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Title: Minneapolis Business News - Local Minneapolis News | The Minneapolis / St Paul Business Journal
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Description: View Breaking Local News Headlines in Minneapolis from The Minneapolis / St Paul Business Journal. Access business resources, company profiles, business advice columns, local jobs and more.

U.S. Bancorp buys failed Tennessee bank
U.S. Bancorp has purchased a failed Tennessee bank's assets, deposits and branches in a regulator-brokered deal made public Friday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shut down Knoxville-based BankEast Friday evening. The BankEast Corp. subsidiary had assets of $261.95 million and $259.57 million of customer deposits as of Dec. 31, FDIC records show. The Minneapolis-based parent of U.S. Bank will receive 10 branches, about $272 million worth of loans, and $268 million in deposits through the purchase, with an asset discount of about $67...



Regulators shutter Patriot Bank
Federal regulators closed Patriot Bank Friday evening, selling its deposits, assets and three branches to Savage-based First Resource Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. Patriot Bank ended 2011 with a $5.7 million loss and assets of $105.03 million. The Forest Lake-based bank's core capital levels dropped below 2 percent in the second half of the year, dropping to 1.3 percent as of Dec. 31. Regulators consider banks with core capital, or Tier 1 leverage, ratios of 5 percent and above well-capitalized...



Skybridge Marketing may add 200 jobs with expansion
Skybridge Marketing Group is close to finalizing a deal to expand its operations in Bemidji and create up to 200 jobs. The Bemidji Pioneer reports that the Greenfield-based marketing company, which used to be a business unit of Archway Marketing Services, is expected to finalize the deal next month. The company, which also has an office in Winnipeg, Ontario, and has more than 800 employees in the U.S. and Canada, expects to hire up to 50 people by July and eventually employ 200 people in Bemidji...



Report: Now Delta is considering buying US Airways
Delta Air Lines Inc. is considering making a bid to acquire US Airways Group Inc., The Wall Street Journal reports. The report comes just a couple of weeks after news broke that Delta was considering buying the struggling parent company of American Airlines, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November. People familiar with the discussions said Atlanta-based Delta (NYSE: DAL) is trying to figure out which airline would make the most sense to pursue. The Journal said US Airways (NYSE: LCC) has looked for partners in the past...



Ex-Viking Voigt faces banking ban, steep fine from FDIC
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants to fine former Viking Stu Voigt $125,000 and ban him from banking on allegations of misconduct as chairman as Bloomington-based First Commercial Bank. In allegations made public on Thursday (72 KB PDF), the FDIC says Voigt, as a bank board member, supported risky lending to a company in which he had a personal financial interest. Voigt denied the allegations through his attorney, Phil Cole of Minneapolis law firm Lommen, Abdo, Cole, King & Stageberg, who said Voigt disclosed his conflicts at the time of the deal...



$100B Facebook IPO next week?; Amazon may go after Netflix
Facebook said to file for IPO next week. Valuation of up to $100 billion? (Bloomberg) Here are the must-have business travel apps (Portfolio) Study: Workers spend $1,000 a year on coffee (Fox DC) Is Amazon.com pondering a Netflix video-streaming rival? (TechFlash) Economist: Recovery depends on banks lending (Denver Business Journal) AT&T thinking of selling Yellow Pages (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) U.S. recovery slowly gained speed in late 2011 (The New York Times) Twitter's new policy on blocking posts is attacked and defended (The New York Times)



Which MN firms won VC in Q4
A firm developing a pneumonia-fighting drug for horses and a startup armed with treatments for spinal disorders reeled in Minnesota?s largest fourth-quarter venture-capital deals. The two companies ? Kspine Inc. and Aurora Pharmaceutical ? each raised $5 million in capital. The two deals accounted for nearly half the $21.7 million raised by Minnesota companies during the last three months of the year, according to the MoneyTree Report, which is compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association using data from Thomson Reuters...



Mosaic having a hard time finding workers in Canada
The CEO of The Mosaic Co. said Friday the fertilizer company is having a hard time finding workers in western Canada. Jim Prokopanko told Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that it was a "real challenge" competing against Canada's energy companies for workers. "It's a gold-rush, boomtown mentality going on," Prokopanko said. The tight labor market comes three years after Mosaic laid off 1,000 workers in Canada. Plymouth-based Mosaic (NYSE: MOS) has been doing business in Canada for a long time...



Photos: MOA hotel, Open Systems, others win NAIOP awards
A renovated Best Western Plus across the street from the Mall of America and the newly-built headquarters of Open Systems International Inc. in Medina were among the winners at the annual Awards of Excellence program held Thursday in Golden Valley by Minnesota chapter of NAIOP. >Click on the right to see a slideshow of the NAIOP 2011 winners. >>>>> The commercial real estate development association's judges toured all 19 projects that were competing. The Best Western hotel that won the Repositioned/Renovated Greater than 75,000 square feet category was a renovation of a 165,000-square-foot former Days Inn...



Twins: Ticket sales down, but still strong
The Minnesota Twins expect to approach attendance of 3 million for the third straight season, President Dave St. Peter said at the team's media luncheon on Friday. To date, the Twins have sold 2.2 million tickets for the 2012 season. They finished fourth in the league with total attendance of 3,168,107 last year. The club has renewed 85 percent of its 25,000 season tickets from last year. St. Peter said the team should enter the upcoming season at about 24,000, down a bit from the first two seasons at Target Field but still ranking among the top seven or eight teams in the league...