Regional Report Triangle August 2011

RALEIGH — LipoScience revived plans to go public. The company, which sells a blood test that monitors risk for heart disease, wants to raise $86.25 million in its initial public offering. It abandoned plans to go public in 2002 after failing to attract enough interest on Wall Street.

DURHAM — FHI, a global public-health and economic-development organization, agreed to buy the assets of Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit AED. Terms of the deal, which was expected to close in July, weren’t disclosed. The acquisition will double FHI’s size to about 4,500 employees, including about 380 in Durham.

CHAPEL HILL — American Support, which works with cable-television operators, bought Daytona Beach, Fla.-based Evergreen Sales & Marketing. Terms weren’t disclosed. Evergreen operates call centers for cable companies, while American Support provides customer and billing service. The acquisition increased American Support’s workforce from about 165 to about 485.

CARY — Research in Motion, which employs about 200 at a research center here, plans to cut an unspecified number of jobs because of lagging sales of its Blackberry smartphones and other devices. The Canada-based company employs about 17,500 worldwide.

ROXBORO — Duke LifePoint Healthcare, a joint venture of Duke University Health System and Tennessee-based LifePoint Hospitals, will acquire Person Memorial Hospital. The deal is expected to close in September.

RALEIGH — The state Utilities Commission ruled that the Triangle must begin using the 984 area code March 31. That’s a month earlier than the April 30 date that was suggested by the Raleigh-based North Carolina Telecommunications Industry Association. The region’s second area code is necessitated by population growth and the proliferation of cellphones and will mean that all local calls will require 10-digit dialing.

RALEIGH — Apple Gold Group bought 13 Applebee’s restaurants in South Carolina from Charleston, S.C.-based Whit-Mart. Terms were not disclosed, but the purchase gives the chain 86 restaurants in the Carolinas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, making it one of the largest Applebee’s franchisees.

Voluntary buyouts are being offered to Duke Energy and Progress Energyemployees this fall as part of their proposed merger, which will create the nation’s largest utility serving 7.1 million customers in six states. Both companies are expected to shed an unspecified number of workers mostly in the Triangle, since the combined company will assume Duke’s name and be based in Charlotte.