Itron recognized as state trader of year
Itron Inc. was named the Governor’s Trader of the Year by the Seattle-based World Trade Club at its annual dinner this week.
The trader of the year award recognizes a Washington business that has been successful operating internationally, the World Trade Club said in a press release. The club began giving the award in 1967.
Spokane Valley-based Itron has customers in 63 countries and has been operating internationally for 15 years, the club said. The company supplies technology for the automated meter reading market.
Another Spokane company, Itronix Inc. – which spun off from Itron in the early 1990s – also was nominated for the award.
At the ceremony Wednesday, Attachmate Corp., of Bellevue, Wash., was named emerging trader of the year.
User tools push Google in Yahoo’s direction
Google Inc. on Thursday introduced a new option that will enable visitors to display more information on the online search engine leader’s bare-bones home page, a departure that pushes the company a step closer to operating an Internet portal in the mold of rivals Yahoo and MSN.com.
The feature, available at http://labs.google.com, allows the millions of Google users worldwide to select components tools located underneath the search engine’s hood and display them on the main page.
For instance, a user could choose to have the weather, an e-mailbox, movie listings, top news stories, stock market quotes, and driving directions displayed whenever they visit Google’s home page and sign in using a personalized account. The company unveiled the feature during a media day hosted at its Mountain View headquarters.
Displaying a potpourri of information on the home page marks a significant change for Google, which has always greeted its visitors with little more than a box to process a search request, along with a few tabs to navigate to other features, such as news and shopping.
Maytag agrees to sale to private group
Appliance maker Maytag Corp. has agreed to be bought by an investor group led by private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings LLC for $1.3 billion cash.
The deal announced Thursday evening values the company – which has struggled against low-cost foreign competitors in recent years – at $14 per share, and includes the assumption of about $975 million in debt. Maytag will no longer be a public company after the deal closes.
Maytag shares soared more than 21 percent, or $2.44, in late trading on news of the acquisition, after closing 9 cents higher at $11.56 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.
The board of Newton, Iowa-based Maytag approved the transaction and plans to recommend it to company shareholders.
The sale is expected to close before year’s end, pending regulatory and shareholder approval.
Besides New York-based Ripplewood, the other firms in the acquisition are RHJ International, GS Capital Partners and the J. Rothschild Group of Companies.