Business news in brief

— QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We can’t seem to generate any positive momentum in the labor market for more than a quarter.” Omair Sharif, economist at RBS Securities Inc.

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Comcast buys rest of NBCUniversal

LOS ANGELES - Comcast said Tuesday that it’s buying General Electric Corp.’s 49 percent stake in the NBC-Universal joint venture for $16.7 billion as the company takes advantage of low borrowing costs and what Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts called a “very attractive price.”

At the same time, the company said it would raise its annual dividend 20 percent to 78 cents per share and buy back $2 billion in shares this year.

Comcast shares jumped 7.5 percent in after-hours trading. GE shares rose 3.4 percent.

Comcast Corp. had bought a majority stake in the television and movie company in 2011. It had planned to take a larger stake in it over seven years, paying for it from operating cash.

But Roberts told The Associated Press that the sale of its stake in pay TV network A&E and some wireless spectrum gave it plenty of cash. He also said Comcast got a good deal given that the stock price of media conglomerates has been rising.

“We thought that we would have to pay more later,” he said.

In a statement, Roberts said “our decision to acquire GE’s ownership is driven by our sense of optimism for the future prospects of NBCUniversal and our desire to capture future value that we hope to create for our shareholders.”

Comcast had bought a 51 percent stake in NBCUniversal, home of the NBC television network, from GE for $13.8 billion in cash and assets. It came after the government approved Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal with conditions intended to prevent it from keeping NBC programming to itself at the detriment of other cable operators and video websites.

Comcast, based in Philadelphia, is the nation’s largest cable TV operator with 22 million subscribers.

Tomato-price fixer gets 6-year term

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The former owner of a California tomato processing company was sentenced Tuesday to six years in federal prison for a price-fixing scam that included bribery of purchasing managers at Kraft Foods Inc. and Frito-Lay.

A U.S. District Court judge ordered Frederick Salyer, 57, to begin serving the sentence on April 9, possibly at a minimum security prison camp in Lompoc.

Salyer’s company, SK Foods, was handling 14 percent of the processed tomato market when federal agents raided its offices in 2008.

Salyer, who had been under house arrest in Pebble Beach, previously pleaded guilty to racketeering and price fixing. The charges carried maximum sentences of 20 and 10 years, respectively, but the terms were reduced as part of a plea agreement.

He also was sentenced to three years of probation.

The government found that Salyer and 10 co-conspirators manipulated the price of millions of pounds of processed tomatoes by dispersing about $100,000 in bribes.

  • The Associated PressABC, Univision name channel Fusion

MIAMI - ABC and Univision have announced the name of their joint venture that will provide English-language news programming aimed at the growing Hispanic demographic: Fusion.

Univision News President Isaac Lee says Fusion will unite diverse cultures and give Hispanics “a voice in the American conversation.”

The network will debut later this year. Five major cable distributors have agreed to carry the channel, and it will be available in millions of households nationwide.

Univision is the nation’s largest Spanish-language media company and is now aiming to provide content to second- and third-generation Hispanics whose first language is English. ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

The 2010 Census showed U.S.-born Hispanics accounted for 60 percent of the nation’s Hispanic population growth over the past decade.

  • The Associated PressRates rise at weekly T-bill auction

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in Monday’s auction to the highest levels since December.

The Treasury Department auctioned $35 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.085 percent, up from 0.07 percent last week. Another $30 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.12 percent, up from 0.11 percent last week.

The three-month rate was the highest since these bills averaged 0.09 percent on Dec. 10. The six-month rate was the highest since these bills averaged 0.13 percent on Dec. 26.

The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,997.85 while a six-month bill sold for $9,993.93. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.086 percent for the three-month bills and 0.122 percent for the six-month bills.

Separately the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, was unchanged last week at 0.15 percent.

  • The Associated PressN.Y. town sued for fracking-talk ban

ALBANY, N.Y. - Two environmental groups are suing an upstate New York town for banning discussion of natural gas drilling and fracking at Town Board meetings.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday by the National Resources Defense Council and Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy claims the Broome County town of Sanford is violating residents’ First Amendment rights to free speech.

The board in the small town about 100 miles southwest of Albany passed a resolution in September saying there had already been hours of public comment for and against natural gas drilling and that no further discussion would be allowed.

Residents have packed board meetings in Sanford and other upstate towns in recent months to debate gas drilling as Gov. Andrew Cuomo considers whether to lift a ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

  • The Associated Press

Business, Pages 30 on 02/13/2013

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