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PPL receives honor
Allentown-based PPL Corp. received honorable mention status in Site Selection magazine’s annual Top Utilities in Economic Development listing. The designation is based on calendar year 2008 performance in capital investment, job creation, capital investment per capita and jobs per 10,000 in population.
It also takes into account responses from site selection consultants and corporate end users, and the utilities’ investment in new generation, transmission and renewable energy projects.
Madoff house to be sold
Federal authorities plan to begin selling off disgraced financier Bernard Madoff’s homes to raise money for victims of his massive fraud.
This week, Madoff’s eastern Long Island beach house will go on the market. Up next will be his Manhattan apartment and Palm Beach, Fla., estate. The U.S. Marshals Service, which seized the home in July, believes it could bring $8 million or more.
EBay selling Skype
EBay Inc. is trading control of the online telecommunications service Skype for about $2 billion, reversing a 2005 acquisition that many analysts considered a head scratcher from the beginning.
The company said Tuesday it is selling a 65 percent stake in the business to a group of private investment funds for $1.9 billion in cash and a $125 million note, while retaining a 35 percent stake. EBay has struggled to justify its 2005 acquisition of the company for $2.6 billion.
Metro unemployment easing
In a sharp improvement, the largest U.S. metropolitan areas were evenly split in July between those where unemployment rates rose from June and those where rates fell.
In June, by contrast, 90 percent of the 380 metro areas saw their jobless rates rise from the previous month.
An Associated Press analysis of Labor Department data found that unemployment rates fell in 168 metro areas and rose in 168 others.
Brown: Bad deal, no bonus
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said bankers should be compelled to hand back bonuses if they are based on deals which later go sour, and that such policies need to be adopted internationally. Brown said that bonuses should be based on long-term performance rather than one year’s results.