Firms

In the latest manifestation of the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom, a major interstate pipeline company wants to expand its transmission network in the Philadelphia area to deliver more gas to customers. Columbia Gas Transmission Group submitted plans Monday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) outlining a public campaign for its $210 million project. The East Side Expansion Project, so named because it adds capacity to the eastern part of Columbia's 16-state system, includes installing a 20-inch-diameter pipeline on a 7.5-mile route in Gloucester County and a 26-inch-diameter pipeline for 8.9 miles in Chester County.

David Reed Johnson, 78, cofounder of Johnson, Kendall & Johnson Property & Casualty Insurance Co., died of respiratory failure Sunday, Feb. 24, at Chandler Hall Hospice in Newtown. In 1959, Mr. Johnson; his brother, Edwin T.; and Ted S. Kendall founded the Johnson Co., an insurance brokerage and risk-management firm. To serve life-insurance clients requesting information about pensions, retirement plans, and health insurance, the brothers established a consulting firm in 1963 that evolved into the Johnson Cos. In 1980, Johnson Cos. vice president Ted Benna discovered a way to take advantage of section 401(k)

AN OUTSIDE consultant hired by the city has identified at least $85 million in potential savings and revenue that the city can realize over the next five years without cutting jobs or raising taxes, Mayor Nutter said Tuesday at his annual address to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Much of the money would come from improved collection of fees such as for emergency medical transports and commercial trash pickup, which in Philly are collected at rates below industry standards.

Paul C.P. McIlhenny, 68, chief executive and board chairman of the McIlhenny Co. that makes the trademarked line of Tabasco hot pepper sauces sold the world over, has died. The company, based on south Louisiana's Avery Island, said in a statement released Sunday that Mr. McIlhenny had died Saturday. The statement credited Mr. McIlhenny's leadership with introducing several new varieties of hot sauces sold under the Tabasco brand and for greatly expanding their global reach. Mr. McIlhenny was a member of a storied clan whose 145-year-old company has been producing the original world-famous Tabasco sauce for several generations, since shortly after the Civil War. The statement said he joined the company in 1967 and directly oversaw production and quality of all products sold under the Tabasco brand for 13 years.

The last three months of 2012 were consumed by the presidential election and worry about the fiscal cliff. How business was doing seemed an afterthought, even on the financial news networks. But with most of the companies that make up the Standard & Poor's 500 index having reported their financial results for the final quarter, it looks as if corporate America continued to ring up profits while elected America was wringing necks over taxes and spending. FactSet Research calculated the earnings growth rate for S&P 500 companies was 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter.

When a Texas landowner took his fear that a gas driller had poisoned his well to federal regulators, the company, Range Resources Corp., turned around and sued him for conspiring "to harm Range. " Critics say the Fort Worth-based company, which pioneered the use of hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale, has taken a hard line with residents, local officials, and activists. In Pennsylvania it stopped participating in town hearings to review its own applications to drill because local officials were asking too many questions and taking too long.

WASHINGTON - When Kevin Mandia, a retired military cybercrime investigator, decided to expose China as a primary threat to U.S. computer networks, he did not have to consult with American diplomats in Beijing or declassify tactics to safely disclose government secrets. He pulled together a 76-page report based on seven years of his company's work and produced the most detailed public account yet of how, he says, the Chinese government has been rummaging through the networks of major U.S. companies.

T OM ASHLEY, 37, of Northern Liberties, is CEO of Invincible Pictures, parent company of Philly Sound Stages and FlixFling. Based in a 70,000-square-foot space in Kensington, Invincible provided camera and production testing for the Oscar-nominated movie "Silver Linings Playbook," filmed here. Q: Tell me about the business. A: We started in 2004. We're mainly a production and film-distribution entity. We produce movies, TV commercials and music videos and also have a streaming-movie service.

The Corbett administration persuaded a British firm to keep alive its bid to run the Pennsylvania Lottery past a Saturday expiration deadline, gaining time to try to overcome a ruling by the attorney general rejecting the privatization deal as unlawful. The firm has agreed to keep its bid valid until Friday, Elizabeth Brassell, spokeswoman for the state Revenue Department, which oversees the lottery, said Saturday evening. The two sides worked feverishly behind the scenes to negotiate the extension.

  HARRISBURG - With one of Gov. Corbett's biggest initiatives hanging in the balance, top administration officials worked furiously Friday behind closed doors to keep alive their hopes of a lottery privatization deal with a British firm. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Revenue said the administration was negotiating with Camelot Global Services for a short-term extension of its bid to run the Pennsylvania Lottery. That bid is scheduled to expire Saturday. An extension would give Corbett time to figure out how to contend with the major setback dealt to lottery privatization efforts by state Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Thursday.