In brief
Subway on track for expansion
Subway aims to open more than 2,000 restaurants in North America this year, with the Milford-based company already the largest franchise operator in the world.
The company revealed its plans at the RECon convention in Las Vegas sponsored by the International Council of Shopping Centers, saying it has already opened more than 400 new stores in North America.
Subway has more than 50 locations in Fairfield County. An affiliate is leading construction of new pit stops along Connecticut highways that will include its restaurants, as well as other franchisors such as McDonalds.
In addition to traditional locations in retail districts, Subway is touting its success in landing restaurants in more unconventional locales ”“ for instance, on a crane serving construction workers at the World Trade Center site in New York City and in a Detroit high school where students can earn college credit running the restaurant.
Subway is testing a new café concept designed for office building landlords and other upscale settings, featuring armchairs and a coffee-bar menu.
Bridgeport launches small-business program
Community Capital Fund and Citi Community Development are picking at least 15 small businesses in Bridgeport to participate in The Link, a new initiative to provide online access to varying information and resources.
Launched during National Small Business Week, contributing organizations to The Link include the Bridgeport Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Special Services District, the Black and Hispanic chambers of commerce, the Bridgeport Office of Planning and Economic Development and the city”™s Small and Minority Business Resource Office.
Oxford company moves to Bethel
American Fulfillment L.L.C., which serves as a warehouse, packager and shipper for a range of businesses, is relocating to Bethel from Oxford.
“We had been looking for a while ”“ had looked everywhere from the New York border to the Naugatuck area,” said Brian Broody, co-owner of American Fulfillment, whose clients range from large corporations to niche businesses like accessory designers. “This area in terms of rent prices and real estate had been a little more than we wanted to spend. Suddenly it was more affordable here.”
Report: Nestle Waters plans new plant
Nestle Waters North America reportedly is interested in building a $30 million bottling plant at an unspecified location on the East Coast, which could produce some 40 million bottles from recycled materials annually.
Stamford-based Nestle Waters occupies a large section of supermarket shelves and convenience store coolers, with Poland Spring, Nestle Pure Life and Ice Mountain among its brands.
Plastic News reported the Nestle subsidiary wants a plant operational within a year”™s time.
Separately, CEO Kim Jeffery told Dow Jones the company raised prices on its bottled water nearly 10 percent in April, due to the cost of plastic used to make bottles rising more than 40 percent since last October.
Optimum tops J.D. Power survey
A J.D. Power & Associates survey ranked Cablevision as the top provider of telecommunications data services to small and mid-size businesses, among a handful of national providers.
The study measures customer satisfaction with providers of telecommunications data services, such as cable modem, DSL, T1, T3/DS3, Ethernet and frame relay. JD Power assessed performance, reliability, billing, cost, promotions, customer service and sales account managers.
New York-based Cablevision offers its Optimum online services in lower Fairfield County. It was rated the top service among small and mid-size businesses, and No. 2 for home-based businesses.
Verizon Communications Inc. edged out AT&T Inc. among providers for large enterprises.
Pitney Bowes boosts ”˜communications makeovers”™
Pitney Bowes Inc. launched what it calls a small-business communications makeover contest under its new pbSmart brand for digital communications. The Stamford-based mail services giant is offering five grand prizes each valued at more than $10,000. They include a full-day”™s consultation with small-business experts Jane Applegate, Melinda Emerson and Phil Simon, and a year of free access to customer communications tools such as email marketing and Pitney Bowes”™ cloud computing platform for postage and shipping.
Aetna among tops for doctor communications
Aetna Inc. placed second on a ranking of insurance carriers according to their performance in paying doctors, as tracked by Athenahealth; and was the top carrier for those with a national footprint.
The Hartford-based company has held one of the top two slots five consecutive years on the survey published by Athenahealth, which is based in Watertown, Mass.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, which only does business in the Ocean State, led all carriers in 2011, while United Healthcare ranked fourth, like Aetna selling policies in Connecticut and many other states.
No other carrier doing business in Connecticut finished in the top 10 nationally.
The rankings are designed to look at carriers”™ performance based on a number of criteria that, when combined, provide an overall ranking that quantifies the ease of doing business with the payer. Results this year indicate that the majority of health insurers made incremental progress over last year in paying physicians, doing so on average, one day faster while denying 5 percent fewer claims.
SEC expands whistleblower provisions
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission outlined a new whistleblower program and office that rewards individuals who provide the agency with high-quality tips that lead to enforcement sanctions in excess of $1 million.
The program was implemented under the Dodd-Frank financial reform act and takes effect in two months. Previously, the agency”™s bounty program was limited to insider-trading cases and the amount of an award was capped at 10 percent of the penalties collected in the action.
“For an agency with limited resources like the SEC, it is critical to be able to leverage the resources of people who may have first-hand information about violations of the securities laws,” said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, in a prepared statement. “While the SEC has a history of receiving a high volume of tips and complaints, the quality of the tips we have received has been better since Dodd-Frank became law. We expect this trend to continue, and these final rules map out simplified and transparent procedures for whistleblowers to provide us critical information.”