Airline to offer Branson nonstop flights
Silver Airways is offering new nonstop flights to Branson Airport from New Orleans, Houston and Chicago beginning Aug. 30.
The new Branson routes travel to and from New Orleans International Airport, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and Houston's Intercontinental Airport at various times and on specific days of the week. Florida-based Silver Airways is offering introductory airfares on the new routes priced below $99 for a limited time for travel booked between Aug. 30 and Dec. 19, according to a Tuesday release.
"These new nonstop routes, combined with interline connectivity to major cities across the U.S., will stimulate air travel in the region and make Branson accessible nationwide," Jason Bewley, president and CFO of Silver Airways, said in a statement.
The air routes will be served by Silver Airways' ATR-600 aircraft. The planes have leather seating, increased leg room and overhead bins that accommodate full-size, carry-on roller bags, according to the company.
-- John Magsam
Walgreens adds stores, sees sales gain
Drugstore chain Walgreens Boots Alliance said Wednesday that it had completed its takeover of 1,932 new stores that it agreed last year to buy from Rite Aid Corp. While same-store sales in the front of Walgreens' U.S. drugstores, where customers buy items like toilet paper and toothpaste, fell 2.7 percent in the fiscal second quarter, sales at the pharmacy counter in the back of the store grew 5.1 percent.
Walgreens' adjusted earnings were $1.73 a share, beating analysts' estimates. The company also raised its fiscal 2018 adjusted earnings outlook to $5.85 to $6.05 a share.
Pharmacy sales make up about 70 percent of Walgreens' U.S. business, and as Walgreens doubles down on its retail drugstore strategy, the rest of the health-care industry is changing more fundamentally.
Its biggest retail competitor, CVS Health Corp., is buying health insurer Aetna Inc. for about $68 billion in a bid to create a vertically integrated medical giant that will try and tame health care costs. In March, Cigna Corp. cut a deal to buy Express Scripts Holding Co., a drug benefit manager, for $54 billion.
-- Bloomberg News
S.C. utility in hot water over lobbying
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Saying it's "egregious" that a state-owned utility lobbied against its own sale after a multibillion-dollar nuclear construction debacle, South Carolina's governor Wednesday called on Santee Cooper to halt its lobbying efforts and instead focus on securing the most economic rates for its customers.
"This must end," Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters after the release of emails and communications showing utility lobbyists asked lawmakers to openly oppose a sale. "This is not in the best interest of the people of South Carolina."
McMaster has long railed against Santee Cooper, co-owner in the now-defunct effort to build two new reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station. Shortly after the $9 billion project's failure last summer, the governor began trying to recruit someone to buy the utility, which provides electricity to the state's electric cooperatives. In the months since, the governor said, Santee Cooper began hiring lobbyists to try to tamp down support for any sale.
Santee Cooper customers currently pay about $5 a month for the nuclear project. The utility had been mum about what the V.C. Summer failure would do to its rates until earlier this month, when executives said they expected a 7 percent increase to account for the project failure.
-- The Associated Press
February pending home sales rose 3.1%
WASHINGTON -- The pace of Americans signing contracts to buy homes picked up last month, rebounding from a drop in January. But a shortage of homes on the market continues to weigh on the housing market.
The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that its pending sales index rose 3.1 percent in February to 107.5 after tumbling 5 percent in January. Despite the uptick, the index is still down 4.1 percent from a year earlier.
Pending sales surged 10.3 percent in the Northeast, rose 3 percent in the South but eked out gains of just 0.7 percent in the Midwest and 0.4 percent in the West.
-- The Associated Press
Equifax picks private equity exec as CEO
Equifax on Wednesday named Mark Begor, a private equity executive who once led General Electric's credit card business, as its new chief executive.
Begor, 59, takes over for Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., who has filled the role on an interim basis since September, when Richard F. Smith stepped down after a data breach exposed sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, of 148 million people.
Begor, a managing director at the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, will start at Equifax on April 16. He is also a member of the board at the credit-scoring company FICO, a position he plans to give up before joining Equifax.
Equifax, which is based in Atlanta, maintains files on about 220 million Americans.
-- The New York Times
Trump firm loses Panama hotel plea
WASHINGTON -- A new arbitration ruling says President Donald Trump's family hotel business has lost a bid to regain control of the luxury hotel in Panama that ousted his brand.
The decision dashes the Trump Organization's hopes of reversing its high-profile eviction from the property. The 70-story luxury high-rise on Panama City's waterfront is now renamed the Bahia Grand Panama.
The owners sought to fire Trump's hotel management firm last year, citing poor performance and damage to Trump's brand. After the Trump Organization called the firing a contract violation and refused to leave, the owners waged a successful fight to take physical control of the property earlier this month.
Panamanian judicial officials already helped the hotel owners oust Trump's business from the property, and the arbitrator on Tuesday declined to undo the eviction.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 03/29/2018