“There are too many networks,” Britt said Wednesday in an interview at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association annual cable show in Boston.

For years, U.S. cable carriers have provided TV in large chunks, pushing up the average monthly price to about $80 as even the cheapest packages have ballooned to include hundreds of channels. The increase in the number of little-watched channels, which content providers often sell to cable companies only in bundles with more popular networks, is causing cable bills to rise without any customer benefit, Britt said.

“There are a lot of general-interest networks that have lower viewership, and the industry would take cost out of the system if they shut those networks down and offered lower prices to consumers,” he said. “The companies involved would make just as much money as they do now because of the costs.”

Content providers, including Walt Disney, Viacom, Discovery Communications and AMC Networks, structure deals with cable carriers that bundle many of their networks together.

To get AMC, with popular shows such as Mad Men and The Walking Dead, pay-TV companies also need to buy AMC Networks’ IFC, Sundance Channel and WE tv.

That structure allows the content providers to boost the number of households that receive the less-watched channels — on which the networks then sell advertising and receive carriage fees from pay-TV operators. Many customers wouldn’t subscribe to those less-popular networks if they were able to pay separately for each channel.

Britt says the only way networks will be eliminated is if a “courageous” media CEO agreed to offer popular networks to cable providers without forcing them to pay for other channels that aren’t as highly watched.

Josh Sapan, CEO of AMC Networks, said he doesn’t believe there are too many networks, because they enhance the diversity of thought and ideas.

“The growth of the cable TV industry has gone hand in hand with the diversity of networks out there,” Sapan said. “Certain networks that may have been thought to be niche have, over time, proven to be potent and popular.”

Time Warner Cable’s Northeast Ohio/Western Pennsylvania division is the company’s third-largest business unit overall.

Time Warner Cable is working on an improved user interface with better search functionality to help customers navigate through programs, Britt said. The new guide may be available by the end of the year, he said.

Another way to lower customers’ bills is to offer usage-based pricing for services such as Internet access, Britt said.

Time Warner Cable might eventually offer many pricing tiers, on the basis of the amount of data consumed, though an unlimited option will also remain an option for consumers, Britt said.

Britt also said Time Warner Cable may make another acquisition in the managed Internet-services business to enhance its business-services division. The company purchased NaviSite Inc. last year to help support email, data security and storage capability for business customers.

Housing starts rose 2.6 percent to a 717,000 annual rate in April, beating the 685,000 median estimate of 80 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Construction has improved 50 percent from a low of 478,000 reached in April 2009, during the 18-month recession that ended two months later, based on data from the Commerce Department.

“All of the freight required to build a new home has a very positive impact on trucking activity,” said Todd Fowler, an analyst in Cleveland at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., the investment banking arm of KeyCorp. Each new residence requires between five and eight truckloads to transport supplies such as lumber, roofing materials and interior furnishings, he said.

New home sales increased 3.3 percent in April from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 343,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

As construction improves further, trucking companies will need to add capacity to meet the additional demand, said Bob Costello, chief economist for the American Trucking Associations in Arlington, Va. This will “without a doubt” be a benefit to the industry, particularly in the so-called truckload business, he said.

An index of the loads carried by the truckload segment, a proxy for industry volume, has risen 14 percent to 103.9 in March from the recession period low of 91 in January 2009, based on a survey of the trucking association’s members. Still, that’s almost 13 percent below the May 2008 level, the data show.

If starts were to remain above 750,000 for a 12-month period, trucking companies would need to add about 4,000 trucks to the road, according to Fowler’s calculations. To meet this demand, a fleet the size of those run by a top 10 carrier, such as Knight Transportation Inc., would be required, he said.

There’s “light at the end of the tunnel” for home builders as inventories remain lean and demand is “forming a bottom” in most regions, said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist in Toronto at BMO Capital Markets. Housing starts have averaged a 713,500 annualized pace this year and might improve to average 740,000 in 2013, he estimates.

Federal Reserve policymakers echoed this sentiment, noting that sales and starts “suggested some upward movement,” though “most participants anticipated that the housing sector was likely to recover only slowly over time,” according to the minutes of their April meeting released May 16.

Operators of flatbeds — trailers without sides that transport lumber and large materials — are typically the first to experience more residence-related business as home building expands, said Charles Clowdis, managing director of transportation advisory services at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass. As a homeowner gets ready to move in, dry van carriers carry more freight, such as furnishings and appliances, he said.

Landstar System Inc. is among publicly traded trucking companies with exposure to the flatbed business. The Jacksonville, Fla.-based carrier had 3,424 flatbed trailers as of Dec. 31, according to its annual report. This compares with 3,437 at the end of 2010.

Truckload carriers including Werner Enterprises Inc. and Celadon Group Inc., which transport goods to retailers such as Home Depot Inc. and Lowe’s Cos., probably will benefit from a better housing market, said Fowler, who maintains “buy” recommendations on these companies.

The Bloomberg U.S. Truckload Trucking Index — which includes Indianapolis-based Celadon and Werner, based in Omaha, Neb. — has risen 8.4 percent this year, compared with a 3.2 percent increase for the Russell 2000 Index. For the past 12 months, it underperformed the Russell.

The recovery in trucking volumes since the recession ended hasn’t been led by housing, so “an incremental improvement in housing starts will be a net positive for our industry,” said Derek Leathers, president of Werner. Activity will pick up because the company hauls freight for retailers that sell housing-related goods, he said.

The trucking index’s rebound means “the bleeding has stopped,” according to Jim Stellakis, founder and director of research at New York-based research company Technical Alpha. If it begins trading higher than its peaks relative to the Russell 2000, which came in January 2012 and August 2011, it would indicate investors are becoming more optimistic about the industry, he said.

Shares of trucking operators haven’t outperformed the market during the past year because freight activity has been “good, but not great,” Fowler said. “If you believe the housing market is getting better, there should be an additional improvement” in demand and the rates charged, which may help stock performance, he said.

Should new home starts return to a 10-year average of 1.3 million on an annualized basis, it would effectively double the number of trucks required to haul housing-related freight from current levels, Fowler estimated.

Right after trading began and the stock began to wobble, the news agency Reuters had a story posted using the word “fizzle” in the headline.

Later, other stories used “Faceplant” to describe it. My own newspaper used the word “flop” in its headline. And the stock dropping almost 11 percent Monday was just seen as more proof of its shortcomings.

Yes, there were some technical problems with the trading. And yes, it appears bankers were over-optimistic about demand for shares Friday. But the Facebook IPO was not a disaster. The bigger problem here seems to be our expectations.

The dot-com boom conditioned us to believe an Internet IPO should skyrocket on the first day of trading. I’ll confess, I fell into this trap, telling some folks I thought Facebook’s stock could reach $100.

But I wasn’t alone. The 67 people who submitted guesses on the San Jose Mercury News’ website projected an average closing price of $81.22. Another site, Facebookipodayclosingprice.com, attracted 2,261 guesses averaging $54.

Instead, Facebook closed just above its $38 offering price Friday amid technical glitches on Nasdaq and reports that its bankers were furiously buying shares to prevent the embarrassment of it falling below that threshold.

Kathleen Shelton Smith, chair and co-founder of Renaissance Capital, an IPO research firm, said in an email that the banks blew this one, noting that overall, IPO stocks have not done well this year.

It was a mistake, she wrote, for the banks to both raise the share price to $38 and increase the amount of stock being sold just before the IPO.

“The underwriters should have seen this weak background as a sign to be more conservative about setting the initial price for the Facebook IPO,” she wrote. “Add to that unexpected problems with Nasdaq trades and worries about going into the weekend with long positions when Greece is near default, and the result is a failure to properly launch the biggest-ever tech IPO.”

I won’t argue with that. And the bankers paid a price, given that they spent a ton of money Friday trying to prop up the share price. On the other hand, is anyone out there shedding any tears for investment bankers? Didn’t think so.

Still, the lack of a big first-day jump has been interpreted as a harsh verdict about Facebook. The general public came to expect that during the dot-com bubble, when, according to an article in the Journal of Finance published in 2003, the first-day rise in IPOs was 73 percent in 1999 and 58 percent in 2000.

But these first-day jumps were engineered by the banks to a large extent. One way they did this was by allocating unusually small percentages of stock — so-called “low floats” — to the public, much less than the demand, creating an artificial scarcity that drove up the bidding for the stock.

Just a year ago, LinkedIn went public and saw its stock jump 109 percent on the first day of trading when it sold 8.3 percent of its stock, compared with an average of 24 percent for tech IPOs.

Facebook sold 19 percent of its shares Friday.

When a company underprices an IPO and offers a low number of shares and they skyrocket the first day, that means the company left millions of dollars “on the table,” money that instead went to people who bought and sold the stock on the first day of trading. Facebook and the insiders who sold stock raised the maximum amount they could, which is, after all, the point of an IPO.

“I would imagine the people at Facebook are very happy today,” said Lee Simmons, an industry specialist at Dun & Bradstreet.

Facebook’s IPO performance was also probably affected by the fact that the company waited so long to go public, a delay that was enabled by the emergence of secondary markets that allowed insiders to sell stock over the past several years. According to Dow Jones VentureSource, Facebook raised $2.2 billion in venture capital, more than any other company in history.

A big chunk of that money, however, represented insiders selling pre-IPO shares on these secondary markets, where the share price jumped 13-fold in the four years before the IPO, according to SecondMarket. Looked at it this way, one could argue that Facebook stock has been on a rocket ride, just one that happened before the IPO rather than after it.

But even so, we need to stop focusing on such short-term metrics like an IPO’s first day, which might provide some empty thrills, but don’t really convey much substance. If we want companies and the economy to focus on the long-term, then so should we.

The beta version of the new feature became available to certain types of Android phones Tuesday, the company announced on a blog. Test Drive will let users try out more than 5,000 Android apps before deciding whether or not they’d like to purchase them right from their phone.

Test Drive has been a staple of Amazon’s Appstore since last year, but it was previously confined to users’ desktops.

Adding the feature to mobile, Amazon is putting it where most app purchases occur, according to the post.

“The more we remove friction for customers who want to try apps, the more apps they will try,” Jerry Heinz, Test Drive’s general manager, said in the blog post. “Those customers are more likely to find apps they are excited to download. In this way, Test Drive helps customers understand the value of premium apps and helps drive downloads of freemium apps.”

For now, the feature will also be confined to select apps, which are those using the touchscreen and accelerator inputs. The post says apps “that require Java Native Interface (JNI), keyboard, multi-touch, microphone, camera, gyroscope, near-field communication or GPS” are not yet being included, but over time, more will be added.

Test Drive will also make it onto more Android phones in the future, according to the post.

Ohio.com begins site for Bath

Bath.Ohio.com — the seventh in a series of Ohio.com community websites — launches today.

Bath.Ohio.com is designed to be the source for community news and information as reported by residents, community officials, correspondents and reporters at the Akron Beacon Journal and Ohio.com.

The site is powered by Ohio.com and backed by the Beacon Journal newsroom.

The community sites feature a news blog from Ohio.com correspondents and a U-Publish system that allows residents to submit their news and information.

Community members are encouraged to submit stories and photos, said Deanna Stevens Ulrich, Ohio.com content publisher. Submissions will be reviewed before being published.

Readers can find updates from Bath.Ohio.com by using the “like” function on Facebook and follow the site on Twitter @Bath_ohiodotcom.

KeyBank closes early today

KeyBank announced its branches will close at noon today to allow employees to go to community service projects in Akron and Canton.

The company said about 200 employees would be involved in the program called Neighbors Make The Difference Day that has been in operation for 22 years.

State aid to help companies

Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich announced the approval of 18 proposals, including three in the Akron area, that are expected to collectively create 1,217 jobs and retain 4,576 jobs.

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority issued approvals earlier this week. The state said more than $200 million in capital investment and $49 million in new payroll is expected from the moves.

They included: LayerZero Power Systems Inc. of Aurora, which expects to create 39 full-time positions, generating $1.8 million in new annual payroll as a result of the company’s new location. The company designs power distribution and power quality monitoring products for data centers and mission-critical operations. The approval was for a 45 percent, seven-year Job Creation Tax Credit.

Another was RTI Alloys in Canton, which said it expects to create 17 full-time positions, generating $680,000 in additional annual payroll (and retaining $2.9 million in existing payroll) for an expansion. The company specializes in advanced titanium for technology, commercial aerospace, energy, and chemical markets. The approval was for a 45 percent, six-year Job Creation Tax Credit.

The third was RoviSys Co. Inc., also in Aurora, which said it expects to create 80 full-time positions, generating $4.8 million in additional annual payroll (and retaining $13.9 million in existing payroll). RoviSys specializes in process automation for various industries. The approval was for a 50 percent, six-year Job Creation Tax Credit.

Newspaper rally in Canton

Bernie Lunzer, president of the Newspaper Guild-CWA in Washington, D.C., will be the featured speaker at a rally at 4:30 p.m. today at the South Plaza in downtown Canton to support Northeast Ohio guild members at the Repository newspaper.

The rally is among other activities today by guild locals at newspapers from Peoria, Ill., to Ohio and other properties owned by Fairport, N.Y.-based GateHouse Media. GateHouse, the Repository’s owner since 2006, holds its shareholders meeting today at its corporate headquarters.

The Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild-CWA, Local 1, and the Repository are in contract negotiations. Local 1 also represents newsroom employees at the Akron Beacon Journal and at the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

FirstEnergy CEO honored

Tony Alexander, president and chief executive officer of Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., has been named Communicator of the Year by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Cleveland chapter. Alexander will be honored June 7 for work in employee, investor, customer and community communications.

TRAVEL

Motel 6 sold for $1.9 billion

French hotel company Accor SA is selling Motel 6, including its extended-stay chain Studio 6, to the Blackstone Group LP for $1.9 billion. Motel 6, known for low prices and the slogan “we’ll leave the light on for you,” encompasses 1,102 hotels and 107,347 hotel rooms in the U.S. and Canada.

WALL STREET

Dow Jones falls 6.66 points

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 6.66 points to 12,496.15. The S&P 500 index gained 2.23 points to 1,318.86. The Nasdaq composite rose 11.04 points to 2,850.12.

Compiled from staff and wire reports

The cuts announced Wednesday represent HP’s largest payroll purge in its 73-year history. The reductions will affect about 8 percent of HP’s nearly 350,000 employees by the time the overhaul is completed in October 2014.

HP hopes to avoid as many layoffs as possible by offering early retirement packages.

The company, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., expects to save as much as $3.5 billion annually from the job cuts and other austerity measures. HP CEO Meg Whitman plans to funnel most of the savings into developing more products and services that could help the company adapt to technological shifts that are driving demand for more mobile computing and software that is provided over high-speed Internet connections.

“While some of these actions are difficult because they involve the loss of jobs, they are necessary to improve execution and to fund the long term health of the company,” Whitman said in a statement.

As part of shake-up, Whitman is also bringing in a new leader for HP’s Autonomy division, which makes software for searching for information within companies and government agencies. Bill Veghte, HP’s chief strategy officer, is replacing Autonomy founder Mike Lynch in an effort to boost the division’s financial performance. HP bought Autonomy for more than $10 billion last year before the company named Whitman as its CEO.

News of the cutbacks overshadowed the release of HP’s latest quarterly results. The company’s earnings and revenue were both better than analysts projected.

New-home sales increased 3.3 percent in April from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 343,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Sales rose sharply in every region of the country but the South.

The gain pushed the annual sales pace to its second-highest level in two years. Economists were encouraged by the increase but cautioned that new homes are still selling at half the rate consistent with healthy markets.

The increase follows other reports this week that suggest steady improvement in housing. Sales of previously occupied homes rose to near a two-year high in April. And Toll Brothers, a key U.S. builder of luxury homes, reported that it returned to profitability in the second quarter.

A pickup in hiring, cheaper mortgages and lower home prices in most markets have made home buying more attractive.

“Housing could be a pleasant surprise this year,” said Ellen Zentner, a senior economist at Nomura Securities. She said home construction would likely contribute to overall economic growth this year for the first time since 2005.

Sales of new homes rose 28 percent in April from March in the Midwest and the West, and 7.7 percent in the Northeast. Only in the South did sales fall, by 10.6 percent.

The median price rose to $235,700, a slight increase from March.

Toll Brothers said Wednesday that home deliveries and signed contracts on new homes rose in the quarter that ended April 30. Its shares rose more than 2 percent.

The homebuilder earned $16.9 million, or 10 cents per share, in the latest quarter. A year earlier it lost $20.8 million, or 12 cents per share.

On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors said sales of previously owned homes increased 3.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million. That nearly matched January’s sales pace of 4.63 million, which had been the best in two years.

Though new homes represent less than 20 percent of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to statistics compiled by the National Association of Home Builders.

Builders have grown more confident since last fall, in part because more people are expressing interest in buying a home. In May, builder optimism rose to the highest level in five years, according to a monthly index compiled by the builders’ group.

Homebuilders reported improving sales and higher traffic from prospective buyers, the survey showed. A gauge measuring confidence in sales over the next six months also increased.

Recent job gains have likely made it easier for more Americans to purchase a home. Employers have added 1 million jobs in the past five months. And unemployment has dropped a full percentage point since August, from 9.1 percent to 8.1 percent in April.

Mortgage rates, meanwhile, have fallen to record lows, making home-buying more affordable. Still, many would-be buyers are having difficulty qualifying for home loans or can’t afford larger down payments required by banks.

Builders still face a tough environment. They are struggling to compete with deeply discounted foreclosures and short sales — when lenders allow homes to be sold for less than what’s owed on the mortgage.

After one of the most anticipated initial public offerings in history, Facebook’s 11 percent drop Monday and further decline Tuesday prompted investors to fault everything from Morgan Stanley’s role as lead underwriter, to the company’s greed and the Nasdaq Stock Market.

“It was like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight,” said Michael Mullaney, who helps manage $9.5 billion as chief investment officer at Fiduciary Trust in Boston. He said he placed Facebook orders for clients. “The underwriters mis- estimated what actual demand was, and there was pure execution failure coming out of the Nasdaq.”

Taking the most heat is Morgan Stanley, said Mullaney. The bank was lead underwriter among the 33 firms Facebook hired to manage the $16 billion sale of stock. The bank decided with Facebook executives to boost the size and price days before the May 17 IPO, ignoring advice from some co-managers, said people with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be identified because the process was private. Morgan Stanley talked with few of its fellow underwriters aside from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. throughout the IPO, one person said.

“They overplayed the enthusiasm and probably just misread the atmosphere of the marketplace,” said Keith Wirtz, who oversees $15 billion as chief investment officer at Fifth Third Asset Management in Cincinnati and bought some stock in the IPO.

Facebook increased the number of shares being sold in the IPO by 25 percent last week to 421.2 million and raised its asking price to a range of $34 to $38 from $28 to $35. Had Facebook kept the original terms, investors may have had a better shot at a first-day pop. Instead, the stock was little changed in its debut because Morgan Stanley intervened to prevent it from falling below the IPO price.

The shares closed at $34.03 yesterday, and the stock dropped 4.5 percent to $32.50 at 12:07 p.m. in New York.

Just days before Facebook raised the size and price of its IPO, the company began telling analysts to lower their sales forecasts, people familiar with the matter said. Morgan Stanley analysts were among those who cut their projections during the roadshow, said one person.

The move also followed a May 9 filing in which Facebook said advertising growth hasn’t kept pace with the increase in users.

Some investors say they felt misled by the underwriters. According to one London-
based fund manager who asked not to be named, bankers indicated demand was so strong that he placed a bigger order than he thought he would get, leaving him with 40 percent more Facebook shares than anticipated. He sold most of that stock on the first day of trading.

The decision to boost the price range reflected the demand in the market, said a person involved in the process. Michael DuVally, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, and Pen Pendleton, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley, declined to comment. Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan, declined to comment. Underwriters didn’t say how great demand was.

Morgan Stanley and Facebook consider problems with Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.’s computer systems among the reasons for the IPO’s performance so far, according to people familiar with the matter. Nasdaq’s trading platform was overwhelmed by order cancellations and updates that made the stock-market operator unable to finish the auction required to open trading.

The lawsuit, filed by Dominion in Summit County Common Pleas Court on Monday, is similar to a separate and still pending lawsuit filed in March of last year by FirstEnergy Corp. against Ohio Bell, the predecessor of AT&T, for the same accident.

On June 8, 2010, a Dominion truck struck a low-hanging telephone line at East and Nordica avenues in Akron and caught on fire.

Dominion alleges in the lawsuit filed Monday that AT&T’s negligence caused the vehicle to catch fire after the truck struck the telephone line and “energized power lines to land on the vehicle igniting a fire and totally destroying Dominion’s property.”

The lawsuit asks for $47,851 in damages, plus interest and court costs.

Dominion said AT&T “failed to inspect and maintain their property negligently allowing its line to hang below the minimum height for overhead utility lines.”

Dominion spokesman Neil Durbin said the company had no comment.

The lawsuit by FirstEnergy’s Ohio Edison unit from 2011 is still pending. As of February, lawyers for the electric utility were still asking for documents that had not yet been released by AT&T.

Ohio Edison cited 10 incidents where trucks struck overhead conductors owned, installed and maintained by the telephone company, causing damage to vehicles, poles and in some cases, power outages.

In one exhibit to the lawsuit, Ohio Edison included a Beacon Journal photo of the Dominion truck that caught fire in 2010.

Ohio Edison charged that the utility has repeatedly complained to Ohio Bell to identify its low conductors and eliminate the hazard they pose.

Mark Durbin, spokesman for FirstEnergy, said, “We view this situation as an ongoing safety concern and look forward to having it addressed through the judicial process.” Durbin is the younger brother of Dominion’s Neil Durbin.

A trial is scheduled for Sept. 10.

Ohio Edison is asking for in excess of $25,000, punitive damages, attorney fees, court costs and “other relief deemed just and equitable.”

The cases are in different judges’ courtrooms. It is unknown if the cases could be combined.

A FirstEnergy spokeswoman at the time of the original lawsuit explained that many utility poles are owned by Ohio Edison and through joint-use agreements other utilities attach their equipment onto the poles.

Typically, electric lines are the highest lines and telephone lines lower.

AT&T spokeswoman Holly Hollingsworth said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/blinfisher and see all her stories at www.ohio.com/betty

The decision comes almost a year after the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 contested the 137-85 vote against unionization in June 2011.

It argued that Target illegally intimidated workers for months leading up to the vote. Target denied the allegations.

A “yes” vote would have made the store Target’s first with a unionized work force. Target has 1,700 stores, all in the United States, including 11 in the Akron-Canton area.

“Target completely poisoned the democratic process from day one,” said Patrick Purcell, assistant to the president of the UFCW Local 1500 in an interview with the Associated Press. “And now a judge agreed with everything we said.”

Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said late Monday that the company “respectfully” disagrees with the decision.

“We firmly believe Target followed all the laws throughout the union’s campaign at its Valley Stream store and that the process leading up to the June 2011 election was fair and legal,” she said.

The Valley Stream, N.Y., store closed April 28 for “extensive renovations” and will reopen later this year, Snyder said. Target says that all eligible workers can transfer to other stores and transfer back to the Valley Stream store when it reopens.

The union has contended the temporary closing came “in retaliation” for the unionization vote.

The union charged that, before last year’s vote, Target barred employees from wearing pro-union buttons and said those who spoke about the union would be fired. The union also said Target circulated fliers threatening employees that the Valley Stream store would close if employees voted to unionize.

In a 40-page decision, Steven Davis, administrative law judge for the NRLB in New York, said Target “engaged in certain unfair labor practices.” The ruling followed a 10-day trial earlier in the year.

Women’s forum in Lyndhurst

The Cleveland-based Women of Color Foundation is kicking off its yearlong 10th anniversary celebration with a “Personal and Professional Development Retreat for Women of Color” from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 31 and June 1 at the Cleveland Clinic’s Lyndhurst campus.

The retreat will be followed by the foundation’s hall of fame induction and awards ceremony from 6 to 9 p.m. June 2, also at the Lyndhurst campus.

For registration information, call 216-391-4300, ext. 311, or go online to: www.women­; ofcolorfoundation.com.

WALL STREET

Dow Jones loses 2 points

After a 71-point rise, the Dow Jones industrial average relinquished nearly 2 points to end Tuesday at 12,502.81. The S&P 500 Index added nearly 1 point to 1,316.63, with natural-resource companies leading the losses among its 10 industry groups. The Nasdaq composite fell 8.13 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,839.08.

INSURANCE

Allstate shareholders OK plan

Allstate Corp. shareholders approved the insurer’s executive pay plan after Chief Executive Officer Tom Wilson addressed concerns from investors following the proposal’s near defeat last year.

More than 90 percent of investors who cast ballots approved management’s proposal on compensation of executive officers, Allstate said in a statement on its website. The nonbinding resolution was rejected by more than 40 percent of Allstate’s shareholders voting last year.

Allstate, which has operations in Hudson, embarked on a “listening tour” to hear investor concerns and had more conversations after last year’s results, said Wilson, 54, in a phone interview after the Northbrook, Ill., company’s annual meeting. The company also made changes to its executive compensation plan, some of which took effect this year.

Wilson, who presided over his fourth annual stock decline in five years as CEO, was given total compensation of $11.2 million for 2011, up 20 percent from the previous year, the company said in a March 9 regulatory filing. His pay included $1.1 million of salary, $2.31 million of stock awards and $4.29 million of option awards.

Allstate, the largest publicly traded U.S. home and auto insurer, slipped 1.1 percent to close at $32.84. The shares have rallied 20 percent this year, compared with the 4.7 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

EARNINGS

Best Buy income falls 26%

Best Buy reported net income fell to $158 million, or 46 cents per share, in the three months ended May 5. That’s down from $212 million, or 53 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding restructuring charges, earnings were 72 cents per share. Analysts expected 59 cents per share, according to FactSet.

Revenue rose 2 percent to $11.61 billion, aided by an extra week. Domestic revenue rose 5 percent to $8.82 billion, but international revenue fell 6 percent to $2.79 billion. Wall Street expected $11.5 billion.

Best Buy affirmed its adjusted 2013 net income guidance of $3.50 to $3.80, excluding restructuring charges. Analysts expect $3.60 per share.

ENERGY

AFL-CIO opposes fracking

The AFL-CIO, the biggest U.S. labor organization, said that hydraulic fracturing — drilling to free natural gas and oil from shale rock — is harmful to workers and should be monitored by the federal government.

The oil and gas extraction industry has a death rate more than seven times that for all U.S. workers, the group said in a letter to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration. The U.S. should identify occupational concerns related to the process and require medical surveillance of workers and the monitoring of their exposure to materials used in the process, the AFL-CIO said.

Studies have shown high levels of exposure to crystalline silica, putting workers at risk of silicosis, lung cancer, and other diseases, the AFL-CIO said, citing the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

FOOD

General Mills to cut 850 jobs

Food maker General Mills Inc. will cut about 850 jobs as part of a plan to lower costs and boost efficiency. The Minneapolis company said the moves will make it more effective and allow it to focus on key growth strategies.

General Mills said it expects the plan to result in total pretax charges of about $109 million. The company said about $94 million will come in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ends Sunday. The company employed about 35,000 people in fiscal 2011.

Compiled from staff and wire reports

The Dish Network, which has offered its new Auto Hop feature on new digital video recorders since March, said it believes that people who buy the machine are watching more network television than they had before. The Auto Hop automatically records every minute of prime-time programming on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and stores it for eight days.

“It’s a win-win for both consumers and the networks,” said Vivek Khemka, Dish Network vice president of product management.

That opinion is anecdotal, however. Dish officials say they don’t yet have hard data to back up the contention that more of their customers are watching network shows because they are automatically stored on their DVR.

Network executives are angry about how Auto Hop allows viewers to eliminate commercials on the recorded shows through one button, no fast-forwarding required. Dish, the satellite service with about 14 million customers in the U.S., was advertising the new feature on the week that networks were touting their new fall programming. The feature isn’t available for cable network programming.

Dish said Fox and NBC have refused to allow its ads for the new DVR on their networks.

“Ads are key to our business, so we’re not supportive of anything that doesn’t support our advertisers,” said Paul Lee, president of the ABC Television Group.

During a presentation to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, Ted Harbert, chairman of NBC Broadcasting, called the Dish Network feature “an insult.”

In one respect, the issue is a rerun for TV networks. In 2001, they sued the maker of Replay TV, another DVR, to stop a similar feature. The feature wasn’t included in the next model of DVR that Replay TV put out, and the company that made them filed for bankruptcy before the lawsuit could be resolved.

Kevin Reilly, Fox entertainment president, said it was surprising that Dish would make such a move against its largest content provider.

“More broadcast is watched there than anything else, so this seems like a strange thing to do,” Reilly said. “But we’re still evaluating it.”

Khemka said Auto Hop has features that are sensitive to the broadcasters’ concerns. The commercial zapping feature has to be activated; the recorded programs will still contain the ads if the button isn’t used. The feature also won’t allow the commercials to be skipped until at least 1 a.m. Eastern time the next day, and studies show that a significant amount of recorded programming is viewed the same night it airs. At this point, Auto Hop is likely in the hands of relatively few viewers, but Dish wouldn’t say how many customers have it.

Environmentalists liken the restriction to a gag order on medical professionals. Drilling companies say it’s necessary to protect trade secrets.

Similar limits on medical professionals have become law in Pennsylvania and other drilling states. The rules are separate from new chemical disclosure guidelines in the bill.

An Ohio legislative committee was debating the provision Tuesday ahead of a possible vote.

It is part of a wide-ranging energy bill that lays out other rules for Ohio’s growing oil and gas industry. The legislation also adjusts Ohio’s alternative energy standard to include waste heat.

That is the lowest unemployment rate for the county since December 2008, when the rate was 7.5 percent.

Unemployment rates were also down in Akron and Cuyahoga Falls, according to figures released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services.

Jobless rates fell in 86 of Ohio’s 88 counties last month, the state said. Unemployment rates ranged from a low of 4.5 percent in Mercer County to a high of 13.5 percent in Pike County.

Akron had an unemployment rate of 8 percent in April, down from 8.6 percent in March and 9.4 percent in April 2011.

The jobless rate in Cuyahoga Falls was 6.7 percent in April, down from 7.5 percent in March and 7.7 percent a year ago.

“I feel that Northeast Ohio is on the upswing. I feel it,” said Carol McLaughlin, branch manager of the Akron office for Randstad, a global staffing company.

Employers in greater Akron cannot find enough skilled labor to fill available openings, she said. Randstad’s clients across multiple industries in the area are ramping up compared to a year ago, McLaughlin said.

Employers are looking for experienced machinists, CNC operators and welder/fabricators, McLaughlin said.

“We’re needing more of those. Skilled labor is in high demand,” she said.

The jobs typically pay well and come with benefits, she said.

But it looks like there aren’t enough people to fill available openings for reasons that include baby boomer retirements, people who relocated out of the area, and another group who do not envision skilled labor as a promising career, McLaughlin said.

There were 259,800 people counted as working in Summit County in April and 19,700 counted as unemployed. A year ago when the jobless rate was 8.5 percent, the state counted 258,700 people at work in the county and 24,000 unemployed.

Since 2000, the lowest unemployment rate for the month was 3.9 percent in 2000; 269,800 people were working and 11,000 unemployed. The highest rate was 10.5 percent in 2010, when 258,600 people were working and 30,200 counted as unemployed.

The unemployment rate does not count people who are unemployed and who have stopped looking for work or who are working part-time but want full-time work.

Elsewhere in Northeast Ohio:

• Cuyahoga County’s jobless rate fell from 7.1 percent in March to 7 percent in April; the rate was 7.7 percent a year ago. Cleveland had a jobless rate of 9.1 percent last month, down from 9.3 percent in March and 9.8 percent in April 2011.

• Medina County had a 5.6 percent unemployment rate last month, down from 6.3 percent in March and 6.8 percent a year ago.

• Portage County’s jobless rate fell to 6.9 percent last month from 7.8 percent in March and is down from 8.3 percent in April 2011.

• Stark County had an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent in April, down from 8.3 percent in March and 9.3 percent a year ago. Canton’s jobless rate fell to 9.4 percent in April from 10.2 percent in March; the rate was 10.8 percent a year ago.

• Wayne County’s jobless rate fell to 6.4 percent in April from 7.1 percent in March and 7.8 percent in April 2011.

Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com

The sarcasm was palpable in the one-word headline that appeared in the New York Post on the day after Kraft Foods revealed that it planned to name its new global snack business “Mondelez,” an interpretation of a mash-up of the Latin words for “world” and “delicious.” But that wasn’t the only dig.

One blogger teased that she would’ve been “stifling giggles” if she’d been in meetings to determine the name. A Forbes contributor suggested a trick for remembering how to say it: “Just think Bush Administration Secretary of State. You know, Mon-de-leza Rice.” Crain’s Business Chicago tittered that it bears close resemblance to a vulgar Russian term for a sexual act.

Michael Mitchell, a Kraft spokesman, said executives took all the joking in stride, and he’s quick to point out why the Crain’s observation didn’t alarm the company: “The name has to be mispronounced to get that unfortunate meaning.”

The made-up moniker, pronounced “mon-dah-LEEZ,” became a punch line after it was unveiled in March. On Wednesday, Kraft shareholders will decide whether to approve the name for the company’s business that sells global brands such as Oreos, Fig Newton and Cadbury.

The four-month odyssey of how “Mondelez” was picked — and how it was received — illustrates the great pains companies take to come up with powerful names for their businesses, products and services. For them, it’s akin to parents obsessing over a name for their newborn: It sticks for better or worse, so it better be good.

“You have to generate thousands of ideas, even if it’s just for a cookie,” said Nik Contis, global director of naming at branding company Siegel+Gale.

That’s just what Kraft did after it decided to split into two publicly traded companies — one for its North American grocery business that makes products like Oscar Mayer and Miracle Whip and the other a bigger company to focus on selling snacks worldwide.

It was clear to executives at Kraft’s Northfield, Ill., headquarters that the name of the snack business would have to appeal to a global audience. So the world’s biggest maker of sweet snacks started the arduous process of picking a name in November by soliciting suggestions from its 126,000 employees.

The National Association for Business Economists said in a report issued Monday that its forecasters expect modest growth for the rest of the year, with the pace picking up in 2013.

Still, the 54 economists that the association surveyed expect consumer spending, business investment and gross domestic product to remain below historic norms.

The quarterly survey compiles expectations for indicators such as hiring, home construction and spending from economists at industry groups, government agencies, banks and consulting firms.

The panel expects average monthly job growth for 2012 of 188,000, up from its forecast in February for 170,000 new jobs a month in 2012. The improved outlook would drop the unemployment rate to 8 percent by the end of the year, the economists said. The rate is now 8.1 percent. By the end of 2013, the unemployment rate would ease further to 7.5 percent.

The association’s members expect housing starts to rise 18 percent to 720,000 units this year and increase again to 850,000 in 2013. Residential investment is forecast to increase 8.8 percent this year; that’s better than the 6.6 percent the economists predicted in February. In 2013, they now expect a 10.4 percent rise, up from 10 percent.

The outlook for light vehicle sales is also brighter, and the association’s panel now expects sales to reach 14.5 million units this year, up from their previous forecast for 14 million units. In 2013, they now expect 14.8 million light vehicles to sell, up from a forecast for 14.6 million.

On a broader level, however, the panel’s forecast remains relatively bleak.

GDP, which reflects the economy’s total output of goods and services, is predicted to grow just 2.4 percent this year, which is shy of the roughly 2.5 percent growth forecast by the Federal Reserve. For 2013, the panel of economists expects the GDP to grow 2.8 percent.

Each Cooper share will be exchanged for $39.15 and 0.77479 Eaton share. The offer is valued at $72 a share based on Eaton’s closing price as of Friday, 29 percent more than Cooper’s price that day.

The deal, Eaton’s largest, boosts the company’s ability to take advantage of a U.S. housing market that Chief Executive Sandy Cutler has predicted could grow by 25 percent annually in the next couple of years. Jeffrey Sprague, a Vertical Research Partners analyst, suggested in September that Cooper was a good takeover target for Eaton.

The transaction will boost earnings by 35 cents a share in 2014, and 45 cents a share in 2015, Eaton said. The combined company will be based in Ireland, where Cooper is now incorporated. Cooper operates from Houston.

Eaton’s manufacturing portfolio includes electrical equipment, some of it used for residential construction, as well as hydraulic products and parts for trucks and autos. Cooper gets 60 percent of its sales in the U.S., Eaton said.

The acquisition is the largest in at least a decade in miscellaneous manufacturing, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Eaton is paying about 14 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, which compares with the median of about 8 times paid in more than 100 similar takeovers since 2002.

Eaton said its shareholders are expected to own about 73 percent of the combined company, which will be called Eaton Global Corp.

The combined companies had 2011 revenue of $21.5 billion and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $3.1 billion, according to Eaton’s statement.

Cost savings are expected to be $535 million, with $160 million of that coming from global cash management tax benefits related to incorporation in Ireland.

The incorporation in Ireland will save the combined company $160 million a year in taxes by 2016, the companies said.

The U.S. has the industrialized world’s highest statutory corporate tax rate at 35 percent. U.S.-based companies must pay taxes when they repatriate profits earned outside the country. Ireland has a top corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent.

The trustee on Monday filed a status report updating U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Akron on legal and related proceedings in the now nearly 2½-year-old $200 million case.

Bash, a Cleveland-based lawyer, said there are basically two classes of lawsuits in the case.

The Group A, or “Group of 12,” cases are seeking more than $1 billion from Textron Financial Corp. and Fortress Credit Corp.; $150 million from former Fair Finance owner Don Fair; $83 million from Fair Finance co-owners Timothy Durham and James Cochran and others; and $180,000 from former Fair Finance legal adviser Ronald Kaffen.

The cases are based largely on what are called fraudulent transfers, the report said.

The Group B cases seek more than $19 million, Bash said.

The lawsuits are claims against people who the trustee said received money from Fair Finance and include suits against people who bought uninsured investment certificates from the Akron business and were repaid shortly before Fair Finance was forced into bankruptcy.

Since the last status conference, Bash said, the Fair estate has brought in $494,129.53 from settlements in the lawsuits.

Bash said his focus in upcoming weeks will be the current lawsuits and the selling of Fair Finance assets, including real estate and a business, United Trailers.

Some 5,300 Ohio residents and organizations purchased about $223 million in investment certificates from Fair Finance.

Bash and others allege that Durham and Cochran ran Fair Finance as a Ponzi investment scheme after buying the business from Don Fair in 2002.

Fair Finance was forced into bankruptcy in February 2010 after FBI raids on its Akron offices and corporate headquarters in Indianapolis.

The criminal trial for Durham is scheduled to start June 8 in federal court in Indianapolis.

The regular status hearing, now held every two months, is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, South Main and Market streets, in downtown Akron.

Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.

Central Federal meets rule

Central Federal Corp., the parent of Fairlawn-based CF Bank, said it received notice from the Nasdaq stock market that it has regained compliance with the minimum bid price requirement for continued listing. Because the closing bid price for the company’s common stock exceeded $1 per share for 10 consecutive business days, the company is in compliance and no action is needed for continued listing.

Wal-Mart names retail boss

Wal-Mart has a new regional general manager for its stores in northern Ohio. Doug Yost will oversee 57 stores in the region, which includes the Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown markets.

Yost has worked in retail operations for 26 years, having held a number of leadership positions with Circuit City, Sears and Sight N Sound. He joined Wal-Mart in 2010 and was most recently director of operations in the Rocky Mountain region out of Denver.

Hinckley woman honored

Victoria Tifft, president and chief executive of Hinckley-based Clinical Research Management Inc., also known as ClinicalRM, was named the National Small Business Person of the Year by the Small Business Administration.

Tifft was named Ohio’s Small Business Person of the Year last week, which meant she represented Ohio in the national competition held in Washington, D.C., as part of National Small Business Week.

ClinicalRM works with drug and medical-device makers on the clinical trials needed to get products to market.

Since Tifft founded the privately held company in 1992, it has grown from three employees to 331. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Akron and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University. She also was in Togo, West Africa, as part of the Peace Corps, specializing in infectious disease prevention and control.

Office urges rejection of plan

FirstEnergy’s customers could face “higher electricity rates than necessary” if a proposed rate plan is approved, the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel said Monday.

The office recommended that the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio reject the FirstEnergy plan.

It said the utility’s proposal “would improperly exclude income that should be counted when testing for significantly excessive profits, and could harm customers by changing the auction process to set generation rates.”

State funds released

The following state funds have been released by various state officials: $2.3 million to Parker-Hannifin for a Ravenna project; $2 million for public road work for Diebold Inc.’s corporate headquarters in Green; $125,000 to the Akron Development Corp. for business services; and $100,000 to B&C Research Inc. of Barberton for equipment.

EARNINGS

Lowe’s sees gain

Home improvement retailer Lowe’s of Mooresville, N.C., reported net income of $527 million, or 43 cents a share, for the period that ended May 4. That’s up from $461 million, or 34 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue rose 8 percent to $13.15 billion from $12.19 billion. The performance beat the expectations of analysts polled by FactSet who forecast earnings of 42 cents a share on revenue of $12.99 billion.

Revenue at Lowe’s stores open at least a year increased 2.6 percent, including 2.7 percent in the U.S. Lowe’s expects 2012 earnings of $1.73 to $1.83 a share, down from $1.75 to $1.85 a share. It maintained its guidance for revenue to rise 1 to 2 percent.

FINANCE

Chase buyback halted

JPMorgan Chase is suspending plans to buy back its own stock. The bank said it will continue to pay a dividend despite the $2 billion trading loss disclosed on May 10. JPMorgan was scheduled to buy back $15 billion shares through the end of the first quarter of 2013.

ACQUISITION

AMC theaters purchased

A Chinese conglomerate has announced it will buy U.S. cinema chain AMC Entertainment Holdings for $2.6 billion to create the world’s biggest movie theater operator.

Dalian Wanda Group Co. said it is willing to invest an additional $500 million to fund AMC’s strategic and operating initiatives. Wanda said AMC’s headquarters will remain in the Kansas City area and day-to-day operations will remain unchanged.

Privately owned Wanda operates hotels, department stores, tourism and other businesses. Its assets include 86 theaters in China and film production and distribution businesses.

Compiled from staff and wire reports

Dr. Michael Delahanty stepped down last week as chairman of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Akron General Medical Center and medical director of Edwin Shaw Rehabilitation Institute in Cuyahoga Falls.

Delahanty, 62, of Boston Township, had been medical director of Edwin Shaw since 1991.

He also took over the leadership role for Akron General’s rehabilitation services when the health system acquired Edwin Shaw from Summit County.

His replacement has not been named.

Delahanty said he has enjoyed working as part of a team that helps severely disabled patients recover from traumatic brain injuries, strokes, spinal cord injuries and other devastating illnesses and injuries.

“It’s very rewarding to help people who have been knocked down by a devastating illness or injury get their life back,” he said. “People are very grateful. … When something like that happens, little things matter — things like being able to brush your own teeth again.”

In a recent physician newsletter, Akron General described Delahanty as a leader who “has dedicated his career to helping people who have been challenged by life-altering illness and injury, making it not only his work, but also his passion to help them on what’s often a journey filled with the challenges of learning, healing and, ultimately, discovering hope.”

He and his wife, Susan, have three grown children and are anticipating the births of their first grandchildren — one in July and another in October.

Delahanty said he plans to enjoy his retirement as a “grandpa, gardener and kickboxer.”

In recent years, he’s spent his spare time as a kickboxing instructor at a martial arts center in Fairlawn. He wants to expand his hobby now that he has retired.

“Exercise is the best medicine,” he said. “The fountain of youth is filled with sweat.”

Which docs earn most?

A report released recently by online medical news service Medscape found radiologists and orthopedic surgeons received the highest salaries in 2011.

The specialists commanded an average $315,000 annually, according to the annual physician compensation report.

Pediatricians have the lowest salaries, making an average of $156,000 annually.

The survey found physician compensation declined overall.

Ophthalmologists saw the biggest increase in their salaries, which have increased an average 9 percent since 2010.

General surgeons took the biggest cut — 12 percent.

Male doctors, on average, continued to make considerably more than their female peers. The average male income over all specialties is $242,000, compared with $173,000 for females. Among primary-care doctors, males make an average $174,000 a year and females receive $141,000.

Overall, physicians’ satisfaction with their career choice is split.

Roughly 54 percent said if they had it to do all over again, they would choose medicine as a career. Only 41 percent said they would select the same specialty.

Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or cpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Powell on Twitter at twitter.com/abjcherylpowell.