Ex-Janus executive to join money manager Amvescap
Loren M. Starr, the former chief financial officer and senior vice president at Janus Capital Group Inc., will join London-based money- management firm Amvescap Plc as CFO and senior vice president.
Starr, 44, who worked at Denver-based Janus from 2001 until July, will relocate to Atlanta and start his new position Oct. 12.
He replaces James I. Robertson, who will remain at Amvescap as an executive vice president and board member.
Prior to joining Janus, Starr worked in senior finance roles at Putnam Investments, Lehman Brothers Inc. and Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc.
Amvescap subsidiary Invesco Funds Group, which ceased operations in 2004, owns the naming rights for Invesco Field at Mile High, where the Denver Broncos play.
DENVER
Whiting buys Celero’s Texas field interests
Whiting Petroleum Corp. announced Tuesday that it completed the acquisition of Celero Energy LP interests in the North Ward Estes field for $442 million in cash and 441,500 shares of Whiting common stock.
The North Ward Estes field in Ward and Winkler counties, Texas, includes six base leases on approximately 58,000 acres.
SILVER SPRING, Md.
Flight attendant show now set to air in Jan.
“Flight Attendant School,” the reality television show filmed this year starring flight attendants in training for Denver-based Frontier Airlines, is tentatively scheduled to premiere in early January on the Travel Channel. It is to air on Thursdays in 18 half-hour episodes. The show was originally to begin airing late this year. The schedule is subject to change.
LANSING, Mich.
Dialysis providers allowed to merge
Two large providers of kidney dialysis services can merge under an antitrust settlement approved by federal regulators and the attorneys general of Michigan and California.
Gambro AB, with U.S. headquarters in Lakewood, will sell its U.S. dialysis clinics to California-based dialysis treatment provider DaVita Inc. for more than $3 billion. To preserve competition, the parties are required to divest 67 clinics nationwide. Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox announced the settlement Tuesday.
DENVER
Restaurants buy sites to develop near DIA
L.C. Fulenwider Inc. has sold two pad sites near Denver International Airport for restaurant development.
The developer has closed on the sale of a site at the southwest corner of East 68th Avenue and Tower Road to Ruby Tuesday. It has sold an adjacent site to DiCicco’s, a California operator of Italian restaurants.
FORT COLLINS
Wind2 Software sold to Va.-based Deltek
Virginia-based Deltek, a provider of enterprise resource-planning software, purchased Fort Collins-based Wind2 Software Tuesday for an undisclosed amount.
Project-software maker Wind2 employees 85 people in five locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The acquisition will add more than 3,000 customers to Deltek’s existing base of 8,000 clients, and $10 million in revenue.
DENVER
NewsGator purchases RSS software for Mac
NewsGator Technologies, a Denver-based provider of Web content syndication software, said it acquired NetNewsWire Tuesday.
The acquisition of the NetNewsWire RSS software from Seattle-based Ranchero Software will allow NewsGator to extend its software to Mac OS X users. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) software allows individuals to access Web content from various websites and blogs.
DENVER
Climarex Energy restores gas capacity
Cimarex Energy Co. announced Tuesday that it has restored approximately 35 million cubic feet of natural-gas production from areas hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The company said approximately 90 million cubic feet of gas remains offline in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast.
CHICAGO
United has record Sept. passenger load
United Airlines said its planes were 80.2 percent full on average in September, its highest- ever September passenger load factor. In September 2004, United’s planes were 77.5 percent full on average.
Its total traffic, or revenue passenger miles, fell 1.5 percent in September compared with a year earlier, while capacity, or available seat miles, decreased 4.8 percent. United’s total departures decreased 11.6 percent in September from the same month a year ago, while its number of revenue passengers fell 7.4 percent.
Separately, United said it has completed a transition of ground handling work at Denver International Airport from Air Wisconsin Airlines and Mesa Airlines to SkyWest. It also completed a transition at Aspen’s airport from Air Wisconsin to SkyWest.
LONDON
Harry Potter sales hit a magical 300 million
Global sales of Harry Potter books have surpassed 300 million, the agent for author J.K. Rowling said Tuesday.
Agent Christopher Little said the series reached the milestone following the publication of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth volume about the schoolboy wizard. As of September, “Half-Blood Prince” had sold 11 million copies in the United States, according to publisher Scholastic Inc.
WASHINGTON
Sticker shock cuts driving, gas prices
Gasoline prices may fall as the shock of $3 a gallon at the pump prompts U.S. motorists to drive less.
Demand for gasoline in the four weeks ended Sept. 23 was 2.8 percent below a year earlier, according to the Energy Department. The data show that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are interrupting growth in U.S. fuel consumption for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
ATLANTA
Tissue maker tries to shred costs with cuts
Georgia-Pacific Corp., the world’s biggest tissue maker, will idle as many as four tissue paper machines, shut a warehouse and eliminate 1,100 jobs in the U.S. and Europe in a bid to reduce annual costs by $100 million.
The plan, which will shrink the workforce 2 percent, will cost $106 million during the next two years.
