Boston Globe near sale of HQ to Concord co.

The Boston Globe is close to reaching an agreement to sell its Morrissey Boulevard headquarters to a Concord commercial real estate firm, the newspaper said.

CEO Mike Sheehan said the Globe is in the process of completing a purchase-and-sale agreement with Winstanley Enterprises, which has plans for mixed uses on the 16.5-acre site in Dorchester.

"We had a number of bids. We pared it down to three," Sheehan said. "We should have a (purchase and sale agreement) in a couple of weeks."

Winstanley currently owns and operates 43 buildings totaling about 5.5 million square feet throughout New England, according to its website.

The Globe had hired commercial real estate firm Colliers International to identify potential buyers. Sheehan declined to say how much the property will be sold for, but real estate experts have estimated it could be worth as much as 
$75 million.

Sheehan said the three offers were chosen as finalists in part because of price, but also because of what the bidders planned to do with the property.

"If I lived in this neighborhood, that's exactly what I'd want here," Sheehan said.

In a memo to employees, Sheehan said the Globe is likely to move out of its 815,000-square-foot headquarters at the end of 2016 or the beginning of 2017.

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New school music to charter’s ears

A music-oriented Boston charter school stands to be part of Roxbury's revival after signing a purchase-and-sale agreement for land to build a permanent facility about a quarter-mile from Dudley Square.

The 16-year-old Conservatory Lab Charter School plans to consolidate two temporary Brighton and Dorchester locations into a new school for about 450 pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students. The land is part of the planned $140 million mixed-use Bartlett Place development.

"We're very excited to be where we are right now in terms of the process," Head of School Diana Lam said. "Most of our students come from Roxbury and the surrounding area, and we feel that also it is right at the center of the city."

The Conservatory Lab is "music-infused," with a focus on project-based learning and daily music instruction. All students play an instrument, and the school has 10 orchestras.

Plans call for a 70,000- to 72,000-square-foot school.

"We are engaged in trying to get the money together," Lam said. "The building may cost anywhere from $30 (million) to $35 million, but we don't need to raise all of that because we will have a stream of revenue."

The school receives tuition-reimbursement funds from the state to the tune of about 
$5.8 million this year.

The 1.6-acre building site is in the former 8.5-acre MBTA Bartlett bus yard bought in 2010 by Nuestra Comunidad Development Corp. and Dorchester's Windale Developers. Their Bartlett Place plans include 323 mixed-income apartments and owner-occupied homes, 55,000 square feet of retail and commercial space — including a 12,000-square-foot Harvest Co-op Market — in addition to the school.

"We have three buildings that could go into construction next year, which is exciting for Roxbury," said David Price, Nuestra Comunidad's executive director. The charter school could be the first, because it needs to open by mid-2016, he added.

The school would be open to the community at night and weekends for classes, workshops and music lessons.

"We're very excited to expand the services that we can provide to community members in Roxbury and to students that may not attend our school, but who live in Roxbury," Lam said.

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Report: State foreclosures spike again

The number of foreclosure petitions in Massachusetts grew for the seventh straight month in September, but one expert says the numbers are not an accurate reflection of what is happening in the housing industry right now.

Foreclosure petitions rose 68 percent from September 2013, while foreclosure deeds — finalized foreclosures — rose 5 percent from a year before, according to a report from The Warren Group. Petitions rose to 734 across the state and deeds rose to 294.

The spike is not concerning, said Cassidy Murphy, editorial director of The Warren Group.

"Most of what is happening right now is people clearing out their backlogs of what they didn't do," Murphy said. "It's not much to write home about."

The increase is because of an artificially suppressed foreclosure market last year while lenders waited for new legislation to be passed.

"(Lenders) were waiting to hear what they needed to do," Murphy said. "We were not seeing them do (foreclosures) at a normal rate."

Murphy said even the inflated number of foreclosure deeds pales in comparison to the height of the housing crash.

"There were thousands of foreclosures a month, now we're down to a couple hundred," she said.

She said the backlog of foreclosures that has been building up while lenders wait for legislative guidance may not be cleared until late next year.

"Things will be bouncing around a little bit," she said.

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CVS earnings soar on sales of specialty drugs

CVS Health Corp.'s third-quarter earnings exceeded Wall Street expectations, as growing sales of specialty drugs helped offset the loss of tobacco products, which the company stopped selling in September.

The nation's second-
largest drugstore chain's net income fell to $948 million, or 81 cents per share, from
$1.25 billion, or $1.02 per share a year earlier.

Adjusted to extinguish debt and for amortization costs, earnings were $1.15 per share, topping the $1.14 per share that was the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research. Revenue also surpassed expectations, rising to $35.02 billion, compared to the $34.65 billion analysts had forecast, according to Zacks.

Revenue from the Woonsocket, R.I.-based company's pharmacy benefits management, or PBM, side increased 16 percent, and operating profit from that segment grew 7.3 percent, helped by new business and the growth of expensive specialty drugs for complex chronic health conditions.

"PBM revenue growth and profitability were above our estimates, boosted by net new business and growth in specialty pharmacy, including ... contributions from Specialty Connect," a new program that allows CVS customers with these prescriptions to either pick them up or get them through the mail, according to Meredith Adler, a Barclays Capital analyst.

CVS said revenue from its retail pharmacy business increased 3 percent, but the loss of tobacco sales hurt earnings by 3 cents per share. The full-year impact of missing tobacco products will reduce earnings by 7 to 8 cents per share, the company said.

"As expected, the tobacco exit negatively impacted," Peter Costa, a Wells Fargo Securities analyst, said in a note. "We expect this impact may nearly double in Q4."

Herald wire services contributed to this report.

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The Ticker

French co. buys Hub's Sapient Corp. for $3.7B

Publicis, the world's third-largest advertising agency, is to buy Boston-based digital ad specialist Sapient for $3.7 billion in cash as it seeks to accelerate growth after a botched merger earlier this year.

Sapient CEO and co-chairman Alan Herrick would join Publicis as CEO of Publicis' new Publicis.Sapient group, which will include Boston's DigitasLBi and three existing Sapient's divisions: SapientNitro, Sapient Global Markets and Sapient Government Services. Publicis' Razorfish Global and Rosetta businesses would also be part of Publicis.Sapient.

The addition of Sapient — which counts 13,000 employees across 37 global locations — will take Publicis to combined annual revenues of more than $10 billion and over 75,000 employees worldwide.

Mass. gas prices drop another nickel

The price of a gallon of gasoline in Massachusetts is continuing a downward trend.

AAA Southern New England reported yesterday that self-serve, regular has dropped to an average of $3.04 per gallon, which is 6 cents more than the national average.

In-state prices are have now fallen 28 cents per gallon in the past month and are 26 cents lower than at the same time a year ago.

AAA found self-serve regular selling for as low as $2.88 per gallon and as high as $3.43.

Hyundai, Kia to pay $100M fine

South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia will pay a $100 million fine, the largest in Clean Air Act history, for inflating the fuel economy ratings of their vehicles, the Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday.

The agreement stemmed from an investigation by the EPA and the Department of Justice into Clean Air Act violations based on the sale of about 1.2 million vehicles with overstated ratings by the two automakers. The inflated fuel economy ratings also resulted in the emission of approximately 4.75 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in excess of what the automakers certified to the EPA.

Today

• Commerce Department releases international trade data for September.
• Commerce Department releases factory orders for September.

TOMORROW

• Institute for Supply Management releases its service sector index for October.

L Boston Harbor Cruises has announced the hire of Matthew Murphy, left, as managing director, business development.

Murphy has more than 20 years of experience in the tourism industry including the past 13 years as general manager of Old Town Trolley Tours of Boston.

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White House: Ferguson no-fly didn't restrict press

WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday a no-fly zone the U.S. government imposed over Ferguson, Missouri, for nearly two weeks in August should not have restricted helicopters for news organizations that wanted to operate in the area to cover violent protests there.

Audio recordings obtained by The Associated Press showed the Federal Aviation Administration working with local authorities to define a 37-square-mile flight restriction so that only police helicopters and commercial flights could fly through the area, following demonstrations over the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The Obama administration's defense of its actions centered on a provision of obscure federal regulations intended to allow press flights as long as they meet certain conditions. White House spokesman Josh Earnest sidestepped questions about conversations on the tapes showing police working with the FAA to keep media away.

"In this case, what the FAA says is that they took the prudent step of implementing the temporary flight restriction in the immediate aftermath of reports of shots fired at a police helicopter, but within 12 to 14 hours, that flight restriction was updated in a way to remove restrictions for reporters who were seeking to operate in the area," Earnest said.

In Missouri, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar defended his department's involvement Monday, telling reporters that "at no time did we request that only media be kept out of the airspace." The chief said the safety restrictions were prompted by reports of gunfire and that conversations on the tapes were "out of context." He did not elaborate.

On the tapes, an FAA manager is heard assuring a St. Louis County Police Department official that the updated restrictions would allow planes to land at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport but, "It will still keep news people out. ... The only way people will get in there is if they give them permission in there anyway so ... it still keeps all of them out."

"Yeah," replied a county police captain. "I have no problem with that whatsoever."

The disclosures about the secret motivations by local police to keep press flights away emerged during a sensitive time in Ferguson, which is awaiting a decision by a grand jury whether a city police officer, Darren Wilson, will face criminal charges for fatally shooting Brown on Aug. 9. Violence flared for weeks across the city through September, and the FAA put the first temporary flight restrictions, known as TFRs, in place on Aug. 11.

The police chief said the FAA contacted police first about restricting flights. The audio recordings between the department and the FAA indicated it was the police who wanted the restrictions — and that FAA officials accommodated them.

"Were you the gentleman I spoke to that actually issued the TFR?" the FAA manager asked. "Yes," the police captain replied.

Elsewhere in the tapes, one FAA manager talks to another about renegotiating with police over the size of the restricted area and persuading authorities to accept one with a lower altitude than they initially wanted.

Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday the Justice Department was not involved in the FAA considerations and said the American public needs to understand what is happening in Ferguson.

"Anything that would artificially inhibit the ability of newsgatherers to do what they do is something I think needs to be avoided," Holder said Monday.

A spokesman for Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the FAA should impose flight restrictions "for one reason and one reason only: public safety." Her office will follow up with the FAA "to ensure that was the basis on which these restrictions were imposed," said the spokesman, John LaBombard.

At the White House, Earnest stressed that under FAA rules the no-fly zone as it was re-designated after Aug. 12 would have exempted press flights as long as pilots had filed flight plans and carried accredited reporters on board.

"The updated flight restriction didn't have any impact on media access."

But the administration's statement about what it believes should have happened under the no-fly rules is inconsistent with what actually happened during the period. None of the St. Louis television stations was advised that media helicopters could enter the airspace even under the lesser restrictions, even under federal rules that would have permitted flights "carrying properly accredited news representatives." The FAA's no-fly notice indicated the area was closed to all aircraft except police and planes coming to and from the airport.

"Only relief aircraft operations under direction of St. Louis County Police Department are authorized in the airspace," it said. "Aircraft landing and departing St. Louis Lambert Airport are exempt."

The Obama administration has said it was unaware of any news organization's complaining about the restrictions.

"To the best of our knowledge, during the 11-day period flight restrictions of varying levels were in place, no media outlets objected to any of the restrictions," FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta said in a statement.

Yet news organizations have broadly protested — almost always in vain — temporary flight restrictions the FAA has imposed in recent years across the country at the request of local police, said Mike Cavender, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association, a trade group for broadcasters. TV stations have complained that police ask for temporary flight restrictions without justification and the FAA approves them too readily without scrutiny.

"Our concern, based on what we were hearing from stations, is that it was kind of, 'Put a TFR in place and ask questions later,'" Cavender said. "There was certainly not the justification for a flight restriction that there ought to have been."

The RTNDA, which formally complained Monday to the FAA, said broadcasters in St. Louis were complaining to it during the period, even if they were no longer registering formal complaints with the FAA.

"We certainly, during that time, certainly heard either directly or anecdotally that the television stations in general in St. Louis were hampered," Cavender said. The group's complaint to the FAA said the restrictions were intended to "repress the media coverage" and called the FAA's response to the AP's report "disingenuous."

"We are sorely disappointed that, to this day, officials including those at the FAA continue to maintain their actions were necessary and appropriate to preserve safety and security," the complaint said.

Around the same time as the violence, the National Press Photographers Association, another journalism trade group, complained to the police chief in Ferguson about the department's "complete lack of understanding and respect for the First Amendment." That followed the no-fly restrictions and the arrest and detention of journalists on the ground covering the violence there.

The AP obtained the recordings under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act after asking for the information roughly 10 weeks ago.

"They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out," one FAA manager said about the county police on the tapes. "But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on."

At another point, a manager at the FAA's Kansas City center said police "did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR all day long. They didn't want media in there."

The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis county police, which said the restrictions had nothing to do with limiting the press and instead were imposed because of gunshots fired at a police helicopter. But county police officials told the AP recently there was no damage to their helicopter because of the gunshots, which an FAA manager called unconfirmed "rumors."

The restricted flight zone initially encompassed airspace in a 3.4-mile radius around Ferguson and up to 5,000 feet in altitude, but police agreed Aug. 12 to reduce it to 3,000 feet after the FAA's command center in Warrenton, Virginia, complained to managers in Kansas City that it was impeding traffic into St. Louis.

The flight restrictions remained in place until Aug. 22, FAA records show.

___

Associated Press writer Alan Scher Zagier in St. Louis contributed to this report.

___

On Twitter, follow Jack Gillum at https://twitter.com/jackgillum and Joan Lowy at https://twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

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European shares rise, Japan's Nikkei extends gains

TOKYO — European shares mostly rose Tuesday on expectations for strong corporate earnings. Japan's stock benchmark ceded some of its early gains to close 2.7 percent higher, while other Asian markets had gains and losses.

KEEPING SCORE: In Europe, quarterly earnings from BMW largely met expectations and the automaker maintained its forecast for profit growth for the full year. Germany's DAX rose 0.4 percent to 9,292.65 while France's CAC-40 added 0.1 percent to 4199.71. Britain's FTSE 100 was 0.1 percent higher at 6,493.46. Wall Street was poised for modest gains at the open, with Dow and S&P 500 futures both up 0.1 percent.

JAPAN'S STIMULUS: Investors continue to rejoice over the double-barreled barrage of stimulus unleashed on Friday. The Bank of Japan's decision to boost asset purchases will raise the amount of money being injected into the economy annually to about 80 trillion yen ($704 billion). Apart from that, the public pension fund is to pare its bond holdings and raise its investments in shares, to help improve the returns it is relying on to meet growing payout obligations.

CHINA'S SHADOW: A lower-than-expected gauge of Chinese manufacturing released by a government-sanctioned industry group has revived fears that growth in the world's second-largest economy will decline further.

THE QUOTE: "There may be some nervousness about the slowdown in China but now data suggests growth is stabilizing," said Linus Yip, a strategist at First Shanghai Securities. While a trend toward a weaker yen and stronger U.S. dollar can be bad news for many regional markets, it tends to attract funds into Hong Kong's share market, he said.

ASIA'S DAY: The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo jumped 4.1 percent early in the session but struggled to hold onto those gains, eventually ending up 2.7 percent at 16,862.47 in its first trading day since Japan announced the new measures Friday to boost faltering economic growth. The market was closed Monday for a holiday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 0.3 percent to 23,845.66 while South Korea's Kospi was 0.9 percent lower at 1,935.19. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 0.2 percent to 5,519.9. Southeast Asian markets were mixed.

CURRENCIES: The dollar was up and down against the yen in volatile trading following the BOJ stimulus announcement and rose to 113.72 yen by late afternoon from 113.59 yen late Monday. That puts the yen near a seven-year low. The euro rose to $1.2506 from $1.2504.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude oil was down $1.49 cents to $77.30 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell $1.76 to close at $78.78 a barrel on Monday. Brent crude, the international benchmark, slipped $1.45 cents to $83.33.

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Softbank quarterly profit up despite Sprint woes

TOKYO — Softbank's quarterly profit nearly tripled as gains from the IPO of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba offset losses at U.S. mobile carrier Sprint.

The Japanese telecommunications and Internet-services company reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of 483.1 billion yen ($4.3 billion), up from 165.8 billion yen a year earlier. Quarterly sales surged 23 percent to 2.11 trillion yen ($18.7 billion).

Softbank, the first to sell the iPhone in Japan, has widespread global investments including Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, which listed in New York earlier this year after a record-busting stock sale. Softbank said it gained 599 billion yen ($5 billion) from the listing.

One sore spot is Sprint, which Softbank bought a majority stake in earlier this year. It said costs from layoffs at Sprint will total 17 billion yen ($150 million). Sprint is eliminating 2,000 jobs, or about 5 percent of its staff, to cut $1.5 billion in annual spending.

Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint, which announced a separate round of job cuts in early October, reported a $765 million loss for the quarter. But Softbank is eyeing Sprint as a long-term investment.

"We are heading toward a turnaround," said Softbank founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son. Sprint's new chief executive, Marcelo Claure, tapped from cellphone distributor and Softbank unit Brightstar, was making progress, he said.

Son said Alibaba is reporting solid growth in profits, rising from its humble beginnings when he invested in it about 14 years ago to become one of the biggest companies in the world by market capitalization.

He compared his investment approach to valuing, instead of killing, the goose that lays golden eggs, but warned that patience was needed.

"I've long said that whoever rules China will rule the world," he said. China has overtaken Japan as the world's second biggest economy and will in the future grow bigger than the American economy, Son said.

But he said the place to watch next is India, where the population is young, English-speaking and boasts excellent software engineers, praising Snapdeal as India's equivalent of Alibaba.

The Tokyo-based company, which also owns the Softbank Hawks baseball team, recently invested in two Indian technology companies, Snapdeal, the nation's largest digital marketplace, and Ola Cabs, which runs the technology to connect consumers with cab drivers in India.

Another company in which Softbank is a stakeholder, Yahoo Japan, has switched its electronic commerce style to more like Alibaba's, a move that has proved a success, he said.

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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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Microsoft band is one to watch

Oh, how the tables of technology have turned now that Microsoft appears poised to have Apple playing catch-up in the smartwatch wars.

In a surprise debut, the Redmond, Wash.,-based software giant launched its first health-and-fitness wearable, the Microsoft Band, late last week, sending Windows fans into a tizzy. The band quickly sold out online and in stores, appearing to set the stage for a successful holiday sales season.

With a combination of strategic design, pricing and timing, Microsoft has a clever plan to grab a chunk of the would-be Apple Watch crowd. Apple's highly anticipated wearable won't launch until after the holidays, a rare exercise in poor timing by the Cupertino, Calif., trendsetters that Redmond has successfully exploited with the early launch.

The Microsoft Band is part of a large, ambitious vision for Microsoft to dominate the digital health landscape. Part of the new Microsoft Health Platform, the device features a GPS, a UV monitor to keep track of potential sun exposure, sleep sensors that detect the quality of your nightly rest and integration with popular fitness apps such as RunKeeper.

The emphasis on health tracking comes in addition to text message, email and other alerts that you'd expect from a smartphone-compatible band.

Priced at a reasonable $199, not only is the Microsoft Band $150 cheaper than the upcoming Apple Watch (which starts at $350 and up), it is also a cross-platform device: it works with Android, iPhones and of course Windows Phone, meaning that non-Windows Phone users are likely to get a taste of the software with this band. While the Apple Watch won't include a GPS or a UV monitor, it does offer the increasingly popular Apple Pay digital wallet platform, some cool new ways to communicate (it reportedly "taps" you to get your attention) and lots of sports and health-tracking functionality.

The Microsoft Band isn't a watch. That's key in understanding how it contrasts with Apple's wearable. With a variety of band options and styles, Apple's fitness-and-health device is meant to replace the watch you already wear (even though so few of us do), and also to be worn all the time. It doesn't look weird to wear the Microsoft Band at the same time as a watch, but you're not going to to be able to wear it to a formal event.

I'll have a more detailed review after wearing my new Microsoft Band this week, but at first blush it looks like Apple has some competition.

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Apple iPad Air 2 broadens offerings

Apple iPad Air 2 ($499 & up, Apple Store)

The thinnest iPad yet is out, and it comes in gold, silver and space gray metal tones.

With a new processor, the 9.4-inch iPad with 2,048-by-1,536 pixel resolution features improved cameras and a Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

The good: Apple continues to refine the design and performance of the iPad, which is still the gold standard for tablets.

The bad: Battery life and sound quality could be better for the price.

The bottom line: Apple now has a full slate of its most groundbreaking device, starting with the iPad Mini on the low end at $249 and ending with this new offering on the high end.

There's something for everyone.

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