Facebook paying $35M to settle suit
MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Facebook Inc. agreed to pay $35 million to settle claims that its officers and directors misled investors in the company's 2012 initial public offering.
Facebook didn't admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which was made public in a court filing Monday. The lead plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit -- public pensions for Arkansas teachers and for workers in Fresno, Calif. -- asked U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet in Manhattan to approve the accord.
Investors sued the social media network in the wake of its initial public offering, claiming the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company and its executives overstated the prospects for earnings and growth for the mobile market before the IPO and artificially inflated the value of the company's shares. Sweet ordered the case to proceed as a group suit in 2015.
"We believe that resolving this case is in the best interests of the company and our shareholders," Sandeep Solanki, Facebook's associate general counsel, said in a statement.
The plaintiffs said in a notice to class members that they agreed to resolve the claims in return for a "substantial certain cash benefit."
-- Bloomberg News
Chicken breast prices hit 12-year low
NEW YORK -- America's favorite meat is the cheapest it's been in at least 12 years.
In the U.S., the average retail price for chicken breast fell to $3.073 a pound in January, the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting the data in 2006. Costs have been falling since 2013 thanks to a boom in grain supplies that's made it cheaper to feed birds and helped increase production.
Output of other proteins is also on the rise, and U.S. supplies of red meat and poultry are set to reach a record. The outlook for bigger beef and pork production are helping to keep those costs lower and "should keep chicken prices in check," according to a report Monday from Morgan Stanley.
"It's really good for consumers right now," Dewey Warner, a Chicago-based analyst for Euromonitor, said in a telephone interview. "I don't see consumption slowing down for chicken with prices being so low."
But the good times may not last. In the year ahead, consumers might pay higher prices amid a potential uptick in inflation as well as rising distribution costs because of a trucker shortage, Warner said.
U.S. per-capita chicken consumption will be 92.5 pounds this year, according to a forecast from the National Chicken Council, compared with 57.9 pounds for beef and 50.9 pounds for pork.
-- Bloomberg News
SeaWorld losses widen as CEO leaves
ORLANDO, Fla. -- SeaWorld's Chief Executive Officer Joel Manby is stepping down from his post as the theme park operator posted a fourth-quarter loss and continues to work on transforming its business.
The company said Tuesday that John Reilly, chief parks operations officer, will take over as interim CEO. Chairman Yoshikazu Maruyama will serve as interim executive chairman until a permanent CEO is named. At that point, he will resume his position as chairman.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, SeaWorld lost $20.4 million, or 24 cents per share. The Orlando, Fla.-based company had a loss of $11.9 million, or 14 cents per share, a year earlier.
The performance was worse than the per-share loss of 18 cents that Wall Street had expected, according to Zacks Investment Research.
Quarterly revenue of $265.5 million beat out analyst projections for $260.1 million.
Attendance declined 2.7 percent, but in-park spending climbed slightly.
Attendance has suffered at SeaWorld since the 2013 documentary Blackfish suggested that the company's treatment of animals may have led to the deaths of trainers. SeaWorld announced last year that it would not breed killer whales and would stop using them in shows.
-- The Associated Press
Consumer optimism highest since '01
NEW YORK -- U.S. consumer confidence jumped to a 17-year high as optimism about employment prospects grew and Americans began seeing additional money in their paychecks from recently enacted tax cuts, data from the New York-based Conference Board showed Tuesday.
The report reflects increased confidence in employment and incomes, which could support consumer spending. The labor differential, which measures the gap between respondents saying jobs are plentiful and those who say they're hard to get, rose to 24.7 percentage points, the highest since 2001.
Recent tax legislation signed in December may have also buoyed sentiment, as many Americans saw bigger after-tax paychecks in February due to the law. That may have helped consumers shrug off the early-February 10 percent decline in stock prices, which have since recovered most of their losses.
-- Bloomberg News
Standoff over Trump hotel escalates
PANAMA CITY -- Last Thursday afternoon, the majority owner of the Trump International Hotel in Panama arrived unexpectedly in the building's swank Sky Lobby, with an entourage.
He wanted to fire the Trump Organization, which has managed the hotel since it opened in 2011.
But the Trump Organization has refused to leave.
Since that first confrontation, police have been called multiple times to referee disputes between owner Orestes Fintiklis -- who blames the Trump family's management and damaged brand for the hotel's declining revenue -- and the Trump Organization, which says it still has a valid contract to manage the place.
Offices have been barricaded. Several yelling matches have broken out. The power was briefly turned off, in a dispute over the building's electronic equipment.
On Monday, Panama's federal prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into the Trump Organization, after Fintiklis complained that he had been unlawfully blocked from his own property.
On Monday, the White House press office did not respond to questions sent about the standoff at Trump Panama. The U.S. Embassy in Panama City and the Panamanian Foreign Ministry both declined to comment, saying they were not involved.
Business on 02/28/2018