Greatbatch set to open near US 30

Greatbatch Medical, an orthopedics industry supplier, has completed construction on a $17.4 million production plant on Kroemer Road near U.S. 30.

Buffalo-based parent company Greatbatch Inc. has scheduled a grand opening for 10 a.m. Monday. Invited guests, including local officials, will be offered tours of the 80,000-square-foot building, spokesman Christopher Knospe said Monday.

Greatbatch is moving more than 100 jobs from Columbia City to the new plant, officials announced in January 2011. They also announced plans to create 76 additional jobs.

State and local economic development organizations combined to offer the company more than $3 million in incentives on the project.

In the latest sign of turbulence J.C. Penney, the department store chain said Michael Francis, the former Target Corp. executive brought in to help redefine the brand, is leaving the company.

In a terse statement, the department store operator gave no reason for his immediate departure, effective Monday.

The move comes as Penney scrambles to reverse a sharp drop in customer counts and sales after a new pricing plan that eliminates hundreds of sales events ended up confusing customers.

J.C. Penney hired Francis in October to redefine the Plano, Texas, company’s brand and boost business. Francis was responsible for merchandising, marketing and product development.

Oracle’s latest quarterly earnings climbed 8 percent to top analyst expectations.

The business software maker surprised investors by releasing results Monday. The fiscal fourth-quarter report had been scheduled to come out Thursday.

Oracle Corp. didn’t give a reason for the change of plans.

The company earned $3.45 billion, or 69 cents a share, for the three months ending in May. That compared to income of $3.2 billion, or 62 cents a share, at the same time last year.

Revenue edged up 1 percent from last year to $10.9 billion.

A Coney Island stand is about to move into permanent digs.

Detroit’s Finest Coney Island owner William Drake will relocate into the former Todd’s Old Towne Tavern, 2145 Taylor St., on July 2.

Drake left the corner of South Anthony and Rudisill boulevards a couple of weeks ago to prepare for the grand opening of his new eatery. Besides Coney dogs, Drake will offer Polish dogs, hamburgers and related items.

Drake said Todd’s Tavern has been closed for about a year.

Dan Dorfman, a journalist whose stock reports were once so market-moving that U.S. exchanges imposed regulations to limit the resulting price swings, has died. He was 80.

His death was announced in Sunday’s New York Times.

Dorfman began swaying share prices regularly at the Wall Street Journal, where he wrote the Heard on the Street column for six years. Stints with New York and Esquire magazines, the New York Daily News, USA Today and Cable News Network followed.