BRIEFCASE.

Byline: -- Staff and Wire Services

Lamps Plus buys regional center

CHATSWORTH -- Chatsworth-based Lamps Plus Inc., which has dozens of retail stores throughout the West, has purchased a 784,000-square-foot industrial building in the San Bernardino County city of Redlands for a regional distribution facility, officials said Thursday.

The transaction was valued at $54 million, according to Grubb & Ellis Co., which represented the company in the deal.

The newly building, a development of the Trammell Crow Co., is located at 9425 California Ave. in the California Palms Business Center.

Lamps Plus will be relocating in January from two buildings totaling 420,000 square feet in the City of Industry and one building of 150,000 square feet in Chatsworth.

The company will maintain its corporate headquarters in Chatsworth.

Tiny firm bought for $1.1 billion

SAN FRANCISCO -- Shareholders of Sirna Therapeutics Inc. on Thursday approved the sale of their tiny biotechnology company to pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. for $1.1 billion.

In October, the Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck announced it had offered Sirna shareholders $13 per share for the company attempting to turn a Nobel Prize-winning technology into medicines.

The offer represented a 102 percent premium over Sirna's closing stock price on Oct. 30. The stock's previous high for the past year is $8.52, set in April.

Sirna is one of at least half a dozen biotech companies developing drugs that silence genes by interfering with the messenger-carrying RNA. The technique was discovered by this year's Nobel winners, Andrew Fire of Stanford University and Craig Mello at the University of Massachusetts.

A spokesman for Sirna shareholders said the acquisition is expected to close when ``reasonably practicable.''

Sirna closed up 2 cents a share, to $12.99 a share, in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Merck shares rose 18 cents to $43.55 at the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

US Airways bides its time on Delta

ATLANTA -- US Airways has no intention right now to increase its $8.4 billion offer for Delta Air Lines but can't see itself backing out of its pursuit of Delta for any reason, Chief Executive Doug Parker said Thursday.

In a wide-ranging telephone interview with Associated Press reporters, Parker said Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways Group Inc. firmly believes that its offer for Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. provides more value than Delta's stand-alone plan.

At the same time, Parker did not exactly rule out the possibility of changing his mind about the offer price.

Voting continues on Goodyear pact

AKRON -- About 14,000 Goodyear employees were continuing to vote Thursday on whether to end a three-month-old strike and accept a new contract that the world's third-largest tire producer hopes would help make it more competitive.

If accepted, the contract could mean shutting a plant in Texas that employs 1,100 people and creating a $1 billion health care fund for retirees of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

Goodyear and the United Steelworkers union tentatively settled Dec. 22 on a three-year labor pact that would cover 12 Goodyear plants in 10 states and end the strike that began Oct. 5.

Two union locals that represent plants in Lincoln, Neb., and Union City, Tenn., voted Wednesday to approve the contract. Other branches, including about 400 members of Local 2L in Akron, where Goodyear is based, were casting ballots Thursday.

Rate-hike fears stall Wall Street

NEW YORK -- Wall Street stalled Thursday after a battery of reports, indicating the economy is stronger than expected, raised concerns that the Federal Reserve might be more aggressive about interest rates next year.

There has been speculation in the market that Fed policymakers might be ready to cut interest rates because the economy appeared to be moderating on course. However, investors believed that better-than-expected reports that measured home sales, consumer sentiment and manufacturing in the Midwest lessened the possibility of a cut.

Moreover, the trio of reports suggested to some that central bankers -- who have left interest rates unchanged during their last four meetings -- might even have to implement a rate hike on further signs the economy is growing too fast. This caused a sell-off in bonds and stifled a stock market surge that pushed the Dow Jones industrials past the 12,500 mark for the first time on Wednesday.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 9.05, or 0.07 percent, to 12,501.52, after reaching a new trading high of 12,529.88. That's slightly above Wednesday's record close of 12,510.57.