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Trump back in AC game
Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka and an affiliate of Dallas-based Beal Bank were chosen late Monday by Trump Entertainment Resorts to buy the company out of bankruptcy for $100 million. A bankruptcy court judge still must approve the plan.
Trump relinquished operational control of the company when it emerged from a second Chapter 11 filing in 2005, though he remained its largest stockholder and chairman of its board.
He and Ivanka Trump resigned from the board in February after bond holders spurned his offer to buy the company — just before it filed for bankruptcy for the third time. The Trumps plan to invest at least $100 million to upgrade the three casinos.
Pepsi buying two bottlers
PepsiCo Inc. said Tuesday it is buying its two top bottlers for $7.8 billion in a bid to save money and get new products to market more quickly. The deals were sealed months after PepsiCo’s first offers were rejected and 10 years after PepsiCo first spun off its largest bottler, Pepsi Bottling Group, which has a facility on Hill Street in Wilkes-Barre.
Shares of the two bottlers set 52-week highs on the news. Pepsi Bottling stock closed up $2.87, or 8.5 percent, at $36.49.
Kraft profits stronger
Kraft Foods says its second-quarter profit rose 11 percent although its sales slipped as the impact of the strong dollar weighed down international sales.
The earnings beat analyst expectations, and the company boosted its profit guidance for fiscal 2009.
The company says revenue fell 5.9 percent to $10.16 billion, missing analyst predictions of $10.37 billion.
Kraft employs about 400 at its offices in Hanover Industrial Estates.
GE pays $50M fine
General Electric Co. will pay a $50 million civil penalty to settle charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission accusing the conglomerate of improper accounting in order to make its financial results appear more attractive to investors.
The SEC said Tuesday that GE violated U.S. securities laws four times between 2002 and 2003 when accounting for items like commercial paper funding and the sale of train locomotives and aircraft engine spare parts. The SEC said the changes helped GE maintain a string of earnings that beat Wall Street expectations each quarter from 1995 through 2004.