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Monday, November 9, 2009
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BUSINESS
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In days past, learning involved a classroom in which students sat at desks and listened to a teacher in the front of the room, usually standing in front of a blackboard.
With the emergence of computers and new learning techniques, this kind of teaching seems positively quaint.
A small Baton Rouge company has gained national attention, and national customers, by refining the learning process for companies who want to instruct their employees quickly and efficiently.
A California-based digital effects company with a résumé that includes the movies “300,” “The Last Samurai,” and “Spiderman” is opening shop in Lafayette. Ten out of 17 home runs in the most recent World Series were hit with a Marucci bat, Baton Rouge-based Marucci Bat Co. said today. NEW YORK (AP) — CF Industries Holdings Inc. — with a plant in Donaldsonville — has rejected rival fertilizer maker Agrium Inc.’s sweetened takeover bid, saying the $4.5 billion bid significantly undervalues the company. Sealy & Falgoust Real Estate is adding commercial investment properties and multi-family developments to its commercial real estate brokerage services. The Louisiana Workforce Commission will train workers statewide at its Business and Career Solutions Centers, with an aim of plugging the estimated 4,000-job shortage of workers that possess career and technical education skills coveted by industry. Alexandria-based Centennial Wireless said its 63 retail locations in Louisiana and Mississippi will continue to operate independently as Centennial Wireless and will compete against AT&T and other carriers. Pixel Magic will open a Louisiana studio at the LITE facility in Lafayette, creating 12 jobs within a year and ramping up to a total of 40 jobs in three years, company, state and Lafayette-area officials announced this morning. WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate has surpassed 10 percent for the first time since 1983 - and is likely to go higher. Nearly 16 million people can't find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended. Many economists worry that persistently high unemployment could undermine the recovery by restraining consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. The Rhodia Inc. workers, who operate and maintain sulfuric acid and artificial vanilla production units, say medical insurance costs are soaring — threatening to wipe out their wage gains and, effectively, to reduce their pay — while the company won’t put a cap on health-care costs for a three-year contract being negotiated. Cox Communications is raising prices on its television and Internet offerings effective Dec. 8, while adding nine channels and increasing Internet speeds, the local cable provider said Thursday. Lamar Advertising Co. reported a third-quarter loss Thursday of $4.8 million, compared to net income of $1.8 million for the third quarter of 2008. NEW YORK (AP) -- Consumers, enticed by cooler weather and an improving economy, spent a little more in October, handing the retail industry its second consecutive monthly sales gain after more than a year of declines. Kleinpeter Farms Dairy has expanded its ice cream sales into north Louisiana, which will be followed in about a year by sales there of the dairy’s milk. The city-parish will hold a groundbreaking ceremony this morning on $2.4 million in improvements to the Perkins Road/Acadian Thruway intersection, part of the city-parish’s ongoing Green Light Plan. V-Vehicle Co. will recruit vendors at a Dec. 1 supplier fair in Monroe, where the company plans to open a manufacturing plant a year from now and begin producing an undisclosed car in early 2011. The Monroe Chamber of Commerce and the city of Monroe are sponsoring the fair for VVC, which is based in San Diego. HOUMA (AP) — The head of family-owned shipbuilding company Edison Chouest Offshore says a massive new shipyard planned for Houma will begin production early next year. LSU’s Louisiana Business & Technology Center is being presented the 2009 Excellence in Economic Development Award for Rural Economic Development this evening by a high-level official of the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The economic doldrums continue to plague Baton Rouge-based H&E Equipment Services Inc., which saw third-quarter earnings slide to a loss of $2.3 million, or 7 cents per share, compared to a $17.6 million, or 50 cents per share, profit a year earlier. The Baton Rouge Area Chamber has added several new incentive programs to its BRAC Business Guide that were passed during the recent legislative session. Gov. Bobby Jindal authorized the construction of LSU’s $60 million E.J. Ourso College of Business complex today, with an announcement that $30 million in the state’s capital outlay system would be released for the project. The nine-parish Baton Rouge region, with 775,000 people and 375,000 jobs, should see both population and job numbers grow next year, despite lingering effects from a recession and doubts about state government revenue in Louisiana’s capital city, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber reported Tuesday. The federal government’s plan to cut home health providers’ Medicare reimbursements by 1 percent overall next year has had little effect on the stocks of Amedisys Inc. and LHC Group Inc., both in Louisiana, but industry observers and members say the real impact will come from pending health legislation. LAFAYETTE (AP) — Independent petroleum producer PetroQuest Energy Inc. took a 73 percent hit on third-quarter earnings in the face of sharply lower energy prices from a year ago, the company said Tuesday. RedHawk Energy Corp., the Lafayette-based oilfield service company, has bought Houston-based Xxtreme Group, for $66 million, RedHawk officials said today. Lafayette-based home health provider LHC Group Inc. has entered into a home health joint venture with Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center in Leitchfield, Ky., for an undisclosed sum. Heavy rains over the past two months — the height of harvest season — have delayed harvests and hurt quality and production for many crops, according to LSU AgCenter officials. Louisiana ranked No. 25 in Site Selection magazine’s Top Business Climates for 2009, down three slots from the previous year. North Carolina ranked first, followed by Texas, Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Kentucky. Baton Rouge entrepreneur Charlie Henry started thinking about the best way to protect equipment from the elements after Hurricane Katrina, but the solution eluded him until he heard about Fast Wrap USA, a shrink wrap franchisor based in Reno, Nev. C.J. Brown Realtors will move more than 100 agents, mortgage and finance personnel to a three-story building on Sherwood Forest Boulevard the company bought this week for $2.5 million. The Shaw Group Inc.’s earnings fell 11 percent for its 2009 fiscal year, which ended in August, but the engineering and construction firm posted record sales of $7.3 billion and stockpiled enough cash to arouse acquisition suspicions from analysts Thursday. A public insurance option and paying for health-care changes have drawn the most controversy in Congress, but proposed bills contain many measures that could actually lower costs and improve care, a national business group’s head said Thursday. Orion Instruments LLC announced a $5 million investment Wednesday that will move the firm close to Cortana Mall while boosting employment from 70 to 105. Franklin-based Teche Holding Company, the parent company for Teche Federal Bank, reported net income for the fiscal fourth quarter ending September 30 fell to $1.98 million, or 94 cents per diluted share, compared to $2.12 million or 99 cents per diluted share, a year ago. Block Construction LLC, a general building and construction management firm based in Baton Rouge, began construction of the new 12,000-square-foot YMCA at Howell Place in north Baton Rouge. Louisiana’s economic development department, LED, has won a 2009 award in competition with hundreds of North American economic development groups. Strategic American Oil Corp. has leased over 93 percent of the mineral interest in the 160-acre Dixon Lease located in Franklin Parish. Corpus Christi, Texas-based Strategic expects to lease the balance shortly. Florida-based Mednax Inc. has acquired a two-physician neonatal group based in Covington for an undisclosed cash payment. The doctors provide neonatal intensive care and well-baby care at St. Tammany Parish Hospital. Baton Rouge-based TransGenRx, a biotech company that produces specialized proteins, has landed a contract that could be worth up to $30 million to make human growth hormone for Argentinean pharmaceutical company Cassara. An industrial instrument company will move from its Industriplex area location in southeast Baton Rouge to six acres near Cortana Mall and increase its employment from 70 to 105, the company announced today. Dynamic Fuels, the $150 million alternative fuel project under construction in Geismar, will get a special $30 million tax break in a deal approved by a state board Tuesday. Albemarle Corp. will produce chemical refining catalysts in a new Middle East joint venture, the company said Tuesday. Albemarle’s chief executive, Mark Rohr, said his Baton Rouge company would contribute $80 million to build the catalyst facility with Ibn Hayyan Plastic Co. in the Arabian Gulf industrial city of Al-Jubail. That company is part of the Saudi Basic Industries Corp. Another quarter, another record earnings report for home health provider Amedisys Inc. The Baton Rouge-based firm reported net income of $35.9 million, or $1.29 per share, compared to $23.5 million, or 87 cents per share, a year earlier. Baton Rouge produced nearly one-third of the metro construction job gains in the entire nation in the past year, according to analysis by a construction trade group. Orion Instruments, an 8-year-old Baton Rouge company that makes industrial monitoring devices, will announce its expansion in a Wednesday announcement with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. Baton Rouge-based Albemarle Corp. will produce chemical refining catalysts in a new Middle East joint venture, the company announced today. Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has been chosen to provide program management services for the new $1.2 billion LSU Academic Medical Center in mid-town New Orleans. Britton & Koontz Capital Corp. reported third-quarter net income of $325,000, or 15 cents per share, reported compared to $943,000, or 45 cents per share, a year earlier. This is the final week for residents in Louisiana to take part in the state's Tax Amnesty Program. Kent LaPlace crunched the numbers this morning with 2une In on how you could save money on late taxes. A more favorable bond market, lower construction costs and a slightly scaled-back project could allow Woman’s Hospital to again seek permanent financing for the new facility at Pecue Lane and Airline Highway. Albemarle Corp., the Baton Rouge-based manufacturer of specialty chemicals, earned 7 percent less than it did last year for the quarter ending in September, the company reported Monday. The Mid City Redevelopment Alliance and a committee of residents and business owners have come up with boundaries for a proposed cultural products district. |
