Business news in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We’re in the very heart of the product launch activity right now, and we’re going

to build on the momentum that we’ve established here. We’re commanding good prices, we’re controlling costs.”

Dan Ammann, General Motors chief financial officer Article, 1D

Inuvo has $640,000 quarter after loss

Conway-based Inuvo Inc. saw a profit of $640,000 in its third quarter, reversing a loss of $1.3 million a year ago, the Internet marketing and technology company said Wednesday.

Revenue for the quarter ending Sept. 30 was $14.5 million, down from $15.5 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Earnings per share were 3 cents for the quarter, up from a loss of 6 cents per share in the same period in 2012.

State buys information-services data hub

The Arkansas Development Finance Authority has purchased a data center in west Little Rock for $2.1 million on behalf of the state’s Department of Information Systems, the department said Wednesday.

The purchase is part of a partnership between the agencies and the Arkansas Building Authority.

The 9,600-square-foot facility will be a secondary data center for the Department of Information Systems, which will use it to back up public data, according to the news release.

The data center will have three generators and other mechanisms to support recovery operations in the event of a disaster, according to the news release.

The center will also allow for conversion of computer systems to the new site if something affects the agency’s primary data site.

Claire Bailey, the state’s chief technology officer, declined to provide an address for the data center, citing security concerns. Testing of the new facility will begin in January and it is expected to be operational by February.

  • Jessica Seaman

Japan’s Shariah-bond push hits red tape

Tokyo’s plan to become an Islamic finance center, which mirrors efforts by London, Hong Kong and Singapore, isn’t making much headway because of red tape and a lack of awareness, officials say.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation considered selling a global Islamic bond five years ago but the nation’s banking laws don’t include provision for Shariah compliant financial instruments, said Fumitaka Machida, chief representative in Singapore. The country’s lenders can only provide Islamic financing via foreign-incorporated units, which is hindering growth, he said.

Prime Minister David Cameron announced this week that the United Kingdom would be the first non-Muslim country to offer a sovereign sukuk, or bond, seeking to tap an estimated $950 billion in demand by 2017. Japan, which introduced equal tax treatment for Islamic bonds last year, is in a similar position to Hong Kong, which hasn’t made much progress in forming a Shariah-finance hub because of a lack of local demand and familiarity, according to Davide Barzilai, a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP in the city.

“Japan needs to allow the banks there to facilitate Islamic transactions instead of limiting them to undertake such activities outside the country,” Badlisyah Abdul Ghani, chief executive officer at CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd., a unit of Malaysia’s second-biggest sukuk arranger this year, said in an Oct. 29 interview. “A market requires players. Without players there are no markets.”

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Booz merging

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the closely held accounting firm, agreed to acquire consultant Booz & Co. to expand its advisory business.

PricewaterhouseCoopers would gain about 3,000 employees in 57 locations around the world with the deal, terms of which weren’t disclosed. Booz partners are to vote on the transaction in December, according to a statement Wednesday from the two firms.

Booz was created after private-equity firm Carlyle Group LP bought Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.’s government consulting unit in 2008. Carlyle completed an initial public offering of that business, Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp., in 2010. PricewaterhouseCoopers, whose U.S.

operations are based in New York, employs more than 184,000 people in 157 countries and had about $32 billion in revenue in fiscal 2013, according to its website.

Until the results of the Booz vote, “it will be business as usual, with both organizations staying fully focused on serving their stakeholders,” the firms said in the statement.

  • Bloomberg News

U.K. lawmaker slams new rules for jam

LONDON - A British politician criticized new rules on fruity spreads, saying her country’s plan to lower the minimum sugar content of the breakfast staple threatens to turn a much-loved treat into “gloopy sludge.”

British guidelines have long held that a product should be at least 60 percent sugar before it can be called jam.

However officials now plan to lower the minimum to 50 percent so that Untied Kingdom farmers can better market their fruit spreads abroad.

Lawmaker Tessa Munt told the BBC Wednesday that loosening the standards threatened the very institution of the British breakfast - a hearty meal typically served with sausage, egg, beans, tomato and toast.

She warns, “This is going to be the end of the British breakfast as we know it.”

Spain’s fracking rules unleash drillers

Spain completed ground rules for oil and gas drillers to use hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, spurring shale-exploration projects by endorsing the contested technology that they need.

The main oil-exploration law was modified to specifically allow the water-intensive drilling technique in legislation published Wednesday that becomes effective today. In the same law, fracking projects across Spain will now be required to meet environmental-impact rules.

That means the use of pressurized water and chemicals to break up rocks to unlock fuel may be scrutinized for potential effects on aquifers and air quality.

Spain is one of Europe’s most energy-poor nations, importing about 99 percent of its oil and gas needs. While its traditional fields are few with scant output, the advent of finding fossil fuels using fracking technology has sparked interest by drillers from Spain’s Repsol SA to San Leon Energy Plc of Dublin.

  • Bloomberg News

Business, Pages 26 on 10/31/2013

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