The Illinois Lottery is not a model Indiana should follow in seeking a private manager to boost revenue, according to Illinois’ own lottery chief. Hoosier Lottery officials say they’ve taken steps to avoid the problems Illinois had with its privatization contract, but several key elements of the process mirror Illinois’.
Downtown is short of the four- and five-star hotel rooms preferred by National Football League sponsors and partners for a 2018 Super Bowl host, but local tourism officials are hesitant to add more hotel space just to secure a second Super Bowl.
Republican Mayor Greg Ballard’s aides says delayed action on funding proposals could jeopardize pending economic development proposals.
Redevelopment of the Massachusetts Avenue fire station could remain in limbo for the foreseeable future, as Mayor Greg Ballard and council Democrats enter a standoff over tax increment financing districts.
The $791 million Hoosier Lottery threw open bidding July 11 for a 10-year contract on marketing, sales and distribution services. The lottery wants to be among the fastest-growing in the country, and it’s looking to the gambling industry to help it reach that goal.
The Mayor’s Office and local mass transit leaders have reached consensus on a site for a $30 million downtown transit center. The preferred location is a city-owned surface parking lot along Washington Street between the City-County Building and Marion County Jail.
The buying spree is back on at WellPoint Inc., with a twist. A decade ago, the insurer consolidated Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans that catered to employers. Today, it is making deals to grow the non-employer part of its business.
A publicly traded real estate investment trust has agreed to pay $201 million for the tallest building in Indiana, a price that could give a boost to the local investment market.
The 13-mile, $600 million upgrade of U.S. 31 that carves through some of Hamilton County’s fastest-growing suburbs is a temporary inconvenience to motorists, but for some business owners it’s a life—or livelihood—altering event.
The Capital Improvement Board has owned the Ober building, at 107 S. Pennsylvania St. near Bankers Life Fieldhouse, since 1999. Members on Monday voted to begin soliciting bids.
The operator of Indiana Grand Casino and Indiana Downs horseracing track in Shelbyville has reached a $3.5 million settlement with the property’s former manager, The Cordish Co., that helps pave the way for its reorganization.
A judge on Thursday approved procedures for the potential sale of the property. Bids must be accepted by July 20, and an auction will be conducted on July 31.
The union movement is desperate for a victory, whether at the ballot box, legislature, or courthouse.
Owner of Indiana Grand Casino plans to proceed with recapitalization plan instead.
The Warsaw area is well-known as the home of gigantic orthopedic implant companies and their suppliers. But now a handful of startups have been able to raise nearly $25 million in equity investments despite the recession—putting a bit more fuel into a fairly stagnant entrepreneurial sector.
Angie’s List Inc. alleges its trademarked name is being misused by a Colorado competitor to intercept people conducting Google searches for the Indianapolis-based contractor-ratings service.
Investment Property Advisors agreed to reduce the size of the apartment building from 26 stories to 10 stories and from 485 units to 319 units to help gain support from the city.
Shares of Endocyte Inc. more than doubled in value Monday morning after the company unveiled an up to $1 billion deal with Merck & Co. Inc. to bring an ovarian cancer drug to market. West Lafayette-based Endocyte’s stock had fallen 60 percent in the past 12 months. New Jersey-based Merck will pay Endocyte $120 million upfront with as much as $880 million in future payments possible based on regulatory approvals and sales of the drug EC145, also known as vitafolide. The agreement gives Merck worldwide commercial rights to EC145, in exchange for double-digit royalty payments to Endocyte. The two companies will split sales revenue and marketing costs in the United States. Endocyte already has begun studying EC145 as a potential lung cancer treatment, and intends to study it in still more applications. Merck also gained the rights to the drug for those other types of cancer. Chris Raymond, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co., called the agreement “an amazing deal” for Endocyte.
Shareholders of Eli Lilly and Co. failed once gain to remove the drugmaker’s tough poison-pill provision against unwanted buyers. The proposal garnered 62.4 percent of the shares voted at Monday’s annual meeting of shareholders, according to preliminary voting results. To pass, the proposal needed support from the owners of 80 percent of Lilly’s shares. That means Lilly’s corporate bylaws still contain an 80-percent approval threshold for hostile takeover bids, even though the company’s board has recommended removing the policy in each of the past three years. The proposal that failed Monday would have required just a bare majority of shareholder votes to approve key moves commonly used in hostile takeovers. In the past two years, the same proposal received 74 percent and 73 percent of all shares, respectively. The supermajority vote requirement dates from the 1980s, the heyday of “corporate raiders” making unsolicited bids to buy public companies. Lilly’s board, which has been fiercely independent during multiple waves of consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry, finally began to support removing the high threshold in 2010. That decision followed three straight years in which a majority of Lilly shareholders expressed support for removing the supermajority voting requirements.
Roche Diagnostics Corp.’s North American sales rose 7 percent in the first quarter, to 615 million Swiss francs, or about $670 million in U.S. dollars, assuming constant exchange rates across the world. The Swiss company’s North American headquarters is in Indianapolis, along with a significant diabetes manufacturing operation. Diabetes sales in North America shrank in the quarter 5 percent, to 119 million Swiss francs, or $130 million. Roche’s sales of lab and testing equipment, and the equipment and chemicals that go with it, all saw double-digit growth in the quarter. Worldwide, Roche’s diagnostic sales grew 4 percent, in constant currencies, to $2.4 billion Swiss francs, or $2.6 billion.
Bloomington-based medical-device maker Cook Group acquired General BioTechnology LLC, an Indianapolis biotech company with about 20 employees. Terms of the deal were not announced. Cook will rename the company Cook General BioTechnology LLC. General BioTechnology was founded in 1997 by former Indiana University School of Medicine researchers. It operates an umbilical-cord blood and tissue bank for families called The Genesis Bank and a reproductive tissue bank called Genome Resources.
Biomet Inc.’s sales rose 5 percent in the three months ended Feb. 29, to nearly $709 million, compared with the same period a year ago. The growth was driven by increased volumes in North America and the Pacific Rim. The Warsaw-based orthopedic-implant maker’s financial results are always closely watched as an early signal for the rest of the industry, which will report first-quarter results later this month. Biomet’s sales of knee implants rose 4 percent and sales of its hip implants rose 6 percent, compared with the same quarter last year. The company’s operating income rose 14 percent, to $108.1 million, primarily due to lower amortization expenses recorded from the company’s 2007 buyout by private equity firms. Biomet has a whopping $5.3 billion in debt, which required interest payments in the quarter of $117 million. That expense and tax payments led Biomet to a loss for the quarter of $16.5 million, up from $11.6 million a year ago.
The proposal garnered support from the owners of 62 percent of Eli Lilly’s outstanding shares. To pass, the proposal needed approval from the owners of 80 percent of Lilly’s shares.
