Briefcase

Wendy’s selling most Arby’s shares

NEW YORK – The marriage of square burgers and roast beef sandwiches is ending.

Wendy’s/Arby’s Group Inc. said Monday that it will sell a majority stake in its struggling Arby’s brand to Roark Capital Group, an Atlanta private equity firm.

Wendy’s/Arby’s shares ended trading Monday up 4 cents at $4.56 as investors signaled modest pleasure with having clarity about the company’s future. But the shares remain well below $5.90, their price on the day the combination was announced in September 2008.

Roark, which owns Moe’s Southwest Grill, Cinnabon and other restaurants, will pay $130 million in cash for an 81.5 percent stake in Arby’s, and assume $190 million worth of Arby’s debt.

Associated Press

Boise State, UI tout high-tech purchases

BOISE – Boise State University and the University of Idaho have acquired high-tech gadgets that could boost the state’s incipient nanotechnology industry by attracting skilled workers who could eventually create their own companies, school officials say.

Boise State has a $610,000 superfast burst, a high-intensity laser designed to test and develop nanomaterials. Researchers at the University of Idaho are assembling a $710,000 advanced spectrometer intended for nanotechnology research.

“(Students will) be able to write their own ticket for any kind of academic or industrial job that involves spectrometry,” Scott Wood, dean of the College of Science at the University of Idaho, told the Idaho Business Review.

Associated Press

GM plant boosting eAssist technology

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – General Motors Co. is adding $20 million in new technology to a car assembly plant in Kansas City, Kan.

The company says the Fairfax Assembly plant is getting new machinery and special tools to make the Buick LaCrosse with eAssist, a new gas-electric hybrid technology that will boost the car’s fuel economy. The LaCrosse sedan with eAssist, which GM says can get up to 37 mpg on the highway, goes on sale this summer.

The eAssist technology includes shutting off the gasoline engine when the car stops at a traffic light, as well as a small electric motor that helps the car accelerate, reducing gasoline use.

The Fairfax plant employs around 3,900 workers. It also makes the Chevrolet Malibu midsize sedan.

Associated Press