LOCAL BUSINESS
Goodyear to dedicate complex
Goodyear officially will “open” its new global headquarters in Akron with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11 a.m. May 9. The event is not open to the public.
Speakers will include Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Kramer, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic.
Invited guests include local, county and state officials, members of Congress and representatives of Industrial Realty Group, which bought and is developing Goodyear’s former campus.
Ground was broken on the headquarters in April 2011. Goodyear employees finished moving into the building last month.
proxy contest
Ferro dissidents win support
Ferro Corp. shareholders should elect two of three dissident director nominees, recommends proxy advisory firm Institutional Investor Services Inc.
A dissident group of shareholders is trying to elect three candidates to the specialty chemical company’s nine-person board. Ferro, in Mayfield Heights, is also fighting a hostile takeover bid valued at $875 million from Fairlawn-based A. Schulman Inc.
ISS is recommending shareholders elect Jeffrey Quinn, chief executive officer of Quinpario Partners LLC, and David Lorber, co-founder of FrontFour Capital Group LLC. The proxy service did not make a recommendation on the third open seat.
Ferro issued a statement saying it disagrees with the ISS conclusions.
The shareholders meeting will be May 15.
COMPENSATION
Sony leaders to return bonuses
Sony Corp. executives will give up their bonuses after its main electronics business was unprofitable for a second year in a row.
The board backed a proposal from Chief Executive Officer Kazuo Hirai that management forgo bonuses worth 30 percent to 50 percent of their annual pay in the year ended March, a spokeswoman said. She declined to specify the amount of compensation being reduced.
About 40 executives are returning the bonuses, which were scheduled to be paid after the general shareholders meeting in June. Sony reported its first annual net profit in five years last week.
ENERGY
U.S. shale estimate grows
Oil resources in shale formations of North Dakota and Montana are 7.4 billion barrels, U.S. government researchers said, doubling an estimate made five years ago.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the shale oil that could be tapped in those states is the largest so-called unconventional resource in the U.S., and the biggest potential oil supply in the nation after Alaska.
The estimate increased because government scientists for the first time studied the Three Forks formation, which is deeper than the Bakken shale region already being developed. Three Forks was considered out of reach five years ago.
Oil production in North Dakota is booming, making the state the second-largest U.S. producer after Texas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Bakken production rose 39 percent from a year earlier to 715,000 barrels of oil a day in this year’s fourth quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Industries.
New energy group in Ohio
A new Ohio organization has been formed to promote the state’s energy efficiency resources standard and renewable portfolio standard.
Ohioans for Clean Affordable Energy was formed this week by a diverse collection of more than a dozen Ohio groups that includes the Ohio Environmental Council, Sierra Club and Policy Matters Ohio.
The groups said they agree that the current standards are helping Ohioans. “We may not see eye to eye on a lot of things, but we can all agree that Ohio’s clean energy law is good for the state,” spokesman Nolan Moser said.
The Ohio Senate is reviewing the law.
For more information, go to www.cleanenergyohio.org.
RETAIL
Comparison favors Walmart
Prices at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are lower on average than Family Dollar Stores Inc. and Dollar General Corp. as the world’s largest retailer expands its presence in neighborhood markets.
Walmart prices were below Dollar General’s 100 percent of the time in household goods and more than 85 percent of the time in grocery, auto supplies, pharmacy and health and beauty aids, according to a study conducted by Bloomberg Industries during the past 22 months.
Prices at Walmart were lower than Family Dollar 100 percent of the time in household goods and 95 percent in health and beauty.
Compiled from staff and wire reports