Realty partners raise funds
Crown West Realty LLC and its parent company Petrus Partners Ltd. recently raised $125 million for a real estate equity investment fund, which it will use to acquire office and industrial properties in select U.S. markets over the next three years.
Spokane Valley-based Crown West, which owns the Spokane Business & Industrial Park, also announced the purchase of a $13 million, four-story office building in North Carolina. Crown West Realty purchased another office building in the Raleigh/Durham market earlier this year.
Spokane
River Park Square sues ex-tenant
River Park Square LLC is suing a former tenant for violating a lease agreement.
Trendz, a store that sold contemporary décor, moved into River Park Square in 2004 under a lease agreement that was modified in 2006.
Timothy Mitchell, the storeowner, said store sales there averaged $10,000 a month, which he said was inadequate to pay about $5,500 in monthly rent. Trendz has since closed.
The lawsuit seeks $23,434 and another $1,500 for attorney fees. River Park Square is a subsidiary of Cowles Co., which owns The Spokesman-Review.
Ambassadors, Itron rank high
Two publicly traded companies in Spokane ranked in the top 20 in an annual performance ranking prepared by the Seattle Times.
The publication’s recent Northwest 100 ranking placed Ambassadors Group Inc. at No. 7 and Itron Inc. at No 17, based on four performance indicators.
Instead of using total sales or total equity, the ranking tracks return on equity, sales per employee, operating income and stock price appreciation. The ranking looks at data over the years 2004 and 2005.
Ambassadors, which arranges student and adult travel trips, ranked behind PW Eagle, Oregon Steel Mills, Barrett Business Services, InfoSpace, Pope Resources and F5 Networks.
Itron, which produces automated meters and software tools, ranked ahead of Safeco, Expeditors International of Washington and Getty Images.
Other regional firms on the list were KeyTronic (30th), Coldwater Creek (36th), Potlatch (37th) and Red Lion Hotels (70th).
North Palm Beach, Fla.
Few people have emergency funds
Despite repeated recommendations that people set up emergency funds to weather difficult financial times, fewer than four in 10 have done so, according to a survey.
A poll done for Bankrate.com, an online financial information service based in North Palm Beach, Fla., found that just 39 percent of respondents have emergency funds, defined as checking or savings accounts with the equivalent of three months’ living expenses. Some 55 percent of respondents don’t have such accounts, and the rest did not answer the question.