Below please find daily updates pertaining to the latest in financial, business, and tax news:
Both parties craft reasons to reject boost to Colorado creative districts
Posted: Wed Feb 22 19:25:33 PST 2012Just a few weeks before Colorado's Creative Industries Council is set to designate as many as 15 areas of the state as creative districts, a state House of Representatives committee may have struck a blow to the goal of that economic development program Wednesday. By an 11-2 vote, a majority of both Republicans and Democrats on the House Finance Committee killed House Bill 1132, which would ha...
ProAssurance posts $140M 4Q profit
Posted: Wed Feb 22 18:42:43 PST 2012ProAssurance Corp. (NYSE: PRA) reported net income of $140.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2011, up from $102.1 million from the same quarter in 2010. Operating income, which excludes the company?s income and loss on investments, was also up at $131.5 million compared to $96.1 million a year prior. For the year, the Birmingham-based insurance company's gross premiums written were $566 mil...
Caribou planning up to 70 new coffeehouses
Posted: Wed Feb 22 18:13:02 PST 2012Sales and profits up, beating Wall Street expectations. Caribou Coffee Co. Inc. (Nasdaq: CBOU) Headquarters: Brooklyn CenterBusiness: Owns and operates coffeehousesRank on the Business Journal's list of biggest Minnesota public companies: 53 News Caribou said it plans to open 55-70 new coffeehouses in 2012, with about 20 of those being company-owned. It's also expecting sales to grow 2-4 pe...
Prime Healthcare Services buys Phila.-area hospital
Posted: Wed Feb 22 17:43:32 PST 2012Prime Healthcare Services acquired Roxborough Memorial Hospital from Solis Healthcare Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Roxborough Memorial, a 140-bed hospital in the northwest section of Philadelphia, was formerly part of Tenet Health Corp. of Dallas before it was sold to Solis Healthcare, a for-profit hospital management firm based in the city, in August 2007. Solis also boug...
Amazon pulls thousands of e-book titles in dispute with distributor
Posted: Wed Feb 22 17:35:31 PST 2012Amazon has pulled nearly 5,000 e-book titles from its site in a dispute with Independent Publishers Group, the second-biggest independent publishers group in the country. Amazon pulled the titles in a dispute over e-book discounts, which Amazon generally wants to be deeper than many publishers do. ?There?s only so far we can go,? Mark Suchomel, president of Chicago-based I.P.G., told the Time...
UnitedHealth Group executive elected to Xcel Energy board
Posted: Wed Feb 22 17:34:39 PST 2012Gail Koziara Boudreaux, CEO of a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group Inc., has been elected to the board of Xcel Energy Inc. Boudreaux, 51, is CEO of UnitedHealthcare and manages businesses that represent 93 percent of the revenue created by Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH). She has been named to Fortune magazine's list of the "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" several times and was h...
Two lawyers suspended by Minnesota Supreme Court
Posted: Wed Feb 22 17:22:36 PST 2012The Minnesota Supreme Court said Wednesday it has indefinitely suspended two attorneys who were licensed to practice in Minnesota. Susan R. Anderson of Alexandria was disciplined for failing to act with diligence, failing to communicate with a client, and failing to account for and pay settlement funds to a client, according to the court's order. In the second case, Angela Montgomery Montez o...
Mykonos sells to Juniper for $80 million
Posted: Wed Feb 22 17:08:40 PST 2012Juniper Networks, maker of networking equipment, has acquired web security software startup Mykonos Software for $80 million. San Francisco-based Mykonos was founded in 2009 by President and CEO David Koretz, who previously founded BlueTie, Inc., an email and collaboration software-as-a-service company targeting small and mid-sized businesse. The company's technology allows for detection of in...
Hire slow, fire fast, and other advice for young entrepreneurs
Posted: Wed Feb 22 17:08:08 PST 2012The Stanford/MIT Venture Lab held its monthly panel discussion for a crowd of Silicon Valley movers, shakers and hopeful Thursday night. The topic was young entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurship, and the panelists had a lot of great advice for anyone interested in turning their idea into a startup. The panelists were Daniel Gross, co-founder of the personal data search company Greplin.com;...
David Burk announces new downtown Wichita apartment project
Posted: Wed Feb 22 17:05:25 PST 2012Old Town developer Dave Burk is at it again ? this time planning to convert the building where Player Piano Co. Inc. was located, at 404 E. Douglas, into a 40-unit apartment building. George Laham shared the news during his presentation Wednesday about the Wichita real estate market at J.P. Weigand & Sons Inc.?s 11th annual Real Estate Forum at the Hyatt Regency Wichita. The event drew about 7...
