Classmates Media IPO aims to raise as much as $125 million

Classmates Media, a social-networking Web site, said Monday that it plans to raise as much as $125 million through an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

The Woodland Hills, Calif.-based company — which includes Renton-based subsidiary Classmates Online — did not provide the number of shares it plans to sell or a price range in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It expects to trade under the symbol CLAS.

drugstore.com

Savings accounts get online store

Bellevue-based drugstore.com opened an online store for holders of health-savings accounts, special savings plans for medical expenses, through UnitedHealth Group.

The partnership with Exante Financial Services, a division of UnitedHealth, is the first for drugstore.com with an administrator of the savings accounts, the company said Monday in a statement.

Exante is the largest provider of health savings accounts, according to drugstore.com. Congress created the accounts in 2003 as a way to build up savings tax-free for medical expenses. Drugstore.com will help customers document their spending for tax purposes.

UnitedHealth is the largest U.S. provider of health insurance.

Starbucks

Self-serve kiosks for supermarkets

Starbucks will sell a new line of premium packaged coffees and add supermarket kiosks for its Seattle's Best Coffee brand as the company seeks to expand sales beyond cafes.

The Limited Reserve coffees will cost about 15 to 20 percent more than the packaged coffee Seattle-based Starbucks already sells through retailers such as Kroger, Wendy Pinero-DePencier, vice president for the U.S. global consumer products group, said Monday.

Starbucks will add the Seattle's Best kiosks in stores where a regular cafe wouldn't fit, Pinero-DePencier said.

The kiosks will be self-serve with a credit-card machine, offering about six different flavors of lattes, mochas, drip coffee and milk steamers, she said. The machines are being tested in Washington, she said. Prices will be comparable to those in regular cafes.

Nautilus

CEO Hammann, board part ways

Nautilus, the maker of Bowflex and StairMaster exercise machines, said Chief Executive Officer Gregg Hammann resigned.

Director Robert Falcone will serve as interim chief executive officer and chairman, Vancouver, Wash.-based Nautilus said Monday.

"The board and he came to an agreement that it was time for a leadership change," spokesman Ron Arp said.

Nautilus' profit has dropped for two straight quarters. Hammann had been CEO of the company since July 2003.

NW Biotherapeutics

Biotech is sued; false claims alleged

A Seattle law firm said Monday that it has sued Northwest Biotherapeutics on behalf of stockholders who bought shares after a July 9 company announcement made the stock skyrocket, only to see shares collapse after a follow-up statement provided further details.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, claims that the Bothell biotech issued "materially false and misleading statements" in a news release that said it had received authorization for its brain-cancer vaccine in Switzerland. A week later, Northwest Biotherapeutics clarified it had received only an import-export authorization, and that Swiss authorities had not evaluated the safety or efficacy of the drug. Shares have tanked since.

The company "tried to blame the confusion on 'certain media reports,' but any fair assessment has to fault the company's misleading July 9 press release," the lawsuit claims. Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro is representing the plaintiff.

Northwest Biotherapeutics, which trades on the OTC Bulletin Board, didn't return a call for comment.

TravellingWave

1st round raises company funding

TravellingWave, which is developing speech-recognition software for mobile phones, said Monday it has raised an undisclosed amount of capital in a first round of funding.

The Seattle company is working on a way to meld speech recognition with text input. With its software, a person says a word into a phone and then types one or two of the word's letters. The software then identifies what the person is saying and enters the whole word, said Ashwin Rao, TravellingWave's founder and chief executive, who worked at AT&T Bell-Labs.

TravellingWave, which has four employees, has been researching the approach for three years with funding from a National Science Foundation grant and money from its founders.

Investors in the round consist of individuals, including Jim Judson, of Davis Wright Tremaine; Geoff Entress, of Madrona Venture Group; Bill Miller, a former venture capitalist; and Colin Wong, an investor at Prosperati and former Google employee.

FHLB

Net income up from a year ago

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle said its second-quarter net income increased $12.1 million from a year ago to $14.6 million.

The Seattle bank cited a number of factors, including an effort to move proceeds from maturing low-yielding investments into higher-yielding ones, and an increased ability to leverage its balance sheet. It also said it continued to meet all regulatory capital requirements, with total capital at $2.25 billion as of June 30, an increase of $19.3 million during the first half of this year.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle is a financial cooperative that provides funding and services to more than 375 member institutions.

Federal Reserve

Most banks tighten rules on lending

A majority of the nation's banks have tightened lending standards on subprime mortgages, the Federal Reserve said Monday in a survey that provided further evidence of spreading problems.

The Fed said it found that over half of banks responding to a survey reported they had tightened their lending standards for subprime mortgages, loans offered to borrowers with weak credit histories.

The survey found nearly half of the banks responding said they had tightened loan standards for so-called nontraditional mortgages.

The Fed defines this category as adjustable-rate loans with multiple payment options, interest-only mortgages and products referred to as "Alt-A" loans that offer such features as limited verification of incomes.

Blackstone Group

Profit triples; investors assured

Blackstone Group said Monday its profit tripled in the second quarter, as it assured investors it would have no problem finding financing for more of its blockbuster buyouts.

The New York-based investment partnership's shares, which have been battered since a late June initial public offering, recovered modestly on Monday.

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