Microsoft to buy startup for $1.2 billion

SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft has agreed to buy Internet startup Yammer for $1.2 billion in an effort to provide more Facebook-like features to its corporate customers. Yammer Inc. specializes in building private social networks that enable employees within the company to track each other’s work.

Yammer, founded in 2008, raised money from some of the same people that backed Facebook after that online social network was started in 2004.

Facebook welcomes first female to board

NEW YORK – Facebook’s No. 2 executive, Sheryl Sandberg, has become the first woman on the social-networking company’s board of directors.

Sandberg was lured from Google in 2008 to become Facebook’s chief operating officer. Besides being the first woman, she is the first executive other than founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the board.

People had called for the company to add women to its board ahead of its initial public offering of stock in mid-May.

In announcing the move Monday, Facebook Inc. didn’t say whether that came in response to calls to add women. But as the No. 2 to Zuckerberg, she was a logical choice.

Sandberg has been largely responsible for building Facebook’s advertising business.

Transfer clears way for Lanai purchase

HONOLULU – A Hawaii public utilities agency on Monday approved the transfer of three Lanai utilities to Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison, clearing the way for his purchase of most of the island.

The seller, billionaire David Murdock’s Castle & Cooke Inc., asked the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission to approve the transfer quickly so the sale could proceed.

The deal will make Ellison owner of 98 percent of the island’s 141 square miles.

The island’s sale price has not been revealed, though the Maui News previously reported the asking price was $500 million to $600 million.

Drug companies’ stock falls after FDA delay

TRENTON, N.J. – Shares of Pfizer Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. fell Monday after federal regulators delayed for a second time a decision on whether to approve the companies’ experimental anticlotting drug Eliquis.

The Food and Drug Administration said it wants more information on “data management and verification” from a huge international study called ARISTOTLE that examined how well Eliquis prevented strokes in patients with an irregular heartbeat.

Bristol-Myers shares dropped $1.23, or 3.5 percent, to close at $34.13, and Pfizer shares fell 26 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $22.47.