China trade growth decelerates

BEIJING — China's trade growth decelerated in October but still was relatively robust as Chinese leaders try to reverse a deepening economic slowdown.

Exports rose 11.6 percent to $206.9 billion, down from September's 18-month high of 15.3 percent growth, trade data showed Saturday. Imports rose 4.6 percent to $161.5 billion, below forecasts.

Weaker trade represents a new source of possible risk after economic growth slipped to a five-year low of 7.3 percent in the quarter ending in September.

In an apparent effort to shore up growth, Chinese leaders have approved tens of billions of dollars of spending in recent weeks on building new railway lines and airports.

The Communist Party leadership is trying to nurture growth based on domestic consumption and reduce reliance on trade and investment. But trade-driven manufacturing employs millions of Chinese, and the government's reform plans depend on preserving those jobs.

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Good things come in small packages at North Point

A new AvalonBay Communities' apartment complex features micro-unit and larger studios carved out of a former hot dog factory in East Cambridge, with access to first-class amenities at its luxury rental tower across the street.

The Avalon North Point Lofts have 103 units in the six-story former Maple Leaf Franks building. AvalonBay purchased the rights to redevelop the building as part of a deal with Archstone to buy the adjacent North Point luxury apartment complex with 426 units that was built in 2008.

The lofts are a different type of apartment for Avalon­Bay, whose local portfolio includes traditional luxury apartments and its tech-­focused AVA brand geared to millennials.

"We did a complete gut rehab of the factory and added a lot more windows to make unique loft spaces," said Michael Roberts, vice president for development at AvalonBay. "The rents are also lower than our luxury or AVA apartments."

The loft rents, which range between $1,850 and $2,400, include free use of Avalon North Point's extensive amenities, including an indoor pool, gym, yoga and massage studio, hospitality room with kitchen and movie theater. Parking at the garage runs an extra $175 a month.

"People like the price point and efficient use of space, and we're getting a mix of grad students and professionals who work nearby," said property manager Sarita Gonzales, who said that 57 percent of the lofts have been rented after just a few months on the market.

Ranging in size from 329 square feet to 700 square feet, some studios have separate living and sleeping areas, while others are open-plan lofts. The apartments have ceilings over 11 feet high, and most have floor-to-ceiling windows.

The LEED Silver building emphasizes its factory origins, with polished concrete floors, large columns and exposed ductwork.

We took a look at two model units. Unit 105, a 450-square-foot micro studio with separate living and sleeping areas that's renting for $1,900, makes efficient use of space with a kitchen area with white quartz counters, about a half-dozen cabinets, a G.E. refrigerator and an electric cooktop with a microwave above. The adjacent living room is divided from a sleeping area by a three-quarter wall. There's a full bathroom with ceramic tile shower as well as an in-unit washer and dryer.

Unit 103, a 379-square-foot corner micro-unit, has a full kitchen with quartz counters, and an open plan living and sleeping area for $1,850 a month.

AvalonBay also is planning a six-story 300-unit apartment building in the NorthPoint neighborhood scheduled to break ground next year.

"We think NorthPoint has its momentum back," said Roberts. "There's still a lot of pent-up apartment demand and the long-term prospects for this area are good."

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The Ticker

Aereo to close Southie office, lay off 43

Streaming Internet television startup Aereo will close its South Boston office and lay off 43 employees to cut costs after a series of losses in court.

Aereo said it will close its Hub engineering office next Wednesday, but will not shut down completely.

In a letter to employees, CEO Chet Kanojia said the company had been pursuing acquisitions and additional investment, but potential investors balked after a federal court in New York last month said Aereo did not qualify for a cable license.

Aereo attracted the ire of every major broadcaster for retransmitting over-the-air channels to customers' computers or mobile devices for a monthly fee. The Supreme Court ruled against Aereo over the summer.

3 arrested in Hub co. securities fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday charged an attorney in Orange County, Calif., and two men in Massachusetts behind a pump-and-dump scheme that defrauded investors in a Boston-based ticket brokering business.

The SEC alleges Richard Weed, a partner in a Newport Beach law practice, facilitated a scheme to pump and dump the stock of CitySide Tickets Inc., which he helped structure into a publicly traded company through reverse mergers. Weed created backdated promissory notes and authored false legal opinion letters that enabled Boston stock promoters Thomas Brazil and Coleman Flaherty to obtain millions of purportedly unrestricted shares of stock in the company, the SEC said. Investors were then allegedly blitzed with a false and misleading promotional campaign touting CitySide Tickets.

Dow, S&P hit new record highs

U.S. stocks edged up in a volatile session yesterday, with the Dow and S&P 500 hitting fresh record closing highs on an indication that the European Central Bank would take more policy action if needed to boost a struggling euro zone economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 69.94 points, or 0.4 percent, to 17,554.47, the S&P 500 gained 7.64 points, or 0.38 percent, to 2,031.21 and the Nasdaq Composite added 17.75 points, or 0.38 percent, to 4,638.47.

Today

• Labor Department releases employment data for October.
• Mark Diodati, left, a certified public accountant, has been promoted to partner at Damon & Associates Inc., a Pembroke-based accounting and tax firm. For five years previous, Diodati was an associate at the firm and served as the audit manager, responsible for managing projects, the budget and the accounting staff.

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Foxwoods sees new mall as competition for visitors

MASHANTUCKET, Conn. — Foxwoods Resort Casino says the mall it's building will ratchet up the competition for gamblers and shoppers being lured by Massachusetts.

Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council that runs Foxwoods in eastern Connecticut, said the $120 million Tanger Outlets will set Foxwoods apart. He says casinos planned in Massachusetts will be "spectacular," but will not offer shopping.

Mashantucket and Foxwoods officials offered a tour of the mall construction site Thursday. They estimate the outlet center will draw 3 million to 4 million more people a year.

The opening is set for May 21, 2015.

Stores will include Nike, American Eagle Outfitters, Ann Taylor Factory Store, Banana Republic Factory Store and several others.

Massachusetts awarded the first resort casino licenses Thursday to Wynn Resorts in Everett and MGM Resorts International in Springfield.

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Aereo lays off staff in Boston, New York

Aereo, which put its service on hold after it lost a Supreme Court ruling in June, is laying off a majority of its staff, including employees in New York and Boston, although the company says that it is continuing to "chart our path forward."

Several media outlets reported that the company informed employees in Boston that it was closing its office there and laying off 43 employees as of Nov. 12.

Virginia Lam, a spokeswoman for the company, said that "in an effort to reduce costs, we made the difficult decision to lay off some of our staff in Boston and New York. We are continuing to conserve resources while we chart our path forward. We are grateful to our employees for their loyalty, hard work and dedication. This was a difficult, but necessary step in order to preserve the company."

A small executive team of about a dozen people will remain.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that Aereo's service -- which offered digital broadcast streams to subscribers via dime-sized antennas -- violated the Copyright Act. The company has so far been unsuccessful in pursuing another approach in the courts, that because it resembles a cable service it should be entitled to transmit broadcast programming.

The FCC, meanwhile, is mulling a proposal in which Internet TV providers, including Aereo, would receive the same classification as a cable or satellite company, something that would give over-the-top services access to broadcast channels. But it is likely that Aereo would still have to pay restransmission fees to local stations.

© 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Repeal dead, Walsh ready to deal with Wynn Resorts

With casinos now here to stay, Mayor Martin J. Walsh said he is ready to talk turkey with Wynn Resorts on improvements to Boston roadways leading to its $1.6 billion gambling palace just over the city line in Everett.

"We have a lot of outstanding questions that we have to figure out when it comes to traffic, and I think they have their own questions with the land over there and some of the environmental issues around the land," Walsh said yesterday. "As far as Boston goes, I'm going to talk about Sullivan Square, Rutherford Ave., benefits for the people of Charlestown. The people of Charlestown are going to be the most impacted by this casino, so I'm going to go back to work now and see what I can do."

All seven of Charlestown's precincts voted to repeal expanded gaming Tuesday, the only neighborhood in the city to skew so anti-casino. Statewide, the ballot question failed by a 60-to-40 margin.

Walsh had his first face-to-face meeting with Vegas gaming titan Steve Wynn two weeks ago in a low-key affair at the Parkman House, which the mayor described as "mostly small talk" because the repeal vote was in the offing.

"We really didn't get into much of a conversation about the benefits, although he said, 'You can work with me, I'm a person you can work with,'" Walsh said. "So I take him at his word, and I look forward to seeing if we can hammer out some type of agreements here for the city of Boston."

Wynn's project, which will receive its formal license award today from the state Gaming Commission, is expected to generate 31,000 new vehicle trips on an average day. Wynn executives expressed confidence that tensions with Walsh and any other permitting and legal hurdles will be smoothed over.

"Anything that comes along I think can be dealt with," said Robert DeSalvio, president of Wynn Mass LLC.

Wynn needs permits from Boston for road alterations, and pledged to submit Sullivan Square fixes to the city's Public Improvements Commission within 90 days after the referendum.

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Governments push for more Facebook data

Government requests for Facebook data jumped sharply in the first half of this year, according to the social media giant — the second company in recent months to say such inquiries have increased.

Requests for data from Facebook rose 24 percent, to 34,946 between January and June, compared to the last six months of last year, according to the company. The U.S. government was responsible for a little less than half those requests.

"We continue to work with our industry and civil society partners to push governments for additional transparency and to reform surveillance practices necessary to rebuild people's trust in the Internet," Facebook deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby said in a statement.

Facebook gave data to governments in roughly 80 percent of the requests.

Sonderby said Facebook is fighting back against the requests when possible, including a request for "nearly all data from the accounts of nearly 400 people" that will be heard later this year by a New York appeals court. Sonderby called the request "unprecedented."

"We scrutinize every government request we receive for legal sufficiency under our terms and the strict letter of the law, and push back hard when we find deficiencies or are served with overly broad requests," Sonderby said.

In September, Google said government requests for data had increased 15 percent in the first half of this year.

Facebook began re­leasing transparency reports in June 2013, after details of the National Security Agency's secret Internet surveillance program, Prism, emerged.

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The Ticker

Feds shut down 
Maine shrimp season

Federal regulators shut down the commercial fishing season for northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine for a second straight year yesterday, citing concerns about the declining population and warmer ocean temperatures.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Northern Shrimp Section voted to cancel the up­coming season, a year after the section closed this year's season for the first time in more than 30 years.

The "depleted condition of the resource and poor prospects for the near future" warrant another closure, the committee reported, adding that "long term trends in environmental conditions" for the little pink shrimp are unfavorable. The amount of the shrimp's population that can be fished is at an all-time low, regulators said.

Wanderu raises $5.6 million

Boston startup Wanderu has raised $5.6 million in venture financing, the company announced yesterday.

Wanderu has created a way to find the cheapest bus tickets — similar to Orbitz or Kayak — in one place. The company said it will use the money to continue its expansion around the country.

The round of funding was led by Metamorphic Ventures and included Craig Lentzsch, former Greyhound CEO.

Celtics, Sun Life team up for diabetes

The Boston Celtics and Sun Life Financial are teaming up to promote diabetes prevention.

Sun Life will donate $1,000 to the YMCA dia­betes prevention program for every dunk by the Celtics this month. The company will also donate $1 for every tweet that uses the hashtag #SunLifeDunkFor Diabetes.­

TODAY

• Labor Department releases third-quarter productivity data, weekly jobless claims.
• Selected chain retailers release October sales.

TOMORROW

• Labor Department releases employment data for October.
• ROI Corp., a leading business brokerage firm in the Greater Boston area, announced the appointment of Julia Rayberg of Rockland as senior marketing associate. She will coordinate the growing firm's internal and external marketing efforts.
• BIND Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage nanomedicine platform company developing targeted and programmable therapeutics called Accurins, announced the appointment of Hagop Youssoufian, M.Sc., M.D., as chief medical officer. Youssoufian will be responsible for overseeing the clinical development and operations of BIND's internal pipeline.

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City ramps up housing inspections

Boston's Inspectional Services Department is finding chronic code violations as its inspectors begin to fan out to rental units across the city to enforce an ordinance — given new teeth last year — that will prompt 90,000 apartment inspections over the next five years.

Since beginning the inspections in early October, ISD has hit 43 units and found chronic issues that need addressing, such as water stains, rodents and unsanitary kitchen equipment including sinks and ovens, said Dave Rini, assistant director of rental housing inspections, who was hired to coordinate enforcement of the rental ordinance. Citations aren't yet being written under a grace period that gives landlords 30 days to correct problems.

"We're finding in general that a good number of the properties are not passing their initial inspections," Rini said, "but the program is set up to allow landlords to correct any violations."

The City Council and former Mayor Thomas M. Menino strengthened a decades-old rental housing inspection ordinance last year. It now compels landlords to report how many units they own and where to the ISD, which creates a data­base to ensure they are inspected on a five-year cycle. Previously, the ordinance called on landlords to report to the city when units turned over, which was hardly ever happening, ISD said.

"We're really trying to stay on top of it and make this a standard part of ISD's responsibilities," ISD Commissioner William "Buddy" Christopher said. "It lets us be very proactive if we see deteriorating conditions or deferred maintenance that is not taking place the way it should be."

This year, ISD is focusing on units with a recent history of code violations and a high number of housing court cases, as well as foreclosed properties.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh said his administration "is committed to continuously improving our efforts to educate owners and tenants alike about their rights and responsibilities, and these inspection requirements will protect tenants and promote safe housing."

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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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