Janus pays $90 million to raise Intech stake
Denver’s Janus Capital Group paid $90 million to increase its ownership by 5 percent in subsidiary Intech, a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based quantitative investment firm.
Janus, which gained control of Intech in 2003, now owns 83 percent of the company, according to a securities filing Thursday.
Suncor to temporarily close part of refinery
Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. said it will shut down about two-thirds of its Denver oil refinery for portions of the next 42 days for maintenance work.
Suncor officials said there will be no impact on gasoline supplies and prices in Colorado because replacement gasoline and diesel will be shipped via pipeline from other suppliers in Oklahoma and on the Gulf Coast.
Suncor operates the only refinery in Colorado, which typically supplies about 35 percent of the state’s gasoline and diesel fuel.
Frontier sues system over lost revenue
Frontier Airlines filed suit against computerized-reservations-system company Worldspan LP, saying Worldspan transmitted ticket prices lower than Frontier’s actual ticket prices.
Frontier alleges that travelers paid too little for tickets and that Frontier lost $1.2 million in ticket revenue between February and May 2004.
Worldspan took three months to solve the problem, after about 3,600 erroneous tickets, Frontier said in the suit.
ConAgra to sell off refrigerated-meats unit
ConAgra Foods Inc. said it will sell off its refrigerated-meats unit, which generated about $1.9 billion in sales last year.
The sale includes 15 plants in nine states and about 6,000 employees, who spokesman Chris Kircher said are expected to work for the new owner.
Con Agra plans to part with its Armour, Butterball and Eckrich brands.
The deal will not affect Con Agra’s Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Brown ‘N Serve, Slim Jim or Pemmican brands.
Luxury complex gets $175 million loan
The Arrabelle at Vail Square, a $250 million luxury hotel and condo project being developed by Vail Resorts, announced Thursday it has received a $175 million construction loan from U.S. Bank.
The Arrabelle – which will consist of 67 luxury condos, a 36-room RockResorts hotel and approximately 33,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space – is expected to be completed in late 2007.
Natural-gas discovery in Utah honored
Oil and Gas Investor magazine has named a Utah natural-gas discovery by Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp. as the magazine’s Discovery of the Year for 2005.
Barrett’s deep test well is in the Tavaputs Plateau of northeastern Utah. Company officials accepted the award Thursday in Houston at the annual North American Prospect Expo.
The discovery is expected to yield between 500 billion and 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Managing-editor post at Westword scrapped
Denver’s Westword newspaper recently eliminated its managing-editor position, a move that cost industry veteran Ernie Tucker his job. Tucker, who had been with Westword for five years, left the paper in late December.
Privately held New Times Media, Westword’s Phoenix-based parent, made the decision based on lackluster fourth-quarter results and 2006 projections.
City No. 9 with those bound for Mardi Gras
Denver was listed as No. 9 among the top U.S. cities with travelers going to New Orleans during Mardi Gras on Feb. 23-28, according to an index issued by Orbitz, the travel website.
Washington, D.C., was the No. 1 city in the ranking. Frontier Airlines stopped flying to New Orleans in late August because of Hurricane Katrina and decided in September not to resume flights there. United Airlines still operates nonstop flights between Denver and New Orleans.
Adelphia asks judge to OK law-firm probe
Adelphia Communications Corp. asked a judge to authorize a federal probe of attorney David Boies’ law firm, saying the firm’s links to a business led by a “convicted felon” warrant a thorough investigation.
Greenwood Village-based Adelphia dismissed the law firm, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, last year after it disclosed that three Boies children held ownership interests in the document-processing firm used by Adelphia. That firm was run by a Boies friend, William Duker, who served prison time for overbilling the U.S. government for legal services.
United attendants begin retirement vote
United Airlines flight attendants begin voting today on a new defined-contribution retirement plan.
The plan is a replacement of the United flight attendants’ defined-benefit pension plan, which was terminated by the company and turned over to the federal pension-insurance agency.
