Aerospace firm in Everett gets new owner
Published 10:29 pm Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Contour Aerospace, in Everett, will have a new parent company in July. Triumph Group Inc. has reached an agreement to buy Vought Aircraft Industries from The Carlyle Group in a deal worth $1.44 billion. Vought owns Everett’s Contour Aerospace. The move increases Triumph’s position as a supplier to Airbus and the Boeing Co. Vought has struggled with the economy and with the delays in Boeing’s 787 program.
Walgreen profits rise despite waning flu
Walgreen Co., the largest U.S. drugstore chain, said Tuesday that even while the flu season has tapered off dramatically, its profit rose 4.5 percent during its fiscal second quarter as its prescription drug sales rose. The steep and unanticipated drop-off in sales of flu shots and cough and cold products — as well as costs connected to store remodeling and inventory changes — dragged the results below Wall Street’s expectations. The company said it sold about 2 million flu shots in December, January and February, less than half the 5 million it administered over the three previous months. The company said it earned $669 million, or 68 cents per share, in the second quarter, up from $640 million, or 65 cents per share, a year earlier. Restructuring expenses reduced its profit by 2 cents per share.
Credit card thief faces sentencing
A computer hacker who helped orchestrate one of the largest thefts of credit and debit card numbers in U.S. history faces sentencing this week for hacking into computer systems of major retailers, including TJX Cos., BJ’s Wholesale Club and Sports Authority. Prosecutors plan to ask for a 25-year prison sentence for Albert Gonzalez, a former federal informant from Miami who pleaded guilty last year in three separate hacking cases brought in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. The sentence sought by prosecutors is the maximum under the terms of plea agreements in cases against Gonzalez brought in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. He will be sentenced in all three cases during hearings Thursday and Friday in U.S. District Court.
Bailout executives to get less this year
The administration’s pay czar said Tuesday that the top 25 earners at five companies still receiving extraordinary aid from the government’s bailout fund will be paid an average 15 percent less in 2010 than in 2009 under his restrictions. The companies include troubled automakers General Motors and Chrysler and insurance giant American International Group. Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg also said he is asking 419 companies that received bailout money to provide details of compensation they received at the height of the financial crisis at the end of 2008 and early 2009. Feinberg’s announcement was the administration’s latest effort to deal with public outrage over lucrative pay packages provided to executives at companies receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer support.
From Herald news services
