LOCAL BUSINESS
Real estate firms merge
Industrial Realty Group and its Ohio partner are merging, the Dayton Daily News reported.
Cleveland-based Ohio Realty Advisors LLC, a commercial real estate firm, merged with Southern California-based Industrial Realty Group to form IRG Realty Advisors LLC.
The merger forms the largest commercial real estate services company based in Ohio, the newly formed company said.
IRG Realty Advisors will serve and oversee properties in 23 states on a portfolio of 70 million square feet with more than 125 employees.
Tracy Green, who formed and founded Ohio Realty Advisors (ORA), will lead IRG Realty Advisors as president and owner, the announcement said.
Green, former principal of the national Trammel Crow Co., founded ORA in 2001. Green will continue working with Stuart Lichter, IRG founder, and Chris Semarjian, who worked with Lichter in Ohio.
Lichter has been involved with developments in Akron, including the former B.F. Goodrich factory complex (now Canal Place) along with the former Goodyear headquarters on East Market Street.
REAL ESTATE
Rates up slightly
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said the average interest rate for the 30-year loan increased to 4.37 percent from 4.33 percent this week. The average for the 15-year mortgage rose to 3.39 percent from 3.35 percent.
LEGAL
Fraud charges filed
A Copley man accused of defrauding people out of $1.8 million in an investment scheme is facing federal charges.
Prosecutors say they charged 34-year-old Anthony Davian with 14 counts in a criminal information. That process often indicates a guilty plea is pending.
A message seeking comment was left Friday for Davian’s attorney.
Prosecutors say Davian promoted and sold securities to at least 20 investors in several states between 2008 and 2013 through his hedge fund, Davian Capital Advisers LLC. Prosecutors say he misrepresented information about his business and used investors’ money to pay his personal and operating expenses.
Half of the charges are for money laundering. The other counts allege mail, wire and securities fraud.
WALL STREET
Markets rebound
After two months of trading, the stock market is back where it started.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 4.3 percent in February, the biggest gain since October 2013, helped by strong corporate earnings and a Federal Reserve that seems to have Wall Street’s back at every turn. But the rise in February must be taken in the context that investors spent the month making up the ground they lost in January.
“February looked a lot like January, just moving in the opposite direction,” said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist with Brown Brothers Harriman Wealth Management.
Investors are also now staring at a stock market, while numbers-wise is basically where it was on Jan. 1, that is a lot more defensive than it was two months ago.
Utilities and health-care stocks — two traditional “safe” places for investors because of their low volatility and higher-than-average dividends — are the biggest gainers so far this year. Utilities are up 5.7 percent in 2014 and health care is up 6.6 percent.
FOOD PROGRAMS
WIC offerings expand
Pregnant women and mothers who get federal assistance with their grocery bills will now be able to buy more whole-grain foods, yogurt, fish, fruits and vegetables. The changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, will go into place by 2015.
The Agriculture Department announced the changes Friday as the final part of a process it began in 2007 to overhaul WIC and expand the list of healthy foods offered. Changes announced that year and put in place in 2009 eliminated juice from infant food packages, reduced saturated fat and made buying fruits and vegetables easier.
USDA says that overhaul will now be complete with a few more items included, such as whole-grain pastas, yogurt and additional types of canned fish.
Compiled from staff and wire reports.