Honda offers Calif. buyers natural-gas car, fueling gear
In what it describes as an industry first, Honda Motor Co. is offering a natural-gas vehicle with its own home refueling machine at dealerships in California.
Honda said Thursday it has been offering its Honda Civic GX sedan to fleet operators for seven years, and estimates there are 7,000 of the natural-gas-powered vehicles on the road. But this will be the first time consumers can buy the vehicle in a dealership and lease a refueling machine to go along with it.
“Driving a natural-gas vehicle has never been so convenient,’ said Gunnar Lindstrom, Honda’s manager of alternative-fuel vehicle sales.
Honda said it expects to sell about 300 of the vehicles this year through 17 dealerships in California.
Toronto-based FuelMaker Corp., which makes the refueling machine, also will make the machine available to consumers in Arizona, Salt Lake City, Dallas and Milwaukee, although the Civic GX won’t be on sale in those cities.
Industrial-property sale ranks high in state
What may be the most expensive industrial property sale in state history was announced Thursday by New York- based Broad Street Advisors LLC, who brokered the deal.
The 2-million-square-foot Pratt Industrial/Office Portfolio in Longmont was purchased for $142 million by a partnership of Circle Capital of Denver and Invesco Real Estate of Dallas.
The seller was Pratt Land B LLC, headed by Susan Pratt, who developed the 159-acre park with her late husband, Ken Pratt.
Hotel occupancy flat, although rates rise
Colorado hotel occupancy rates were flat in March compared with last year, but average room rates continued to rise, according to the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report released Thursday.
In the seven-county metro area, occupancy rates dropped slightly from 60 percent in March 2004 to 58.8 percent last month. Average room rates rose by $3.76, to $85.29.
Statewide, average occupancy rates were off by 0.2 percentage points, to 59.9 percent, but average room rates were up by $12.44, to $124.24.
Gamblers drop more cash at state’s casinos
Colorado gamers lost $64 million in March, about 3.3 percent more than the same time last year.
Black Hawk’s 21 casinos reported a slight increase to $45.7 million in March adjusted gross proceeds, defined as the amount gamers wagered minus casino payouts. Cripple Creek’s 19 establishments declined from $12 million in March 2004 to $11.8 million last month. Central City’s seven spots increased from $4.4 million in March 2004 to $6.4 million last month.
Casinos statewide paid $10.2 million in gaming taxes, up from $9.2 million in February.
Mortgage giants losing federal benefits
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac no longer need federal benefits to support the U.S. housing market, allowing Congress to strip them of government sponsorship and reduce risk to taxpayers, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday.
Government benefits for the two largest sources of money for home mortgages are “no longer necessary to support a well-functioning housing market,’ Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the budget office director, told the Senate Banking Committee.
Berkshire Hathaway buys stake in brewer
Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bought a stake in brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos., whose shares have fallen 12 percent in the past year. Berkshire is a “significant shareholder,’ St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch said Thursday in a statement.
The world’s No. 1 brewer didn’t disclose the size of the stake or when it was purchased.
Ex-brokerage exec guilty in Enron scam
A former Merrill Lynch & Co. executive convicted of participating in Enron’s bogus sale of Nigerian power barges to the brokerage was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Thursday after a judge decided his crimes were “benign’ compared with other fraud at Enron.
The sentence for Daniel Bayly was below the recommended 14 years or more. U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein also sentenced Bayly, Merrill Lynch’s former head of investment banking, to six months probation and ordered him to pay $840,000 in fines and restitution.
Scrushy judge rejects plea to end fraud trial
A judge refused to bring an early end to the corporate fraud trial of Richard Scrushy on Thursday, rejecting defense requests to throw out key charges that the fired HealthSouth Corp. chief directed a huge accounting scheme.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre – who did dismiss one of three other counts accusing Scrushy of violating a new corporate-reporting law – set the stage for the defense to call its first witness.
Gaming board OKs MGM’s Mandalay buy
The Illinois Gaming Board on Thursday unanimously approved the sale of Mandalay Resort Group to MGM Mirage Inc., the last step needed for the deal to close next week.
The Illinois regulatory board’s approval was necessary because Mandalay operates the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin, Ill., the most profitable of the state’s nine riverboat casinos.
Lay’s banking trial to follow fraud case
Enron founder Kenneth Lay’s trial on charges related to his personal banking will be held next year, a judge ruled.
Lay, who faces a separate trial on fraud and conspiracy charges set to begin in January, is accused of lying to banks about his intention to use loans to buy Enron stock on margin before the company crashed in 2001.
The banking case will go to trial within a “couple of hours’ of the start of deliberations in the fraud and conspiracy case, said U.S. District Judge Sim Lake.
BearingPoint sinks; Fiserv fined millions
Shares of BearingPoint, formerly KPMG Consulting, tumbled 32 percent after the company said it found almost three years of accounting mistakes and is running out of cash. … Fiserv Securities was fined $15 million for failing to stop employees from executing about 38,000 improper mutual-fund trades for hedge-fund clients.
