BUSINESS
June 17, 2013
Companies have to go where their customers are, and forecasts of economic growth consistently show that more of those future customers will not be in the United States. All members of the Standard & Poor's 500 index are American companies. But make no mistake, most are global companies generating much, and in some cases most, of their sales from outside the United States. S&P Dow Jones Indices calculated that about 46 percent of S&P 500 company sales were derived from non-U.S.
NEWS
June 17, 2013 | By Bonnie L. Cook, Inquirer Staff Writer
S. Miller Harris, 91, longtime chief executive officer of Eagle Shirtmakers, a Philadelphia firm his great-grandfather founded in 1867, died of pneumonia Sunday, June 9, at home in Spinnerstown, Bucks County. Mr. Harris joined the shirt business, designing and manufacturing Eagle Shirts, in 1946. The firm was established by Jacob Miller. It operated a store at 800 Market St. as well as a factory at 26th and Reed Streets. The company later moved to Quakertown. Mr. Harris was known for pioneering the Ivy League look, which featured shirts made from multicolored oxford cloth and neat, button-down collars.
NEWS
June 14, 2013 | Associated Press
MANAGUA, Nicaragua - A proposal to build a massive rival to the Panama Canal across the middle of Nicaragua was overwhelmingly backed by lawmakers Thursday, capping a lightning-fast approval process that has provoked deep skepticism among shipping experts and concern among environmentalists. The National Assembly dominated by President Daniel Ortega's leftist Sandinista Front voted to grant a 50-year concession - to study, then possibly build and run a canal linking Nicaragua's Caribbean and Pacific coasts - to a Chinese company whose only previous experience appears to be in telecommunications.
NEWS
June 14, 2013 | By Paul Nussbaum, Inquirer Staff Writer
A West Philadelphia man hurt by falling concrete in 2011 won a six-figure settlement Wednesday from the owner of the building that collapsed last week, killing six people. Mark Gamble said he was injured by a chunk of masonry that fell from a building at 2100 Market St., just a block from last week's fatal collapse at 22d and Market Streets. Both buildings were owned by STB Investments Corp., whose principal is Richard Basciano. The longtime property manager for all of STB's properties, both in Philadelphia and New York City, acknowledged in legal documents in the Gamble case that he had no certification or training in maintaining properties.
NEWS
June 14, 2013 | By Summer Ballentine, Inquirer Staff Writer
After learning about Sandra Day O'Connor's more than two decades serving as the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice, Nya Fields knew she was about to meet someone important. "I was honored to be here because she was important to the court system," said Fields, a sixth grader at Spring Garden School. "I didn't realize she would be as funny as she was. " O'Connor came to Philadelphia on Wednesday to receive the Virginia Barton Wallace Award, given annually by White and Williams to an inspiring woman in honor of the firm's first female partner.
NEWS
June 14, 2013 | By Allison Steele, Inquirer Staff Writer
Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr. has served as district attorney and considered running for governor. Next month, he will become a partner at the Bryn Mawr law firm Rogers & Associates. Castor said he had had no plans to leave the firm of Elliot Greenleaf, which he has been with since 2008. But lawyer Lance Rogers approached him with an offer to join a smaller firm and help increase its client base, he said. "I was very happy where I was, but this is an opportunity to do something new and exciting," Castor said Thursday.
NEWS
June 12, 2013 | By Bonnie L. Cook, Inquirer Staff Writer
Arnold D. Foley, 83, of Cheltenham, longtime owner of Bundy Typewriter Co., a Philadelphia business since 1919, died Thursday, June 6, of lymphoma at his home. In 1955, Mr. Foley started work as a credit manager for Bundy, which at the time was owned by his uncle Augustus Bundy. The company at 10th and Chestnut Streets was where generations of families went to purchase their first typewriters, according to the Foley family. "Back then, people could buy a typewriter with $9 down and take it home and pay it off monthly," said his son, David.
NEWS
June 12, 2013 | By Andrew Seidman, Inquirer Staff Writer
A Brooklyn-based film production company confirmed Tuesday that it has bought the shuttered Sony manufacturing plant in Pitman for $3 million. Broadway Stages Ltd. intends to lease the nearly 500,000-square-foot complex - which was a CD-manufacturing hub before it closed in 2011 - to a new manufacturing tenant, said Tony Argento, a principal at the company. The Sony Music Entertainment Inc. facility used to be one of the biggest employers in Gloucester County with 2,000 workers at its peak.
BUSINESS
June 9, 2013 | By David Sell, Inquirer Staff Writer
Big pharmaceutical companies strike licensing deals with small companies in hopes of finding new, highly profitable medicine without the cost of buying a whole company. Small companies get funding other ways, such as venture capital firms, but the money from licensing arrangements can mean the difference between continuing operations and closing shop. Sometimes these deals work, sometimes not. Last week presented four examples, three starting and one ending (badly), involving the drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, all of which have significant Philadelphia-area operations.
NEWS
June 6, 2013 | By Bonnie L. Cook, Inquirer Staff Writer
Stephen H. Nissenbaum, 69, a former Bala Cynwyd business owner who doted on his family, died Monday, June 3, at Paoli Hospital of complications from Parkinson's disease. Mr. Nissenbaum, a Wynnewood native, had battled the disease for a decade, his family said. He owned and operated Quaker State Mortgage, a commercial mortgage firm in Bala Cynwyd, from 1985 until 2008, when his condition required nursing care. A 1961 alumnus of Harriton High School in Rosemont, Mr. Nissenbaum graduated in 1965 from the University of Pennsylvania.