Business news in brief

Bryn Mawr Bank Corp. has agreed to buy Devon-based Davidson Trust Co., which has about $1 billion in assets under management, for $10.5 million from Boston Private Financial Holdings Inc. and members of Davidson's management group. The deal was announced late Friday. Boston Private, of Boston, disclosed the price in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday. An initial payment of $7.35 million is due at closing, with the remaining $3.15 million to paid over 18 months contingent on the amount of money under management at Davidson, which was purchased by Boston Private in 2007. The cash deal, expected to close in the second quarter, continues Bryn Mawr's expansion of its wealth-management business, which has $4.83 billion under management. Last May, Bryn Mawr bought Hershey Trust Co.'s private wealth-management business in a deal valued at $18.5 million, with $15 million in cash and stock paid at closing.

- Harold Brubaker

Clear Capital, the real estate data provider, said U.S. home prices in January were 2.6 percent lower than the same month in 2011. Prices in the fourth quarter of 2011 were 1.6 percent lower than the previous three months, Clear Capital reported. Prices in metropolitan Philadelphia were 4.7 percent lower in January than a year ago, and were down 8.7 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months. Just 10.9 percent of January home sales in the metro area were bank repossessions, compared with 25.4 percent nationally.

- Alan J. Heavens

Delaware Investments, a member of Macquarie Group, is ranked first in the "Barron's Fund Families Report" for 2011, according to the annual Barron's ranking. Delaware Investments performed best over the 1-year period ending Dec. 31, out of 58 fund families ranked.

- Inquirer Staff

Stephen Cozen, founder and chairman of the Center City based law firm Cozen O'Connor, has been named business leader of the year by Drexel University's LeBow College of Business. He will be honored for his accomplishments at a luncheon Feb. 13 at the Hyatt at the Bellevue hotel in Philadelphia. Cozen founded the firm with four attorneys in 1970 specializing in insurance and other commercial litigation, and it has since grown to 575 lawyers.

- Inquirer Staff

Boeing said Monday that repairs were needed in the tail sections of some of its new 787s but that there is no immediate safety concern and the planes will keep flying. Boeing has delivered five of the planes since September. Boeing has had to rework dozens of 787s that rolled off its assembly line. It said the most recent issue involves shims, which act as spacers between the 787's skin and the parts that support it. Boeing was still inspecting planes to see how many would need repair.

- AP

Medco Health Solutions Inc. stock fell Monday, the most in more than three years after Reuters reported that "key people" at the Federal Trade Commission are seeking to stop the company's proposed $29.1 billion acquisition by rival pharmacy benefits company Express Scripts Inc. Medco, of Franklin Lakes, N.J., and St. Louis-based Express Scripts said they still expected to complete the transaction in the first half of this year. Medco declined 6.7 percent to $59.34 by 3 p.m. New York time, after losing as much as 13 percent in the biggest intra-day drop since October 2008. Express Scripts lost 4.5 percent to $49.76, after earlier falling 12 percent in the biggest intra-day decline since May 2010. - Bloomberg News

Legislation to allow Atlantic City casinos to offer hand-held, mobile gaming devices within their premises, including adjoining hotels, was unanimously approved by the State Government, Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation Committee on Monday. Under the bill, the mobile gaming device would be inoperable outside the approved casino or hotel. Las Vegas adopted similar mobile gaming devices in 2006. A second bill - S-1324 - would create a new tax credit program for non-gaming development within the recently created Atlantic City Tourism District. Both bills are sponsored by state Sen. Jim Whelan (D., Atlantic), the committee chairman, who said they were intended to further investment in Atlantic City. Both bills now head to the full Senate for consideration

- Suzette Parmley

Fisker Automotive, an electric car-maker that received a half-billion-dollar loan from the federal government and millions more from Delaware economic development officials, said Monday it has laid off workers in Delaware and California. Fisker laid off 26 workers at a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Del., that is being retooled to make its Nina hybrid. An additional 40 contractors and employees who worked on design and development of Fisker's Karma luxury car in California also were laid off. The layoffs come as Fisker works to renegotiate its loan agreement with the Department of Energy. - AP

Google Inc., fighting a lawsuit filed by Oracle Corp., lost its U.S. appeals court bid to keep secret an engineer's e-mail that says the Web search company should negotiate a license for the Java programming language. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Monday denied Google's request to overturn a trial judge's order that the information could be presented to a jury. Google is trying to prevent jurors from seeing an e-mail that Google software engineer Tim Lindholm wrote in August 2010, days before Oracle filed a lawsuit contending Google's Android operating system was designed using patented and copyrighted features of Oracle's Java.

- Bloomberg News

The Automobile Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia, owners and producers of the Philadelphia Auto Show, announced that its 2012 event set a new record for single-day attendance. On Saturday, 57,331 people came to the Philadelphia Auto Show, making it the largest attendance in the event's 110-year history. The final turnout was 252,194.

- Inquirer Staff