R.I. launches prescription-drug website
THE REGION
Rhode Island's Secretary of State, Democrat Matt Brown, launched a website that piggybacks on a Wisconsin website for purchasing prescription drugs from Canada. "We're doing it because the cost of prescription drug has gotten so high," Brown said in an interview. "This is simply a website that is providing the public with information." Rhode Island becomes the fourth state to provide its residents with information on ordering drugs from Canadian Internet pharmacies, behind Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. Massachusetts is considering legislation to set up such a website. Brown said the easiest approach was to simply link to a state that had already done the research. He chose Wisconsin because it had three Canadian businesses to choose from. "We saw no reason to reinvent the wheel," Brown said. While the federal government prohibits the sale of imported drugs, consumers are buying Canadian drugs because they are cheaper, and state governments are helping them in the face of soaring drug costs. (Christopher Rowland)
HP Hood acquires two dairy companies
HP Hood of Chelsea bought two dairy products companies, Crowley Foods LLC of New York and Marigold Foods of Minnesota. Terms of the deals weren't disclosed. The acquired companies will continue to manufacture and distribute the same product lines, Hood said. Hood, one of the largest dairy companies in the United States, has 1,600 employees at facilities in Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Maine, Connecticut, and Virginia. Hood has annual sales of about $1 billion. (AP)
CVS says politics driving R.I. debate
A CVS Corp. official said politics, not economics, are driving the Rhode Island Statehouse debate about pharmacy choice, and that lawmakers are targeting the Woonsocket-based drugstore chain for the wrong reasons. The General Assembly is considering legislation that would bar health insurers from limiting where customers can fill their prescriptions. The pharmacy-choice measure has been approved by the House Corporations Committee and is pending on the House floor. James Smith, CVS's senior vice president of healthcare services, said the bill is gaining for political reasons, and past ethics questions are coloring the debate. The bill passed the House committee after revelations that former state Senator John Celona, who was chairman of a Senate committee dealing with healthcare issues, worked as a consultant for CVS while the pharmacy-choice bill died in his committee year after year. Celona left the Senate in March. The Federal Trade Commission released a statement saying its staff concluded the bills pending in Rhode Island would likely result in "limiting competition, undermining consumer choice, and increasing the cost of pharmaceutical services." (AP)
Sovereign amends Seacoast merger pact
Sovereign Bancorp Inc. amended its merger agreement with Seacoast Financial Services Corp. to provide for a cash election due to strong internal capital growth. Sovereign, a $55 billion financial institution in Boston, said the amendment gives Seacoast shareholders the flexibility to elect to receive Sovereign shares or cash, subject to the limitation that 75 percent of Seacoast shares are exchanged for Sovereign shares and 25 percent of Seacoast shares are exchanged for cash. On Jan. 26, Sovereign revealed its acquisition of Seacoast, a $5.3 billion financial institution in New Bedford, in a stock-for-stock exchange valued at about $1.1 billion, or $35 per Seacoast share. (Dow Jones)
State Street may take over 2 Fresco funds
State Street Corp., manager of $1.2 trillion in investment assets, said that Fresco Index Shares Funds is asking shareholders to transfer management of two US exchange-traded funds to State Street Global Advisors. Boston-based State Street would run the $10 million Fresco Dow Jones Stoxx 50 fund and the $106 million Fresco Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 fund if the proposal is approved by investors in June, a Fresco spokeswoman said. The funds, opened in October 2002 and managed by UBS Global Asset Management Inc., would be renamed and made part of State Street's eight-fund StreetTracks group around July 1. The transfer would expand State Street's foreign stock investment options, Gus Fleites, a managing director at Global Advisors, said. Exchange-traded funds are based on indexes and allow investors to buy and sell an entire portfolio of stocks as a single security. State Street is the second-largest manager of exchange-traded funds, according to Bloomberg data. The company lists $63 billion in assets in 41 ETFs, including $1 billion in the StreetTracks funds. (Bloomberg)
THE NATION
Goodyear to reduce profit another $65m
Goodyear Rubber & Tire Co. said it would reduce its reported profit for the past six years by an additional $65 million because of improper accounting at its overseas operations and other reasons. The company said an internal investigation of overseas accounting was complete. It said the entire results of the probe were still under review but that net income between 1997 and 2003 will have to be reduced by $10 million. The other $55 million is because of understatement of workers' compensation claims at an undisclosed domestic plant, adjustment of profits tied to internal inventory, and other issues. The latest income adjustment is on top of an October finding that forced Goodyear to lower net income since 1998 by nearly $85 million because of separate accounting system mistakes. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating those errors, which Goodyear said stem from an accounting system implemented in 1999 used to track the purchase of equipment for factories. Goodyear said it is cooperating with that investigation. (AP)
San Francisco Fed names president
The Federal Reserve said one of its former policy makers, Janet Yellen, has been appointed president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, replacing Robert Parry, who is retiring after 18 years. Yellen, a former governor of the central bank, will take up her position on June 14. She is currently a professor of business and professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, and has specialized in studies of unemployment, monetary policy, and international trade. The San Francisco Fed is the largest of the 12 regional Fed banks in terms of population and economic output, accounting for around 20 percent of US economic activity. Regional Fed presidents sit on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee and rotate as voting members. (AP)
. . .Etc.
Mercury Computer Systems Inc., whose products are used to make military radar and sonar images, agreed to buy TGS Group of France for $18.5 million in cash and stock to add its first supplier of three-dimensional imaging software. Chelmsford-based Mercury will pay $12.5 million in cash and $6 million in stock for closely held TGS, which has operations in San Diego. . . . Billerica-based GSI Lumonics Inc., which sells precision motion control components and lasers, agreed to pay $55 million in cash for closely held MicroE Systems Corp. The boards of both companies approved the transaction. . . . GigaMedia Ltd. purchased software developer and application-service provider Grand Virtual for $32.5 million in cash in a deal that will be accretive to its cash flows and earnings. The Taiwanese broadband services provider said Boston-based Grand Virtual has 40 employees and develops software for online entertainment services, including online gaming and social networking. GigaMedia said there are no plans to relocate Grand Virtual. . . . Salem, N.H.-based Standex International Corp., whose businesses range from aerospace manufacturing to operating a chain of religious bookstores, will close its two engraving plants in Rochester, N.Y., cutting 60 jobs, to reduce costs. (Globe wire services)
