| Commissioners award mowing, street overlay bids
Meeting in continued session on Friday, Benton City Council members approved bill payment and awarded the mowing bid to Don Montgomery.Finance and Accounts Commissioner Charles Webster reported that four mowing bids were received - two for all 30 properties and the other two for partial mowing. Montgomery submitted a bid of $630 for all 30 properties, while Ray Galloway submitted an $800 bid for all properties.Bid specifications indicate the bidder must carry $500,000 in liability insurance, must list the city of Benton on the certificate of insurance, and must carry workers' compensation insurance, as applicable. Other specifications include picking up trash and debris before mowing, mowing grass when it is four inches tall, weed eat and rake as necessary, mow ditches when applicable, and mow in a pattern to not spread clippings on city streets.
Mixed Forecast for Online Auctions
(Multichannel News) _ As eBay's Internet-based TV ad-auction venture hit massive turbulence, another from Google pulled onto the runway. The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau last week abruptly pulled out of eBay's online marketplace for buying advertising slots on cable networks, dealing a critical blow to the project before it got off the ground. The CAB's about-face came just days after Google announced a deal with EchoStar Communications to sell a portion of the ad inventory on Dish Network's 125 national channels in an auction format. After several members of the consortium did a "deep dive" on eBay's Media Marketplace exchange for the past month, CAB CEO Sean Cunningham said, they concluded that the system would not provide the capabilities CAB needed. Snapshot: TV Ad Revenues Cable saw ad sales increase in the fourth quarter: .
Kovels' List of Top Antiques Searches Reflect Current Events
Kovels has released the Top 20 list of antiques and collectibles for March based on results of hundreds of thousands of searches on its website. The top three searches - Pottery, Glass and Furniture - rarely change and are always the major areas of interest because they are useful antiques or collectibles found in every home. But the other items reflect a special interest often influenced by current news or auctions. For example, the recent ruling against selling war medals has created a problem for dealers and a change in prices of World War II souvenirs so it moved to number 10. The auctions of several large toy collections created extra publicity and interest in toy prices, and Toys made it into the 7th position. The entire top 20 list follows: Pottery and porcelain Glass Furniture Jewelry Bottles Metals Toys Prints, pictures, paintings, paper Royal Doulton World War II Stoves Coca-Cola Advertising Alabaster Silver plate Lighters Folk art Occupied Japan Weapons Music Kovels.com offers the Web's largest free price guide for antiques and collectibles.
Private equity loses its glamour
Bain Capital's successful conclusion to its bid to take over Edcon has revised the record books. At R25bn, this is the biggest private equity deal in SA history by a wide margin. It is a large injection of foreign direct investment, and the conclusion of a flattering bidding war. Yet somehow the deal had lost its glitter. That may be as true of the sale as it is of the private equity industry as a whole. The technicalities of the Edcon approval are part of the reason. Only 80% of shareholders who voted at the special general meeting backed the proposed scheme of arrangement, not much more than the 75% needed. Apparently only 71% of shareholders voted, so that implies 14% of Edcon's shareholders were against the deal - including the Public Investment Corp, which voted the 3% it manages directly against the deal, but left a further 7% stake managed by third-party fund managers to their discretion.
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