 | Thu. Jan. 05, 2012 Putnam plans to lay off 78 local employees
Putnam Investments plans to lay off 78 employees in the Boston area, or 4.5 percent of its workforce, in the wake of last year’s volatile markets. The Boston mutual fund firm said the job cuts were mainly in operations, and did not involve investment staff. Before the layoff, which employees learned about today, total headcount at Putnam was 1,767. In a statement, a Putnam spokesman said that the company was making the reductions “as part of an effort to realign corporate resources.” NLRB complaint alleges Steward fired nurse for leading union organizing effort
A complaint lodged by the National Labor Relations Board alleges that Steward Health Care System unlawfully fired a nurse at its Holy Family Hospital in Methuen last August for leading a union organizing drive, in a case that underscores continued deterioration in once-warm relations between Steward and the Massachusetts Nurses Association. The complaint, issued Dec. 29, also cited Steward for preventing other Holy Family nurses from wearing buttons last summer in support of the fired nurse. Trader Joe’s plans Patriot Place supermarket
The Trader Joe’s supermarket chain plans to open a store at Patriot Place in Foxborough this year, Patriot Place management said. Patriot Place describes itself as a shopping, dining, and entertainment destination located next to Gillette Stadium. Tenants include Bass Pro Shops, a 14-screen Showcase Cinema De Lux, CBS Scene Restaurant & Bar, Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill, and a Renaissance Hotel & Spa. The 16,000-square-foot Trader Joe’s store will be the chain’s 18th Massachusetts location. TD Bank survey: Small businesses expect better performance in early 2012
A growing number of East Coast small businesses expect stable or improving revenue performance in the early 2012 despite a general lack of optimism about the US economy, a new survey from TD Bank concludes. Small businesses in the Boston area tended to be slightly more optimistic than their counterparts in many other regions of the bank’s Maine-to-Florida footprint. Although its twin headquarters are in Portland, Maine, and Cherry Hill, N.J., TD Bank is one of the largest banks in Massachusetts. Former Lotus & Microsoft exec Ray Ozzie hiring for new start-up, Cocomo
Ray Ozzie has a post-Microsoft start-up, and he’s hiring. But aside from mentioning that the company is called Cocomo and doesn’t yet have an office of its own, he didn’t want to divulge much more. Ozzie is perhaps best known as creator of the 1990s collaboration product Lotus Notes, and more recently as the person Bill Gates chose to succeed him as Microsoft’s chief software architect, in 2006. Ozzie spent four years in that role, departing at the end of 2010. Baskin-Robbins is opening stores in Vietnam
Baskin-Robbins, a sister chain of Dunkin’ Donuts, announced today that it has signed a master franchise agreement with Blue Star Food Corp., a Vietnamese food manufacturing company. The agreement calls for about 50 Baskin-Robbins restaurants to be opened in Vietnam over the next several years. The first three stores under the agreement open this week in Ho Chi Minh City. Baskin-Robbins said it now has more than 6,600 locations in nearly 50 countries, including about 2,000 in the Asia-Pacific region. Forma Therapeutics announces cancer drug alliance with big German pharma company
Watertown-based Forma Therapeutics has entered into a research and development collaboration with German pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim to discover and develop drug candidates that treat cancer. Under the collaboration, Forma will receive a total of $65 million in up-front payments and research funding to screen for and optimize compounds against multiple oncology targets over the next four years. Forma could be eligible for up to $750 million in pre-commercial milestones for programs resulting from the collaboration. TJX: December same-store sales rose 8%
TJX Cos., the Framingham company that operates such offprice retail chains as T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and HomeGoods, today reported an 8-percent increase in December same-store sales, a metric that Wall Street analysts watch closely as a measure of a retailer’s performance. That rise “significantly exceeded” company expectations and came despite unseasonably warm weather that cut demand for winter clothing. TJX also updated its earnings outlook and announced a two-for-one stock split. John Hancock to distribute travel insurance
John Hancock Financial has entered the travel insurance marketplace. The new travel insurance plans and products combine cancellation, interruption, medical, accident, and baggage protection with worldwide 24-hour multi-lingual emergency services, Boston-based John Hancock said. They products will be distributed by John Hancock Insurance Agency Inc. and underwritten by Old Republic Insurance Co. of Pennsylvania. Bruker unit gets new order from Asia
Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Billerica-based Bruker Corp., has received a large order for its metallic, low-temperature superconductors from an Asian manufacturer of magnetic resonance imaging magnets. Without identifying the customers, Bruker added that is also received a third large, multi-year contract from a major clinical MRI manufacturer. These new contracts add more than $40 million in additional minimum order commitments on top of the $71 million in minimum purchase commitments from two other customers that were announced in November. SEC sues JBI, former Cambridge tech company, with fraud
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against a former Cambridge technology company, JBI Inc., and its two top officers, charging them with securities and accounting fraud. According to the complaint, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, JBI’s top executives filed false and inaccurate financial statements for the company during 2009. JBI, now based in Ontario, Canada, says it converts waste plastics into fuel. The regulators alleged that JBI overstated its financials in order to attract investors in two private capital raising efforts. |
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