BUSINESS

AUTOMOTIVE

Quarterly profits offset falling sales

Auto retailer CarMax Inc. said Thursday its fourth-quarter profit jumped 72 percent as lower expenses and a profit in its financing arm offset the impact of falling sales. The earnings beat Wall Street expectations but revenue fell short. CarMax said it couldn’t offer a financial forecast for this fiscal year, citing unprecedented declines in traffic and sales and volatility in the credit market. The Richmond-based company said it earned $37.5 million, or 17 cents per share, for the three months ended Feb. 28, compared with $21.8 million, or 10 cents per share, a year ago.

AVIATION

Commercial plane orders decrease

Boeing Co. reported another sharp decline in orders for passenger and freight jets. March orders for Boeing’s commercial planes totaled six, down from 99 bookings in the same month last year, according to figures posted on the company’s Web site and a company spokesman. In February, orders dropped to four from 125 a year earlier.

3,000 jobs cut in business aircraft

Canada’s Bombardier Aerospace is cutting 3,000 jobs because the demand for its business aircraft has deteriorated rapidly and is expected to remain weak for the foreseeable future. The company said it now expects to deliver about 25 percent fewer business aircraft this fiscal year. The world’s third-largest maker of commercial aircraft says the cuts represent 10 percent of its total work force. The cuts will take place at its facilities in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Northern Ireland by the end of 2009.

BANKING

Five banks first to repay bailout

The Obama administration said five banks have repaid millions of dollars they received from the government’s $700 billion financial bailout pot. The Treasury Department, which oversees the bailout program, said the five banks returned a total of $353 million. The banks are: Iberiabank Corp. of Lafayette, La.; Bank of Marin Bancorp of Novato, Calif.; Old National Bancorp. of Evansville, Ind.; Signature Bank of New York; and Centra Financial Holdings Inc. of Morgantown, W.Va. They were the first banks to repay the government, wanting to escape the increasingly tough restrictions placed on participants in the rescue program.

ENERGY

TVA to pursue renewable energy

In the face of looming legislative pressures for cleaner energy, the nation’s largest public utility agreed to buy more than a nuclear reactor’s worth of electricity from renewable energy sources. The Tennessee Valley Authority board gave President and CEO Tom Kilgore authority to sign contracts totaling up to 2,000 megawatts of renewable and clean energy by 2011, with some of the power entering TVA’s seven-state system, which includes Georgia, as early as 2010.

FINANCE

Rates at low for second week

Rates on 30-year mortgages fell to the lowest level on record for the second consecutive week after the Federal Reserve launched a new effort to assist the staggering U.S. housing market. Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac said that average rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 4.78 percent this week, from 4.85 percent last week. It was the lowest in the history of Freddie Mac’s survey, which dates to 1971. Rates are down by more than a full percentage point from a year ago.

GOVERNMENT

Post office cutting nearly 1,500 jobs

The U.S. Postal Service said it plans to close three mail-processing centers and eliminate about 1,490 jobs in West Virginia, Indiana and Arizona. Centers in Charleston and Fort Wayne, Ind., are scheduled to close in October, while the Glendale, Ariz., operation will close in May 2010, spokeswoman Freda Sauter said.

Former AIG CEO blames feds

The man who built insurance giant American International Group Inc. from a startup to a global behemoth said he didn’t mismanage the company —- but the government did. Following weeks of public and congressional outrage over the largest corporate failure in U.S. history, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, AIG’s chief executive until March 2005, said taxpayers got a raw deal in the largest bailout of the financial crisis. In his first testimony since the government stepped in with the first of four bailouts for AIG, Greenberg told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee his leadership team had “nothing to do” with failures that so far have cost taxpayers more than $182 billion. An AIG spokesman disputed Greenberg’s claims and lawmakers questioned his truthfulness.

FHA may turn to budget subsidy

The Obama administration soon may be forced to subsidize the government’s mortgage insurance program with taxpayer dollars as economic troubles cause defaults and foreclosures to surge. No decision has been reached, officials said at a Senate subcommittee hearing focused on the fiscal health of the Federal Housing Administration. But if the agency’s losses grow too high, the FHA would be forced to raise money —- either by increasing insurance premiums on new borrowers or seeking a subsidy from the federal budget. President Barack Obama’s housing secretary, Shaun Donovan, told senators that officials are evaluating whether aid for FHA will be needed as part of the administration’s $3.6 trillion budget for next year.

HEALTH CARE

Big market seen in home care devices

Intel Corp. and General Electric Co. are jointly investing $250 million over the next five years to develop personalized home health care devices. The companies envision products that will cut health care costs and help aging baby boomers and people with chronic illnesses remain in their homes by allowing doctors to monitor patients remotely. Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini and GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt said their cooperation will help them jump quickly into a market they estimate will grow to $7.7 billion by 2012, from $3 billion this year.

LEGAL

Ex-CFO sentenced in stock fraud

The former chief financial officer at General Re Corp. was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison in Hartford, Conn., for her role in an accounting fraud scandal that artificially propped up the stock price of insurer AIG. Elizabeth Monrad, 52, of New Canaan, Conn., was also fined $250,000 for her role in the case, which authorities say cost AIG shareholders more than $500 million. Monrad, who was Gen Re’s chief financial officer from June 2000 to July 2003, was free on bond pending an expected appeal.

American charged in Swiss bank probe

A Florida yacht company accountant became the first U.S. citizen to be charged in the government’s investigation into wealthy citizens who hid assets from tax collectors in the Swiss bank UBS AG. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Steven Michael Rubinstein, 55, of Boca Raton appeared in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale on charges of filing a false tax return.

MANUFACTURING

Coal plant upgrade being postponed

United States Steel Corp. said it is delaying indefinitely a $1 billion upgrade of a coke plant near Pittsburgh to cut costs as the global economic downturn saps demand for steel. The Pittsburgh-based company has said the project at the Clairton plant was expected to create more than 600 construction jobs and ensure thousands of existing jobs.

RETAILING

Drugstore chain shutting stores

After Rite Aid Corp.’s loss doubled in the fiscal fourth quarter, the drugstore operator is planning to shut as many as 117 stores over the next year as it tries to cut costs. The Camp Hill, Pa., company said the closings will be scattered around the country. The company said its fourth-quarter results were hurt by the recession, along with a fairly mild cold, cough and flu season and the introduction of new low-cost generic drugs. About 70 of the stores slated for closure used to be part of the Brooks Eckerd chain. Rite Aid bought 1,850 of those stores in June 2007 for $2.36 billion.

2 Costco Home stores will close

Costco Wholesale Corp. said it will shut its two home furnishing stores in July. Costco, one of the nation’s largest wholesale club chains, has made some gains during the economic downturn as shoppers have headed to its stores mostly for deals on bulk food items and gasoline. But sales of nonfood items, such as furniture, have dropped. Costco Home stores in Kirkland, Wash., and Tempe, Ariz., will close.