Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the government will focus more on bolstering economic growth, indicating policies may be loosened further as inflation moderates.
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Biotech firm Human Genome Sciences announced Thursday that it had rejected a takeover bid from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline that valued it at just over 80% of its closing price Wednesday.
HGS () said the offer — at $13 per share, or $2.6 billion — "does not reflect the value inherent" in the company. It added, however, that it was reviewing "strategic alternatives" including the possible sale of the company, and that Glaxo () had been invited to participate in the process.
HGS shares jumped on the news, opening at $14.21, nearly double Wednesday’s closing price of $7.17.
Glaxo CEO Andrew Witty said in a statement that his firm was "disappointed that Human Genome Sciences has rejected our offer without discussion and are confident that our offer is in the best interest of shareholders of both companies."
Hostile takeovers are back
The two firms, Witty noted, have collaborated for nearly 20 years, including on the lupus drug Benlysta, a joint venture.
HGS shares traded around $30 just a year ago, but have dropped sharply since then as the company has reported heavy losses. In February, HGS reported a net loss for 2011 of $381 million.
The announcement comes a day after Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche () announced that it was abandoning its bid for U.S. biotech firm Illumina ().
HGS has attracted controversy in the past with its attempts to patent genetic sequences, which have raised questions about whether such information can be subject to intellectual property laws.
Learn what faxless payday loans are and how online payday loans can be used as a quick fix to pay off your bills.
In a case that affects thousands of businesses and millions of workers, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that employers are under no obligation to ensure that workers take legally mandated lunch and rest breaks
The unanimous opinion came after workers’ attorneys argued that abuses are routine and widespread when companies aren’t required to issue direct orders to take the breaks. They claimed employers take advantage of workers who don’t want to leave colleagues during busy times.
The case was initially filed nine years ago against Brinker International, the parent company of Chili’s and other eateries, by restaurant workers complaining of missed breaks in violation of California labor law.
But the high court sided with businesses when it ruled that requiring companies to order breaks is unmanageable and those decisions should be left to workers.
The opinion written by Associate Justice Kathryn Werdegar explained that state law does not compel an employer to ensure employees cease all work during meal periods, instead saying the employee is at liberty to use the time as they choose.
“The employer is not obligated to police meal breaks and ensure no work thereafter is performed,” Werdegar wrote.
The court’s decision could greatly reduce the numerous class-action lawsuits surrounding the issue that cost companies millions of dollars in legal costs.
“The courts are making it clear that you have to create a system and a procedure that fully allows employees an opportunity to take breaks and meal periods, and if they do that they do not have to be Big Brother and individually monitor each employee to ensure that they’ve taken every bit of their breaks,” said Steve Hirschfeld, founder and CEO of the Employment Law Alliance, an employer-side legal trade group.
Attorneys for workers said low-wage workers such as those at Chili’s and other restaurants face unique issues that dissuade them from requesting meal and rest periods.
“The decision … should have required employers to take affirmative steps to provide meal periods, and not just adopt policies that allow them,” Fernando Flores of the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, said in a statement.
“The (court) previously held that employees who are denied their rest and meal periods face greater risk of work-related accidents _ especially low-wage workers who engage in manual labor,” Flores said.
The Brinker decision doesn’t account for the public health and general welfare argument and weakens these standards for millions of low-wage workers across California, he added.
State law has mandated meal and rest breaks for decades. But in 2001, California became one of only a few states that impose a monetary penalty for employers who violate these laws, requiring employers to pay one hour of wages for a missed half-hour meal break. There is no federal law requiring employers to provide such breaks.
St. Louis area casinos turned in generally flat results in March, the slack time between winter and the start of the spring tourism season.
The area’s six gambling halls took in $103.2 million last month, up 3 percent from the $99.8 million take in March 2011. Last month’s results marked the second full year of operation of Pinnacle Entertainment’s River City casino, which shows steady double-digit monthly revenue gains.
Figures out Tuesday from regulators in Missouri and Illinois showed that three St. Louis-area casinos posted revenue gains in March while three experienced generally small declines.
Ameristar, in St. Charles, and Harrah’s, in Maryland Heights, frequently trade places as the area’s largest casinos by revenue. It was Harrah’s turn in March, when it edged Ameristar $25.2 million to $24.8 million in monthly revenue. Argosy Alton continued to struggle the most, with revenue down 9.3 percent over March 2011 figures.
April’s results could provide a clearer look at what has become a mature St. Louis casino market. In April 2011, revenue growth continued after the expansion-driven bump River City provided. The unusually mild weather this month and the start of baseball season, which is bringing more tourists — and gamblers — could show further evidence that St. Louis is a slowly growing but steady billion-dollar casino market.
Scuffling along
Casino March change Revenue (in mill.)
Harrah’s 8.1 percent $25.2
River City 12.7 percent $19.3
Lumière Place -2.7 percent $15.4
Ameristar -0.1 percent $24.8
Casino Queen 2.8 percent $12.1
Argosy Alton -9.3 percent $6.4
Market total 3.3 percent $103.2
Sources: Missouri Gaming Commission, Illinois Gaming Board
The sweet deal at Crestwood Court, with dirt-cheap rents and all the space you could want, may have come to an end.
But now many of the mall’s little birdies are spreading their wings. A number of the mom-and-pop shops who used the mall’s three-year-long ArtSpace experiment as a business incubator have started moving into other spaces around town.
Bryan Laughlin Jr., who runs The Option B Designery, just signed a lease to move into a building about a mile south of the St. Louis Galleria on Brentwood Boulevard. He ended up finding a generous landlord there, too.
“It’s kind of a blessing in disguise, because we’re in a situation where we’re not paying much more for a prime spot in Brentwood as opposed to paying less for a bigger space in basically a ghost town,” he said.
But he’s not complaining about his year in Crestwood Court.
While the mall didn’t get a lot of traffic, it did give he and his brother a chance to bring in more sales and run a showroom for their business, which previously operated solely online. They sell antiques, art and fashion from the Victorian Era to Yves Saint Laurent and also restore furniture with their father.
“Since we ran it ourselves, we made quite a bit of money last year to help set us up for the future of our business,” he added.
Jennifer Klayman and her mother, Lois, are also happy with their new digs on the Delmar Loop. The duo moved Re-Designz, an eclectic vintage and retro goods store, to a storefront next to the Tivoli last month.
Like many ArtSpace tenants, they had to move out of Crestwood Court by the end of February to make way for still somewhat mysterious redevelopment plans for the mall.
“Crestwood was a good foundation to get our product known and our name known – to get some recognition – so when we moved we did have a following,” she said.
The rent is higher on the Loop – and the space is about half the size – but Klayman says she gets a lot more foot traffic coming by. And, she added, the smaller quarters has forced her to edit down the selection.
“That’s good, because it makes me pick and choose pieces more carefully,” she said.
Denise Krekeler has actually upgraded to a bigger space after leaving the mall paydayloan. She and her husband moved their store, Yeti Gaming, into a 4,000-square foot space last week. They wanted to stay in the area, near their customer base, so they just moved down the street from the mall to 361 Watson Plaza.
They had quickly outgrown the 1,200-square foot space they had in the mall. Kids often spilled out into the mall’s corridors as they played in the store’s Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments.
So she was ready to move on around the same time the mall announced that tenants had to move out. Still, she was sad to say goodbye to the community that had formed in her corner of the mall with a nearby science fiction lounge and an anime store.
“We all became friends,” she said. “So that was kind of hard to leave. But it was a wonderful experience for a small business owner who wanted to try something who probably wouldn’t get a chance to do that in a regular strip mall.”
BIGGER BOXES
So last week I wrote about how big box stores are becoming smaller boxes. Then, of course, Menard Inc. had to come along and prove me wrong – or at least, give us an exception to the rule.
As you might have read this week, the Wisconsin-based home improvement retailer was chosen by the Richmond Heights city council to develop a two-story, 246,346 square foot store just east of Hanley Road. That doesn’t sound like a small – or even smaller – box at all.
The retailer has been bucking the trend and doubling the size of some of its stores. And the new ones it is building are obviously quite big.
Jeff Abbott, a Menards spokesman, didn’t respond to a question about the company’s strategy to build bigger stores. And he didn’t go into detail about the retailer’s attempts to open its first stores here.
In addition to the Richmond Heights location, the company is also seeking a zoning change to put in a store on Manchester Road in west St. Louis County.
“We’re working through approvals but have nothing official to report at this time,” Abbott wrote in an email.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday that fallout from the European debt crisis along with fears of Iran and higher oil prices posed the biggest threats to the U.S. economy.
“Europe is still facing a very difficult, very challenging period. They are likely to have weak growth,” Geithner said in an interview with Fox Business TV.
“You have, obviously, the fear of Iran and oil prices, even though that is not hurting the economy today, people can still feel that in their pocketbook today,” he said.
Thousands of people from across Poland demonstrated noisily Friday outside Parliament to protest government plans to raise the retirement age to 67.
The law currently allows women to retire at age 60 and men at 65, but Prime Minister Donald Tusk wants to raise the retirement age to 67 for all Poles, saying it will increase pensions while reducing state debt.
The plan, supported by many economists, has angered the public. The unions are deeply unsatisfied by a new agreement the ruling coalition parties reached Thursday that would allow people to go into partial retirement earlier but with lowered monthly payments for the rest of their lives.
Piotr Duda, head of the Solidarity trade union, said the plan gives Poles the choice of “either working until death or quickly dying of hunger.”
The protesters, blowing horns and carrying Solidarity white-and-red banners, were equally vocal.
“People are not strong enough to work as long as machines, 48 years, it is physically impossible,” said Arkadiusz Maziar, a 40-year-old coal miner from Zory, in southern Poland no faxing payday loans.
“Tusk is an office clerk and he will never understand this. I am here to defend the people,” he said.
Danuta Nowaczek, a 50-year-old cook from Zabrze, in the South, does not believe that longer work would markedly improve her pension, or that she will live to benefit from it.
“This is a joke, this plan and I don’t want to work longer,” Nowaczek said. “My father did not even live to get his retirement” at 65.
The crowd showed their anger as the lawmakers were debating a motion signed by some 1.4 million Solidarity supporters to hold a referendum on the matter.
A group of prominent Chinese writers have demanded millions of dollars in compensation from technology giant Apple Inc. for allegedly selling unlicensed versions of their books in its online store, a lawyer said Monday.
The case is a departure from the usual pattern of U.S artists or companies going after Chinese copycats. Trade groups say illegal Chinese copying of music, designer clothing and other goods costs legitimate producers billions of dollars a year in lost sales.
Three separate lawsuits have been filed with the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court on behalf of 12 writers who allege 59 of their titles were sold unlicensed through Apple’s iTunes online store, said Wang Guohua, a Beijing lawyer representing the writers.
The three suits together demand 23 million (US$3.5 million) in compensation from Apple, Wang said. Well-known novelist and race car driver Han Han is among the writers taking the legal action, he said.
Apple did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Wang said Apple uploaded the Chinese writers’ works without their permission, violating their copyright, and while Apple deleted some of the books after the suits were filed in January, some of the works quickly appeared again, apparently uploaded by developers that sell apps through the Apple Store.
“Some developers, with whom Apple has contracts, put them back online again,” said Wang of the United Zhongwen Law Firm. “It is encouragement in disguise, because they did not punish the developers. The developers could have been kicked out. But nothing happened to them.”
Wang said 10 other writers have also gotten involved since January but their suits have yet to be filed. In all, 23 writers have registered their complaints with Wang and claim that Apple sold 95 pirated titles.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported late Sunday that the writers were collectively seeking 50 million yuan ($7.7 million) in compensation from Apple but Wang could not confirm that figure.
Product piracy is a major irritant in China-US relations, but usually involves complaints that Chinese are copying American products.
However, it’s not the first time Chinese have cried foul over copyright infringement by an American company either. In 2009, the government-affiliated China Written Works Copyright Society complained that Google had scanned nearly 20,000 works by 570 Chinese authors without permission as part of its digital library project, drawing an apology from Google.
For Apple, the latest case is just one of several legal battles being fought in China. The company is embroiled in a battle over the iPad trademark with Proview Electronics Co., a Chinese computer monitor and LED light maker that says it registered the trademark more than a decade ago.
Proview wants Apple to stop selling or making the popular tablet computers under that name.
Apple says Proview sold it worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 2009, though in China the registration was never transferred.
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AP researcher Zhao Liang contributed.
Attacks against al-Qaida’s favorite targets in Iraq killed 14 people Monday as insurgents struck security forces, a government office and jewelry stores, demonstrating a continued threat from armed groups as the country prepares to host a meeting of the Arab world’s top leaders.
Security officials expect al-Qaida to ramp up violence over the next few weeks as Baghdad prepares to host the annual Arab League summit at the end of the month.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s strikes, and numerous armed groups in Iraq have mixed attacks on political targets with money-making criminal operations. But al-Qaida in Iraq for years has been believed to fund itself in part with cash and gold stolen from jewelry stores.
Militants struck first in a pre-dawn raid Monday in the city of Tarmiyah, 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Baghdad, where police said gunmen in at least two cars attacked the local mayor’s office. Three policemen were killed, police and health officials said. The mayor was not in his office at the time.
A half hour later and a few miles (kilometers) away, gunmen targeted a police patrol in a drive-by shooting. Two policemen were killed, officials said, and it was not known if the gunmen were the same group who attacked the mayor’s office.
A few hours later, two carloads of robbers armed with grenades and guns killed nine people and wounded 14 in a coordinated strike on an eastern Baghdad gold market, officials said. The militants simultaneously attacked jewelry stores and a nearby checkpoint.
Baghdad officials said two policemen, two soldiers and two goldsmiths were among the dead at the small market in the Shiite neighborhood of Ur.
“At first we heard shootings from the other side of the market, near the police checkpoint,” said eyewitness Maitham Moussa, 30, who owns of a dairy shop about 50 yards (meters) from the jewelry stores payday advance low fees. “Then we heard shootings very close to us. When the women started to yell, they started to open fire into the air and set off sound bombs.”
He said people fled the area and huddled together in a nearby alley to escape the siege. “I saw a woman was lying on the ground with a toddler,” Moussa said. “There was blood near the woman, but I’m not sure if she was injured or if was the baby’s blood.”
A police officer said the gunmen stole gold and cash after the late-morning heist, which the insurgents pulled off despite a gunfight with nearby security forces. Iraqi Army Gen. Hassan al-Baydhani of Baghdad’s military command said one of the gunmen was arrested but the rest escaped.
A doctor in a nearby Baghdad hospital confirmed the police casualty figures. They all spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information. Al-Baydhani put the number of dead at six. Conflicting casualty totals are common in the immediate aftermath of attacks in Iraq.
Although violence has dropped significantly since the sectarian fighting that brought Iraq to the edge of civil war just five years ago, deadly attacks still happen almost every day.
U.S. officials as recently as September said jewelry robberies were a main source of funding for al-Qaida in Iraq as it grapples with dwindling financial support. The Sunni militant movement also frequently targets officials of the Shiite-led government in a campaign to undermine confidence in its authority.
As any driver knows, rising gas prices can put a dent in a household budget. For small business owners, it can hurt _ or even wipe out _ profits.
The recent rise in the price of gas is pressuring business owners to find ways to protect their earnings. Some of their strategies are simple, such as using GPS devices to track fuel usage. Others are drastic _ like moving manufacturing operations to the U.S. from Asia.
Small business owners have navigated this road before _ most recently in 2008 when the price of gas rose to a national average of $4.11 a gallon. But gas is expected to surpass that record and reach $4.25 by late April. And even if the price follows its usual pattern of gradually falling back from a high reached in the spring, it will still be expensive for the rest of the year.
Here’s a look at how some companies are coping:
A DIRECT HIT
Chris Hundley runs Limousine Connection, a 31-car limousine service in Los Angeles. He likens the surge in gas prices to “being run into by someone without insurance” _ there’s no way to avoid having to pay.
In 2007 Limousine Connection began adding a 3 percent fuel surcharge to its bills to offset the cost of gas. Since then, the rate has crept up to 10 percent. Hundley says customers have come to understand the necessity for a fuel surcharge, and prefer it to a rate increase.
But the company doesn’t start charging extra on its base hourly rate the minute gas prices rise. For customers that have contracts with Limousine Connection, he’ll wait 30 days, and until prices have gone up 10 percent, before raising the surcharge. If prices rise, say, only 7 percent, he won’t raise it. “We are eating it _ it’s the cost of doing business,” he says.
Hundley also tracks fuel usage. Speeding or idling for extended periods wastes gas, so Hundley monitors driver behavior using the GPS systems installed in his fleet. When the company detects wasteful patterns a manager sits down with the employee to explain how he can help the company keep down fuel expenses. Limousine Connection is so serious about saving gas that, in some cases, it has issued verbal warnings to some drivers.
Hundley also has added more fuel-efficient vehicles to its fleet. The company has some hybrids, and all except a few Mercedes use regular, rather than premium, gas.
CHEAPER TO MAKE IT IN THE U.S.
The rising cost of jet fuel has convinced Seesmart Inc. to make the commercial and household lights that it sells in U.S. factories instead of Asia. Ray Sjolseth, president of the Simi Valley, Calif.-based company, says that the savings he used to get from manufacturing overseas is being wiped out by higher air freight rates.
Sjolseth says his customers tend to have last-minute deadlines. “We don’t have a choice but to air freight the products,” he says He estimates that 80 percent of his goods are shipped by air and that rising rates are raising his manufacturing costs between 5 percent and 8 percent.
So Sjolseth’s solution is to move his manufacturing to the U.S. He currently has one factory in California and expects to have one in Chicago operating by the end of the year. He estimates that a year from now, he’ll save between 5 percent and 10 percent because he won’t be getting shipments by air.
SHIFTING RESOURCES
Higher gas prices are cutting into travel budgets and that’s hurting Towne Park Systems’ revenue. The Annapolis, Md., company runs valet parking services for hotels across the country. These days, fewer guests are parking cars in hotel lots so the hotels don’t need as many attendants.
Town Park responded by shifting some staffers to different jobs, says Kirk Pozadzides, the company’s general manager. The company also provides concierge and other services for hotel guests. Now, the employee who parks cars may shift to working as a concierge.
The company also added “park and fly” services. Towne Park finds unused spaces in garages near airports, and shuttles passengers to airline terminals. It costs a traveler less to use the service than it does to park in an airport lot, Pozadzides says.
“You have to find creative ways to artificially drive revenue,” he says.
WORKING WITH VENDORS
The surge in gas prices in 2008 was a shock for Capriotti’s, a chain of sandwich shops based in Las Vegas. CEO Ashley Morris says the company didn’t pay much attention to a clause in his company’s contracts with distributors that said Capriotti’s would pay more for deliveries if the price of gas went up. So when gas soared that spring and summer, the company was paying far more than it expected for food, paper products and other supplies.
“It hit our business fairly hard,” Morris says.
Now, the surcharge rises and falls based on the price of diesel gas. This time around, he says, Capriotti’s won’t suffer. “We heavily negotiated a sliding scale.”
DELIVERY DILEMMA
Companies that make deliveries are also hurting. Ricky Eisen’s catering business in New York has two trucks and a van. She used to pay $40 to $60 a day for gas for each truck. Now it costs her $72 to $76. And she pays more to vendors for deliveries.
“I’m getting squeezed at both ends,” says Eisen, owner of Between the Bread. “It’s enough to cut a dent in the profit.”
Eisen held out for a long time _ until March 2011 _ before she began tacking on fuel surcharges for her deliveries. She has charged 5 percent extra. Now, she says, “I’m thinking as fuel prices rise, I’m going to have to increase the percentage. Right now, I want to keep it where it is.”