Oil-GAS DRILLING
Chesapeake to sell acreage
Chesapeake Energy Corp., reportedly is trying to sell 94,000 acres of its holdings in Portage and Stark counties.
The listing, covering about 10 percent of the Oklahoma-based company’s Ohio land acquisitions, was made public Tuesday by a broker, Meagher Energy Advisors, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The tract includes at least three wells, the paper reported.
Chesapeake has said it intends to sell off leased land that is not part of its core area of 10 counties in eastern Ohio. Stark and Portage are not among those counties.
Last summer, Chesapeake listed about 330,000 acres in Ohio’s Utica shale formation that the company intended to sell off.
The shale formation contains significant deposits of oil, gas and natural gas liquids.
No announcement of any sales has been made.
Chesapeake has said it plans to sell off about $7 billion in assets companywide in 2013 to reduce debt.
FOOD
More Hostess sales approved
Hostess Brands Inc. won approval to sell its Drake’s snack-cake brands to McKee Foods Corp., makers of Little Debbie cakes.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, N.Y., approved the sale to McKee, which made the only qualified bid for the brands. McKee will pay $27.5 million for Drake’s products including Devil Dogs, Ring Dings, Yodels, Yankee Doodles, Sunny Doodles, Funny Bones and Drake’s Coffee Cake.
ECONOMY
Survey: Optimism declines
Optimism among small-business owners took a dive last month as their expectations for sales and the overall business climate fell.
That was the finding of a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. The advocacy group says its index of small-business optimism, compiled from a survey of 759 of its members, fell 1.3 points to 89.5 after three months of gains.
More than three-quarters of the owners expect business conditions in six months to be the same or worse than now. The number of owners expecting higher sales fell.
MERGERS
Office suppliers make plan
Office Depot and OfficeMax have formed a CEO search committee and received a request for more information from the Federal Trade Communication about their planned merger.
The two office-supply chains said in February they planned to combine in an all-stock deal worth about $1.2 billion, but key details, such as the name of the new company, CEO and headquarters, have yet to be determined. The companies said those details will be decided when a new board is formed and will take into consideration the recommendation of the incoming CEO.
The companies named the committee that will select the CEO. Dunkin’ Donuts CEO Nigel Travis, an Office Depot board member, and Jim Marino, former CEO of Alberto Culver Co. and OfficeMax board member, will co-chair.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Ford touts Focus sales
Ford said its Focus small car was the best-selling vehicle nameplate in the world last year, with just over 1 million sold. More than a quarter of all Focuses were sold in China, its largest market. The U.S. was the car’s second-largest market.
It was the second year in a row the Focus has outsold the Toyota Corolla, according to data from automotive firm R.L. Polk. Rounding out the top five sellers were Ford’s F-Series pickup, the Wuling Zhiguang minivan and the Toyota Camry midsize car.
HOUSING
Settlement checks coming
The nation’s largest banks will begin sending payments this week to millions of Americans who might have been wrongfully foreclosed on during the housing crisis.
A total of $3.6 billion will be distributed to 4.2 million borrowers who lost their homes or were at risk of foreclosure, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency said Tuesday.
About 90 percent of borrowers whose mortgages were serviced by 11 of the banks will receive payments by the end of April, the agencies said. The last group of payments is expected in mid-July.
A large share of those receiving payments, about 3 million borrowers, will each get $300 or $400, according to data issued by the two agencies.
Around 80 percent of them will receive $1,000 or less.
Borrowers can call 888-952-9105 to update contact information or verify they are covered by the settlement.
Compiled from staff and wire reports