Property management firm fined by EPA

A property management company based in the Boston area, Chestnut Hill Realty Corp., and associated property owners, have agreed to a settlement of nearly $320,000 to settle EPA allegations that the companies violated lead paint disclosure laws at their rental properties in Greater Boston and in Rhode Island. Under the terms of the settlement, Chestnut Hill Realty and the property owners will pay a penalty of $28,538, and will perform a window replacement worth $289,500.

Between June 2003 and September 2004, the EPA conducted five on-site inspections at a number of properties managed by Chestnut Hill Realty. The inspectors identified Real Estate Notification and Disclosure Rule violations at every location. During subsequent investigations into this matter, the EPA identified many instances where tenants were not properly notified of potential lead paint hazards, as required by federal law. Chestnut Hill Realty manages more than 5,000 residential apartment units in the Greater Boston area and Rhode Island.

“It is critically important that renters and buyers get the information they need to protect themselves and their children from potential exposure to lead paint. This is especially important for pregnant women and families with young children,” said Robert Varney, regional administrator for the EPA’s New England office.

Monopoly contest snared in Mideast tension

An employee of Hasbro Inc. eliminated the word “Israel” after the city of Jerusalem in an online contest to select names for a new Monopoly board game after complaints from pro-Palestinian groups and bloggers who believe the city is not in Israel, the company said. A day later, the Pawtucket-based company apologized and pulled all country names from cities listed on the site.

Hasbro is asking people to vote at the Monopoly Web site on which cities will be included in its upcoming Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition. Until Tuesday, every city on the site listed a country, including Paris, France; Cairo, Egypt; and Jerusalem, Israel. But a “mid-level” employee, based in London, decided on her own without consulting senior management to pull Israel from Jerusalem after hearing the complaints, Hasbro spokesman Wayne Charness said yesterday.

Israel considers the whole of Jerusalem to be its capital, while Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

The change left Jerusalem as the only one of dozens of cities listed without a country. Hasbro management was alerted to the change Wednesday when its London office saw a spike in traffic on the site and figured out what happened, Charness said. The company then pulled every country name, so Paris and Cairo also are now listed alone, he said.

“It was a bad decision, one that we rectified relatively quickly,” he said. “This is a game. We never wanted to enter into any political debate. We apologize to our Monopoly fans.” He added that the game, due out in the fall, was never meant to include countries. The countries were added to the Web site to make it easier to vote. “Monopoly is the world’s most popular game,” he said. “We want it to remain that way.”

TJX boosts profit with improvements

Off-price retailer TJX Cos. said yesterday that improvements in inventory, cost controls and marketing boosted its fourth-quarter profit by almost 47 percent. The operator of 2,563 stores including T.J. Maxx and Marshalls also reduced cash set aside in a legal reserve because of lower-than-expected costs so far from a massive data breach disclosed a year ago. The adjusted results narrowly topped Wall Street estimates, and its shares rose nearly 5 percent. But TJX also forecast a first-quarter profit just below Wall Street expectations.

Framingham, Mass.-based TJX said its net income in the three months ended Jan. 26 rose to $301.1 million, or 66 cents per share. That compared with a profit of $205.4 million, or 43 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago, when earnings were reduced $38 million, or 8 cents per share, from closing 34 A.J. Wright Stores. Not counting the latest quarter’s gain of $11 million, or 2 cents per share, from reducing its breach-related legal reserve, TJX’s profit was 64 cents per share. That beat by a penny per share the estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Financial. Sales rose 8 percent to $5.49 billion, narrowly beating analysts’ $5.48 billion forecast.

Megayachts growing in popularity

The popularity of so-called megayachts is apparently growing, despite the economic slowdown in the United States, according to an ABC News report.

That’s good news for the state-owned Quonset Business Park, which is setting aside 32 acres on the Rhode Island shoreline for a megayacht repair and manufacturing complex. The Quonset Development Corporation, the agency that runs the park, approved the proposal, from the Florida firm Island Global Yachting, last August. Island Global plans to spend $150 million in North Kingstown to open facilities for building and repairing megayachts, as well as constructing a space for yacht storage and sales. The QDC is under increasing pressure to grow total employment at Quonset to help the state overcome a massive budget deficit.

According to the ABC report, by former Providence Journal writer Scott Mayerowitz, “a new class of superwealthy in Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East and elsewhere” are fueling interest in the megayachts, which sell for $30 million and higher.

FM Global nears $1 billion in net income

FM Global, of Johnston, yesterday reported 2007 financial and operating results that included gross premium in force grew by 4.2 percent, to $4.7 billion. Net income grew by 26 percent to $928 million, the largest in the company’s history. Policyholder surplus grew to an all-time high of $6.3 billion, resulting in a 24.7 percent annual compound rate of growth during the past five years. The company posted a profitable combined ratio of 73.4 percent, better than forecast due to the absence of large insured natural disaster losses and much better than composite projections for the U.S. property and casualty insurance industry.

Additionally, FM Global’s client retention rate was 92 percent. Also, FM Global provided eligible policyholders who renewed their policies in 2007 with a collective $341-million membership credit as a way of sharing its profitability with clients due to better-than-expected operating performance in recent years. It also earmarked a membership credit of $380 million to eligible policyholders renewing this year.

Former AOL executive joins Providence Equity

Providence Equity Partners Inc., the Providence-based company that specializes in media, communications and information companies, said that James P. Bankoff, former executive vice president of programming and products at AOL, has joined the firm as a senior advisor. He will advise Providence on new investment opportunities and on certain of the firm’s existing investments in the online and digital media space.

While at AOL, Bankoff led a global team of content programmers, designers and web developers that developed Web sites and applications for an audience of over 100 million. He drove AOL’s push into a free-to-consumer, advertising-supported business model by spearheading the development of the new AOL.com, which launched in July 2005.

Providence Equity Partners is the leading global private equity firm specializing in equity investments in media, entertainment, communications and information companies around the world. The principals of Providence manage funds with about $21 billion in equity commitments and have invested in more than 100 companies operating in over 20 countries since the firm’s inception in 1989.