Hartford Business Journal

6 Hartford Business Journal • January 19, 2015 www.HartfordBusiness.com Stay ConneCted For breaking and daily Greater Hartford business news go to www.HartfordBusiness.com. HBJ on Twitter: @HartfordBiz HBJ on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HartfordBiz HBJ on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ the-Hartford-Business-Journal Daily e-newsletters: HBJ Today, CT Morning Blend www.HartfordBusiness.com/subscribe Weekly e-newsletters: CT Green Guide Weekly www.HartfordBusiness.com/subscribe By the numBerS $50M The amount of money the state would have saved last year if it kept its engineering work in house, rather than farm it out to consultants, according to the CSEA labor union. 57 The number of coach buses Berlin-based Premier Limousine has agreed to sell to New Jersey's Academy Bus Lines. $16 The new minimum wage Aetna will implement for its workforce starting in April. $75.65 New England's average price of wholesale electricity in 2014, which was up 18 percent from a year earlier. 2.1 The magnitude of the earthquake that struck Plainfield last week. top 5 moSt read on HartfordBusiness.com ■ Mohegan targets N.Y. gamblers with helicopter flights ■ Malloy staff in talks with Tenet ■ ESPN's $7.3 billion college football playoff gamble pays off ■ Ex-Bushnell On Park owner eyes more deals ■ City Steam settles trademark suit with Calif. brewer top Story St. Francis to buy Johnson Memorial through Ch. 11 Johnson Memorial Medical Center in Stafford Springs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week as part of a prepackaged plan to be acquired by St. Francis Care, the two sides announced. A spokeswoman for St. Francis Care, parent of St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, would not disclose the purchase price, but said the deal had been a possibility since St. Francis and Johnson Memorial signed an affiliation agreement in 2012. St. Francis recently announced that it would merge with Trinity Health, a fellow Catholic healthcare operator in Michigan. Johnson Memorial, which has been through bankruptcy before, ran operat- ing deficits in fiscal years 2011, 2012 and 2013, according to state records. The bankruptcy will include a debt restructuring, the parties said. According to the bankruptcy filing, Johnson's liabilities are anywhere from $10 million to $50 million, while assets are listed at between $1 million and $10 million. Johnson emerged as an independent entity in 2010 following bankruptcy pro- ceedings initiated in 2008 by its former parent company, Johnson Memorial Corp. Johnson's medical group and affiliates — the Evergreen Health Care Cen- ter in Stafford Springs and Home and Community Health Services in Enfield — are also listed as part of the bankruptcy filing. Government & politiCS Bronin announces Hartford mayoral run Luke Bronin, who until recently was Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's general counsel, announced last week that he is running for mayor of Hartford. Bronin seeks to challenge Mayor Pedro E. Segarra, a fellow Democrat who announced in early January that he would seek another term. Bronin, who recently became a partner at Hartford law firm Hinckley Allen, has previously worked for the U.S. Treasury Department and The Hartford. His campaign website says Hartford has seen gains — Front Street, UConn's downtown campus, and an influx of residential housing — but faces challenges. He criticized Segarra (though not by name) for ignoring some of the city's corridors, such as Albany Avenue and Park Street, and said taxes have climbed too high. enerGy & utilitieS PURA commissioners want out of DEEP The heads of Connecticut's energy regulatory body are asking Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for more independence from the Department of Energy and Environmen- tal Protection. But it doesn't look like they will get it. In a letter to Malloy, commissioners from the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority said they want their organization to become a separate agency from DEEP. The two organizations were merged together in 2011 under the direc- tion of Malloy. Though PURA commissioners Arthur House, Jack Betkoski and Michael Caron said that they've overcome a rocky initial start with DEEP and now have cordial relations with DEEP Commissioner Rob Klee, they say such relations are not guaranteed to continue and that the merger was ultimately a bad one because it created "an inherent and insurmountable conflict of interest." DEEP, which as an executive agency automatically receives party status in PURA cases, also controls PURA's budget and hiring, and has made "ag- gressive reductions" in personnel and delayed requests to fill positions, the commissioners wrote. Malloy responded harshly to PURA's demands, indicating the regulatory body's structure won't be changing. "I've been in government for a long time. I'm used to people wanting to have their own empire, and I don't believe that's what's necessary," Malloy said last week. "The opposite of that would be to simply allow them to hire whoever they want to hire whenever they want to hire, and the answer is 'no.'" hoSpitality City Steam settles trademark suit with Calif. brewer Hartford's City Steam Brewery said it has settled a trademark lawsuit filed against it last year by a California-based craft brewer by agreeing to slightly tweak the branding on its bottled beer. Under the agreement with Anchor Brewing Co., maker of Anchor Steam beer, City Steam's bottled beers will bear the one-word name "CitySteam." The change will take place in the coming months, City Steam said. Meanwhile, City Steam said its Hartford brewpub will keep the two-word name, and will continue to use the word "steam" to describe its brewing pro- cess and history. Court records show the lawsuit by Anchor was dismissed in September. Wesley Kinnear, Anchor Brewing's attorney, said the agreement did not include any payment settlements. Sliders Grill & Bar to try franchising Southington's Sliders Grill & Bar, which has five locations in the state, said it hopes to expand by selling franchising rights. Founder Fred Marcantonio said he hopes to open multiple franchise locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York in the next few years. Known for its chicken wings and beer menu, Sliders was founded in 1993 and has restaurants in West Hartford, Berlin, Plainville and Wallingford. health Care Malloy's staff opens talks with Tenet Healthcare Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's staff has reached out to Tenet Healthcare with the hopes of reviving the for-profit hospital operator's acquisition of several Con- necticut hospitals. In a letter sent last week, Malloy encouraged Tenet CEO Trevor Fetter to send a representative to meet with Mark Ojakian, the governor's chief of staff. Malloy wrote that his staff has talked with Tenet Senior Vice President Trip Pilgrim and other officials about reviving the deals. "Based on these conversations, we can find a negotiated settlement that will be beneficial to your company as well as to the state of Connecticut, Waterbury residents, and the Waterbury hospitals," the governor wrote. Tenet pulled out of its planned acquisition of Waterbury Hospital after state regulators issued conditions on the purchase that barred layoffs and price in- creases for at least five years and mandated the appointment of an independent monitor, and the filing of strategic spending and hiring plans. Tenet also had plans to acquire St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, and Rock- ville General, Manchester Memorial, and Bristol hospitals. inSuranCe Aetna raises employee minimum wage to $16 Hartford health insurer Aetna said it will establish a minimum hourly wage for its employees of $16 starting in April, which will lift the pay rates of approxi- mately 5,700 U.S. employees. For some of those workers — who mainly work in customer service, claims administration and plan-sponsor eligibility — it will represent a pay increase of as much as $4. Aetna Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini announced the change last week in Florida during a meeting video streamed to other offices. "When you look at the size of our company, the cost of investing in the fi- nancial and health security of our employees is not significant," Bertolini said in a statement. "The turnover, lost productivity and recruitment costs that this should help address are significant. I'm willing to make this investment." The company is also offering a new medical benefits program for 7,000 eli- gible employees that the company said could lower out-of-pocket costs. manufaCturinG Kaman to acquire N.J. engineering firm Bloomfield's Kaman Corp. said it has agreed to acquire a New Jersey engi- neering services firm that distributes electric, automation, and process control devices. G.C. Fabrication Inc., which sells products made by Schneider Electric and Square D, did $20 million in sales last year and employs 30 people. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Kaman said the purchase complements its other New York market acquisitions, including Minarik, Target Electronic Sup- ply and Zeller. Week in review P H O T O | H B J F i l e

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