Atlas Holdings to buy Trus Joist

Pacific Northwest

Forest products

Atlas Holdings

to buy Trus Joist

Weyerhaeuser, North America's largest lumber producer, plans to sell its Trus Joist commercial division to closely held Atlas Holdings.

The sale includes four U.S. manufacturing plants and sales offices employing about 428 people, Weyerhaeuser said Friday in a statement. Financial terms weren't given and the deal is expected to close by year's end.

Federal Way-based Weyerhaeuser will now focus on the market for the company's residential structural-frame products, Weyerhaeuser Vice President Carlos Guilherme said in the statement. Trus Joist makes prefabricated wooden-construction products.

Weyerhaeuser stock fell $1.03, or 2.1 percent, to $46.92 Friday; the shares have fallen 36 percent this year.

Biotechnology

Provenge gets

extra capital

Dendreon said Friday that it sold $21 million in stock to an investment fund, Azimuth Opportunity, as part of a previously disclosed arrangement.

Proceeds of about $20 million will go to the development and marketing of Provenge, the Seattle company's prostate cancer-fighting compound. The money will also fund other research projects, the company said. Azimuth bought the shares for $5.54 each.

In October last year, Dendreon agreed to sell up to $130 million in shares to Azimuth at a discount from market prices.

Dendreon stock briefly spiked this week after the company announced positive clinical-study results on Provenge, reaching nearly $7 on Monday. The interim clinical results, however, were not strong enough to allow the company to ask federal regulators for speedier approval of the drug.

Dendreon shares closed Friday at $5.16, down 28 cents, or 5.1 percent.

Software

Mithras gives nod

to Microsoft sale

Yahoo shareholder Mithras Capital proposed the Internet company sell itself to Microsoft for $22 a share, or about a third less than the software maker offered this year.

That price would be 79 percent more than Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo's closing price of $12.29 Friday. Mithras, based in Napa, Calif., owns 1.9 million Yahoo shares, representing a stake of about 0.14 percent.

Microsoft withdrew an offer for Yahoo of $33 a share in May, causing Mithras, billionaire Carl Icahn and other investors to criticize Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang for holding out for a higher price.

Matt Rosoff, an analyst for the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, said Microsoft is much less likely to bid for all of Yahoo this time. Its search engine, No. 2 to Google's, would likely be Microsoft's target.

Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong and Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw didn't return phone messages asking for comment.

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