Pataki’s Budget Director To Join Consulting Firm

Governor Pataki’s budget director, John Cape, is leaving the public sector to join a consulting firm that gives financial advice to state governments, municipalities, school districts, and other public entities. Mr. Cape will serve as co-director of state strategic consulting for Public Financial Management, a national firm founded in 1975. Mr. Cape, a Democrat who has worked for the State Division of Budget since 1980 under three governors, has been Mr. Pataki’s budget director since October 2004, in charge of overseeing the state’s $114 billion spending plan. Mr. Cape, who kept a low profile in the Pataki administration, is among only a handful of Pataki officials that Governorelect Spitzer has singled out for praise.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

Russian Oil Tycoon Suspected in Money-Laundering Probe

MOSCOW — Imprisoned Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a suspect in a new money-laundering investigation, raising the possibility that the Kremlin foe, already serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud, could spend many more years in prison, his attorney said Wednesday. Khodorkovsky, his imprisoned partner Platon Lebedev, also a suspect, and their attorneys were summoned to a detention facility in the remote Siberian city of Chita to undergo questioning Wednesday. Both Mr. Khodorkovsky, founder of Yukos Oil Co., and Mr. Lebedev refused to answer questions, their attorneys said, rejecting the case as the continuation of a government vendetta that landed them in prison in the first place.

— The Washington Post

Apple Shares Fall On Report of Executive Hiring a Lawyer

Apple Computer Inc. shares fell as much as 5.8% yesterday on a report that Chief Executive Steve Jobs hired his own attorney to deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department. According to the report, published on the Web site Law.com, Mr. Jobs apparently decided that he needs his own legal representation, separate from Apple’s lawyers at O’Melveny & Myers. The news rattled some investors who speculated the action could be a sign that Mr. Jobs was somehow personally involved in the company’s options backdating scandal. Others, though, dismissed the speculation, noting it would be common practice for Mr. Jobs to get his own lawyer.

— Dow Jones Newswires

P&G To Invest $325 Million in Venture With Inverness

Procter & Gamble Co., the largest American consumer-goods maker, plans to invest $325 million in cash to form a joint venture with Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. that will sell medical-diagnostic devices. Under the agreement, P&G will market and sell devices that are developed by Inverness, which makes home pregnancy and fertility tests. The companies will equally own the venture and the transaction is set to close in the first quarter, P&G and Inverness said today in a statement. P&G is expanding its health-care unit that includes Metamucil laxative and Pepto-Bismol indigestion relief into devices for consumers to diagnose their medical conditions. Tapping P&G’s marketing will spur sales growth, Inverness Chief Executive Officer Ron Zwanziger said in the statement.

— Bloomberg News