The development team of the Starpointe Business Park near Burgettstown, Washington County, has landed a major German door manufacturer, announcing Wednesday that it will sell 10.85 acres of land at the park to Hormann Flexon, LLC. A new facility is expected to be built and open in late summer 2013 and employ about 100 people to start. Part of the Hormann Group, which employs more than 6,000 employees worldwide and had sales of more than $1.2 billion sales last year, Hormann Flexon plans to build...

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. on Wednesday announced two financing transactions at a combined $95 million. PNC (NYSE:PNC) said it led a $60 million senior secured financing package to MedPlast Inc. for the acquisition of United Plastic Group, Inc. MedPlast, based in Tempe, Ariz., produces precision custom-molded components for the health care and consumer/industrial markets. It is a portfolio company of Baird Capital Partners, Chicago-based private equity firm. A portion of the senior secured...

Banking & Finance David McNichol has been named vice president and business banking officer at First Commonwealth Bank. Stephen English has been named senior vice president, managing director for the trust and investment advisory services at F.N.B. Wealth Management. Stacey Watson has been named assistant vice president, senior portfolio underwriter at First Niagara Bank. Stephen Olsavsky has been named vice president, commercial real estate group at First Niagara. Business Services Steve...

Table game revenue rose at both the Rivers Casino and the Meadows Racetrack and Casino in April 2012. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board said Wednesday that the 1,031 gaming tables at the 11 operating casinos statewide generated $56,499,624, up 6.8 percent from April 2011. Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh had $6.04 million in revenue from its 110 tables compared to $5.77 million in revenue from 107 tables in April 2011. Meadows Racetrack had $2.69 million in revenue from 79 tables compared to $2.61...

Alcoa Inc. said Wednesday that it had appointed Ron Barin as an officer of the company. Barin is now a vice president as well as chief investment officer, pension investments, whose responsibilities include the oversight of the Alcoa retirement plans and Alcoa Foundation's combined $15 billion in assets. Barin joined Alcoa (NYSE: AA) in 2008 as assistant treasurer. He has also worked at Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), Emcor Financial Risk Management Consulting, Estee Lauder and Unilever.

Pittsburgh-area households are slightly more financially stressed than the national average, according to a survey by a nonprofit credit counseling group. The CredAbility Consumer Distress Index ranks Pittsburgh at 68.49 percent in the first quarter, just below the national average of 69.9. Anything below 70 means that a household has a distressed financial condition measured by employment, housing, credit, financial budget and net worth. The Pittsburgh region had a score of 70.42 in the second...

The lawsuit against Pittsburgh-based K&L Gates over the failure of Latrobe beverage maker Le-Nature's Inc. will proceed. The Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that a $500 million lawsuit against K&L Gates by the Le-Nature Liquidation Trust trustee Marc S. Kirschner could proceed. The lawsuit had been thrown out by a lower court in December 2010. Le-Nature filed for bankruptcy in 2006 and lost more than $500 million. The court said that there was "a legally sufficient basis for concluding that...

Education Management Corp. has won a partial victory in a federal whistle-blower lawsuit against the Pittsburgh-based company although it will still proceed on other parts. The Associated Press (via the Washington Post) reported that Judge Terrence McVerry's ruling said that there are still legal grounds for other parts of the lawsuit that targets its incentive program for recruiters at the for-profit education company. Education Management Corp. (NYSE: EDMC) has said that its compensation program...

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. is about to take the next step on the building of its new headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the site along Wood Street is almost completely demolished and the next step is digging to create a three-story underground garage that's planned there above the planned 33-story PNC (NYSE: PNC) headquarters building.

Natural gas may not only be creating jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania, but it could also power more cars around here too. KDKA-TV looks at the companies and individuals in the Pittsburgh region who have moved from gasoline to natural gas. Those include EQT Corp. (NYSE: EQT) and Giant Eagle but also at least one resident who told KDKA-TV that he converted his 2004 Ford Explorer to run on natural gas for about $6,800. There's a big financial incentive: Natural gas costs about half per gallon than...

Social Media Affects SEO By Caitlin A. Baker, Marketing & Brand Manager, Alpern Rosenthal We all know that social media is important to your marketing strategy. As social media continues to grow and more time is spent maintaining sites, it is important to understand that social media is more than just a branding tool. Social Media Signals There is no doubt that social media presence impacts organic search results. This can specifically be seen in social media signals. Social media signals,...

UPMC For You, the health care giant’s Medicaid health insurance program, has been awarded a three-year grant of more than $440,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve the quality of care for kids with complex medical problems, the insurer announced on Tuesday. The project is among four that RWJF will fund out of 50 proposals submitted in response to a request involving the issue of payment reform strategies and high value care. UPMC will develop a payment reform plan involving...

Flush with a new round of $25 million in funding, online clothing retailer ModCloth is continuing down its social buying path and will use the money to hire across its three locations including Pittsburgh, the company said Tuesday. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners and included previous investors. As a result of the round, Josh Goldman, general partner at Norwest, will join the ModCloth board. ModCloth, headquartered in San Francisco, was started in Pittsburgh by husband and wife duo...

The price of gasoline keeps dropping in western Pennsylvania. AAA East Central's Fuel Gauge saw the average price of regular unleaded gasoline drop to $3.713 a gallon over the past week. That's a drop of seven cents from a week ago. That's just around the national average of $3.72 a gallon and well below the $3.991 a gallon a year ago this week in western Pennsylvania. The lowest price in the region was $3.679 a gallon in Indiana and the highest was $3.799 in Jeanette. The average price in Pittsburgh...

Westinghouse Electric Co. has entered into a joint venture that will serve the nuclear industry in China. PaR Nuclear Inc., a Westinghouse subsidiary that supplies fuel-handling equipment and cranes, formed the joint venture called PaR-TZ Nuclear Co. Ltd. with Taiyuan Heavy Machinery Group Co. PaR Nuclear will have a majority interest in the joint venture but other financial terms of the deal weren't announced. PaR-TZ Nuclear will be based in Taiyuan, 311 miles from Beijing. China will have several...

Pittsburgh ranks among the cities that have the fewest amount of government jobs. Eleven percent of the Pittsburgh metro's 1.1 million workforce is classified as being employed in government, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data for March 2012 by the On Numbers blog from American City Business Journals. Out of the top 100 metro regions, Pittsburgh ranks No. 96 in percentage of government employment. Only Milwaukee, Wis., San Jose, Calif., Lancaster, Pa., and Grand Rapids,...

Hollie Geitner, vice president of client services at WordWrite Communications Inc. in Pittsburgh, has shared with us a tip for social media. Hollie's topic is on the balance between social media content and what you should be considering: At WordWrite Communications, we follow the 1/3 rule of producing content and engaging with fans/followers on social media—for both our clients and for our own social media channels. Many companies get it wrong…and you can see it with some well-known businesses...

If you want to get involved in the Pittsburgh Business Times Social Madness competition, then today's the deadline. We're accepting nominations through today only for the competition, which will pit local and national companies in a quest to find out who is best at social media. The competition begins June 1 and local winners will move ahead into a national social-media contest from our parent company, American City Business Journals. Why participate? • Improve your social profile and followers •...

ParenteBeard LLC Tuesday said it has made strategic changes to Dewey & Kaye, the nonprofit consultants that came under its aegis in June 2011. A newly-formed operating group called PB Consulting merges Dewey & Kaye’s nonprofit consulting and strategy functions and services with the capital feasibility and financial analyses services of ParenteBeard Senior Living. Kate Dewey, who is a principal of PB Consulting, said the new structure will enable the company to provide expanded capabilities. The...

Dick's Sporting Goods reported higher net income and revenue in its most recent quarter as it raised its earnings guidance Tuesday. The Findlay Township-based retailer had net income of $57.1 million, 45 cents a share, on revenue of $1.3 billion in the quarter ended April 28. That compared to net income of $37.5 million, 30 cents a share, on revenue of $1.1 billion during the same period a year ago. Dick's (NYSE: DKS) said revenue was up on an 8.4 percent jump in same store sales and the opening...