New Jersey Business News

Latest local and international economic news, market & financial reports

Norm Wooley's family has been in the energy business for nearly a century, so they have plenty of practice adapting to upheavals and trends in the often-volatile industry.

So it comes as little surprise that the Wooley Fuel Company is opening the first biodiesel retail fueling station in New Jersey today. "We've always tried to do new things here," says the 35-year-old Wooley, a member of the fourth generation of the family to work for Maplewood's oldest business.

The core of the family business, founded in 1924 by two brothers who supplied coal and wood to customers, these days is supplying home heating oil. About a year ago, however, the firm decided to convert an old, unused diesel pump to biodiesel, a domestically produced, renewable source of energy, Wooley said.

Continue reading "Energy company 1st in N.J. to offer biodiesel fillups" »

French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA is cutting an unspecified number of U.S. sales jobs as part of a realignment of its marketing.

The company said in an e-mailed statement that it is realigning its sales force. The changes, it said, would affect a single-digit percentage of its 6,500-person U.S. sales force, implying jobs cuts of fewer than 650.

Sanofi said in the statement that the moves are part of "a new commercial model designed to deliver greater value to our customers in a rapidly changing business environment."

Continue reading "Sanofi to cut U.S. sales jobs" »

Luxury watchmaker Movado today reported third-quarter earnings that were sharply below Wall Street estimates, and also slashed its profit outlook for the full year.

The Paramus company -- which sells watches under the Coach, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss and other brands, including its own name -- blamed a crumbling retail environment, and said it would step up belt-tightening efforts begun in August.

"During the latter part of the third quarter, our results were significantly impacted as retailers experienced substantial retail sales declines and focused on very tight inventory controls going into the holiday season," Chief executive Efraim Grinberg said in a statement.

Continue reading "A big miss for Movado" »

Prudential Financial said today it expects to earn between $5.25 and $5.65 a share next year, far below analyst estimates.

For the fourth quarter of this year, the insurer based in Newark said it expects to lose between $1.10 and $1.30 a share, driven largely by a $1.4 billion loss in Prudential's annuities business. Analysts were expecting profits of $1.40 a share for this year's final quarter.

For the full-year 2009, analysts on average had predicted the Newark financial services firm would earn $7.10. The company assumed the Standard & Poor's 500 index would start the year at 800 and end at 900.

Continue reading "Prudential cuts profit outlook for year, plans to sell Wachovia Securities stake" »

Struggling car-rental company Avis Budget Group is asking the federal government for financing to allow it to buy vehicles for its fleet, Bloomberg News reported.

The Parsippany company is asking for low-interest loans and other funding to buy cars next year, and has circulated the idea with the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and lawmakers, Avis spokesman Robert Muhs told Bloomberg on Wednesday.

"Car rental companies' reduced capacity to purchase cars and resulting reduced demand for new vehicles ultimately results in a contraction of workforces for the auto manufacturers, their suppliers and car-rental companies themselves," Avis wrote in its pitch.

Toll Brothers today said its fiscal fourth-quarter loss narrowed slightly as it took fewer write-downs on land values, but warned that fiscal 2009 revenue will fall significantly below 2008 levels.

The luxury home builder said the economic environment is too uncertain to be able to further forecast fiscal 2009 results.

For the quarter ended Oct. 31, losses totaled $78.8 million, or 49 cents per share, including $175.9 million worth of pretax write-downs. That's slightly better than the year-ago loss of $81.8 million, or 52 cents, on $314.9 million write-downs.

Continue reading "Toll Bros. narrows loss in 4th quarter" »

After abandoning plans to spin off its biotech business, Enzon Pharmaceuticals is putting its money to another use: The repurchase of up to $100 million of its convertible debt notes.

The Bridgewater specialty pharmaceutical firm had planned to spin off its early-stage drug pipeline into a new business called Evivrus, but abandoned the idea last week after running into opposition from a major investor. Evivrus was to have been capitalized with $150 million from Enzon's coffers.

Now some of that money is apparently being redeployed to buy up some of Enzon's debt. The company yesterday said it had authorized a modified Dutch auction to buy $100 million of some $270.5 million worth of debt notes that come due in 2013.

The tender offer for the notes will begin in the "near future," Enzon said.