Briefcase

Florida investment firm buys Stevens Pass ski resort

SEATTLE – The Stevens Pass ski resort has been sold for nearly $21 million.

Harbor Properties of Seattle said Friday it has closed the sale to CNL Lifestyle Properties, a real estate investment trust with headquarters in Orlando, Fla.

There will be no immediate changes in operations under the new ownership. John Gifford remains as general manager.

The 74-year-old resort operates 10 lifts and 37 runs on National Forest land on the Cascade Crest along U.S. Highway 2 at Stevens Pass.

Associated Press

McDonald’s drops supplier over cruelty allegations

MINNEAPOLIS – McDonald’s Corp. said Friday it has dropped a Minnesota-based egg supplier after an animal rights group released an undercover video of operations at the egg producer’s farms in three states.

The video by Mercy for Animals shows what the group calls animal cruelty at five Sparboe Farms facilities in Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado. Its images include a worker swinging a bird around by its feet, hens packed into cramped cages, male chicks being tossed into plastic bags to suffocate and workers cutting off the tips of chicks’ beaks.

“The behavior on tape is disturbing and completely unacceptable. McDonald’s wants to assure our customers that we demand humane treatment of animals by our suppliers,” Bob Langert, McDonald’s vice president for sustainability, said in a statement.

Associated Press

Federal board sides with Delta in union vote

ATLANTA – Delta Air Lines Inc. says a federal board has upheld results from an election that blocked a union from representing its flight attendants.

Delta said late Friday that the National Mediation Board rejected claims by the Association of Flight Attendants that the company interfered in the representation election last year.

The union criticized the ruling, saying Delta unfairly pressured flight attendants to vote against representation.

Delta said the ruling would let flight attendants from Delta and the old Northwest move ahead as a combined group. Vice president Joanne Smith said Delta would immediately begin raising pay for Northwest flight attendants to Delta’s hourly rates.

Associated Press

Bank failures in two states raise national total to 90

WASHINGTON – Regulators on Friday closed small banks in Iowa and Louisiana, lifting to 90 the number of bank failures in the U.S. this year.

The number of closures has fallen sharply this year as banks have worked their way through the bad debt accumulated in the recession. By this time last year, regulators had shuttered 149 banks.

From 2008 through 2010, bank failures cost the fund $76.8 billion. The FDIC expects failures from 2011 through 2015 to cost $19 billion.

The deposit insurance fund fell into the red in 2009. With failures slowing, the FDIC’s fund balance turned positive in the second quarter of this year; it stood at $3.9 billion as of June 30.

Associated Press