IN BRIEF
Icahn's bid OK'd for Tropicana Atlantic City
Billionaire Carl Icahn and other investors' winning bid for the bankrupt Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., was approved by a court and awaits regulatory approval.
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, N.J., approved the sale, retired Judge Gary Stein, the state-appointed trustee for Tropicana, said Friday in a statement. Icahn was the lead bidder in an auction after he and other investors agreed to forgive $200 million owed to them by the casino's parent company in exchange for the Tropicana, a 2,000-room hotel with 140,000 square feet of gambling space.
"We fully expect to continue to operate in a smooth and uninterrupted manner and Tropicana customers will continue to receive the highest-quality hotel, entertainment and casino experience," Tropicana President Mark Giannantonio said in the statement.
The sale still requires approval from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. Among the issues to be considered is whether the casino will be owned as part of a larger company or as a standalone entity, according to the trustee's statement.
The Tropicana was part of Tropicana Entertainment LLC, which filed for bankruptcy in Delaware last year after the Atlantic City casino was placed under Stein's control. Tropicana Entertainment's casinos will be divided between two separate groups of lenders.
The Icahn-led group also will get casinos in Indiana, Louisiana and Mississippi. Canadian private-equity firm Onex Corp. will control the Las Vegas Tropicana.
LOS ANGELES
Video game sales slide 23 percent
U.S. video gamers spent less on games, hardware and accessories in May compared with a year ago, a sign that this year's release schedule couldn't compete with Take Two Interactive's "Grand Theft Auto IV" last spring.
The NPD Group said Thursday that spending fell 23 percent from last May to $863 million. It was the first monthly tally below $1 billion since August 2007 and the third month in a row of year-over-year declines.
The best-selling title this May was THQ Inc.'s "UFC 2009 Undisputed," which sold 679,600 units on Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, and 334,400 on Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, for a total of just over 1 million.
In comparison, "GTA IV" sold 1.3 million units last May on both platforms.
Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s "Wii Fit" sold 352,800 units this May for the No. 2 spot, down from 687,700 a year ago.
Games for the Wii took five of the month's top 10 titles. All 10 sold a combined 2.6 million units, compared with 3.7 million a year ago, NPD said.
"The video games industry continues to struggle with difficult comparisons to last year," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier in a statement.
NEW YORK
Gasoline prices rise for 45th straight day
Gasoline prices rose Friday for the 45th consecutive day as summer travelers hit the highways and refineries hold back on fuel production.
Pump prices added less than a penny overnight to a new national average of $2.639 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
Gas is 37.2 cents a gallon more expensive than last month. Yet prices have risen all year after slumping to around $1.60 in December.
Crude prices are surging as well, but not as consistently as gasoline.
WASHINGTON
GM, Chrysler execs defend dealer closings
Under withering criticism in Congress, General Motors and Chrysler executives on Friday called the closings of hundreds of dealerships painful steps needed to right-size the auto giants. Down-on-their luck dealers said the moves would needlessly devastate their local economies and livelihoods.
GM CEO Fritz Henderson told the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee the dealer cuts were "quite painful" but necessary to save more than 200,000 jobs at GM's remaining dealers. Chrysler Deputy CEO Jim Press said the cuts were part of the shared sacrifices by the United Auto Workers union, bondholders and others needed to avoid liquidation.
But the committee also heard from hard-hit shutout dealers such as Frank Blankenbecker III of Waxahachie, Texas, and the carmakers' explanations won few converts from House members.
Here's the beef: It's in KFC chicken
The marinade on the chain's new grilled chicken contains beef powder and rendered beef fat. And competitor El Pollo Loco wants you to know every finger-licking detail.
The plucky Costa Mesa, Calif., restaurant company is making those beef byproducts the centerpiece of a new advertising campaign tweaking KFC. "The use of beef ingredients in grilled chicken just seems wrong to me, and we believe most consumers would agree," said Steve Carley, chief executive of El Pollo Loco. El Pollo learned that KFC was using beef thanks to a customer's tweet to the Southern California chain's Twitter account.
In one television commercial, Carley stands in a cow pasture and talks about a "fun fact" concerning KFC's grilled chicken, then discloses the beef ingredients.
KFC pitches "a new secret blend of herbs and spices" when it talks about its recently introduced grilled chicken. To learn what's in that secret blend, you have to turn to Page 14 of a 37-page ingredient document posted by KFC on its Web site.
That disclosure is "more than adequate," said Rick Maynard, spokesman of the Louisville, Ky., chain, which has 5,200 restaurants nationally.
BEIJING
China's retail sales, industrial output up
China's retail sales, bank lending and industrial output grew in May as the government spent heavily on a stimulus to boost the world's third-largest economy as exports plunged, data showed Friday.
The latest report, on top of figures Thursday showing May investment rising, suggested the stimulus spending was helping to make up for a collapse in demand for exports that wiped out millions of Chinese factory jobs.
Retail sales rose 15.2 percent in May from a year earlier, up from April's 14.8 percent growth, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. Industrial output rose 8.9 percent, rebounding from April's lackluster 7.3 percent and exceeding March's 8.3 percent rate.
NEW YORK
Treasury rally pushes into second day
Exuberance over a strong 30-year bond auction extended into a second day Friday, pushing Treasury prices up and yields down.
If the trend continues, it could mean relief for homeowners worried about the recent upturn in mortgage rates.
Treasury yields play a major role in determining interest rates for average borrowers.
In late trading Friday, the 10-year Treasury note rose 0.56 points to 94.5. Its yield fell to 3.80 percent from 3.86 percent late Thursday. It reached 4.01 percent before Thursday's 30-year auction, its highest level since last October.
The 30-year bond rose 0.72 points to 93.62 points, pushing its yield down to 4.65 percent from 4.69 percent late Thursday.
