“Cepia sues Build-A-Bear, alleging $646,000 in unpaid Zhu Zhu Pets bills - Birmingham Business Journal” plus 2 more |
- Cepia sues Build-A-Bear, alleging $646,000 in unpaid Zhu Zhu Pets bills - Birmingham Business Journal
- Woman, pets die in Kansas City fire - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Deadly toxins put Pinto Lake off limits to people and pets - San Jose Mercury News
| Posted: 22 Sep 2010 03:39 PM PDT Toymaker Cepia LLC has fired the latest salvo in a dispute with retailer Build-A-Bear Workshop. Cepia brought suit for $646,366 against Build-A-Bear Sept. 16 in St. Louis County Circuit Court, alleging Build-A-Bear either underpaid or had not paid at all six invoices from Cepia between Nov. 12, 2009, and Jan. 27. The dispute between the two St. Louis companies — publicly traded Build-A-Bear Workshop, headed by founder, CEO and major shareholder Maxine Clark, and privately held Cepia, led by owner and CEO Russell Hornsby — came out in the open at the end of July. Build-A-Bear President John Haugh said in an investor conference call July 29 that the company was ending its partnership with Cepia because the retailer's roll-out of Zhu Zhu Pets, a series of robotic hamster toys, did not meet Build-A-Bear's expectations. Build-A-Bear, which allows customers to make their own stuffed animals, reported an $8.5 million loss for its second quarter during that call. Hornsby issued his own statement the next day, saying the sales performance of Zhu Zhu Pets at Build-A-Bear Workshop is unrelated to the overall health of the Zhu Zhu Pets brand and is more a reflection of issues at Build-A-Bear. "We are disappointed they chose to link their financial performance with Zhu Zhu Pets," Hornsby's statement said in part. He was also quoted saying Cepia had cut off deliveries to Build-A-Bear as part of a pay dispute. As a private company, Cepia does not release its financial data. Last year, a toy industry analyst estimated Cepia would reach $70 million in sales, primarily based on sales of its popular, electronic hamsters, which Toys R Us named one of the hot toys of the 2009 holiday season. Zhu Zhu Pets also sell at large retailers, including Walmart and Target. A company source said Cepia was on track to reach sales this year of $600 million. Stephen D'Aunoy of the Thompson Coburn law firm filed the suit for Cepia. The document alleges Build-A-Bear received six invoices totaling $4.95 million from Cepia but made only partial payments on two of them and paid nothing on four others. Jill Saunders, a spokeswoman for Build-A-Bear, said in a statement her company is "disappointed that Cepia LLC chose to pursue a lawsuit rather than attempt to resolve this dispute through discussion. We remain open to resolving this matter informally and, in fact, we have attempted to do so. However, if Cepia insists on litigating, we will defend this lawsuit vigorously." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Woman, pets die in Kansas City fire - St. Louis Post-Dispatch Posted: 27 Sep 2010 08:45 AM PDT A woman and two of her pets died in a house fire in Kansas City. Chief fire marshal Floyd Peoples says the fire was reported about 1 a.m. Monday. He says when crews arrived at the house, they found a woman in her 50s with severe burns. She was taken to an area hospital, where she later died. Firefighters were able to rescue two of the woman's four animals. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The fire damaged the exterior wall to the home next door, but Peoples says damage to that home was not significant. Posted in Metro, Missouri on Monday, September 27, 2010 7:16 am Updated: 8:00 am. | Tags: This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Deadly toxins put Pinto Lake off limits to people and pets - San Jose Mercury News Posted: 24 Sep 2010 08:44 PM PDT A toxic algae bloom in Pinto Lake can be dangerous to people and their pets, county environmental health officials warned Thursday. People should avoid swimming in the lake and keep their pets, particularly dogs, from entering or drinking the water, officials said. The toxin in the blue-green algae has been blamed for respiratory, gastrointestinal and nervous disorders in humans as well as stumbling, foaming, tremors, even death, in dogs elsewhere in the country. A recent study by researchers from UC Santa Cruz and the state Department of Fish and Game also linked the toxic microcystin produced by the freshwater algae to the deaths of at least 21 California sea otters. "We wanted to get the word out to people to take care, for people to be cautious," said John Ricker, county water resources division director. Ricker said the toxin doesn't appear to affect fish or birds, but there are a lot of unknowns. The blue-green algae bloom was first officially documented in Pinto Lake in 2005, Ricker said, but there's anecdotal evidence of the slime before then. It typically occurs in August or September, when the weather warms up, and can last into November, when winter storms flush the lake or cold kills off the algae, Ricker said. Pinto Lake, off Green Valley Road, is surrounded by city and county parks. It drains into Corralitos Creek, a tributary of the Pajaro River. The sea otter researchers tracked the toxin down the Pajaro River to within a mile of the Monterey Bay. During this year's rainy season, they also found it in the outflows of the San Lorenzo and Salinas rivers, as well in the water at the Santa Cruz Wharf after the first rain last year.David Koch, Watsonville public works and utilities director, said the water at Pinto Lake will be tested this weekend. He said as the algae sinks, the water gets clearer, but the toxicity can worsen. "It's more dangerous so people shouldn't look at it and think it's OK," Koch said. The researchers suspect local dogs have been poisoned from drinking lake water or licking it from their fur, but they've been unable to do postmortem examinations to confirm the presence of microcystin. Koch said there's been no local reports of dead birds, wild animals or pets attributed to the toxin, but he said that doesn't mean there haven't been any. He said increased awareness could bring evidence to light in the future. "It's possible there have been situations that no one has connected to it," Koch said. "We don't really know if it happens several days later and no one puts two and two together." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Pets - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment