LOCAL BUSINESS
Dollar General to be built
The Akron City Council approved plans this week for a new Dollar General store at 525 E. Waterloo Road.
This will be the latest of several Dollar General stores built in the Akron area.
DG Strategic II LLC, a Cleveland company, will build the newest store at Waterloo Road and Sunset Avenue on property that has been vacant, according to city officials and documents.
TRANSACTIONS
Chairman offers to buy Dole
Dole Food Co.’s Chairman and CEO David Murdock and his family offered to buy the fresh fruits and vegetable business with a bid that values the entire company at about $1.07 billion. Murdock and other family members are offering $12 per share for the shares of the company that they don’t already own.
According to FactSet, Murdock holds a 39.5 percent stake in Dole, which has about 89.5 million outstanding shares. The offer represented an 18 percent premium to Dole’s closing price Monday. Dole has gone through a lot of major changes recently. It sold its packaged foods and Asia fresh business for $1.69 billion in a deal that closed in April. That allowed Dole to become solely an international commodity produce company, with a narrower focus that also makes its earnings more volatile.
Google acquires map service
Google is buying online mapping service Waze in a $1.03 billion deal that keeps a potentially valuable tool away from its rivals while allowing it to gain technology that could improve the accuracy and usefulness of its own popular navigation system.
The acquisition ends several months of speculation as Waze flirted with potential buyers interested in its rapidly growing service. Waze blends elements of a social network into its maps to produce more precise directions and more reliable information about local traffic conditions. Google Inc. is believed to have trumped two of its fiercest foes, Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc., in the bidding for Waze, which is based in Israel but also maintains a Palo Alto, Calif., office.
RETAIL
Walgreen settles drug probe
Walgreen Co., the largest U.S. drugstore chain, will pay $80 million to end an investigation into whether it violated rules governing the distribution of prescription painkillers, federal officials said. The Deerfield, Ill., company agreed to the payment to resolve a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration probe of drug-distribution practices in Florida and at least three other states, the DEA said in a statement.
The agency said it’s the largest settlement of its kind in DEA history. DEA agents were looking into claims that Walgreen officials allowed prescription painkillers, such as oxycodone, to be diverted to illegal uses. Walgreen’s Jupiter, Fla., distribution center was the largest supplier of oxycodone to retail pharmacies in the state, federal officials said.
AUTO INDUSTRY
German firm cuts 576 jobs
Schaeffler AG, the biggest shareholder in tire and parts maker Continental AG, will phase out production of wheel bearings at a German factory, eliminating 576 jobs because of high costs and competition. Manufacturing of the components at a plant in Schweinfurt will wind down over the next two to three years.
Schaeffler is keen to maintain profit margins as it explores options to ease the debt burden stemming from its investment in Continental. The company reported an 11 percent drop in first-quarter earnings on weaker demand for industrial goods.
TOBACCO
Electronic cigarette tested
Tobacco company Altria Group Inc. is launching its first electronic cigarette under the MarkTen brand in Indiana starting in August and expanding its smokeless product offerings. The owner of the nation’s biggest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, announced the details of its NuMark subsidiary’s foray into the fast-growing business.
It’s the last major U.S. tobacco company to market an electronic cigarette in an industrywide push to diversify beyond the traditional cigarette business, which has become tougher amid tax hikes, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma.
The Richmond, Va., company declined to say whether it plans to expand beyond the initial statewide test market or whether it plans to advertise on TV — a place tobacco companies have long been prohibited from marketing traditional cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. Devotees say e-cigarettes address the addictive and behavioral aspects of smoking. Smokers get their nicotine without the more than 4,000 chemicals found in regular cigarettes.
Compiled from staff and wire reports