FYI: Business
BY Staff and Wire Reports
Thursday, October 04, 2012
10/04/12 at 2:31 AM
3M buying Ceradyne plant in Quapaw
The Ceradyne Boron Products factory in Quapaw is being sold for $670 million to international conglomerate 3M Co., the two companies announced.
The deal is part of 3M's acquisition of Ceradyne Inc. for $847 million, which was announced Monday.
Ceradyne had purchased the Quapaw plant in 2007 from EaglePicher Corp.
The northeast Oklahoma factory makes products used in the nuclear and hazardous waste industries.
Neither company returned calls for comment.
Ceradyne Boron Products LLC is part of Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Ceradyne, which performs research and manufacturing in the field of advanced ceramics for the defense, energy and other industrial sectors.
When the deal closes, Ceradyne will become part of St. Paul, Minn.-based 3M's Energy and Advanced Materials Division, 3M said.
Facebook will charge to 'promote' user posts
Facebook has long declared that it's "free and always will be." And it still is - unless you want more friends to see what you have to say.
The social media giant is rolling out a feature in the U.S. that lets users pay to promote their posts to friends, just as advertisers do. Facebook has been testing the service in New Zealand, where it tries out a lot of new features, and has gradually introduced it in more than 20 other countries. Facebook said Wednesday that promoting a post - such as announcing a garage sale, charity drive or big news like an engagement - will bump it higher in your friends' news feeds.
"Every day, news feed delivers your posts to your friends. Sometimes a particular friend might not notice your post, especially if a lot of their friends have been posting recently and your story isn't near the top of their feed," wrote Abhishek Doshi, a software engineer at Facebook, on Facebook's news site.
Facebook didn't say how much it will cost to promote the posts.
Bakers shoe store chain seeks bankruptcy shield
Bakers Footwear Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday, citing weak sales and mounting losses.
The St. Louis-based company, which runs 215 shoe stores - including a location at Woodland Hills Mall - in 34 states, ran low on cash and defaulted on one of its major credit agreements.
The retailer plans to continue an existing plan to reorganize the company by selling up to 52 leases to Aldo U.S. Inc., closing other stores and selling off merchandise from closed stores.
For now all stores remain open and there are no changes to normal customer policies, the company said.
Ancestry.com uys photo scanner startup
Ancestry.com has bought San Francisco startup 1000memories to help members add photos to their family trees.
The acquisition gives the genealogy website access to 1000memories' ShoeBox mobile app, which scans photos so they can be shared online. The Provo, Utah-based company didn't say how much it paid.
Founded in 2010, 1000memories launched its mobile app last year to let users scan paper photos into the digital age by scanning them with smartphones.
With the acquisition, Ancestry users will be able to post photos of their ancestors directly on their profiles on the site. Over the coming months, 1000memories will be integrated into Ancestry.com in other ways, too.
Ancestry.com Inc. has more than 2 million paying subscribers.
