In brief: RadioShack sale to Standard General approved

DOVER, Del. – A bankruptcy judge has approved the sale of more than 1,740 RadioShack stores to hedge fund Standard General, preserving some 7,500 jobs.

RadioShack’s bankruptcy plan calls for Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, to operate dedicated “store within a store” shops in most of the locations acquired by General Wireless, a newly formed affiliate of Standard General LP.

The ruling by Judge Brendan Shannon in Wilmington, Delaware, comes after a court hearing that stretched over four days following a disputed auction process that lasted almost as long last week.

Shannon said Standard General’s bid, valued at about $160 million, was clearly “economically superior” to an alternative liquidation proposal by another bidding group, even before accounting for the preservation of jobs and “a century-old American retailing icon.”

The chain has already shrunk substantially. Roughly 2,000 RadioShack stores have closed or are closing.

Private equity company will purchase retailer J.Jill

A private equity firm said Tuesday it would buy retailer J.Jill, which specializes in casual women’s fashion, shoes and accessories.

TowerBrook Capital Partners, based in New York and London, will take over the fashion company from investment firm Arcapita and private equity firm Golden Gate Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.

J.Jill, based in Quincy, Massachusetts, has more than 250 stores nationwide.

Chief Executive Paula Bennett, who will remain in her role, said J.Jill just completed its best sales year in history and had 12 quarters of consecutive growth.

U.S. home prices in January increased by 4.6 percent

WASHINGTON – U.S. home prices rose at a steady pace in January, pushing prices up at a faster pace than wages and putting more homes financially out of reach for would-be buyers.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 4.6 percent in January compared with 12 months earlier, S&P said Tuesday. That is up from growth of 4.4 percent in December.

New Microsoft tablet costs less than earlier model

Microsoft has announced the Surface 3, a new, cheaper tablet.

Starting at $499 – compared with $799 for the flagship Surface Pro 3 – it is the thinnest and lightest Surface that Microsoft has ever shipped. The device is 8.7 millimeters thick, weighs 1.37 pounds and has a 10.8-inch screen, which is slightly smaller than the 12-inch Surface Pro 3.

“As we planned the next addition to the Surface family, the questions to answer for our customers became simple,” Panos Panay, corporate vice president of Microsoft Surface, said in a blog post Tuesday. “What product would we build to be sure we could make the very best of what we built in Surface Pro 3 available to many, many more people?”

The Surface 3 also has a 3.5-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that both capture 1080p video. The battery will last up to 10 hours.

It runs full Windows, including desktop apps, and includes a one-year subscription to Office 365.

Pre-orders are underway at Microsoft Stores. The device will be on sale beginning May 5.