Pinnacle Woods sold in $18.5 million deal

Pinnacle Woods is operating under new ownership.

Evergreen Development LLC announced Tuesday that it had bought the 208-unit apartment complex at 5000 Clinton Parkway. The partnership valued the transaction at $18.5 million.

Pasadena, Calif.-based Evergreen bought the property from GAD LC, a Topeka-based partnership that developed the 17-acre complex in 1996.

Pinnacle Woods includes a pool, courtyard and fitness and business centers. It is 94 percent leased.

Retirement

SBC brings back traditional pensions

SBC Communications Inc. is reversing course and bringing back a traditional pension plan for 55,000 of its managers, replacing newfangled retirement plans similar to those that have drawn criticism at a number of other companies.

The switch by the telecommunications giant is the rare exception at a time of great uncertainty for both employers and workers with a stake in traditional pension plans.

SBC, based in San Antonio, is freezing its cash-balance and pension-equity plans for managers, which replaced traditional pension plans in the late 1990s. The company’s 162,000 other employees will remain in a cash-balance plan.

Hotels

Marriott to change 628,000 beds

Lawrence’s SpringHill Suites by Marriott will be among 2,400 hotels worldwide to get new beds and bedding this year, part of a nearly $190 million makeover.

Marriott International announced Tuesday that it would replace 628,000 beds in hotels covering eight Marriott brands: JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Renaissance Hotels & Resorts, Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn, TownePlace Suites and SpringHill Suites.

Among the makeover’s goals: “Position our brands as the most luxurious in their segment,” said J.W. Marriott Jr., the company’s chair and CEO.

Railroad

BNSF profits rise on freight shipping

Railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. on Tuesday said profits rose 54 percent in the fourth quarter, helped by rising demand for freight shipping. The results beat analysts’ estimates.

Net income rose to $347 million, or 91 cents per share, from $226 million, or 61 cents per share, a year earlier.

Burlington Northern shares rose $2.04, or 4.6 percent, to close at $46.69 in Tuesday trading on the New York Stock Exchange, near their 52-week best of $49.25.

Fired HealthSouth CEO faces trial for fraud

A prosecutor told jurors Tuesday at the start of fired HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy’s corporate fraud trial that Scrushy was the driving force behind a conspiracy to overstate earnings in the rehabilitation giant by about $2.7 billion.

Scrushy sold about $150 million worth of his own HealthSouth stock and spent more than $200 million on a lavish lifestyle as his underlings generated bogus financial statements to make it appear HealthSouth was meeting Wall Street forecasts from 1996 through 2002, U.S. Atty. Alice Martin said in opening statements.

Scandal

Ex-WorldCom chief accused of ‘lie after lie’

Former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers orchestrated an $11 billion accounting fraud and then told “lie after lie after lie” about the company’s crumbling finances to protect its stock price and his own personal fortune, a prosecutor said Tuesday in opening statements at Ebbers’ trial.

Ebbers began the lies in October 2000, painting a false picture for investors and ignoring that WorldCom had not met Wall Street expectations, federal prosecutor David Anders told jurors.

WorldCom’s bankruptcy in 2002 was the largest in U.S. history.

Manufacturing

Coleman hires president

Gary A. Kiedaisch has been named president of The Coleman Co., the Wichita-based manufacturer of camping and outdoor equipment.

The appointment was announced Tuesday by Jarden Corp. of Rye, N.Y., which Monday completed its acquisition of American Household Inc., Coleman’s privately owned parent company.

Kiedaisch, 58, most recently had been chairman, chief executive and president of Bauer Nike Hockey, a Nike subsidiary.

Coleman, founded in Wichita more than a century ago, has about 1,000 employees at a plant in Wichita and a smaller plant in Maize.

Pharmaceuticals

Drug companies post solid earnings results

Strong sales and solid core results from three of the country’s biggest drugmakers boosted their share prices Tuesday, even as hefty one-time charges dragged down their quarterly results.

Johnson & Johnson, which posted its 72nd straight year of sales growth, and Merck & Co., whose Vioxx withdrawal set off industrywide concerns about drug safety, met or exceeded analysts’ expectations. And Schering-Plough Corp. showed a big improvement over its year-ago results as it continues its ambitious turnaround program.