Famed piano maker Steinway sold for $499M

WALTHAM, Mass. » Steinway has been sold for about $499 million and will again become a private company.

The company struck a deal with Paulson & Co., the investment firm founded by John Paulson, for $40 per share. That topped an earlier $35 per-share offer from Kohlberg & Co.

Steinway will discard its sales agreement with Kohlberg and pay a termination penalty of about $6.7 million.

The piano maker has been in business for 160 years. Its pianos have been a status symbol and a must-have luxury in concert halls for more than a century, but the company suffered during the recession. Sales have increased in the past few years, but have yet to return to their pre-recession levels.

In June, the company finalized the sale of its flagship showroom in Manhattan, the legendary Steinway Hall, where Sergei Rachmaninoff and Vladimir Horowitz, among other greats, once took grand pianos for a test ride.

Financier Soros boosts stake in Apple

SAN FRANCISCO » Carl Icahn isn’t the only billionaire investor with an appetite for Apple’s stock.

Financier George Soros more than doubled his stake in the iPhone and iPad maker in recent months, according to regulatory documents filed Wednesday.

Soros’ fund held 66,800 shares of Apple Inc. stock at the end of June, up from 26,800 shares in March.

Apple’s stock finished Wednesday at $498.50, its highest closing price since Jan. 23. At that price, Soros’ holdings are currently worth about $33 million.

Apple’s shares remain nearly 30 percent below their peak of $705.07 reached nearly 11 months ago. Despite that drop, Apple remains the world’s most valuable company with a market value of more than $450 billion.

Soros’ disclosure about his increased interest in Apple came a day after Icahn took to his Twitter account to announce he has built a large stake in the Cupertino, Calif., company, too.

Icahn hasn’t yet specified how much Apple stock he owns, but he has already urged Apple CEO Tim Cook to increase the amount of money that the company is spending to buy back its stock. Apple so far has pledged to spend $60 billion buying back its stock by end of April.

Unlike Icahn, Soros hasn’t indicated that he intends to pressure Apple to do things differently.

Ex-JPMorgan traders charged in cover-up

NEW YORK » Two former JPMorgan Chase & Co. traders falsified bank records to try to cover up trading losses that were spiraling out of control, prosecutors said Wednesday in a criminal case that raises fresh questions about whether Wall Street learned its lessons from the 2008 financial crisis.

Javier Martin-Artajo, 49, and Julien Grout, 35, and their co-conspirators were accused of marking up the market value of an investment portfolio to hide that it was plummeting in value. The portfolio eventually sank into an eye-popping $6 billion loss attributed to Bruno Iksil, a trader who became known as the "London Whale" for his location and the supersized bets he made.

Preet Bharara, the Manhattan U.S. attorney, hinted that the misconduct was not just the work of a couple of rogue traders, but was systemic in a bank that failed to keep adequate watch over its traders. He said companies need to pay closer attention to the cultures they create.

SeaWorld park attendance drops 9 percent

SeaWorld Entertainment Inc., the operator of theme parks featuring killer whales, fell as much as 14 percent after cutting its forecast for 2013 sales as attendance fell in the second quarter.

The stock dropped as low as $31.40 in extended trading Wednesday after falling 0.4 percent to $36.31 at the close in New York. The company went public in April at $27 a share.

SeaWorld, controlled by Blackstone Group LP, forecast full-year revenue of $1.45 billion to $1.48 billion, according to a statement Wednesday. In May, it projected sales of $1.46 billion to $1.49 billion.

SeaWorld, which operates 11 parks, said attendance fell 9 percent to about 6.6 million guests in the second quarter, from a year earlier, in part because it raised ticket prices and the Easter holiday fell in the previous quarter. The company, which opened its Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin attraction in Orlando, Fla., in May, has increased investment under Blackstone, adding 11 attractions last year.

Visitors in Florida and Virginia were also discouraged by heavier than usual rainfall, Chief Executive Officer Jim Atchison said in a conference call with investors.

Sales for the three months ending in June fell 3.4 percent to $411.3 million, reflecting the lower park attendance.

Wholesale prices unchanged in July

WASHINGTON » Falling energy prices kept a lid on U.S. wholesale inflation in July after a jump in gasoline boosted prices in June. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that wholesale prices showed no change last month compared with June, when they rose 0.8 percent. That was the most in nine months.

Energy costs fell 0.2 percent, after June’s 2.9 percent surge. Gasoline prices dropped 0.8 percent, and natural gas costs slid 3.9 percent.

ON THE MOVE

Central Pacific Bank has appointed:

» Paul Felix to vice president and senior business banking officer on Maui. He has more than 20 years of finance experience and was previously a vice president, branch manager and business relationship manager at American Savings Bank.

»Mel Racadio to assistant vice president and senior business banking officer on Oahu. Racadio has 32 years of banking and finance experience and was previously serving as assistant vice president and business banking officer at Bank of Hawaii.

First Hawaiian Bank has announced that Conrad Figueroa has joined the bank as vice president and manager in its Western Dealer Center. He has more than 14 years of experience in lending, portfolio management and marketing to automobile dealerships. Before joining First Hawaiian, Figueroa worked as a vice president and senior relationship manager at several large California banks.