BOSTON – Bank of America Corp., whose brand is on a football stadium in North Carolina, said it paid to end an arrangement to name Boston’s FleetCenter, home of the Boston Bruins and the Boston Celtics.
The third-largest U.S. bank will pay an undisclosed fee to exit a 15-year, $30-million contract that FleetBoston Financial Corp. set up before its $48 billion purchase by the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, said Joe Goode, a bank spokesman.
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Bank of America is concentrating on its national exclusive sponsorship of baseball, which includes major and minor leagues as well as Little League baseball, and also its status through 2008 as the official bank for the U.S. Olympic Team and sponsor of two major golf events, Goode said.
The Boston arena for basketball and ice hockey will keep the FleetCenter name through Oct. 14, unless Delaware North Companies, owner of the FleetCenter, finds a new naming rights partner earlier for the 19,600-seat facility. The contract was due to expire in 2010.
The fee to end the contract may be in the range of $2 million to $3 million, the Boston Globe said, citing an unnamed spokesman for the facility. (Bloomberg News)
Brown alerts Canadian pharmacies of new regs
PROVIDENCE – Secretary of State Matt Brown has notified CanaRx, a clearinghouse for Canadian pharmacies, that Rhode Island will begin licensing Canadian pharmacies on Jan. 19, and is encouraging CanaRx members to apply for the new licenses.
“Millions of Americans already have a way to get safe and affordable prescription drugs from Canada,” Brown said in a news release. “Rhode Island should not be left behind.”
Canadian health officials have expressed concern that Americans’ growing use of their pharmacies could jeopardize the nation’s drug supply, and tougher rules restricting export to the United States are expected soon. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry and drugstores have strongly opposed re-importation all along, calling it unsafe.
Cosmed sells medical sterilization facilities
JAMESTOWN – The Cosmed Group, a privately held company, has sold its five medical instrument sterilization facilities, including one in Rhode Island, to the STERIS Corp., a public company based in Ohio, for $73 million, effective this month.
Cosmed reported about $21 million in revenues from those sites in 2003.
In November, when both sides first announced the deal, Cosmed said despite “nearly 20 years of success” in the medical device industry, it wanted to focus on the other part of its business, commercializing newly patented processing technologies in the food industry, PureOx and H2Oexpress. Cosmed plans to expand the offerings of its food processing facilities in New Jersey, Maryland and Nevada and open several new facilities for the processing of fruits, vegetables and other food products.
More home buyers, sellers use Realtors in ’04
WALTHAM – More Massachusetts home buyers and sellers chose to use a real estate agent in 2004, rather than selling or purchasing a home on their own, according to a new report released by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
The “2004 Massachusetts Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers” also reported that the number of first-time and minority buyers purchasing homes has risen since 2003, despite steadily rising home prices in the state.
Use of a Realtor in 2004 increased 5 percent over the previous year, from 86 percent of sellers using one to 91 percent, the report said. The number of homeowners who sold their home has dropped 39 percent in the past year, from 9.7 percent of home sellers in 2003 to 5.9 percent.
According to the report, preparing, fixing and staging the home for sale ranked among the most difficult tasks in a “for sale by owner.”
