Onex closes deal, is targeted for lawsuit

Onex Corp.’s purchase of The Boeing Co.’s commercial airplanes operations in Kansas and Oklahoma concluded Thursday, marking the final day of pay for about 1,100 workers who have lost their jobs because of the deal.

The transaction, valued at $1.2 billion, includes facilities in Wichita, and Tulsa and McAlester, Okla.

More than 8,000 people begin their new jobs today at Mid-Western Aircraft Systems, the new firm’s temporary name.

Onex already had notified about 1,100 workers that they would not be offered jobs.

Also Thursday, a Wichita attorney sent letters to company officials and displaced Boeing employees regarding his firm’s intent to file a class-action lawsuit alleging age discrimination.

The letter said the deal “targeted and led to the illegal displacement of individuals above the age of 40.”

Alternative fuels

New ethanol plant set for Grant Co.

A St. Louis company has chosen Grant County as the site for an ethanol plant that officials said would be the state’s largest.

North American Bioenergy Resources said the plant would produce 100 million gallons of grain alcohol annually from milo grown by area farmers. It would have 100 employees, with production expected to start in the fall of 2006.

Kansas also has ethanol plants in Russell, Oakley, Colwich, Garden City, Atchison and Leoti, with others being built in Garnett, Phillipsburg and Pratt.

Grant County is in southwestern Kansas.

Pharmaceuticals

Pfizer offers to buy Vicuron

In the latest foray by a pharmaceutical behemoth outside its research labs for biotech drugs, Pfizer Inc. said Thursday it would pay $1.9 billion in cash for a tiny company that makes a new breed of antibiotics.

Pfizer is offering to shareholders of Vicuron Pharmaceuticals $29.10 a share, a 74 percent premium over the biotech’s average stock price the last 90 days.

Such a hefty premium underscores the industry’s need to bolster lackluster research programs and replace lucrative drugs soon to be threatened by generic competition because of expiring patents.