Articles

PK Partners sells Nora Plaza to investment group

Michigan-based Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust and a Chicago-based partner, Heilman LLC, have purchased Nora Plaza on the northeast side for an undisclosed price. The 304,000-square-foot center is 93-percent occupied and anchored by a Target store, plus Wild Oats Natural Marketplace and Marshalls. The seller was locally based PK Partners LLC, which owns several other retail centers […]

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Steak n Shake hires Merrill Lynch as financial adviser

Steak n Shake Co. has hired the Wall Street firm Merrill Lynch & Co. as a financial adviser to help examine “potential opportunities,” the struggling Indianapolis-based hamburger chain said this evening. Specifically, Merrill Lynch will advise a special committee of three independent directors that was appointed recently. The committee is helping interim CEO Alan Gilman […]

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UPDATE: Honda hiring process ‘unusual,’ expert says

A long-time economic development consultant said Honda Manufacturing Indiana’s decision to limit applications for production jobs to people living in only 20 Indiana counties is “unusual.” However, Don Iannone, of Mayfield Village, Ohio, quickly added that the Japanese automaker likely made a well-considered strategic decision. “Honda pretty much knows what it needs to do to […]

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Most Hoosiers to be locked out of Honda jobs

Four of five Hoosiers will not be eligible to apply for the roughly 2,000 production jobs at the Honda Manufacturing of Indiana plant in Greensburg, the Japanese automaker announced today. Honda Manufacturing of Indiana said in a news release that it plans to begin advertising the positions in newspapers Aug. 26. The deadline to apply […]

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Hansen & Horn sidesteps housing carnage

Hansen & Horn Group Inc. is sailing through the slump in housing construction relatively unscathed because it began shifting out of the tract-home market about four years ago-while the industry still was going gangbusters. The local builder had operated in the upper end of the tract-home segment, but feared it couldn’t continue competing with giants […]

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Shoe Carnival profit stumbles on same-store woes

Evansville-based Shoe Carnival Inc. said today that profit in its fiscal second quarter fell to $167,000, down from $2.9 million in the same period of 2006. Sales for the quarter ended Aug. 4 increased 5.4 percent, to $154.8 million. However, same-store sales were down 7.1 percent. The shoe retailer attributed the decline to fewer shoppers, […]

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Lilly fees raise questions about conflict of interest

A psychiatrist who advises the state of Minnesota on which drugs to use in Medicaid programs received $488,953 in speaking fees from Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. over eight years through 2006, according to an Associated Press analysis. The fees, received by John E. Simon, have raised questions about whether Simon was influenced to recommend […]

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Japanese firm sending Rushville jobs to Mexico

Fujitsu Ten Corporation of America plans to stop making automotive electronic controls at its Rushville plant by Nov. 9 and send the work to a sister facility in Reynosa, Mexico. Competitive pressures forced the Japanese company to look elsewhere to control costs, said Human Resources Manager Jim Thomas. About 60 workers will remain at the […]

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Indy ‘most affordable’ housing market, again

For two years in a row, the Indianapolis-Carmel metro area has been the nation’s most affordable major housing market, the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo said yesterday. An index shows that 87 percent of new and existing homes sold in the second quarter were affordable to families earning the area’s $63,800 median […]

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Fort Wayne named No. 1 minor league sports town

After studying every U.S. city with minor-league sports but no major league teams, Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal concluded that Ft. Wayne was the nation’s No. 1 minor league sports town. Rounding out the top five were Hershey-Harrisburg, Penn., Oklahoma City, Okla.; Rochester, N.Y., and Reading, Penn.. Cities were judged on number of teams, […]

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Estridge to donate $20 million from track sale

Central Indiana homebuilder Paul Estridge Jr. plans to donate $10 million to the Central Indiana Community Foundation’s Legacy Fund and $10 million to unspecified Indiana businesses. The donations come from the $53.5 million in proceeds Estridge is expected to receive by selling his 34-percent stake in the Indiana Downs horse-racing track to South Bend-based Oliver […]

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Dreyfus opens monster biodiesel plant

The largest integrated soybean-based biofuel production facility in the world opened today near Claypool. The northern Indiana plant, owned by the French agribusiness giant Louis Dreyfus Commodities has enough capacity to consume nearly one of every six bushels of soybeans grown in the state. It’s big enough to produce 88 million gallons of biodiesel fuel […]

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Cymbalta helps fibromyalgia pain, Lilly says

Eli Lilly and Co.’s depression drug Cymbalta dampened pain in patients with fibromyalgia and has asked the Food and Drug Administration to approve it for secondary use, the Indianapolis pharmaceutical maker said today. Patients experienced less pain beginning a week after taking the treatment, a study showed. Two percent to 4 percent of Americans, mostly […]

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Fort Wayne company buys Indianapolis electronics firm

Riverside Manufacturing Inc. of Fort Wayne has acquired Transportation Safety Technologies Inc., an Indianapolis maker of wiring harnesses, sensors and other electronics for trucks and emergency vehicles, the companies plan to announce today. Transportation Safety Technologies is near downtown on the northeastside and was owned by Arcapita, a Bahrain-based investment firm with an office in […]

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Indy night life thrives in spite of state, report says

Chicago Tribune travel writer Alan Solomon says Indianapolis’ resurgence has become old hat, but that a recent trip was revealing nonetheless. “What’s astonishing is, while other Midwestern cities continue to struggle, Indianapolis has become a worthwhile destination while still being surrounded by Indiana,” Solomon said. “It’s not anything like Muncie. Not anymore.” Several downtown bars […]

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After 16 months, storm repairs wrapping up

It’s taken contractors 16 months, but repairs to thousands of central Indiana houses and cars following storms in March and April of last year finally are winding down. Marc Fairchild, vice president of claims at Indiana Farmers Mutual Insurance Co. in Carmel, said only 10 of the 4,330 claims his firm logged remain open. “It […]

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Book printer to add 100-plus jobs near Fort Wayne

Courier Corp. plans to announce this afternoon that it will create more than 100 jobs in addition to the 500 now working at its book publishing operation in Kendallville north of Fort Wayne, a source familiar with the expansion said. A public company headquartered in North Chelmsford, Mass., Courier has 10 locations that publish educational, […]

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Buy corn, other ag products, investment firms preach

Corn-Indiana’s top agricultural crop-is a better investment than oil, copper and other commodities, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms are telling clients. Agricultural products are more likely to withstand a global economic downturn because people still have to eat, according to a Bloomberg report. Consumers in China and other emerging Asian markets will continue […]

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Indiana in recession, forecaster says

Indiana has been in recession since late last year but is on a trajectory to climb out this fall, according to Moody’s Economy.com, a national forecasting company. A computer model based on employment and industrial production also shows that the manufacturing-intensive metro areas of Anderson, Muncie, Elkhart and Michigan City are in recession, Economy.com said. […]

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Steak n Shake investor seeks board seats

A Texas-based investment group disclosed in a regulatory filing this morning that it has amassed a 5.8-percent stake in The Steak n Shake Co. and wants two of its representatives added to the struggling company’s board. The group includes San Antonio-based Lion Fund and Western Sizzlin Corp., a steakhouse chain based in Virginia. According to […]

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