Briefcase

Sister Sky named winner of UW business award

Sister Sky, a retail business selling natural bath and body care products inspired by Native American herbal wisdom, was honored Thursday as a winner in the University of Washington’s minority business awards.

Sister Sky was started by sisters Monica Simeon and Marina TurningRobe, members of the Spokane Tribe who operate the business on the Spokane Reservation.

With 2010 revenues of $500,000, the company announced a new distribution partnership that will help deliver its lotions and products to major national hotel chains beginning in 2012.

The awards are presented by the UW’s Business and Economic Development Center and Foster School of Business.

Six other Washington businesses also received awards, including Indian Eyes LLC of the Tri-Cities; Macnac Construction of Lakewood; Revel Consulting of King County; Hughes Group LLC of Tacoma; Sam and Jenny, Inc., of Bellevue; and Del Sol Auto Sales of Everett.

Tom Sowa

Coca-Cola to relocate formula to museum vault

ATLANTA – The Coca-Cola Co. has made its secret formula the centerpiece of a new exhibit at its corporate museum, ditching the confines of the bank vault where the list of ingredients had been stored since 1925.

The world’s largest beverage maker said Thursday a new vault containing the formula will be on display for visitors to its World of Coca-Cola museum in downtown Atlanta. However, the formula itself, which dates back to 1886, will remain hidden from view.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola said the decision to move the formula from a vault at SunTrust Banks Inc. had nothing to with the bank’s decision in 2007 to begin selling its long-held stake in Coca-Cola. The bank, which provided underwriting services to Coca-Cola when it went public in 1919 and received some of Coca-Cola’s first publicly traded stock, at one time held more than 48 million Coca-Cola shares.

Associated Press

American wealth sees sharpest drop since ’08

WASHINGTON – Americans’ wealth last summer suffered its biggest quarterly loss in more than two years as stocks, pension funds and homes lost value.

Household net worth fell 4 percent to $57.4 trillion in the July-September quarter, according to a Federal Reserve report released Thursday. It was the sharpest drop since the tumultuous period after the September 2008 bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers. And it was the second straight quarterly fall.

Household wealth, or net worth, is the value of assets like homes, bank accounts and stocks, minus debts like mortgages and credit cards.

The value of Americans’ stock portfolios fell 5.2 percent last quarter. Home prices remain under pressure, diminishing home equity. Home equity is the biggest source of wealth for most Americans. At the same time, corporations are amassing record cash stockpiles – $2.1 trillion at the end of September. Their reluctance to spend more of that money helps explain why job growth remains modest.

Associated Press