans to stop using the Kinko's name on its copy and office service stores and book an $891 million charge for the quarter that ended Saturday.

The charge relates to a decision about the use of the Kinko's name and a write-down of the value of its acquisition of the brand. The charge, which works out to $2.22 a share, was not part of Fed Ex's earnings forecast. FedEx Corp. will change the name of its FedEx Kinko's stores to FedEx Office.

KOREAN BEEF DELAY The South Korean government said Monday it was delaying its planned resumption of U.S. beef imports after tens of thousands of people protested over the weekend.

The agricultural ministry, after a request from the ruling party, decided to put off the final administrative step for imports to resume. U.S beef has been banned by South Korea for most of the past 41/2 years over fears of mad cow disease.

JAGUAR SOLD Ford Motor Co. officially unloaded its storied Jaguar and Land Rover businesses on Monday - netting the cash-strapped automaker a $1.7 billion boost that's a mere third of what it paid for the two.

India's Tata Motors Ltd. is paying about $2.3 billion for the British brands, but Ford is paying about $600 million into the Jaguar-Land Rover pension fund. Ford bought Jaguar for $2.5 billion in 1989 and Land Rover for $2.7 billion in 2000.

MICROSOFT, HP DEAL In a bid to boost its Web search traffic, Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced a deal that will make its Live Search the default on Hewlett-Packard Co. personal computers, starting in January.

The deal also calls for HP to install copies of Internet Explorer with an extra Live Search toolbar on those computers.

WAMU CHAIRMAN REPLACED Washington Mutual is replacing Kerry Killinger as chairman. He remains chief executive officer of the nation's largest savings and loan. The Seattle-based company said Monday that independent director Stephen E. Frank will take over July 1 as chairman.

During the first quarter, Washington Mutual lost more than $1.1 billion and set aside $3.5 billion to cover defaulted loans.

WACHOVIA CEO OUT Wachovia Corp. chief executive Ken Thompson was pushed out Monday as head of the nation's fourth-largest bank, becoming the latest financial services executive to be ousted amid turmoil in the U.S. housing market.

Thompson joins Stanley O'Neal at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Charles Prince at Citigroup Inc., who both presided over huge losses from exposure to bad mortgages, and were subsequently forced out.

WEISS GETS PRISON Melvyn Weiss, the co-founder of a law firm known for securities class-action suits, was sentenced Monday to 30 months in prison for his role in a lucrative lawsuit kickback scheme targeting some of the largest corporations in the nation.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter also ordered Weiss, 72, to pay $9.7 million in forfeitures and $250,000 in fines.

LOCAL

Zayo Group acquires Northwest Telephone

Louisville-based Zayo Group said it has acquired Northwest Telephone Inc., a privately owned company with a fiber-optic network in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Financial terms and Northwest's annual revenues weren't disclosed.

Zayo said Northwest Telephone will bring it 1,500 route miles of fiber.

POTASH PROFITS Denver-based Intrepid Potash Inc., which went public in April, on Monday reported results for 2008's first quarter.

Net income rose to $33.1 million from $6.4 million a year earlier. Pro forma per-share earnings were 27 cents against 5 cents. Sales rose 75 percent to $84.4 million from $48.2 million, the company, which is the successor entity to Intrepid Mining LLC, said.

GAS PIPELINE SEGMENT OK'D Rockies Express Pipeline LLC on Monday said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved construction of Rockies Express-East, a 638-mile segments from Audrain County, Mo., to Clarington, Ohio. Construction is expected to begin this summer. The 713-mile west segment, which runs from the Cheyenne Hub in Weld County to Audrain County, became operational May 20.

SOLAR BOOST Gov. Bill Ritter on Monday signed House Bill 1164 outside SunEdison solar plant in the San Luis Valley, which supplies electricity to Xcel Energy. The bill authorizes the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to consider specific environmental and economic benefits of large-scale solar projects as a way to meet energy needs.

WERTZ JOINS GBSM Cody Wertz, communications director for Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., will join the Denver-based management consulting, strategic communications and public affairs firm GBSM as a senior associate.

QWEST APPOINTS EXEC Qwest Communications appointed Kurt Fawkes senior vice president of investor relations. He had headed Sprint's IR department since 1994. Rahn Porter, who was leading Qwest investor relations, will become senior vice president and treasurer, replacing Janet Cooper, who is leaving the firm.

COUNTERTRADE CONTRACT Arvada-based CounterTrade Products Inc. said it has won a one- year information technology services contract with the state of Colorado valued at $10 million to $12 million. The contract is part of an effort to streamline the state's IT infrastructure.

HOSPITALS RATED Lakewood- based HealthGrades on Monday released a 1,100-page reference guide that includes hospital quality ratings that allows patients to compare medical centers for bypass surgery, knee replacement and dozens of other procedures and treatments as well as lists of top doctors.

ECONOMY

Construction contraction continues in April

Construction spending fell again in April as home building continued a more than two- year-long slide. The weakness was offset somewhat by an increase in nonresidential spending activity, which climbed to a record level.

The Commerce Department reported that construction activity fell by 0.4 percent in April after having been down 0.6 percent in March. Construction has not increased since last September as the building industry continues to be battered by the worst slump in housing in decades.

* A private trade group said Monday that manufacturing activity contracted in May, hobbled by rising costs and weak consumer demand.

The reading of 49.6 for the overall index from the Institute for Supply Management was up from 48.6 in April. It beat economists' expectations of 47.9, according to the consensus estimate of Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR, but it was still below a reading of 50, signaling contraction.

THIS JUST IN...

* The Colorado Restaurant Association awarded its Richard P. Ayers Award for Distinguished Service to Karen Kristopeit-Parker, co-owner of the Fresh Fish Co..

* The Rocky Mountain Inventors Association will host its June meeting in the Fort Collins area Thursday at Home State Bank in Fort Collins. Information: 970-222-5460

* A free executives-only speed networking event will be held Monday at 1391 Speer Blvd. Information: 720-581-4301

* The Metropolitan Chapter of the SCI Network selected Paul Tate as the 2008-09 advisory board president.

* TiE Rockies, the Rocky Mountain Chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs, will host a seminar event titled "Funding Your Business in Hard Times," today at the PPA Event Center in Denver. Information: rockies.tie.org

* GroundFloor Media named Ramonna Tooley as a partner.

* The National Museum of the Marine Corps, designed by Fentress Architects of Denver, was selected as a National Award winner in the American Institute of Steel Construction's 2008 IDEAS2 steel-frame building awards program.

* Telvent Miner & Miner received the ESRI Foundation Partner of the Year award for the Denver region at the 2008 ESRI Worldwide Business Partner Conference.

* First Western Trust Bank appointed Rebecca Cordes to president of the firm's Denver office.

* Seniors' Resource Center elected Anne H. McKinley and Emily S. Robinson to its board of directors.

* Nicole Milstein joined the Highlands Ranch Market Center of Keller Williams Realty.

* Knight promoted Mickey Broussard to vice president of operations for Knight Oil Tools, Clark Carnes to vice president of Knight Fishing Services, and Doug Keller to vice president of sales.

* The Custom Publishing Council elected Susan T. Humphrey to its board of directors.

* International Gold Resources Inc. appointed John S. Gaensbauer to vice president of corporate development.

* Highlands Ranch-based Fitness Together Franchise Holdings Inc. named Jeff Jervik as president and CEO and Rick Sikorski as chairman of the board.

* Terence Thornberry, sociology professor at the University of Colorado, won the 2008 Edwin Sutherland Award from the American Society of Criminology.

* The Denver Office of Economic Development and Denver City Councilwoman Marcia Johnson will host an Economic Development Forum today at the Johnson & Wales University Events Center in Denver. Information: 303-297-7403

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