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BUSINESS
Business Tri-State: BrickStreet Insurance repays West Virginia loan
CHARLESTON -- Workers' compensation insurer BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Co. says it has completed an early payoff on a $200 million startup loan from West Virginia.
President and Chief Executive Officer Greg Burton says the Charleston-based company submitted the final $85 million Tuesday on the original principal.
Lawmakers provided Brickstreet the loan in 2006 to help underwrite startup costs. The company was given 10 years to repay the debt.
BrickStreet was spun off from a state agency and had a monopoly on workers' compensation insurance in West Virginia until July 2008.
Fifth Third closes sale of stake in unit
CINCINNATI -- Fifth Third Bancorp said Tuesday it has closed on a deal announced three months ago to sell a 51 percent stake in its payments-processing business to global buyout firm Advent International.
Cincinnati-based Fifth Third will retain a 49 percent stake in the new company, Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC, which is valued at $2.35 billion, before any adjustments. The unit processes electronic payments such as debit, credit and merchant transactions.
Advent paid $561 million in cash for its majority stake in the unit. Advent is a global buyout firm with offices in 15 countries, and North American operations based in Boston.
The deal is expected to boost the regional bank's Tier 1 common equity -- a common way to measure a bank's financial health -- by about $1.2 billion.
Sears Holdings to start buyer protection program
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. -- Sears said Tuesday that it plans to offer a buyer protection program for its home appliances to help consumers who lose their jobs during the recession.
The free program, which starts Monday and runs through Aug. 1, covers appliance purchases of more than $399 made on a Sears card by cardholders who lose their job. Cardholders must have held a full-time job for at least 60 days when the appliance was purchased.
If a customer loses his or her job, the program will credit 1/12th of the purchase price to the account for each month the cardholder is out of work.
Chrysler Financial to cut 9 percent of work force
DETROIT -- Chrysler's former financial arm said Tuesday that it will reduce its work force by 9 percent, or more than 300 employees, as it restructures operations after losing its preferred lender status with the automaker.
GMAC Financial Services is now Chrysler's leading lender for financing Chrysler vehicle purchases and dealer inventories, a move prompted by President Barack Obama's auto task force.
From the beginning of the 2008 fourth quarter, Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Chrysler Financial -- which is separate from Chrysler Group -- provided loans for about 62 percent of Chrysler dealers and about 50 percent of its customers. Privately held Chrysler Financial is owned by Cerberus Capital Management.
Kroger Co. recalls beef in some states
CINCINNATI -- The Kroger Co. on Tuesday recalled ground beef sold in some of its grocery stores.
JBS Swift Beef Co. of Greeley, Colo., earlier voluntarily expanded a beef recall because of possible E. coli contamination. Kroger says the suspect beef was sold under its store brands in more than a dozen states.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said an investigation by its Food Safety and Inspection Service of 24 illnesses in multiple states prompted Swift to re-examine its food safety system, leading to the recall.
Kroger says packages with "sell by" dates of April 27 to June 1 are included. They were available in Kroger stores in the Cincinnati-Dayton region that includes northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana; and in western Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Illinois and eastern Missouri.
Kroger-owned Food 4 Less stores in the Chicago area, Fry's stores in Arizona and Smith's stores in Arizona, Utah, and other western states are included in the recall.
The Cincinnati-based grocer is notifying customers who use its loyalty cards by telephone and e-mail alerts. All customers can return the recalled beef for a refund.
Spokeswoman Meghan Glynn said Tuesday she wasn't aware of any Kroger customers reporting illness from the beef.
E. coli is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration, and in the most severe cases, kidney failure.
Some other grocery retailers are also affected, such as Scarborough, Maine-based Hannaford Supermarkets. It is urging customers in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont to check freezers for the recalled beef.
Kroger operates 2,475 supermarkets and multi-department stores in 31 states, under two dozen local banners including Ralphs, Fred Meyer, Food 4 Less, Fry's, King Soopers, Smith's, Dillons, QFC and City Market.
