ERI wins desalination contracts in Chile

Energy Recovery, a global leader in the design and development of energy recovery devices and pumps for desalination and other industrial processes, announced Thursday that the San Leandro-based company has been selected for two separate large-scale desalination projects in Chile. The Copiapó Valley project, located in northern Chile, will be built by Acciona Agua and is owned by Grupo CAP. The second project was awarded by an undisclosed firm. Both projects are expected to be built in 2012 and are designed to secure an adequate supply of water for mining operations.

– Reuters

Gap reports February sales jumped 6%

Gap on Thursday reported that February 2012 net sales increased 6 percent compared with a year ago.

Net sales for the four-week period ended Feb. 25 were $874 million compared with net sales of $821 million for the same four-week period last year. The San Francisco-based company’s sales for February 2012 were up 4 percent compared with a 3 percent decrease for February 2011.

“We’re pleased we delivered positive comps across our North America businesses during February and that customers responded well to our spring product,” said Glenn Murphy, chairman and CEO of Gap.

Kilroy Realty continues Bay Area expansion

Kilroy

Realty announced Thursday that it has purchased Menlo Corporate Center in Menlo Park for about $162.2 million. The seven-building, 374,000-square-foot campus is occupied by 10 tenants, including the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, E-Trade Financial and Allstate Insurance.

“We see strong fundamentals in Silicon Valley and Peninsula office markets and will continue to pursue opportunities that make strategic and economic sense for the company,” said Mike Sanford, Kilroy’s senior vice president, Northern California.

Including this acquisition, Kilroy Realty has acquired eight office projects totaling about 2.6 million square feet, representing an investment of about $877 million in the Bay Area since 2010.

– Business Wire

Juniper cautious about 2012 on Europe debt crisis

Juniper Networks CEO Kevin Johnson said Europe’s debt crisis may hamper expansion in Internet traffic, posing a “challenge” to the networking-equipment industry.

“We are approaching 2012 in a very cautious way,” Johnson said in an interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. “The ongoing growth of Internet traffic continues to create demand, but there are clearly some macroeconomic factors that will create a challenge.”

The sovereign-debt crisis is showing “there’s a bit of recessionary caution in Europe,” Johnson said.

Juniper, the second-largest maker of networking equipment, forecast first-quarter sales and profit in January that missed analyst estimates, a sign that Internet providers are limiting spending amid sluggish economic growth. Revenue gains this year will come from Asia, which accounts for about 20 percent of Sunnyvale-based Juniper’s sales, Johnson said Thursday.

– Bloomberg News

Article source: http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_20082226

ERI wins desalination contracts in Chile

Energy Recovery, a global leader in the design and development of energy recovery devices and pumps for desalination and other industrial processes, announced Thursday that the San Leandro-based company has been selected for two separate large-scale desalination projects in Chile. The Copiapó Valley project, located in northern Chile, will be built by Acciona Agua and is owned by Grupo CAP. The second project was awarded by an undisclosed firm. Both projects are expected to be built in 2012 and are designed to secure an adequate supply of water for mining operations.

– Reuters

Gap reports February sales jumped 6%

Gap on Thursday reported that February 2012 net sales increased 6 percent compared with a year ago.

Net sales for the four-week period ended Feb. 25 were $874 million compared with net sales of $821 million for the same four-week period last year. The San Francisco-based company’s sales for February 2012 were up 4 percent compared with a 3 percent decrease for February 2011.

“We’re pleased we delivered positive comps across our North America businesses during February and that customers responded well to our spring product,” said Glenn Murphy, chairman and CEO of Gap.

Kilroy Realty continues Bay Area expansion

Kilroy

Realty announced Thursday that it has purchased Menlo Corporate Center in Menlo Park for about $162.2 million. The seven-building, 374,000-square-foot campus is occupied by 10 tenants, including the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, E-Trade Financial and Allstate Insurance.

“We see strong fundamentals in Silicon Valley and Peninsula office markets and will continue to pursue opportunities that make strategic and economic sense for the company,” said Mike Sanford, Kilroy’s senior vice president, Northern California.

Including this acquisition, Kilroy Realty has acquired eight office projects totaling about 2.6 million square feet, representing an investment of about $877 million in the Bay Area since 2010.

– Business Wire

Juniper cautious about 2012 on Europe debt crisis

Juniper Networks CEO Kevin Johnson said Europe’s debt crisis may hamper expansion in Internet traffic, posing a “challenge” to the networking-equipment industry.

“We are approaching 2012 in a very cautious way,” Johnson said in an interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. “The ongoing growth of Internet traffic continues to create demand, but there are clearly some macroeconomic factors that will create a challenge.”

The sovereign-debt crisis is showing “there’s a bit of recessionary caution in Europe,” Johnson said.

Juniper, the second-largest maker of networking equipment, forecast first-quarter sales and profit in January that missed analyst estimates, a sign that Internet providers are limiting spending amid sluggish economic growth. Revenue gains this year will come from Asia, which accounts for about 20 percent of Sunnyvale-based Juniper’s sales, Johnson said Thursday.

– Bloomberg News

Article source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_20082226

After leading Hershey to three years of strong performances, CEO David West is leaving to take the top job at the smaller Del Monte Foods, a move that sent the candy maker’s shares plummeting Wednesday. Del Monte Foods, the San Francisco-based food processor, said that West will become its CEO on Aug. 15 and will join the company’s board in June. Del Monte was bought by private equity firms for $4 billion, a deal that closed in March. Hershey chief operating officer John Bilbrey was named interim president and CEO Wednesday. In midday trading, Hershey’s share price slipped $1.80, or more than 3 percent, to 55.28.

Online

Google (GOOG) will complete the biggest hiring year in its history by occupying a new campus of up to nine buildings, extending its growing real estate footprint for the first time across Highway 101 in Mountain View as it leases as much as 630,000 additional square feet of space. Along with Google’s recently announced plans to build as much as 595,000 square feet of new space on 19 acres of land near Charleston Road and Shoreline Boulevard, the new Ellis Street campus would expand Google’s total real estate holdings in Mountain View by about one-quarter. Google needs the space. The Internet giant said in January that 2011 would be its biggest hiring year ever,

adding more than 6,000 employees before the end of the year, with about one-third of those hires in the Bay Area.

Oil

San Ramon-based Chevron doesn’t plan to seek partners for its shale-gas fields in Poland and isn’t looking for further reserves in the central European country, Pat Blough, vice president for gas commercialization at Chevron Global Gas, said today in Warsaw. Chevron owns four shale gas exploration licenses in Poland’s Lublin basin covering 1.1 million acres of land, according to a company presentation. It will begin drilling exploratory wells in the fourth quarter of 2011, country manager John Claussen told reporters today.

Compiled from staff and wire reports.

Article source: http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_18087535