Manufacture a unique product and your company will enjoy stronger profits and stay ahead of the competition, right? Not necessarily, a new study has discovered. Rather, manufacturers that focus on customized products don’t always turn in profits as great as those that rely on mass production. That’s what Purdue University’s Dauch Center for Management of […]
Fortune Industries Inc. today reported a second fiscal quarter loss of $2.8 million, an improvement from a $4.9 million loss a year earlier. The Indianapolis holding company didn’t break out profits by operating segment for the quarter ended Feb. 29, but CEO John Fisbeck said the slowing economy hurt its human-resources arm. Revenue in its […]
Purdue University trustees this morning approved a capital improvement budget that includes spending $17 million more on renovating and expanding Mackey Arena than the $82 million anticipated last year. The scope of the project is the same; the additional cost was forced by escalating prices for materials and other construction costs, as well as by […]
Pending house sales in the nine-county Indianapolis area plunged 14.7 percent in March from the same month last year, the brokerage F.C. Tucker Co. said today. Sales accepted but not closed fell to 2,419 units from 2,836 a year earlier. Each county, including Madison, saw sales fall, with Hancock posting the biggest reversal: down 31.6 […]
Indianapolis-area drivers will be able to watch for traffic congestion on screens in their vehicles by this fall as a result of an agreement signed this month by Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications Corp. and seven other groups, including National Public Radio. Streets color-coded to show traffic speeds will be broadcast by new digital signals to screens […]
Office vacancy in the Indianapolis area was little changed in the first quarter, according to Colliers Turley Martin Tucker. Despite a net absorption of 126,000 square feet, the vacancy rate edged up 0.2 percent, to 17 percent, from the fourth quarter of 2007, the brokerage said in a report issued yesterday. In the most recent […]
A hardwood company headquartered in the Evansville-area town of Chandler has been sold to a similar company in West Virginia because, the owner said, the company was stuck in a no-man’s land. “We were too small to be a big company and too big to be a small company,” said Indiana Hardwoods LLC owner and […]
Shelbyville officials want to create a fourth tax-increment finance district, this time at the Fairland exit on Interstate 74, where Indiana Downs is renovating its horse track and adding slot machines. In addition to the track, the 1,000-acre district would include a gas station, a warehouse and a former recycling center, among other properties. Although […]
Shares of Steel Dynamics Inc. are climbing higher, egged on this week by Morgan Stanley’s starting coverage and encouraging investors to buy. The Fort Wayne steel recycler, which operates a mill in Pittsboro, west of Indianapolis, picked up the buy rating as Morgan Stanley slapped a downgrade on a giant competitor, Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor Corp. […]
Pan American Plaza and two adjacent ice skating rinks have been sold by Indiana Sports Corp. to a joint venture of locally based Kite Realty Group Trust and Sacramento, Calif.-based Coastal Partners LLC. Terms were not disclosed. Sports Corp. President Susan Williams said the not-for-profit sold the property because its proximity to the soon-to-be-expanded Indiana […]
Evansville-based Old National Bancorp said this morning that it has fired a loan officer operating from an Indianapolis office after an internal investigation revealed that the banker falsified loan documents. Bank CEO Bob Jones said a routine internal review in the middle of the first quarter discovered a loan document that had been forged by […]
Regenstrief Foundation has committed an additional $11 million over five years to the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering at Purdue University. The Indianapolis foundation launched the center in 2005 with $3 million. The center attempts to improve patient safety and patient care through Purdue systems engineering, management, science and information technology. The technology is brought […]
ATA Airlines Inc. said today it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, just two years after emerging from a bankruptcy filed in 2004. All operations were discontinued as of 4 a.m. today, the carrier said, meaning ticket holders will need to find alternatives. ATA had previously discontinued scheduled flights from Indianapolis. The filing means […]
A decline in automotive orders has prompted Harvey Industries LLC to lay off 90 of its 215 workers until it can recover more work through a diversification effort under way since last fall. The company, which operates in the northern Indiana city of Warsaw but is headquartered in Westland, Mich., primarily supplies Detroit automakers with […]
Shares of Hill-Rom Holdings Inc. and Hillenbrand Industries Inc., the companies resulting from the split of Batesville-based Hillenbrand Industries Inc., showed little movement this morning in their first day of trading independently. Hill-Rom shares slipped 24 cents, to $25.46. Hillenbrand Industries fell 32 cents, to $21.78. City Securities stock trader Tim Sutton said officials of […]
ReMax Real Estate Groups and ReMax Legends have merged to form ReMax Legends Group. With 88 agents, ReMax Legends Group is the largest ReMax office in the state. Half the new company is owned by ReMax Real Estate Groups owners John Demos and Logan Blackburn. The other half is owned by Judy Cohen, who owned […]
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. has settled a lawsuit brought by the state of Alaska for $15 million, the parties said in a joint announcement early this morning. Lilly admitted to no wrongdoing as to whether it provided enough information about side effects of its Zyprexa schizophrenia drug. Those side effects include weight gain, high […]
Earl B. Harris, who co-founded former retailer Paul Harris Stores Inc. in 1952, has died at age 90. The Indianapolis resident retired from the locally based women’s clothing retailer in 1985 but had continued a friendship and consulting role with retailers including the Simon family, which controls locally based shopping mall giant Simon Property Group. […]
Imagine what Babylonia and other ancient cultures could have accomplished with a brick-making plant like the one scheduled to open Thursday in Terre Haute. Atlanta-based Boral Bricks Inc. is touting the $58 million facility as the most efficient in the United States, partly because the bricks will be fired by methane gas taken from a […]
Guidant Corp. investors have lost a class-action lawsuit that claimed Guidant executives hid knowledge of defects in the corporation’s heart defibrillators and pacemakers so the value of the company wouldn’t slump at a time it was about to be acquired. Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed the case late last month, saying the investors didn’t produce […]
