Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Coates buys UK assets
Coates Toners completed the purchase of Sun Chemical’s assets in the United Kingdom for an undisclosed price.
The deal closed on July 31 but was announced Monday. In December Coates executives Larry Berti, Paul Clothier and Jim Collins bought Sun Chemical’s assets in the United States.
The UK purchase allows Coates, based in Dallas, to manufacture and sell dry powder color toner on a global basis. Equipment from the sale has been installed and two workers have been rehired, the company said.
Tobacco makers sue FDA
R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco makers have filed a lawsuit saying their free-speech rights have been violated by a new tobacco law.
The law gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco. It took effect in June.
Part of the FDA bill is designed to regulate the marketing of cigarettes. Reynolds says it seeks to protect its right to communicate with adult consumers.
China buys in to oil sands
PetroChina, Asia’s largest oil and gas company, is buying a 60 percent working interest in its Mackay River and Dover oil sands projects in northeastern Alberta, Canada.
Bill Gallacher, chairman of privately held Athabasca Oil Sands Corp., said it is hard to finance oil sands developments in the traditional equity markets. He said a joint venture with one of the world’s largest oil companies will ensure the two projects are completed on time.
The projects are in the early stages and are estimated to contain 5 billion barrels of oil.
Industry officials estimate the region could yield as much as 175 billion barrels of oil, which would make Canada second only to Saudi Arabia in crude oil reserves.
Chip sales rose in July
Global chip sales fell a little more than 18 percent in July from the year-earlier period, but in a sign of improving demand, semiconductor revenue rose on a month-to-month basis for the fifth time in a row, an industry group said Monday.
July’s sales of chips totaled $18.2 billion and moved up 5.3 percent from June, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
India sees pickup
India’s economy picked up pace in the latest quarter as government spending helped to overcome the worst of the global downturn but drought threatens to stall the recovery.
Growth in gross domestic product accelerated to 6.1 percent from a year earlier in the April-June quarter from 5.8 percent in the previous quarter, the government’s Central Statistical Organization said.
The uptick signals that the worst effects of the global financial crisis may have passed for Asia’s third-largest economy.