In brief: Coeur d’Alene company restarts Mexico silver mine
The Palmarejo silver mine owned by Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. in northern Mexico is back in production, company officials said Thursday.
The mine closed last weekend when a group of employees blocked access. Managers supervised a temporary shutdown of mining and milling operations to allow for talks with the employees. Coeur d’Alene Mines officials said that assistance from the government in the Mexican state of Chihuahua helped resolve the standoff in a “swift and safe” manner.
The temporary shutdown is not expected to have an impact on the mine’s 2012 production.
Costco to open 29 new stores amid upturn in earnings
SEATTLE – Costco Wholesale continued on a post-recession upswing in its most recent quarter, as customer buying strengthened and the chain laid out plans for faster growth.
After a few years of sluggish new-store growth, the Issaquah, Wash.-based warehouse chain plans to ramp up new store openings later this year. It will open just 16 new stores in the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 2, but plans to open 13 new locations in the last three months of the calendar year. Costco has 602 warehouses worldwide.
In its earnings report, Costco said profit grew 19 percent in the third quarter, ended May 6, to $386 million, or 88 cents a share. Net sales grew 8 percent to $21.85 billion and membership fees rose 9 percent to $475 million, bringing overall revenue to $22.32 billion.
Investors celebrated by boosting Costco stock by $1.17 to $84.48 a share. It has traded between $70.22 and $92.10 over the past year.
Morgan Stanley compensates Facebook IPO buyers
NEW YORK – Morgan Stanley, the lead investment bank in Facebook’s troubled initial public offering, will compensate retail investors who overpaid when they bought Facebook’s stock in Friday’s IPO, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The person said the firm is reviewing orders its retail clients placed for Facebook stock, and will make price adjustments if the clients paid too much. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The person did not say what amount constituted overpaying for Facebook’s stock.
The social network’s IPO was highly anticipated. But technical problems on the Nasdaq stock market delayed the stock’s opening on Friday. The stock closed nearly flat on its first trading day at $38.23.
Morgan Stanley and Facebook face at least two lawsuits over the IPO. Both suits allege that analysts at the large underwriting investment banks cut their second-quarter and full-year forecasts for Facebook just before the IPO and told only a handful of clients. Morgan Stanley has declined to comment on the lawsuits. Facebook has called the lawsuits “without merit.”
Networks sue Dish for commercial-free device
LOS ANGELES – Broadcasters Fox, NBC and CBS sued Dish Network Corp. on Thursday over a service that offers commercial-free TV.
Dish, the nation’s second-largest satellite TV provider, filed a suit of its own seeking a judicial all-clear for its “AutoHop” ad-skipping technology. Dish said the unique service it launched this month doesn’t violate copyrights and that it is seeing a “groundswell of support from consumers.”
The fight is over a subtle but key question: whether TV distributors can cut out commercials on consumers’ behalf, or if consumers hold that power alone with their fingers on the remote.
Since May 10, Dish has been advertising a digital video recorder service called “Primetime Anytime” that gives consumers access to the last eight days of prime-time programming from the four major broadcast networks – ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox – with the commercials stripped out.
In a suit filed Thursday in a Los Angeles federal court, News Corp.’s Fox says Dish’s service is unauthorized and violates a licensing agreement between the two companies.
Dish maintains that the service is “user-enabled” and that it is fundamentally no different from how consumers use DVRs today. It filed its suit in a New York federal court.