LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“To be successful in China, we must tailor our vehicles to the specific tastes of Chinese customers.”
Mike Manley,
Chrysler’s chief operating officer for Asia Article, 1D
Strikers picket at Lockheed Martin
FORT WORTH - Striking Lockheed Martin workers picketed Monday outside of a North Texas plant where the aerospace company makes F-35 fighter jets.
The strike by Machinists Local 776 in Fort Worth began Monday after union members voted overwhelmingly Sunday to reject the company’s latest contract offer. The union represents about a quarter of Lockheed Martin’s 14,000 workers at the plant.
Lockheed Martin spokesman Joe Stout said the plant remains open and no problems have been reported. He said some employees have been assigned alternate job duties to take over for the striking workers.
Union leaders said the company’s proposed changes to the pension plan, health costs and new-hires policy were unacceptable.
The company said it believes the offer is fair.
Starbucks to open at Disney parks
NEW YORK - Starbucks is about to perk up “the happiest place on earth.”
The Seattle-based coffee chain on Monday announced a partnership to open a store inside each of the six Disney properties in California and Florida.
The first will open this summer at Disneyland California Adventure in Anaheim. The other locations will be at the nearby Disneyland Park and at the parks near Orlando, Fla.
- Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot. The companies are still finalizing when the remaining stores will open.
Starbucks Corp. and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a unit of The Walt Disney Co., did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
The companies said each of the Starbucks stores at Disney will be designed to blend in with the property.
FCC official gets input at T-Mobile
A U.S. official leading regulatory review of Verizon Wireless’ proposed $3.6 billion purchase of airwaves from cable companies went to T-Mobile USA Inc.’s headquarters last week to hear criticism of the deal.
Rick Kaplan, chief of the wireless bureau of the Federal Communications Commission based in Washington D.C., met Thursday in T-Mobile’s Bellevue, Wash., offices where he spoke with Chief Executive Officer Philipp Humm, according to a Friday filing posted on the agency’s website.
Verizon, the largest U.S. mobile provider, announced in December the purchase of unused airwaves from a group led by top U.S. cable company Comcast Corp. and No. 2 Time Warner Cable Inc. The companies pledged joint marketing on the deal, which faces FCC and Justice Department review.
T-Mobile, the No. 4 U.S. mobile provider, asked regulators to block Verizon’s purchase, saying it would result in too concentrated ownership of airwaves for mobile calls and data. The Deutsche Telekom AG unit was the target of a failed takeover bid last year by No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier AT&T Inc.
Verizon hasn’t used some airwaves it holds, and buying more from cable companies would add to “unused spectrum inventory,” T-Mobile executives including Humm told Kaplan, according to the filing. Verizon’s plan announced Wednesday to sell other airwaves if its deal with cable companies succeeds “does not mitigate” harm caused by the deal, T-Mobile executives said.
Insurers pay millions after inquiry
ALBANY, N.Y. - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that life insurance companies have paid more than $262 million to more than 32,000 consumers nationwide after an investigation of unpaid benefits.
The state Department of Financial Services investigation found many insurance companies regularly received a list of recent deaths from the Social Security Administration, but didn’t use them to check whether relatives had filed benefits claims. As a result of the investigation, New York demanded that companies check for unclaimed funds and contact beneficiaries.
After that order in July, insurers reported they crosschecked about 90 million records and made payouts.
Cuomo said Monday that a new regulation will require cross-checks in the future.
The state also started a website where families can search for unpaid benefits on life insurance policies. It’s at nypolicyfinder.com.
Mutual-fund fees slipped in 2011
BOSTON - Mutual-fund fees fell slightly last year, driven in part by investor demand for low-cost funds.
Those findings are in separate reports issued Monday by Morningstar and by the fund industry’s trade organization, the Investment Company Institute.
The annual reports examined average fund expense ratios. That’s the fee investors pay each year, expressed as a percentage of a fund’s assets.
Morningstar found the typical investor paid 0.75 percent last year, or $7.50 for every $1,000 invested. That’s down from 0.77 percent in 2010. Morningstar’s figure is the average for stock funds and bond funds, as well as funds investing in alternative assets.
The institute found investors paid 0.79 percent at stock funds last year, while bond fund investors paid 0.62 percent. Both are down slightly from 2010.
Japan’s Dreamliner flies to Boston
SEATTLE - Japan Airlines on Sunday flew the first scheduled Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger service into the U.S. as it inaugurated service between Tokyo and Boston.
The 16-hour flight from Japan was greeted in Boston by a welcoming delegation, including Japan Airlines Chairman Masaru Onishi. The aircraft took off Monday for the first return flight to Tokyo.
The huge marketing success of the mid-size Dreamliner - Japan Airlines configures the cabin with 186 seats - was partly driven by the fact that it offers airlines the chance to open new long-distance routes between city pairs that don’t have enough traffic to justify putting a bigger jumbo jet in service.
Tokyo-Boston “is exactly the kind of long-haul point-to point route the 787 was designed to fly,” Boeing Japan President Mike Denton, who was on the flight, said in a statement from Japan Airlines.
At the departure gate ceremony in Tokyo, Japan Airlines President Yoshiharu Ueki said the airline “is making best use of the aircraft’s long-range capability, appropriate capacity, and its economic performance,” the airline statement said.
Initially, Japan Airlines will fly four times a week each way between the two cities.
Business, Pages 20 on 04/24/2012