Priceline posts profits
Even as Priceline.com Inc. hooked Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a spokesman, the Norwalk-based company had a big fourth quarter to close out 2010.
Priceline earned $135 million as revenue rose 35 percent to $731 million. For the full year, profits totaled $528 million as sales rose nearly a third to just short of $3.1 billion, the first time it has cracked the $3 billion mark in annual sales.
In a conference call, CEO Jeff Boyd said the company expects the Middle East crises to affect its results, but said it is accustomed to the impact of international events.
“There”™s no question that we”™re seeing a significant drop in reservations from the countries that are experiencing the civil unrest,” Boyd said. “But ”¦ our international hotel business is very diverse and at any given point in time in the year, there will be things that are either hurting travel like volcanoes and civil unrest, or helping travel like the Shanghai Expo or the Olympics.”
Frontier readies for bargaining
Frontier Communications Corp. faces union contract expirations this year covering 2,300 of its 14,800 employees.
Frontier sells telecommunications service in New York and more than 30 other states, though not in Connecticut where it has its headquarters in Stamford. Last July, Frontier acquired largely rural telephone operations in more than a dozen states from Verizon Communications Inc.; at year”™s end it had more than 3.4 million residential accounts and nearly 350,000 business customers.
Frontier revenue ranged just below $1.4 billion in the fourth quarter, with the company recording profits of $46 million.
“We have tripled the size of this company,” Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter said in a conference call with investment analysts. “We”™ve taken a ton of costs out of this business as part of this process, and we”™ve also turned around very negative trends in terms of the customer metrics. That”™s what you”™ve got to do, and it”™s like turning an aircraft carrier.”
Changes at FuelCell
FuelCell Energy Inc. promoted Chip Bottone to CEO, replacing Daniel Brdar who remains chairman for the short term.
Bottone joined the Danbury-based company just over a year ago, previously having led Ingersoll-Rand Co.”™s energy business. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
CTC seeks more funds
The Connecticut Technology Council set out an “innovation agenda” for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, asking state government to devote funding for the Connecticut Innovations venture capital fund among other priorities.
“We are moving full speed into a post-industrial future,” CEO Matthew Nemerson said in a statement. “That doesn”™t mean we won”™t have manufacturing ”“ but it does mean that R&D and innovation will drive our economic growth.”
Mobile taxes low in Conn.
Connecticut mobile telephone services carry the lowest tax rate of any state in the Northeast, according to a study released last week by the Tax Foundation. Residents pay a state tax of just under 7 percent for wireless services, below the national average of more than 11 percent. By comparison, New Yorkers pay nearly 18 percent in combined local and state taxes for mobile service, the fourth highest burden in the country.
