In brief: Executive working after outbreak
WASHINGTON – The peanut industry executive whose filthy processing plants were blamed in a salmonella outbreak two years ago that killed nine people and sickened hundreds more is back in the business.
Stewart Parnell, former president of the now-bankrupt Peanut Corp. of America, is working as a consultant to peanut companies as the federal government’s criminal investigation against him has languished for more than 18 months, the Associated Press has learned.
Parnell, who invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before Congress in February 2009, once directed employees to “turn them loose” after samples of peanuts had tested positive for salmonella and then were cleared in a second test, according to e-mails uncovered at the time by congressional investigators.
Associated Press
Goldman Sachs fined in Britain, report says
LONDON – Goldman Sachs & Co. is expected to be fined around $30 million by British authorities following an investigation of the big Wall Street bank’s activities in London, according to news reports Wednesday.
The investigation by Britain’s Financial Services Authority began in April after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs for allegedly misleading buyers of complex mortgage-related investments in 2007. Goldman settled the charges in mid-July by agreeing to pay $550 million – the largest penalty against a Wall Street firm in the SEC’s history.
Goldman’s agreement to pay the British fine could be announced today, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times reported online Wednesday.
Associated Press
Briefcase
From wire reports
• Airgas Inc. board members have unanimously rejected a sweetened $5.5 billion buyout offer from rival Air Products and Chemicals Inc. Airgas said Wednesday the offer of $65.50 per share still grossly undervalues the company and is only a $2 hike from Air Products’ previous offer.
• Health giant Johnson & Johnson is donating about $200 million in cash and medicine to a sweeping United Nations program created to improve the health and lives of people in poor countries. J&J is launching a five-year program called “Every Mother, Every Child,” meant to help almost 400 million women and children in developing countries.
• The former CEO of entertainment company National Lampoon Inc. has been sentenced in Philadelphia to nearly four years in prison in a stock price manipulation scheme. Federal prosecutors say 48-year-old Daniel Laikin plotted to artificially inflate the company’s stock price by paying people to buy shares. They dropped a count of securities fraud last fall when Laikin pleaded guilty to conspiracy. Prosecutors say Laikin and others hoped to push the share price from $2 to $5 to boost the company’s attractiveness in a strategic partnership or acquisition.
• Smithfield Foods Inc. said Wednesday higher selling prices for pork and improvement in hog market prices helped it return to a profit in its fiscal first quarter. The meat producer reported net income of $76.3 million, or 46 cents per share, for the three months ended Aug. 1. That matched analyst expectations, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.
• Campbell Soup Co. posted better production numbers and benefited from lower taxes, yet sales fell slightly compared with the same period last year, from $1.53 billion to $1.52 billion for the quarter. For the full fiscal year, they fell 1 percent, to $7.6 billion from $7.7 billion. During the quarter, sales of both ready-to-serve and condensed soups slipped 7 percent.