U.S. construction spending rises 0.1%
WASHINGTON -- Spending on U.S. construction projects edged up 0.1 percent in August as a strong gain in government spending offset weakness in home building and nonresidential construction.
The Commerce Department said Monday that the rise, which followed a 0.2 percent July increase, put total construction at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.32 trillion. That was down 0.4 percent from a record high set in May.
Residential construction fell 0.7 percent in August while nonresidential construction edged down 0.2 percent. Those declines were offset by a strong 2 percent rise in public construction, which increased to the highest level since July 2009. Spending for federal and state and local projects increased.
Construction activity is contributing to solid overall growth, although home building has faced a number of challenges this year.
Builders have had to deal with rising costs for land, lumber and labor.
For August, construction of single-family homes dropped 0.7 percent while spending on multi-family projects fell 1.7 percent. In the non-residential categories, spending on commercial projects, a category that covers shopping centers, fell 0.9 percent, while spending on office buildings was up 0.8 percent.
-- The Associated Press
BancorpSouth completes $152M buyout
TUPELO, Miss. -- A Mississippi bank has completed its purchase of a Texas bank for $152 million in cash and stock.
BancorpSouth Bank announced that it completed the acquisition of Icon Capital Corp. of Houston on Monday.
Adding Icon's $741 million in assets and seven offices roughly triples the size of BancorpSouth's presence in Houston. BancorpSouth says it will open two more branches that Icon planned in coming months.
It's BancorpSouth's third acquisition in recent years, boosting assets to $18 billion. The purchase price included $17.5 million in cash, with the remainder in BancorpSouth stock.
Icon customers will switch to BancorpSouth systems later this year.
BancorpSouth says the acquisition will add to profits within a year.
The Tupelo-based bank now has 285 branches in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas.
-- The Associated Press
Facebook official takes over Instagram
MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Instagram has a new boss: Adam Mosseri, who led Facebook Inc.'s news feed team for many years.
Mosseri takes on one of Facebook's fastest-growing properties after Instagram's founders, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Systrom and Chief Technology Officer Mike Krieger, resigned last week after tension with Facebook over the direction of the service, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mosseri, whose title will be Head of Instagram, announced his new role in an Instagram post posing with the founders.
"I want to thank them for trusting me to carry forward the values that they have established," Mosseri said. "I will do my best to make them, the team and the Instagram community proud."
-- Bloomberg News
Tesla shares soar after suit settlement
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Tesla shares soared Monday after Chief Executive Elon Musk settled a federal lawsuit over the weekend that could have resulted in his ouster from the company and thrown the all-electric car maker into chaos. The stock closed up 17.3 percent at $310.70.
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk, accusing him of misleading investors in August when he announced on Twitter that he planned to take the company private and that he had already secured the funding to seal the deal. Regulators sought to remove Musk from Tesla and ban the billionaire entrepreneur from serving as chief executive of any public company.
Under the settlement, which is subject to court approval, Musk will resign as chairman of Tesla within 45 days and be barred from that position for three years. But he will be allowed to remain on the board and will continue to serve as chief executive, where he oversees the company's development, engineering and design. Musk and Tesla will each also pay $20 million in penalties to "harmed investors," according to the SEC.
Neither Musk nor Tesla is required to admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
-- The Washington Post
Pfizer exec will become CEO next year
TRENTON, N.J. -- The biggest U.S.-based drugmaker will change leaders in January when Pfizer Chief Operating Officer Albert Bourla replaces Chief Executive Officer Ian Read, who has led the company for nearly eight years.
Pfizer Inc. said Monday that Read will become executive chairman of Pfizer's board of directors.
The move comes after Pfizer's board in March gave Read an $8 million bonus contingent on boosting Pfizer's stock price and staying on for up to a year. That allowed Read time to groom Bourla, who had been appointed last January to the newly created chief operating officer post.
The maker of Viagra and the advanced breast cancer drug Ibrance has been dealing for several years with declining revenue as patents expired and generic competition began for a series of big-selling drugs, as have many other drugmakers. For Pfizer, those drugs include Viagra, blood pressure pill Norvasc and high-cholesterol pill Lipitor, which had reigned as the world's top-selling drug for nearly a decade.
Read, who started working at Pfizer in 1978 as an auditor, spent much of his tenure as CEO trying to pull off mega-acquisitions, the strategy that had enabled Pfizer to leapfrog to the top among U.S. drug makers.
The 56-year-old Bourla also has run the drugmaker's vaccines, oncology and consumer health care business.
-- The Associated Press
Texas health care providers plan merger
DALLAS -- Two major not-for-profit health care providers in Texas plan to merge with a goal of improved patient care and more cost-effective services.
Officials with Baylor Scott & White Health and Memorial Hermann Health System on Monday announced their respective boards have signed a letter of intent. Financial terms weren't immediately released on the deal expected to be completed next year.
The systems currently have about 73,000 employees in more than 30 Texas counties with 68 hospital campuses. The combined operation, with a new name to be determined, would have executive and support staff based in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Temple.
The statement from Baylor Scott & White and Memorial Hermann notes both health care systems have strong ties to the academic community, for continued training and research.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 10/02/2018