Airfare predictions headed to MSN

Farecast, a Seattle Web site that predicts airfare prices, plans to announce today it has formed its first distribution partnership — with MSN.

Farecast, founded in 2003, has raised more than $20 million in venture capital. Under the new agreement, it will offer airfare predictions and other tools to MSN's Travel Channel.

Farecast.com predicts the price of domestic flights departing from about 75 cities using a database of more than 175 billion airfares. MSN says it has more than 465 million unique users worldwide per month.

Microsoft

Small businesses can use competitor

Microsoft is helping a group of its small business customers buy online advertising with one of its competitors in the Internet search business.

Small businesses using Microsoft Office Live, an online service, will be able to buy keyword advertising on Ask.com, ranked fourth with 5 percent of U.S. Internet searches conducted in June.

They could already buy ads on Microsoft's own search engine, ranked third with 13.2 percent of the market, trailing Google and Yahoo.

Michael Schultz, a business and marketing manager for Office Live, said Microsoft saw no problem working with a rival. Small businesses "already go to multiple search engines to sign up, register and manage all their spending" on keyword advertising, he said.

The addition of Ask.com is designed to make that easier, and Microsoft is not ruling out working with other competitors.

Boeing

$1.1 million settles double-billing case

Boeing has agreed to pay about $1.1 million to settle allegations it overbilled for materials used in installing new KC-135 aircraft engines, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Monday.

The settlement stems from an investigation into payment requests Boeing made from 1998 to 2003.

U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren said the government alleged Boeing double billed for materials used in modernizing KC-135 Stratotankers and RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft. Prosecutors alleged Boeing charged for the materials even though those costs were included in its government contract.

Boeing claimed the contract allowed the transfer of costs, so the billing was not done improperly.

Restaurants Unlimited

Portland-based chain purchased

Restaurants Unlimited, a Seattle-based restaurant chain, has acquired Portland-based Pacific Coast Restaurants whose 27 restaurants include Stanford's, Newport Bay and Manzana. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Restaurants Unlimited is part of the private investment firm Sun Capital Partners and already has 29 restaurants in 12 states, including Kincaid's, Palomino's and Ryan's Grill.

SonoSite

$200 million raised for acquisitions

SonoSite said Monday it raised $200 million in debt with several investment banks.

The Bothell portable ultrasound-equipment maker intends to use the money in acquisitions to expand its business. Some of the cash could also be used to repay debt, invest in company operations or as working capital. The placement was underwritten by J.P. Morgan Securities, Piper Jaffray & Co. and Savvian Advisor.

The underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to $25 million in additional convertible notes, the company said in a statement.

SonoSite shares closed at $31.48 Monday, up 36 cents or 1.2 percent.

VoIP

SunRocket suddenly shuts down service

SunRocket, the second biggest U.S. supplier of Internet phone services, appeared to have shut down Monday without notifying customers, which total more than 200,000.

The Vienna, Va.-based company, a rival to Vonage Holdings in the home and small-business market for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone services, gave no warning.

Callers to its customer-service line heard a brief recorded message: "We are no longer taking customer-service or sales calls. Goodbye."

Independent VoIP providers face mounting competition from established cable television and telephone companies that offer alternative services as part of packages that may include landline, broadband Internet, TV or mobile-phone services.

KPMG

Former employees avoid tax charges

A federal judge dismissed charges Monday against 13 former KPMG employees in what the government had described as the largest criminal tax case in U.S. history, saying the prosecutors prevented them from presenting their defenses.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said the dismissal was necessary because the government coerced KPMG to limit, then cut off its payment of the one-time employees' legal fees.

Lear

Shareholders reject Icahn buyout offer

WILMINGTON, Del. — Lear shareholders rejected a $2.9 billion buyout offer Monday from a firm led by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, mounting enough opposition amid concerns that the bid undervalued the auto supplier.

Icahn's American Real Estate Partners had improved its offer in the past week to $37.25 a share, but some shareholders said Lear was worth far more and questioned whether the deal was in their best interest.

Mattel

Toy-car sales boost profit for quarter

Mattel reported a 15 percent increase in second-quarter profit Monday with strong sales of toy cars, although Barbie revenue in the U.S. fell for the second consecutive quarter.

The toy maker posted net income of $43.1 million, or 11 cents per share, compared with $37.4 million, or 10 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenue totaled $1.02 billion, up from $958 million in the year-ago period.

The company's profit matched expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, although revenue fell below the $1.03 billion analysts were looking for.

Houghton Mifflin

Education, trade units purchased

Houghton Mifflin said Monday it agreed to buy the Harcourt education and trade publishing units from Dutch-Anglo publisher Reed Elsevier for $4 billion in cash and stock, expanding its portfolio of education-related publications.

Houghton Mifflin, the Boston-based unit of Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group, will pay $3.7 billion in cash and $300 million in the parent company's stock to buy Harcourt Education, Harcourt Trade and Greenwood-Heinemann.

Google

Web sites offered search service

Google is offering to run the search engines of small Web sites for as little as $100 per year, marking its latest attempt to make more money off technology that already steers much of the Internet's traffic.

The service scheduled to be unveiled today is aimed at the millions of Web sites that either don't have search engines or are unhappy with the quality of their search results, said Nitin Mangtani, a Google product manager.

Google's "Custom Search Business Edition" will start at $100 annually to sift through up to 5,000 Web pages. Larger Web sites can pay Google $500 annually to search up to 50,000 Web pages.

AeA

Tech sector sees record trade deficit

The U.S. technology industry imported more computers, high-tech components and consumer electronics in 2006 than it exported, resulting in a record $102 billion trade deficit in the sector, according to a new report due out today.

Total tech imports hit $322 billion in 2006, up 9 percent from the prior year, according to the report from the tech industry's largest trade group, AeA. The U.S. imported more high-tech goods from China than any other nation.

Compiled from Seattle Times staff, The Associated Press and Reuters