Agreement

Embattled Acme Markets' corporate parent, Supervalu Inc., announced Thursday the sale of five grocery chains, including Malvern-based Acme, to a group of private-equity firms and real estate investors. Supervalu announced a "definitive agreement" to sell its Acme, Albertsons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's, and Star Market stores and related in-store pharmacies for $100 million and the assumption of $3.2 billion in debt. The buyer is AB Acquisition L.L.C., an affiliate of an investor consortium, former Chrysler owner Cerberus Capital Management L.P. Investors include Philadelphia based Lubert-Adler Partners, as well as Kimco Realty Corp., Klaff Realty L.P., and Schottenstein Real Estate Group.

Cherry Hill intends to bid on the Woodcrest Country Club when the bankrupt golf course goes up for auction next month, township officials announced Wednesday. Mayor Chuck Cahn has asked Camden County to contribute money for the bid, which will have to top $6.5 million under terms set this week by a bankruptcy court judge. The township wants to ensure the 155-acre club — which entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings last year and didn't open for the season — remains a golf course or is preserved as open space, Cahn said.

The Rev. George Charles Hoeh was a dynamic and well-loved Episcopal priest, a self-made millionaire and a thoroughly exuberant member of the human race. Even the detective investigating his murder remarked, "I haven't talked to anybody who didn't like him. " In his priestly life, Father Hoeh walked among the flock of his small, secure neighborhood parish in Brooklyn and served as confessor, comforter and social conscience. But he walked more dangerous paths in private life - on those frequent occasions when he abandoned Brooklyn for the relaxation of his commodious retreat in the affluent Sweetwater section of Mullica Township, N.J. It was there, on a Friday in June last year, that Father Hoeh, 58, carelessly invited home a stranger, a young man who called himself Paul and said he was from Minnesota.

Genesis Health Ventures Inc., of Kennett Square, filed for Chapter 11 protection yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, citing $1.5 billion in debts. Genesis is the fifth major nursing home company to file for bankruptcy in the last year as the industry has been battered by reimbursement reductions by Medicare. Genesis officials said that the company's 311 facilities in 15 states would continue to operate through Chapter 11 restructuring. "Chapter 11 protection ensures that employees can focus their attention on serving our customers while we restructure," Genesis's chairman and chief executive officer, Michael R. Walker, said.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said Friday that an unusual plan to finance construction of the I-95/Pennsylvania Turnpike connection "raises alarms" and may prompt an investigation by his office. DePasquale said he was especially interested in why an entity was created to broker the deal, in which wealthy foreign investors would lend the turnpike $200 million in exchange for possible permanent residence in the United States. DePasquale said his office was legally bound to wait until a transaction is completed before launching an audit, so "it may be several months or longer" before he formally investigates the turnpike plan.

Someone's missing at St. Thomas of Villanova Church. The Rev. Anthony Michael Genovese, pastor for eight years, took a sabbatical from January through May, and returned to a new job. Although he will live at the rectory, now it is just a home base for his travels. The new pastor is the Rev. Dennis J. Harten. "There was agreement between myself and my provincial that I would not come back and I would use my time away to reflect on what I wanted to do," Father Mickey, as he is known, said of his discussion with the regional supervisor of the Order of St. Augustine.

  A court fight has erupted at the former 3B Orthopaedics, which moved to Aria Health from Pennsylvania Hospital in January. David G. Nazarian, a former 3B surgeon and a stockholder in 3B Orthopaedics P.C. who did not move to Aria, said in a lawsuit filed Monday that 3B had refused to pay him his share of the proceeds from the sale of the nationally prominent practice. The lawsuit, filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, said that the price for the practice was believed to be $4 million, though Nazarian has not been given a copy of the signed sales agreement.

A long-running lawsuit between lawyer Daniel McCaffery and the city Board of Ethics ended Wednesday with the panel agreeing to pay $2,000 for an advertisement saying McCaffery did not act intentionally to violate the city's campaign finance law in his 2009 campaign for district attorney. The lawsuit, filed in December 2009, accused the board and its executive director, Shane Creamer, of "frivolous, misleading, and false statements about McCaffery," made to "sabotage McCaffery's campaign, to embarrass McCaffery, and to tarnish his name and reputation in the eyes of the voting public.

Merck & Co. Inc., which made the controversial arthritis painkiller Vioxx, just settled an unusual class-action lawsuit involving Missouri residents who sued on consumer-fraud grounds without having shown that they incurred physical harm. The economic argument was that Vioxx did not provide what Merck claimed it would. Vioxx was on the market from 1999 until it was withdrawn in 2004 because previously hidden clinical trials showed that it caused increased risk of heart attacks. Merck has large operations in the Philadelphia region.

The operator of a proposed Chesapeake Bay terminal that would liquefy natural gas for export has signed deals to ship the fuel to India and Japan, buttressing its application for an export license. Dominion Resources announced Monday that it had secured buyers for essentially the entire capacity of the proposed plant at Cove Point, Md., which is tied directly by pipeline to Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale gas field. The Virginia energy company also announced it had signed engineering contracts for the Cove Point project and filed a formal 12,000-page application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.