Chrysler plant sells at auction

March 12, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

TWINSBURG, Ohio

A Canadian liquidator that sells surplus industrial equipment offered the top bid for a Chrysler plant in Northeast Ohio that is closing in June.

Maynards Industries Ltd. of Vancouver bid $45.5 million in Wednesday’s auction in New York for the Twinsburg stamping plant southeast of Cleveland. The offer faces a review at a bankruptcy court hearing Thursday in New York.

Group seeks to halt company’s takeover

GREENSBURG, Pa.

The Louisiana Municipal Police Employees Retirement System wants a federal judge in Pittsburgh to stop FirstEnergy’s proposed $4.7 billion takeover of a western Pennsylvania electric company.

The retirement system owns unspecified Allegheny Energy stock, which it claims is being undervalued in the deal. FirstEnergy, of Akron, wants to combine the companies to serve 6.1 million customers from Ohio to New Jersey.

Mortgage rates still below 5 percent

WASHINGTON

Mortgage rates have held below the 5 percent threshold for the second-straight week, only weeks before a government program that has been keeping rates low is scheduled to expire.

The mortgage-finance company Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.95 percent this week, down from 4.97 percent a week earlier.

Associated Press