Perdue Farms is investing $3.7 million to increase production at hatcheries in Kenly and Salisbury.

The expansion doesn't mean many new jobs — only about five new positions are planned at each facility — but can be taken as a sign of the company's interest in North Carolina.

But North Carolina's gain will by Maryland's loss. The company will close its hatcheries in Showell and Bishopville, Md., eliminating 36 jobs. Equipment from those facilities will move to Salisbury. The hatchery in Kenly, which is about 50 miles from Raleigh in Johnston County, will get new equipment and ventilation systems.

The changes will not go into effect until early next year, according to a statement from the company.

Privately-held Perdue ranks third in sales in the poultry industry. It employs about 21,000 people and has contracts with 2,253 independent farm families.

The Pantry got a new CEO that's a bit cheaper than the old one.

The Cary-based convenience store chain on Thursday named former Coca-Cola bottling executive Terrance M. Marks as its new CEO. He replaces Peter J. Sodini, who was CEO since 1996.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this afternoon, the Pantry disclosed that it will pay Marks an initial annual salary of $750,000 plus restricted stock, a bonus and other perks.

That base salary is less than the $800,000 Sodini made last year, according to an earlier SEC filing. Sodini's total compensation was about $2.3 million.

Marks, 49, is a former executive with Coca-Cola Enterprises, the Atlanta-based company that is the world's largest soft-drink distributor.

Marks will start as CEO on Sept. 15. Sodini will resign as CEO on Sept. 24.

The owners of Napper Tandy's Irish Pub in Raleigh have bought Stool Pigeons, a bar and restaurant in the trendy Glenwood South area that closed earlier this week.

The new owners, cousins Robert and Daniel Stapleton, plan on making some improvements and reopening the location as the Downtown Sports Bar & Grill by the middle of next month. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

"We're going to give it a fresh look, a new atmosphere," said Robert Stapleton, who has owned Nappy Tandy's for about four years. "It's a great location."

The new owners plan on installing 30 plasma TVs next week. A new menu will feature food for mostly $10 or less.

"We're going to treat it like the recession and give people a decent deal," Stapleton said.

WakeMed, the largest private employer in Wake County, plans to eliminate 85 positions next month as the hospital system continues to cut costs during the recession.

In April, WakeMed CEO Bill Atkinson warned employees that increasing numbers of uninsured patients and shrinking reimbursement were forcing the Raleigh-based system to freeze pay and reduce other benefits. At the time, officials said those cost-cutting steps would help avoid layoffs.

But looking ahead to its 2010 fiscal year, WakeMed is bracing for tougher times. The system will receive $35 million less in reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid, Atkinson wrote in a memo to employees today.

This region's unemployment rate remains high, but it's still healthier than most of the state and much of the nation.

In July, joblessness in the Triangle fell to 8.3 percent from 8.5 percent a month earlier. That's according to data released this morning by the N.C. Employment Security Commission and adjusted for seasonal effects by Wells Fargo Securities economists in Charlotte.

The state's rate stayed flat at 11 percent in July, and the national rate was 9.4 percent.

The jobless rate is a key measure of the broader economy, as people who are out of work don't shop as much and can run into trouble paying their mortgages and other bills.

While local job seekers still face tough odds as many companies remain reluctant to hire, the latest data is another sign of pending recovery.

"It's still a case of things getting less bad, not things getting better," said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo. "We're closer to the point where we're going to see some job growth. Businesses are seeing some signs of life in the economy."

In Charlotte, the seasonally adjusted jobless rate fell to 11.5 percent in July from 11.9 percent in June.

Here's some good news for Red Hat: the Linux software market is expected to continue to enjoy robust growth over the next several years.

Linux subscription revenue is expected to grow 16.9 percent annually through 2013, according to a new study issued this week by market research firm IDC. The worldwide market is expected to cross the $1 billion threshold in 2012 and hit $1.2 billion in 2013.

The market expanded 23.4 percent from 2007 to 2008, IDC found.

Raleigh-based Red Hat is the No. 1 supplier of subscriptions for Linux software, an open-source operating system that competes with Microsoft's Windows.

If you ever think one consumer can't force change, here's a good example of a squeaky wheel.

Late Thursday, Costco Wholesale announced it had pulled a line of stuffed dolls after receiving a complaint from a member in North Carolina.

The "Cuddle with Me, Doll with Plush Monkey" line came in Caucasian, African-American and Hispanic representations. The customer complaint concerned the African-American version of the doll wearing a headband that said "Lil' Monkey" and cuddling with a stuffed monkey.

The Issaquah, Wash.-based retailer said the doll was carried only in its Northeast and Southeast regions and the company's Web site and was only for sale for a matter of days in July before it was pulled.

A number of reports and Web sites have criticized the retailer for carrying the product. Costco apologized, saying it didn't mean to carry "an item that demonstrated racial or ethnic insensitivity."

"We are sensitive to any complaint that a product we carry would cause discomfort to any segment of our membership," said CEO Jim Sinegal, in a prepared statement. "As soon as it became clear to us that this toy item was offensive to some of our members, we decided to remove it from our warehouses. We don't believe there is room for argument in matters of this type."

The stock-picking pros who run the Oak Value Fund out of Chapel Hill got a nice plug in the latest issue of Barron's.

The profile emphasizes how the team led by three co-managers -- Larry Coats, David Carr and Christy Phillips -- spends a great amount of time "fishing" for the right publicly traded companies to find the best values. The story points out that the strategy has paid off, with Oak Value up 19 percent this year. That's better than its peer group of mutual funds.

The Barron's story returns several times to the fishing metaphor (headline: "Angling for Returns"), and mentions that Coats is an avid fisherman. The magazine even ran a photo of Coats casting in a bucolic stream.

One minor issue: Coats is an avid salt-water fly fisherman who usually fishes at the coast. But Barron's "was too cheap to send a photographer all the way down there," Coats said in a phone interview this week. "They asked me if we could find water closer, so we shot over by Jordan Lake."

Trinity Partners, a Charlotte-based commercial real estate firm, is expanding into Raleigh, reports The Charlotte Observer's Kerry Hall Singe. 


The company is partnering with three senior brokers with the former GVA Advantis Triangle office to create a new office involved with leasing, brokerage, construction services and management for office and industrial institutional owners and corporate users.

Scott Stankavage, David Adams and David Townsend will lead Trinity Partner’s Triangle office, which will have 14 other employees.

CHARLOTTE — Even though sales were down, Belk Inc. reported a 14.6 percent increase in net profit for its second quarter Thursday.

For the three months ended Aug. 1, the department store chain had an increase in profits from $8.2 million in the second quarter of 2008 to $9.4 million in its latest quarter.

Sales for the period decreased to $760.3 million this quarter, compared with $829.3 million for the same quarter last year. Same-store sales, or sales at stores open more than a year, decreased by 9.4 percent.

"While sales results reflected a continued weakness in consumer spending for the period, we were pleased to deliver increased profitablity and a significantly improved cash position," said chairman Tim Belk. "Our associates did an exceptional job of providing good customer service while managing espense and inventory levels in keeping with sales trends."

Belk operates 307 in 16 Southeastern states.