THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 5, 1996 TAG: 9601050566
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Sales may be blocked on some F-series trucks
The partial government shutdown is complicating Ford Motor Co.'s plans, temporarily blocking sales of 1997 F-150s pickup truck equipped with manual transmissions. Production of the trucks started last month, before the Environmental Protection Agency had finished the fuel economy certification. Now the EPA workers doing the certifying are not working because of the shutdown. That means about 800 of the 8,000 trucks Ford had built by Wednesday were held at the factories and not shipped to dealers. However, the delay hasn't slowed production of the vehicles at Ford's Norfolk assembly plant. Ford unveiled its redesigned F-150 trucks last month at the Norfolk plant. The 1997-model trucks will go on sale in late January. (AP)
RailAmerica to buy rail lines from CSX
RailAmerica Inc. said Thursday it agreed to buy more than 53 miles of rail lines in Michigan from CSX Transportation Inc. RailAmerica, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based operator of short-line railroads, said the two lines are in the Thumb region in Michigan, about 100 miles north of Detroit. The company said its Michigan-based rail subsidiaries, the Huron & Eastern Railroad and the Saginaw Valley Railway, will operate the two lines. The additional track will increase their combined Michigan network to more than 233 route miles, with access to both CSX Transportation and the Central Michigan Railway. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of the year. CSX Transportation, of Jacksonville, Fla., is a subsidiary of Richmond-based CSX Corp. (Dow Jones News)
Best Products sees loss for fiscal 1996
Best Products Co. said it expects to post a loss for fiscal 1996, which ends Feb. 3, because disappointing holiday sales failed to offset earlier quarterly losses. The specialty retailer said sales for the five weeks ended Dec. 31 fell 7.2 percent to $347.6 million from $374.6 million a year earlier. Same-store sales, or sales at stores opened for more than a year, dropped 12 percent. The Richmond-based company posted losses in the first three quarters of fiscal 1996, totaling $21 million. Sales of consumer electronics and lawn furniture had slowed, the company said. Best operates 175 stores that sell jewelry and home products, 12 jewelry-only stores and a mail-order service. (Bloomberg Business News)
AT&T's Henrico plant is put on the market
AT&T Corp. is putting its Henrico County circuit board plant - and its 2,000 jobs - on the market. ``We hope to find a company that is committed to keeping (the plant) and its work force substantially intact,'' Curtis J. Crawford, president of AT&T Microelectronics, which owns the plant, said. The announcement came as AT&T unveiled plans to cut 40,000 jobs over the next three years. Selling the Henrico County plant would eliminate 2,000 jobs from the AT&T payroll. Crawford said that although demand at the plant was at record levels, the profit margin remained low. The plant produces printed circuit boards that are the standard of the industry. (AP) by CNB