Business news in brief

Farmland Partners buys 2nd property

A farm in Yell County is being purchased for $2.7 million by Colorado-based Farmland Partners, the company said Friday.

The 630-acre farm is near the company's other Arkansas holding of 1,250 acres. Farmland Partners bought its first Arkansas property in June for $4.6 million. The deal for the second piece of property is expected to close in September.

The real-estate investment trust's portfolio is made up of 42 farms including 23,600 acres in Illinois, Nebraska and Colorado. In a release, the company said it will be pursuing further acquisitions in Arkansas.

Luca Fabbri, chief financial officer for Farmland Partners, wrote in an email the company's business model is to acquire farmland and rent it to farmers. He said the recently purchased land could be used to grow row crops including corn, soybeans or cotton.

Farmland Partners went public earlier in the year. Shares closed at $10.85, up 4 cents or less than 1 percent in trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. Share have traded between $10.69 and $14.00 this year.

-- John Magsam

McDonald's July global sales drop 2.5%

CHICAGO -- McDonald's Corp., the world's biggest restaurant chain, said sales at stores open at least 13 months fell 2.5 percent in July as a U.S. slump continued for the third straight month and an investigation in Asia hurt results.

Analysts estimated a 1.1 percent global decline, the average of 12 projections from Consensus Metrix. Sales fell 3.2 percent in the United States and 7.3 percent in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company said in a statement Friday. Both drops were bigger than analysts estimated.

McDonald's, which gets about 32 percent of revenue from domestic locations, has struggled to attract Americans this year as new chains lure away customers and established rivals introduce cheaper food deals. McDonald's also has recently faced sales trouble in China, where one of its suppliers was investigated for altering expiration dates on food.

"The U.S. is struggling and Asia Pacific is struggling," said Peter Saleh, a New York-based analyst at Telsey Advisory Group. "They're just feeling a lot of pressure from competitors" in the U.S.

-- Bloomberg News

Firm's stock soars on Ebola-drug plan

Shares of Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp. rose the most in five months after U.S. regulators said the company could possibly give its experimental Ebola drug to people infected with the deadly disease.

Tekmira shares surged $6.43, or 45 percent, to close Friday at $20.70 in New York.

The Food and Drug Administration had previously put tests of the drug, known as TKM-Ebola, on hold. The Vancouver-based company said Thursday that the agency altered the therapy's status to possibly allow its use in those infected with the virus that has killed hundreds of people in West Africa since March.

"We have been closely watching the Ebola virus outbreak and its consequences, and we are willing to assist with any responsible use of TKM-Ebola," Tekmira's Chief Executive Officer Mark Murray said in a statement. "The foresight shown by the FDA removes one potential roadblock to doing so."

Stephanie Yao, an FDA spokesman, said she couldn't discuss specific products and deferred questions to Tekmira. The company didn't say in the statement if or when it would begin tests, only that it might, and didn't say how much of the drug is available. Julie Rezler, a Tekmira spokesman, didn't return calls for comment after the statement was released.

-- Bloomberg News

Taxes drive down profit for Sotheby's

Sotheby's, the publicly traded auctioneer of art and collectibles, said second-quarter profit fell 15 percent on higher tax expenses.

Net income in the three months ended June 30 declined to $77.6 million, or $1.11 a share, from $91.7 million, or $1.33 a share, in the same period last year, New York-based Sotheby's said Friday in a statement. Excluding some items, adjusted earnings of $1.26 cents a share missed the $1.43 estimate of seven analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

Sotheby's said its effective tax rate increased to 39 percent from 23 percent because of an accrual of U.S. taxes on the earnings of foreign subsidiaries in 2014 and the effect of a non-recurring $6.8 million tax benefit recorded in the second quarter of 2013.

Revenue in the second quarter rose 10 percent to $335.8 million. The auction house's biggest sales are held in the second and fourth quarters.

-- Bloomberg News

Credit scores set to rise as points change

A change in how the most-widely used credit score is calculated will reduce the importance of overdue medical bills and remove blemishes on once late, paid-off accounts.

The adjustments are expected to raise by 25 points the median score for consumers whose only major delinquency is an unpaid medical bill, according to a statement Thursday from San Jose-based FICO, formerly known as the Fair Issac Corp. The updated scoring system is intended to better capture more recent behavior and will be available later this year, the company said.

One in four U.S. families struggled to pay medical bills in 2012 and 10 percent said they had costs they couldn't pay at all, the National Center for Health Statistics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in January. Among families in which all members were insured, 21 percent still had difficulty paying medical expenses, the agency's survey found.

"This will increase the credit scores of many, some substantially," Judith Fox, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and the director of the law school's Economic Justice Clinic, said in an e-mailed statement. "For those consumers, credit will be easier to obtain."

FICO scores are the most widely used credit-scoring formula in the U.S. and are taken into account in lending decisions such as issuing credit cards or setting interest rates on home loans. The updates are intended to give a better picture of consumers' financial health so lenders can feel more confident expanding credit, the company said.

-- Bloomberg News

Business on 08/09/2014

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