IBJ Staff

Indianapolis-based F.S. English Inc., which operates three buy-here/pay-here auto dealerships in the area, has been bought by Dallas-based Manchester Inc. for $8 million. The deal includes GNAC Inc., the company’s auto lending unit. F.S. English’s owner, Rick Stanley, will continue as CEO of the dealerships.

The pace of pended sales of existing homes in the United Statesfell 0.5 percent in November from the month before, reports the National Association of Realtors. It was the third consecutive monthly decline. Overall, pended home sales are down 11.4 percent from a year ago.

Eli Lilly and Co. has agreed to settle most of the remaining liability claims against its Zyprexa schizophrenia drug, the Indianapolis drug maker announced this morning. The agreement covers about 18,000 people.   Lilly did not disclose the cost of the settlement, but said the total amount is “substantially less” than the $700 million it […]

A.M. General Corp., the South Bend manufacturer of Humvee military vehicles and Hummer consumer sport-utility vehicles, has formed a joint venture with General Dynamics Land Systems to compete to build a next-generation vehicle for the U.S. Army and Marines Corps. The joint venture, called General Tactical Vehicles, will be headquartered in the Detroit area, and […]

Martinsville’s Common Council has unanimously denied a request from Lowe’s Companies Inc. to abate $423,000 of $722,000 in potential taxes on real estate improvements. Council members said subsidizing the home-improvement chain would be unfair to existing businesses. The Mooresville, N.C., company wants to locate a store near an existing Wal-Mart on Grand Boulevard, according to […]

A well-known Montgomery truss manufacturering executive was killed Tuesday when the six-seat airplane he piloted crashed in a farm field after taking off from Daviess County Airport in southwestern Indiana. Abe Knepp, 64, owned K&K Industries, which employed 120. He had no passengers, and investigators have not determined a cause, according to The Evansville Courier & […]

Management of South Bend-based Hacienda Mexican Restaurants now own 100 percent of their 12-eatery chain, having borrowed $7.6 million to assume control, which they previously shared with Calvert Street Capital Partners. The restaurants are mostly in northern and southern Indiana; none are in Indianapolis.

AEP Generating Co. has agreed to buy an electric power plant at Lawrenceburg from New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group for $325 million. The southeastern Indiana plant is next to a similar natural gas-fired facility AEP operates nearby. AEP is an arm of Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power.

A Merrillville real estate agent is inexperienced, and didn’t mean to try to frighten homeowners into moving by using racially divisive methods, her attorney claims in a letter to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is investigating the allegation. Merrillville officials claim that fliers with Mary Ann Winslow’s name on them warn […]

A global trend toward workers’ demanding a larger portion of their nations’ prosperity might result in an increase in the minimum wage and easing of restrictions on union organizing in the U.S., according to Bloomberg. Workers in Group of Seven industrialized nations are pressuring companies and governments after their share of national income eroded to 54 […]

Six of seven Indiana casinos on Lake Michigan and the Ohio River plan to plow a total of $1.2 billion into upgrades to expand and ward off potential competition from other states, according to The Courier-Journal. The Louisville newspaper said they particularly want to protect highly profitable operations should Kentucky or Ohio expand gambling.

The overnight fire at Seasons Lodge & Conference Center in Nashville is unlikely to severely drain the Brown County community’s life blood of tourism, according to Teresa Anderson, CEO of the Brown County Convention & Visitors Bureau. Damage to the 80-room hotel is still being assessed. None of the 18 guests were injured, according to the Brown County […]

AT&T plans to shut down operator services in Indianapolis, displacing 55 workers by April. The shutdown does not constitute all operations at the location, but a call to AT&T’s Chicago headquarters for additional information was not immediately returned.

First Internet Bancorp has closed its $12 million acquisition of Landmark Financial Corp., parent of Landmark Savings Bank and Landmark Mortgage Co. Both institutions are headquartered in Indianapolis. First Internet, founded in 1997 by entrepreneur David Becker, is an Internet-only bank with $445 million in assets.

More than three-quarters of commodity traders, farm advisers and grain buyers surveyed by Bloomberg late last week advised buying corn, because the price is likely to continue rising above the 10-year high of $3.91 per bushel reached last week on the Chicago Board of Trade. The reason: Total U.S. capacity at plants that turn corn […]