Henry

Fenway Sports buys Astros farm club

While the New England Patriots’ drive toward another Super Bowl has dominated the winter sports scene, John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, provided a little heat last week for the Hot Stove League.

His Fenway Sports Group bought the Salem Avalanche, a Class A affiliate of the Houston Astros in Virginia, from Atlanta-based Hardball Capital. He didn’t say what he paid. The team plays in the Carolina League and made the playoffs for the last two years.

Fenway Sports Group, whose parent New England Sports Ventures owns the Red Sox, Fenway Park, and the New England Sports Network, also owns a 50-percent stake in Nascar’s Roush Fenway racing team. The company also develops marketing campaigns for Boston College and the Deutsche Bank Championship gold tournament.

Fenway Sports Group will be the managing partner of the new ownership group. Other partners will be named in 30 days, Henry said.

Restaurant forecast bucks queasy economy

Despite a slumping economy, with one-third of the economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecasting a recession in 2008, diners are estimated to spend more money in restaurants next year, according to a report by the National Restaurant Association.

The report forecast U.S. restaurant sales to grow by 4.4 percent to $558 billion in 2008, with the biggest gains in restaurants in the West, especially Nevada, Arizona and Utah. Sales at Rhode Island’s restaurants are expected to grow slightly above the national average by 4.5 percent to $1.9 billion, while revenues in Massachusetts will increase slightly below average by 4 percent to $12.1 billion. Overall, the association’s report said the number of restaurants in the United States would increase in 2008 to 945,000.

Nonessential workers, not health-care costs

Kenneth Proudfoot, director of the Rhode Island Youth Entrepreneurship Program, says Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, who has organized a group to study the state’s health-care system, is wrong when she claims health-care costs are the top concern of small businesses.

He sent her a message that the top priority of small business was cutting the cost of government.

The cost of government “is way too high and delivers way too little to us and our families and our employees,” he wrote. “If you want to do something about the cost of doing business, lower the cost of state government.”

Proudfoot recommends a 30-percent reduction in the number of state employees. He’d start the cuts with “nonessential” workers who go home when there’s a state or weather emergency.

“If they are not important in the hardest times, they are certainly unnecessary when things are going well,” he wrote.

Lawmakers like what they see at Quonset Park

There was a bit of history made last week, when cranes demolished the last Navy barracks at the Quonset Business Park, removing buildings that housed sailors for three decades beginning before World War II. In all, the state agency has spent $5.9 million tearing down 213 buildings at the former Navy base to make available property the Quonset Development Corporation wants to sell or lease the business.

Meanwhile, three state legislators who toured Quonset said they are “impressed” with the “momentum” at the 3,000-acre, state-owned park. The QDC has not always had a strong relationship with the General Assembly.

In the last session, lawmakers did not consider legislation about the park, and some said it was heading in the wrong direction by not putting plans in place to develop a cargo container port. When EDC director Saul Kaplan fired the director of the park, W. Geoffrey Grout, House Speaker William J. Murphy said it was a good move. Then last month, The Providence Journal reported that the legislature had raided the QDC’s cash reserves, swiping $3.5 million for other state spending.

But under Grout’s replacement, Steven J. King, the agency’s soft-spoken chief operating officer, ties may be strengthening. After their recent tour, the lawmakers — Representatives Peter G. Palumbo, D-Cranston, and John J. McCauley Jr., D-Providence, and Sen. Paul E. Moura, D-East Providence, showered the park with praise.

“Many people don’t realize that Quonset is home to 158 businesses and that 8,200 people work there,” Palumbo said in a joint statement. “There is over $320 million in private investment now being planned. This is in addition to the $300 million in private investment that has been made there over the last five years. Clearly, things at Quonset are heading in the right direction.

“The numbers always tell the story, and the numbers at Quonset are impressive,” Palumbo said. “In 2001, a two- to four-acre parcel of land at Quonset was selling for $75,000 an acre. Today, the price is $150,000 an acre — a 100-percent increase in five years.”

Stanley Works buyback raises share price

Shares of the Stanley Works, the tool supplier that owns the Stanley-Bostitch plant in East Greenwich, rose from a 2007 low last week after the company said it had authorized the repurchase of up to 10 million shares in the open market, tender offers and privately negotiated transactions.

The Stanley Works (SWK:NYSE) said it has about 80 million common shares outstanding and also reported that already during the fourth quarter, the company had repurchased 1.97 million of its common shares for $100 million, an average price of $50.77 a share. For all of 2007, the company has repurchased 3.64 million shares for $200 million, an average price per share of $54.96 a share.

After the bell …

Charles P. Lee, vice president and financial adviser at Smith Barney’s Providence office, has won the Rhode Island Foundation’s annual Harold B. Soloveitzik Professional Leadership Award.

Renae Tompkins, 20, a senior at Johnson & Wales University, is a finalist in the American Advertising Federation’s Most Promising Minority Students program.

Take a break from shopping if the weather is inclement today. Stay inside and enjoy your family.

With reports from Journal staff writer Benjamin Gedan

John Kostrzewa is the Journal’s business editor. Share an anecdote from the world of business by sending it to pjbiz@projo.com