Video game company to move to Nashville

NASHVILLE (AP) ? ZOI Interactive Technologies Inc., a video game and marketing company, said on Friday it plans to move its headquarters from Las Vegas to Nashville.

The company is about to complete the purchase of Lebanon-based online game company Tournament Games, Inc., and wants to consolidate all of its operations in Nashville, where it will have 26 employees.

The company expects to double its total staff to more than 45 within six months as it expands, according to a released statement.

?Our ties to Nashville are deep, and the choice is logical for us,? said chief executive officer Michael Calderone.

ZOI is one of the smallest but also the latest in a string of headquarters moves to Middle Tennessee that has included companies such as Japanese automaker Nissan North America and building materials company Louisiana-Pacific Corp.

? ? ? ? ?

KNOXVILLE (AP) ? The electric rate break didn’t last long at the Tennessee Valley Authority. A tiny fuel adjustment charge will be billed on the first day of 2007.

The country’s largest public utility has informed its 158 power distributors in Tennessee and portions of Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia to expect TVA?s first fuel charge on Jan. 1.

But the 8.6 million consumers receiving TVA electricity shouldn’t be too worried. The hike will be only one-hundredth of a cent per kilowatt hour.

?For most residential customers that would be an increase of between 10 and 15 cents? on their monthly bill, TVA spokesman John Moulton said.

TVA adopted the fuel adjustment policy in July to deal with sharply fluctuating costs for coal, natural gas and power purchased from other utilities.

TVA couldn?t keep up with those spiking costs in fiscal 2006. The agency twice raised rates over fuel costs in fiscal 2006, before trimming them to start fiscal 2007 on Oct. 1.

Under the fuel charge policy, TVA every three months will add or subtract forecasted fuel costs from the amount it budgeted. Consumers will see the difference, up or down.

? ? ? ? ?

NASHVILLE (AP) ? Executives of drugstore chain CVS Corp. and prescription benefits manager Caremark Rx Inc. say they will be able to save $400 million a year by combining the companies.

CVS? all-stock buyout offer for Caremark, a deal valued at $21.2 billion when it was announced Nov. 1, left some analysts wondering what the two companies have to offer each other.

But the combined company to be called CVS/Caremark Corp. will be able to start saving the $400 million annually starting at the end of 2008, according to Howard A. McLure, Caremark?s senior vice president and chief operating officer. The buyout is still contingent on approval from shareholders and regulators.

These are savings that ?I don’t think you could obtain through a joint venture,? McLure said at Merrill Lynch investor conference in New York. ?These are mainly product acquisition costs, which I think you’ve got to have the transaction in order to get.?

Dave Rickard, chief financial officer at CVS, declined to elaborate on specifics about where the companies will find those savings.

?Purchasing is the majority of it, and the purchasing synergies are expected to be nearly immediate,? he said. ?There is some operational efficiency cost reduction, and there is some overhead cost reduction. There are no revenue synergies within that $400 million number.?