VIRGINIA / Ex-McKesson Unit Fully Integrated into OMI
Owens & Minor Inc. said yesterday that it has completed its transition of the acute-care distribution business it acquired from McKesson Corp. in September.
The Hanover County-based medical-supply company paid about $169 million for the McKesson unit, acquiring assets including inventory valued at about $122 million, customer contracts and 10 leased warehouse facilities. At the time, the company predicted a six- month transition period to integrate the business.
Owens & Minor said it expects the net dilutive effect of the transition in the first quarter of 2007 to be $9 million to $12 million. It expects the transaction to be accretive in 2007, with acceleration of earnings growth in the second half of the year.
United launches its 1st Dulles-to-Beijing flight
CHANTILLY – One month after winning federal approval for a coveted nonstop route to China, United Airlines launched its inaugural flight yesterday from Washington Dulles International Airport to Beijing to the applause of passengers.
“Flights from the United States to China are always packed,” said Matthew Alesse of Buffalo, N.Y., whose work in the medical-device industry takes him to China about four times a year. Passengers say more flights are needed as commerce between the nations grows.
Direct routes between the United States and China are rationed by international agreement, in part because of busy airports in China and a desire to protect domestic airlines there from competition.
When a new slot opened last year, airlines and airports waged what James Bennett, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, called “an old-fashioned, junkyard-dog fight” to land the new route.
Ultimately, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the route to UAL Corp.’s United, which pitched the benefits of a direct flight between the nations’ capitals.
United hired the small Richmond public-affairs firm Capital Results to help it win the route.
THE NATION
Study: Food, not sex, is TV’s top sell to kids
WASHINGTON – A new study has found that food, not sex and violence, is the top product served up to kids and teens on television.
Released yesterday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the study found that “food is the No. 1 product advertised to kids, followed by media such as music, video games and movies,” said Vicky Rideout, vice president of the foundation’s Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health.
More than a third of commercials targeting children or adolescents are for candy and snacks.
MEMO: Excerpted from BUSINESS BRIEFS
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