When it comes to protecting consumers, American politicians in China don’t always practice what they preach, unpublished U.S. diplomatic cables show.
In 2007, two U.S. congressmen private admonished a Chinese official about the spike in potentially harmful made-in-China products being shipped around the world, according to a cable from the U.S. embassy in Beijing obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to Reuters by a third party. Get the full story »
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to open its first Walmart Express store on Chicago’s South Side.
The 10,000-square-foot store is set to open this summer in the Chatham Market on 83rd Street, said a source familiar with the plans. Get the full story »
GrubHub, a Chicago-based startup that connects people with nearby food delivery options, said Wednesday that it has raised $20 million in its fourth round of funding.
GrubHub, launched in 2006 as the brainchild of local software engineers Matt Maloney and Mike Evans, raised $11 million in November from Menlo Park, Calif.-based Benchmark Capital. Maloney told the Tribune he wasn’t looking for more funding after that round, but “the calls came pouring in from top-tier venture firms all across the country” that were interested in the company. Get the full story »
Crain’s Chicago Business | Milwaukee-based supermarket chain Roundy’s has signed deals to bring three of its upscale Mariano’s stores to Chicago. They will be in the West Loop, Uptown and Palatine. The Palatine outlet is scheduled to open next year.
U.S. wholesale inventories rose in January and sales set their fastest pace in 14 months, suggesting restocking and strong demand would lift the economy in the first quarter.
Total wholesale inventories rose 1.1 percent, to $436.88 billion, the highest level since November 2008, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It revised December inventories up 1.3 percent. Get the full story »
U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday he had chosen Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to be the next U.S. ambassador to China, replacing Jon Huntsman, a Republican who is stepping down and mulling a run for the presidency.
Hospira won approval for the first U.S. generic version of Sanofi-Aventis SA’s big-selling Taxotere cancer drug, sending Hospira shares up 2 percent.
U.S. sales of Taxotere, an infused chemotherapy known generically as docetaxel, were $1.2 billion last year, according to Hospira. JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott said recently that U.S. approval of generic Taxotere was the most important near-term catalyst for Hospira’s shares. Get the full story »
Allstate CEO Tom Wilson. (2010 handout photo)
Allstate Corp. cut compensation for Chief Executive Tom Wilson by 11 percent to $9.3 million for 2010 as the insurer paid nothing under a bonus plan that measures performance over a three-year period.
The company also missed seven of 12 targets set up to gauge executive performance last year, and a separate one-year bonus was less than the target amount set by the compensation committee of Allstate’s board of directors. Still, the one-year bonus rose 12 percent from the year-earlier payout as results improved at Allstate’s life insurance operation. Get the full story »
Truckmaker Navistar International raised its forecast for the North American market and said it was on track to reach the high end of 2011 profit target, sending its shares up nearly 4 percent.
The improved forecast on Wednesday overshadowed a first-quarter profit that missed analysts’ expectations as truck margins disappointed. Get the full story »
CME Group Inc. anticipates the business of providing fast connections to computer-powered traders could bring in $100 million in revenue within four to five years, a senior executive said Wednesday.
The world’s biggest futures-exchange operator plans to introduce co-location services for electronic traders in early 2012, and more than 100 customers have made early commitments to the program, according to CME Chief Financial Officer Jamie Parisi. Get the full story »
Bernard Dan, who headed the Chicago Board of Trade until its 2007 takeover by CME Group Inc., will help guide NYSE Euronext’s co-owned clearinghouse as it takes on the CME later this month.
Dan, currently president of Chicago-based trading firm Sun Holdings LLC, joined the board of New York Portfolio Clearing as an independent director, the clearinghouse said Wednesday. Get the full story »
Chinese anti-trust regulators have extended their timeframe for reviewing Schaumburg-based Motorola Solutions Inc.’s planned sale of its networks business to Nokia Siemens Networks.
Motorola and NSN announced the $1.2 billion deal in July 2010 and the companies expected to close the deal by the end of 2010, but this deadline was delayed pending approval from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s Anti-Monopoly Bureau. The companies then targeted the first quarter of 2011 for closing the transaction, and Motorola had affirmed this timeframe as recently as two weeks ago. Get the full story »
Chicago-based startup EduLender, a comparison shopping website for student loans, said Tuesday it has raised $1 million in seed funding.
The group of investors includes Hyde Park Angels, an early-stage investment group with its roots in the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, as well as other local groups such as Sandbox Ventures and New World Ventures, whose founder is J.B. Pritzker. Kapor Capital, which is based in San Francisco, Calif., is also an investor. Other participants in the funding round include Excelerate, a Chicago-based incubator, and Sam Yagan, a co-founder of Excelerate who also helped found dating site OKCupid. Get the full story »
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden smiles during the signing of a contract between Boeing and Aeroflot, March 9, 2011. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)
Russian flagship airline Aeroflot said on Wednesday it had signed a firm order to buy eight Boeing 777s, in line with earlier plans, partly to boost its fleet ahead of the Winter Olympics in 2014.
The eight planes — six Boeing 777-300s and two Boeing 777-200s — have a ticket value of $2.17 billion according to Reuters data, although an industry source told Reuters the carrier had received a discount and would pay around $1.6 billion. Get the full story »
