AVI acquires Serex

AVI acquires Serex

warren

AVI Foodsystems of Warren has acquired Serex Vending, the largest family- owned and operated hospitality food services company in America.

Serex Vending, headquartered in Youngstown, has been a vending and office coffee-service provider since 1971 with Ohio markets including Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, Youngstown and Warren.

The combination of Serex’s relationships and experience with AVI’s support services will help with customer and client satisfactions, AVI officials said. AVI has more than 20 service centers throughout Ohio.

Building costs rise at US nuclear plants

atlanta

America’s first new nuclearSFlbplants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry’s hopes for a jumpstart to the nation’s new nuclear age.

Licensing delay charges, soaring construction expenses and installation glitches have driven up the costs of three plants in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina, from hundreds of millions to as much as $2 billion, according to an Associated Press analysis of public records and regulatory filings.

Troubled-brokerage chief left suicide note

washington

Employees of an Iowa-based brokerage firm that has been unable to account for $220 million in customer money found their boss in his car at company headquarters, with a tube connecting the car’s tailpipe to the interior, authorities said Tuesday.

Russell Wasendorf Sr., founder and chairman of Peregrine Financial Group in Cedar Falls, Iowa, was discovered Monday with a suicide note that prompted investigators to notify the FBI.

Wasendorf reportedly was in a coma, according to a civil complaint filed Tuesday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the company’s top federal regulator. The commission filed fraud charges a day after Wasendorf’s suicide attempt, accusing him and the firm of misusing customer funds and failing to keep them separate from company money.

Vindicator staff/wire reports

Selected local stocks

STOCK, DIVIDENDCLOSECHANGE

Aqua America, .66, 26.08 .15

Avalon Holdings,3.56—.142

Clear Channel, .73 64.08 —.21

Cortland Bancorp, 10.00.00

Farmers Nat., .126.49 .08

First Energy, 2.20, 48.89—.06

FirstMerit Corp., .64,16.29 —.08

First Niles Financial, .32,8.10.00

First Place Fin., .67.02

FNB Corp., .48,11.04—.01

General Motors,19.80—.42

General Electric, .68,19.62—.42

Motors Liquidation, .0422.00

Huntington Bank, .16, 6.35—.05

JP Morgan Chase, 1.20,34.25.29

Key Corp, .20,7.56—.08

LaFarge, 10.34 .02

Macy’s, .80, 34.59.39

Parker Hannifin, 1.64, 72.61—1.99

PNC, 1.60,59.66—.58

RTI Intl. Metals,22.23—.32

Simon Prop. Grp.,4.00,156.74—1.82

Stoneridge 6.39 —.41

United Community Fin. 2.91—.03

Selected prices at 4 p.m. Tuesday. Provided by Stifel Nicolaus. Not to be construed as an offer or recommendation to buy or sell any security.