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IN BRIEF

Buffalo Bill's in Primm will reopen Thursday, official says

Buffalo Bill's hotel-casino in Primm will reopen this Thursday after almost two weeks of maintenance, a company official confirmed Monday.

Herbst Gaming decided to close its largest casino and hotel in Primm during what is historically the slowest time of the year, directing customers to the company's two other properties in Primm -- Whiskey Pete's and PrimmValley Resort, Herbst Gaming General Counsel Sean Higgins said.

"We had some renovations that had to be done," Higgins said. "A lot of the work was low voltage (electricity) over the casino. Rather than do it while there were people in the casino, we decided to close it down while they were doing that."

Construction crews have been working 24 hours a day to complete the work that would have taken nearly three months to finish if the casino remained open, he said.

DETROIT

Ford offers retirement deals, buyouts to all hourly workers

Ford Motor Co. has offered buyout or retirement incentive packages to all of its 41,000 U.S. hourly workers as it tries to further reduce its factory work force.

Ford, the healthiest of Detroit's three automakers and the only one to avoid government aid and bankruptcy protection, still has more workers than it needs to produce cars and trucks at current sales levels, said company spokesman Mark Truby.

He would not say how many workers Ford expects to take the packages, which include cash payments and other incentives such as vouchers to buy cars and short-term health insurance coverage.

East Coast storm seems to have little effect on LV flights

McCarran International Airport spokesman Chris Jones said that there were "some delays" due to weather on Sunday. While individual airlines track flights, the airport does not compile a master tally.

By Monday, the airport listed only three canceled flights and some slowdowns due to weather problems in San Francisco. A handful of other flights also showed delays, involving destinations ranging from Grand Rapids, Mich., to Mexico City, but none on the East Coast. The Federal Aviation Administration showed delays at McCarran running less than 15 minutes.

Jones suggested that travelers check the running board at mccarran.com for the status of individual flights. Airlines also post schedule information for their own planes.

NEW YORK

Spyker extends deadline to consider buying Saab brand

Spyker Cars, a niche automaker based in the Netherlands, is giving General Motors Co. more time to consider selling it the Saab brand, keeping the fate of the Swedish automaker up in the air.

Spyker had given GM until 5 p.m. EST Monday to consider its latest offer, but Spyker said it has extended that deadline until further notice. Spyker submitted its latest offer on Sunday, just days after talks with GM to buy Saab collapsed over unspecified issues.

Spyker is the latest suitor looking to buy Saab. GM had been in negotiations with a consortium of buyers led by Koenigsegg Automotive AB, but the Swedish sports car maker dropped out of the deal in November.

Spyker manufactures a small number of exotic sports cars that fetch $200,000 or more. Last year, the company produced just 43 vehicles and lost $24.8 million euros ($35.5 million).

DETROIT

General Motors hires executive from Microsoft

General Motors Co. has hired the chief financial officer of Microsoft Corp. to take over the troubled automaker's books, tapping a cost-cutter who is now widely seen as a potential candidate to be GM's next CEO.

Chris Liddell will become GM's finance chief starting next year and report directly to interim CEO Ed Whitacre Jr., who also is a newcomer to the automaker. The 51-year-old Liddell is the first permanent top manager hired from outside the company since it left bankruptcy protection in July. Whitacre, who says he wants to shake up GM's slow and rigid culture, has pushed out top executives and promoted younger managers in recent weeks.

GM's announcement Monday of Liddell's appointment led several industry analysts to say he may be trying out to take the permanent CEO position, perhaps as early as next year.

Liddell replaces GM CFO Ray Young, who was transferred to GM's operations in China.

Apple leader Jobs hailed as best-performing CEO

Apple Inc.'s Steve Jobs was named the best-performing chief executive officer by the Harvard Business Review, which praised him for delivering a "whopping" 3,188 percent return to investors during his tenure.

The ranking shows which CEOs of public companies performed best over their entire time in office, according to the journal's Web site. Other technology leaders on the list included former Samsung Electronics Co. CEO Yun Jong-Yong at No. 2 and Cisco Systems Inc. Chief John Chambers at No. 4.

Jobs, who co-founded Apple in 1976 and was ousted in a management coup in 1985, returned in 1997 to lead the then-financially ailing company. He has added new versions of the Macintosh personal computer to win buyers, pushed Apple into the digital-media market with the best-selling iPod player and entered the mobile-phone arena with the iPhone.

"Of course shareholder return is not the only measure of performance," the Boston-based journal said Monday. "But it is the fundamental scorecard for CEOs of public companies."

After Jobs returned to Apple as CEO, he delivered an industry-adjusted return of 34 percent compounded annually through September 2009, the review wrote. Apple's market value increased by $150 billion in that period, the review reported.

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