Business briefs: Rite Aid to open store in Marysville
Published 10:45 pm Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Rite Aid will open a new 14,000-square-foot store at 3733 116th St. NE in Marysville at 7 a.m. Thursday with a 10 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony. The store will feature Rite Aid’s “customer world” concept, aimed at establishing a design that focuses on the pharmacy. The pharmacy waiting area will feature lowered ceilings, comfortable chairs and a private consultation room.
Fiat pushes its GM Opel bid
Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne pushed his bid for General Motors Corp.’s Opel unit in talks Tuesday with German leaders, saying he had lowered his request for government financial help. Fiat’s rivals in the race for Opel, Canadian auto parts maker Magna International Inc. and U.S. investment firm Ripplewood Holdings LLC, took their case to Opel’s employee council, whose head said Magna was in “pole position.”
Russian investor backs Facebook
Facebook is getting a $200 million investment from a Russian Internet investor that values the social networking company at $10 billion even though it has yet to turn a profit. The investment gives Digital Sky Technologies a nearly 2 percent stake in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook’s preferred stock. Digital Sky won’t get a board seat.
Wal-Mart stampede labeled preventable
The death of a temporary employee who was crushed in a stampede of post- Thanksgiving shoppers at a Long Island Wal-Mart store could have been prevented, federal officials said Tuesday as they proposed fining the world’s largest retailer $7,000. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced it was citing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for inadequate crowd management following the Nov. 28, 2008, death of Jdimytai Damour. Damour had been on the job for about a week when an estimated 2,000 people broke down the doors in search of bargains, trapping him in a vestibule. He died of asphyxiation. “Effective planning and crowd management could have prevented this incident and its grave consequences,” said Robert Kulick, OSHA’s regional administrator in New York.
T-bill rates mixed in Monday auction
The Treasury Department auctioned three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.175 percent, down from 0.185 percent last week. Six-month bills were auctioned at 0.3 percent, up from 0.295 percent last week. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,995.58, while a six-month bill sold for $9,984.75. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.178 percent for the three-month bills, and 0.305 percent for the six-month bills. Separately, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for changing adjustable rate mortgages, fell to 0.47 percent last week from 0.52 percent the previous week.
From Herald news services
