BRIEFCASE KB BUYS UP ZALE FOR $33 MILLION.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

Los Angeles-based KB Home announced Friday that it had acquired substantially all of the home-building assets of Chicago-based Zale Homes for about $33 million, including the assumption of debt.

Last year, privately held Zale delivered 302 homes and had revenues of about $106 million.

``Chicago is the largest new-home market outside the Sunbelt, with single-family permits exceeding 25,000 for each of the past five years and reaching 30,410 in 2002,'' said KB Home Chairman and CEO Bruce Karatz.

``Chicago's position as the No. 1 new-home market in the Midwest makes it the right fit for KB Home and a strong platform for growth in the region.''

Home Depot nails roofing company

ATLANTA - The Home Depot, the nation's largest home-improvement retailer, announced Friday that it would purchase roofing company Installed Products USA.

Terms of the agreement weren't disclosed. Home Depot is buying Tampa, Fla.-based Installed Products USA, LLC and Installed Products of California, Inc., which are collectively known as IPUSA. Installed Products is one of the largest installers of residential replacement roofing in the country and has been a contractor with Home Depot since 1997.

Lilly's earnings exceed estimates

INDIANAPOLIS - Eli Lilly & Co. said Friday that its 2003 earnings would be at the upper end of its previous estimates.

Lilly's chief financial officer, Charles E. Golden, told analysts the company's 2003 adjusted earnings would fall between $2.55 and $2.60 a share. In June, the company said it would earn between $2.50 and $2.60 a share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call predicted that Lilly would earn $2.57 a share.

Lilly reported adjusted annual earnings of $2.57 a year ago.

Lilly stock rose four cents to $61.00 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company did not predict its profitability beyond the end of this year. It promised to do so in January after it has a better idea of when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will approve a new drug for treating depression, Cymbalta.

Tobacco farmers' subsidies to end

WASHINGTON - Tobacco farmers are a step closer to ridding themselves of a Depression-era price-support program they say no longer works - and getting paid in the process.

Principal House lawmakers from tobacco states agreed on Friday to support a single approach to ending the program and paying farmers roughly $15 billion to give up quotas, or allotments dictating the size of their tobacco crops.

After the program had ended, farmers still could grow tobacco but without the government-backed pricing regimen.

Champion cuts jobs, some stores

DETROIT - Champion Enterprises Inc. announced Friday that it is cutting 1,000 jobs and closing four home-building plants and 35 retail sales centers because of a continuing slump in the demand for manufactured homes.

The job cuts amount to 13 percent of Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Champion's work force, company spokeswoman Colleen Bauman said. Employees found out about the layoffs Friday morning. Champion is one of the nation's largest producers of manufactured housing. The four home-building facilities being closed are in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Texas, the company said. Production at a fifth facility in Alabama is being moved to an idle plant, and an undetermined number of those workers also will lose their jobs.