Pension fund acquires newspaper chain
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama's employee pension fund, with nearly 360,000 members and some $44 billion in managed assets, has become sole owner of one of the largest chains of local U.S. newspapers, the company said Thursday.
Retirement Systems of Alabama has acquired CNHI LLC, the company announced in a statement. The newspaper group includes 68 daily newspapers and more than 40 non-dailies plus websites in 22 states.
The Montgomery-based newspaper group is being spun off Raycom Media Inc., which is being purchased by the Atlanta-based Gray Television Inc. Raycom was owned by the retirement system.
CNHI, which began as a small newspaper group in 1997 and previously operated with the state retirement system as its creditor, will gain stability through the acquisition, Chief Executive Officer Donna Barrett said in the statement.
"We are very excited about working with RSA again because of its dedication to the crucial role of newspapers in keeping the public informed on what is happening in their communities and beyond," she said.
Among CNHI's newspapers are the Valdosta Daily Times in Georgia, The Tribune Star in Terre Haute, Ind., the Gloucester Daily Times in Massachusetts, The Meridian Star in Mississippi and the Niagara Gazette in Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Financial details weren't announced. The chief executive of the pension fund, David Bronner, said the Alabama system has been invested in the newspaper group for decades, "and we are very comfortable with the investment."
-- The Associated Press
Mediation ordered in farmers' bias case
MEMPHIS -- A federal judge ordered settlement talks Thursday in a lawsuit filed by black farmers from Mississippi and Tennessee who claim a company sold them faulty, low-yield soybean seeds because of their race.
During a court hearing in Memphis, U.S. District Judge John Fowlkes told the farmers and Stine Seed Co. to begin mediation in a lawsuit alleging the company conspired with a seed salesman to sell thousands of dollars' worth of defective seeds to the farmers because they are black. Fowlkes also questioned whether the farmers have enough proof of a conspiracy and facts that support claims of discrimination, or if they were just making "speculative comments" in their lawsuit.
The farmers allege the seeds were much less productive than expected and salesman Kevin Cooper misled them with claims of good yields from soybean plants grown in fertile Mississippi Delta fields. The suit filed in April alleges the good seeds the farmers thought they had bought from Stine were replaced by inferior seeds before delivery. The farmers claim they were given the bad seeds as part of a larger pattern of discrimination and "racial animus" against them.
Stine and Cooper have denied accusations of false advertisement, fraud, racketeering and discrimination, calling them baseless, irresponsible and inflammatory.
-- The Associated Press
Search is on for containers lost at sea
BERLIN -- Authorities in Germany and the Netherlands were searching Thursday for up to 270 shipping containers lost at sea by a cargo ship caught in a storm, saying that a few of them are carrying hazardous material. A bag of the substance washed ashore on a Dutch island.
The ship that lost the containers, the MSC Zoe, arrived in the German port of Bremerhaven early Thursday. The ship, which had last called at Sines, Portugal, lost part of its cargo Wednesday in a storm off the northern coast of the Netherlands and Germany.
Germany's Central Command for Maritime Emergencies said authorities have established that three missing containers at most contained a dangerous substance, but none of them has been found yet.
The substance in question is an organic peroxide, a flammable and highly toxic compound. On Thursday, authorities in the Netherlands said that one bag of peroxide had been washed ashore on Schiermonnikoog Island.
German authorities said most of the containers located so far were in Dutch waters. Special ships equipped with sonar were being used to search in the North Sea for sunken containers.
Officials in both countries have warned the public to stay away from the containers.
-- The Associated Press
30-year mortgage rate dips to 4.51%
WASHINGTON -- U.S. long-term mortgage rates fell this week, starting the year with an inducement to prospective homebuyers.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac -- the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. -- said Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage declined to 4.51 percent from 4.55 percent last week. Despite recent declines, home borrowing rates remain far above last year's levels. The key 30-year rate averaged 3.95 percent a year ago.
The average rate for 15-year fixed-rate loans edged down to 3.99 percent this week from to 4.01 percent last week.
The average fee on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages was unchanged this week at 0.5 point. The fee on 15-year mortgages held steady at 0.4 point.
The average rate for five-year adjustable-rate mortgages declined to 3.98 percent from 4 percent last week. The fee fell to 0.2 point from 0.3 point.
-- The Associated Press
Zuckerberg sells none of his stock in 4Q
Mark Zuckerberg's multibillion-dollar stock sale ground to a halt in the final months of 2018.
The Facebook co-founder didn't sell a single share in the fourth quarter, when the social media company's stock tumbled 20 percent amid a broader market rout. It's the first quarter in more than two years he's refrained from doing so, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Zuckerberg, 34, said in September 2017 that he would unload 35 million to 75 million Facebook shares over the following 18 months as part of a pledge to give away almost all of his fortune during his lifetime. Since then, he's sold about 30.4 million shares worth about $5.6 billion.
Facebook shares have dropped about 38 percent from a record $218.62 on July 25 as the firm faced mounting criticism over its handling of user data and policing of content. Those issues will take years to fix, Zuckerberg has said. The decline shaved $32.7 billion from his net worth, dropping him to seventh on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a listing of the world's richest people.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 01/04/2019