National business briefs for Jan. 20

Martin's owner says sales rose 4.5% in 4th quarter

Royal Ahold NV, the owner of grocery chains including Martin's Food Markets, Giant and Stop & Shop in the U.S., says total sales rose 4.5 percent to $9.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with the same period a year earlier.

The company said Thursday that price cuts were the most important factor "with customers remaining cautious in their spending," though a weaker dollar accounted for 0.2 percent of the total sales rise. Ahold said revenue at U.S. stores open at least a year rose 2.9 percent from a year earlier, excluding gasoline sales.

Ahold said it won market share in the U.S., where sales rose 5 percent to $5.9 billion. It is due to report full year earnings March 1 and did not indicate whether profit margins worsened.

Bell's letter to his parents brings $92,856 at auction

An 1878 letter from Alexander Graham Bell to his parents that includes rare and elaborate drawings of the telephone he invented has sold for more than $92,000, an auctioneer said Thursday.

The seven-page letter instructs Bell's parents on how to ground the telephone to avoid harm from lightning strikes. He instructs them to run a sturdy copper wire from their house to the duck pond and bury it there.

"If you have a good connection with a permanently moist stratum of earth, you need never fear lightning and your posts will be safe," Bell writes. He was in Washington, D.C., at the time.

Bidding on the letter offered by RRAuction began in December and ended Wednesday, with the top bid coming in at $92,856.

Elsewhere

• The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell again this week to 3.88 percent, but the eighth record low in a year is attracting few takers because most who can afford to buy or refinance already have, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said. The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage ticked up to 3.17 percent from 3.16 percent, which also was a record low.

• France and Spain on Thursday sailed through their first bond market tests since Standard & Poor's downgraded their credit ratings last week, a sign that politicians and central bankers have at least temporarily stemmed the spread of Europe's debt crisis. Worries about the 17-nation eurozone have receded since the start of the year, with stocks rallying consistently and bond yields — the rate countries pay to borrow — sliding.

• The Port of Long Beach, the nation's second-largest cargo container facility, reached a tentative $4.6 billion, 40-year lease with a major Hong Kong-based shipping container line. Work began earlier on the California harbor's $1.2 billion Middle Harbor Redevelopment, its largest-ever terminal upgrade and expansion project. Improvements announced Thursday include a new terminal, upgraded wharfs, a storage area and expanded on-dock rail yard. When completed, it is expected to add 15,000 jobs to the local economy. The deal is expected to be with Orient Overseas Container Line, commonly known as OOCL.

• Airbus found new cracks on metal brackets inside the wings of two A380 superjumbo jets after inspections launched following the 2010 incident in which a Qantas A380's engine disintegrated in flight, the company said Thursday. The cracks were found "on a limited number of non-critical brackets inside the wings of some A380s," Airbus said in a statement. These "wing rib feet," as the part is known, connect the wing's ribs to its skin. An Airbus spokesman said the new cracks were found on two of the nine aircraft inspected so far.

• Gap Inc. says the president of its Old Navy brand has resigned, but the company also has secured a former merchandising employee to serve as a consultant to its struggling namesake brand. The retailer announced Thursday that Tom Wyatt will leave Old Navy on Feb. 3. Wyatt's departure is another blow to Gap as it struggles to turn around falling sales trends. He joined Gap in 2006 and took over as head of the Old Navy brand in 2008, helping prepare the retail chain to expand outside the U.S. Gap is planning to open Old Navy stores in Japan. Gap appointed Nancy Green, executive vice president and chief creative officer for Old Navy, and Tom Sands, the executive vice president of stores and operations for Old Navy, to handle Wyatt's duties while the company searches for a permanent replacement.

• Drugmaker Merck & Co. said Thursday that it has reached a deal to settle all lawsuits in Canada over its recalled painkiller Vioxx, for up to $36.5 million. Merck and attorneys representing hundreds of Vioxx users in Canada said the final payment will be at least $21.6 million and could go as high as $36.5 million.

• Vermont's only nuclear plant can remain open beyond its originally scheduled shutdown date this year, despite the state's efforts to close the 40-year-old reactor, a federal judge ruled Thursday. The ruling by U.S. District Judge J. Garvan Murtha in Brattleboro is a win for the Vermont Yankee plant's owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., which had argued during a three-day trial in September that the state's efforts to close the plant were pre-empted by federal law. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a 20-year extension on Vermont Yankee's license in March 2011. But state law required Vermont lawmakers to support the license extension as well. A bill to grant legislative approval was defeated 26-4 in the state Senate in 2010, and the House has never acted.

From wire reports