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Business Digest
Kaiser to sell Mead smelter; production might resume

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The smelter, outside Spokane, is being sold for $4 million, plus considerations for site-related liabilities, Kaiser said.

The Mead smelter once employed about 1,000 United Steelworkers, but it was closed in a labor dispute in 2001 and never reopened as high electricity prices and reduced demand for aluminum decimated the industry in the Northwest. This is the first indication that some smelter jobs might be restored.

Kaiser, which is struggling to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has been working with the United Steelworkers to find a way to save the facility.

Kenneth Peterson, chief executive officer of Columbia Ventures, said the company would study which specific operations at the smelter it can profitably restart.

Kaiser will continue running a rolling mill in suburban Spokane that makes aluminum for the aerospace industry and a plant in Richland that makes tubes. Those two plants employ 500 workers.

The Mead sale is subject to approval by the Kaiser board and U.S. Bankruptcy Court and is expected to close in the second quarter.

Some of Wichita's 737 work to be sent to South Korea

SEATTLE — Boeing is outsourcing production of large 737 tailpieces from Wichita to South Korea.

At the Asian Aerospace show in Singapore, Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) announced a $300 million contract to produce the 737's horizontal stabilizer and vertical fin.

Starting in 2006, KAI will work on the contract with Xi'an Aircraft of China, which co-produces the tail assemblies with Boeing Wichita. Renton handles final assembly of the 737.
 
"This is a strategic work placement related to (South Korea's) purchase of some F-15s," said Boeing spokesman Fred Solis. South Korea bought 40 F-15 military fighter jets in 2002.

Layoffs in Wichita are not expected, though about 25 people will need to be reassigned. By 2006, the plant is expected to have extra work from the 7E7 and the 767 tanker program and from an anticipated upswing in commercial-aircraft orders.

Comanche deal's end spurs Boeing staff shifts in Pennsylvania

BOSTON — Boeing said yesterday that the Army's cancellation of the Comanche helicopter program may affect up to 725 workers assigned to the program. About 600 people work on the program at Boeing's helicopter plant in Philadelphia.

"We expect that many of our employees will eventually be redeployed on the program initiatives our Army customer outlined earlier this week," Boeing said in a statement. Army leaders said they would reallocate the $14.6 billion earmarked for Comanches between now and 2011 to other areas such as upgrades to existing Apache heavy-attack helicopters made by Boeing.

"There is a possibility, however, that some people may receive layoff notices as we move through the program-termination process," Boeing added.

Seattle Genetics gets help with Orphan Drug approval

SEATTLE — Seattle Genetics said yesterday it received an Orphan Drug designation from the Food and Drug Administration for its SGN-30 drug candidate as a treatment for T-cell lymphomas. The designation covers a category of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that includes anaplastic and cutaneous lymphomas.

The designation makes the company eligible for tax breaks, government grants to support clinical trials and a seven-year market monopoly if it can convince the FDA its tests show evidence of safety and effectiveness. The Orphan Drug Act is designed to give companies incentives to develop drugs for smaller markets, diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States.

The FDA granted the designation to SGN-30 for Hodgkin's disease last year. Since then, the company has started midstage clinical trials of the drug for that disease, plus anaplastic large-cell lymphoma. It plans to start another midstage trial for SGN-30 this year in cutaneous lymphoma.

WSA names achievements of state's tech companies

BELLEVUE — Washington state's top technology companies were recognized last night at the WSA's 9th annual achievement awards banquet at the Westin Hotel Ballroom in Seattle.

The event, which was expected to draw expecting more than 1,000 people, also celebrated the WSA's 20th anniversary.

The 2004 Industry Achievement Award winners are:

• Most promising new technology: Isilon IQ, of Isilon Systems, Seattle

• Most promising new company: Bellevue-based MessageGate

• Business product of the year: Mobility 5.0 with Policy Management by NetMotion Wireless, Seattle

• Consumer product of the year: Detto IntelliMover by Detto Technologies, Bellevue

• Service provider of the year: Renton-based Classmates Online

• Reinvention award: Seattle-based aQuantive

• Outstanding contribution to the community: Seattle-based Community Voice Mail

• Outstanding contribution to digital government: Bellevue-based eCityGov Alliance's MyBuildingPermit.com.

About 30 people demonstrated outside the Westin to protest the outsourcing of technology jobs overseas. They carried signs saying "Stop corporate greed" and "Export software, not jobs."

Nation/World

Adelphia Communications fraud trial set for Monday

NEW YORK — A jury of three men and nine women was chosen yesterday to hear the fraud case against Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and two sons, who are accused of using the company as their "personal piggy bank."

Opening statements were scheduled to begin Monday in the trial that is expected to last three months. Eight alternate jurors also were chosen.

Rigas and his sons, Michael and Timothy Rigas, both former company executives, and another former Adelphia executive, Michael Mulcahey, have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and fraud.

Prosecutors say the men lived lavishly at the expense of the company's investors and drove the nation's fifth-largest cable company into bankruptcy as they stole hundreds of millions of dollars from 1999 to 2002.

Vought Aircraft Industries shifting 1,375 jobs to Dallas

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vought Aircraft Industries, lured to expand in Texas with a multimillion-dollar package, will close plants in Tennessee and Florida and move about 1,375 jobs to Dallas, the company said yesterday.

The manufacturer of aircraft parts received $35 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund as part of the deal to create about 3,000 jobs in the Dallas area, boosting the company's work force there to about 6,270.

Work at the plants will be shifted to Dallas in the next 18 to 36 months.

The company said the affected employees will be offered a transfer to Dallas with relocation benefits. Workers declining the offer will receive a severance package.

Two unions to merge for hotel, restaurant, textile workers

WASHINGTON — Two unions representing hotel and restaurant employees and retail, textile and laundry workers are merging to create a single labor group with 440,000 members.

The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, called HERE, and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, known as UNITE, announced the merger yesterday.

Compiled from Seattle Times business staff, Reuters, Bloomberg News and The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company