BUSINESS DIGEST || Lowe’s expects rock-salt delivery

Lowe’s expects rock-salt delivery

BOARDMAN

Lowe’s home-improvement store, 1100 Doral Drive, expects to have an additional 17 pallets of rock salt delivered this morning.

New jobless claims in Ohio at 9,737

YOUNGSTOWN

The number of new unemployment claims in Ohio for the first week of February is at 9,737, according to data from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. In the Mahoning Valley, there were 604 unemployment claims.

PUCO approves price adjustment

COLUMBUS

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved results of an auction to determine the retail price adjustment, or the premium beyond the monthly New York Mercantile Exchange market price for natural gas, for marketers at the standard choice offer rate.

The auction produced a retail price adjustment of 2 cents per thousand cubic feet, an all-time low. For comparison, the previous retail price adjustment was 43 cents per thousand cubic feet.

Consumers declares quarterly dividend

MINERVA

Consumers Bancorp Inc., the holding company for Consumers National Bank, declared a quarterly dividend on the outstanding shares of the corporation’s common stock, in the amount of $0.12 per share Wednesday. The dividend is payable March 16 to stockholders of record at the close of business Feb. 23.

TrueCar: Ads during Super Bowl worked

SANTA MONICA, CALIF.

TrueCar Inc., the negotiation-free car buying and selling mobile marketplace, finds Super Bowl advertising to be efficient, with the average automotive advertiser achieving a projected 2.4 percent increase in retail market share.

Auto brands that advertised during the game gained a combined 0.9 percentage point of retail share compared with those that sat on the sidelines, TrueCar said in a news release.

Expedia to buy Orbitz for $1.3B

NEW YORK

A wave of deals in the online travel industry has increasingly put some familiar names under two corporate umbrellas: Expedia and Priceline.

For now, industry executives and travel experts say, consumers won’t notice much of an impact. They still will have plenty of options for booking flights, hotel rooms and vacation packages, including shopping directly with airline and hotel websites.

Expedia said Thursday that it is buying rival Orbitz Worldwide Inc. for about $1.3 billion.

The deal adds the Orbitz brand and sites including CheapTickets and HotelClub to a lineup that already includes names such as Hotels.com, Hotwire, Trivago and Australia’s Wotif. com.

Expedia also is in the process of buying Travelocity.

Vindicator staff/wire reports