B6 The Sacramento Bee | Tuesday, July 22, 2014

BUSINESS

Lower gas prices spellrelief at the pump

Has reliable pricerelief pulled up to Sacra-mento-area gas pumps?The latest numberssuggest it has.

National price trackerGasBuddy.com, whichsurveys more than 700regional gas outletsdaily, said the averageretail price of gas in thearea fell 4.4 cents to$3.94 a gallon over thepast week. In the lasttwo weeks, the averageprice fell more than 8cents, after hoveringabove the $4-a-gallonthreshold through theJuly Fourth holiday.

Sacramento-areaprices are now 5 centslower than one monthago but still 4.6 centshigher than this timelast year.

Nationally, the aver-age pump price fell 3.3cents to $3.57 a gallonover the past week –down nearly 11 centsfrom last month.

Patrick DeHaan,GasBuddy’s senior pet-roleum analyst, said ina statement that prices“have been gently fall-ing” in every state ex-cept Wyoming, Ohio andIndiana.

– Mark Glover

Newport Beach oil firmloses in fraud lawsuit

State officials saidMonday they obtained a$20.4 million judgmentagainst a NewportBeach firm for fraudu-lently marketing oil andgas investments.

Synergy Oil LLC andcompany manager Rob-ert Falco were slappedwith the judgment inlate June in OrangeCounty Superior Court.

The company “de-frauded investors withmisrepresentationsabout the true nature oftheir business dealings,”said Jan Lynn Owen, thestate’s commissioner ofbusiness oversight, in anews release.

The state sued Syn-ergy and Falco in 2012,claiming they conned265 people nationwideinto investing a com-bined $13 million in oiland gas explorationdeals. It was not knownhow many of thoseinvestors were fromCalifornia.

The defendants wereordered to return themoney and pay a $6.6million fine.

– Dale Kasler

Area’s office vacancyrate keeps dropping

The vacancy rate foroffice buildings in theSacramento regioncontinued its gradualdecline in this year’ssecond quarter, at 21.12percent, according to thecommercial brokeragefirm of Cornish & CareyCommercial NewmarkKnight Frank.

It marked the sixthconsecutive quarter ofdecreases, following fiveyears of increases. Thevacancy rate peaked atan all-time high of near-ly 24 percent in 2012.

Cornish & Carey saidthe second-quartervacancy rate was helpedby Covered California,the statewide healthcare insurance program,occupying 123,000square feet of space at1601 Exposition Blvd. inSacramento.

“The slow but steadydecrease in the officevacancy rate is a clearsign that the regionaleconomy is improving,”said John Frisch, region-al managing director ofCornish & Carey, in astatement.

The company said the21.12 percent vacancyrate translates intonearly 14 million squarefeet of office space.

– Mark Glover

LOCAL BIZ

MONDAY’S CLOSE

Dow

B–48.4517,051.73

S&P 500

B–4.591,973.63

NYSE

B–28.2510,957.67

Crude oil

A$1.46$104.59

Gold

A$4.50$1,313.70

Nasdaq

B–7.454,424.70

For days, Steven Starr, a Sacramen-to resident and proclaimed foodie,was planning to buy two tickets to thesecond annual Farm-to-Fork dinneron the Tower Bridge. He’d circled thedate on his calender and sent remind-ers to his phone.

But on Monday, when tickets wenton sale at 10 a.m. for the Sept. 28 din-ner, Starr – and hundreds of others –were shut out. Within minutes, all ofthe individual tickets for the $175-per-head dinner were gobbled up.

“They need to provide enough tick-ets to the general public to attend, sofolks like me, who appreciate Ella,Mulvaney’s, and other fine-diningplaces, can go,” said a frustrated Starr.“The public were never afforded theopportunity to buy tickets.”

With only 400 seats available,about 3,000 people went to www.farmtofork.com to score tickets, ac-cording to the Sacramento Conven-tion & Visitors Bureau, a primary or-ganizer of the dinner, which caps thecity’s second annual Farm-to-Fork cel-ebration in late September.

The dinner, which features an all-star cast of local chefs, is geared for600 guests. Two hundred of thoseseats were claimed Friday via a pre-sale for sponsors, at a cost of $5,000for a table of eight.

Sacramento-based Five Star Bank,which specializes in commercial andsome agricultural loans, is returningas a corporate sponsor this year.

“The farm-to-fork movement isfundamental to our community,” saidCEO James Beckwith. “We have adeep level of appreciation for agricul-ture. It is a recognition for our region

and a wonderful celebration we canall sit down to.”

Tim Johnson, CEO of the CaliforniaRice Commission, another returningsponsor, said, “We really do it to pro-mote agriculture in the region.”

A first-time sponsor to the Farm-to-Fork event is Sacramento RepublicFC, the city’s new minor league soccerteam, which bought a table of eight.

Erika Bjork, team spokeswoman,said being at the dinner helps raisethe team’s profile.

“Our club is about elevating ourpresence as the Indomitable City anda huge part of it is to raise our profile,”Bjork said. “Being part of Farm-to-Fork does that.”

Proceeds from the Tower Bridge ga-la are used to fund a variety of activ-ities during the Farm-to-Fork celebra-tion, which runs from Sept. 13 to 28,including a free festival Sept. 27 on

Capitol Mall. In its 2013 debut, the fes-tival drew 25,000 attendees.

Last year, tickets for the inauguralTower Bridge dinner sold out in lessthan eight hours. Given the demandfor seats, organizers considered in-creasing the individual ticket pricethis year, but opted instead to in-crease the cost – by $1,500 – for spon-sored tables.

“We didn’t want to raise the ticketprice in part to not get too far aheadof ourselves with the general public,”said Mike Testa, senior vice presidentof the Sacramento Convention & Vis-itors Bureau. “It’s not a cheap ticket,but still semi-affordable. There’s stillmany dinners in this region that costmore than $175. We said, ‘Let’s not getgreedy on this thing.’ ”

As of late Monday, the waiting listfor the Tower Bridge dinner stood at527 hopefuls.

Call The Bee’s Ernesto Morales, (916)326-5577.

Farm-to-Fork event a fast selloutWITH JUST 400 TOWER BRIDGE TICKETS, MANY FOODIES FRUSTRATED

By Ernesto Garcia Morales

and Chris Maciasemorales@sacbee.com

LOS ANGELES – Tesla Mo-tors has halted production atits sole assembly plant for thefirst time for a revamp thecompany said is necessary tospeed Model S output andprepare it to make electriccrossovers.

Work to reconfigure theproduction floor at the Fre-mont facility began Monday,and vehicle assembly will re-sume Aug. 4 with a goal ofboosting production by 25percent, Simon Sproule, aTesla spokesman, said. Up-grades mainly involve modifi-cations to the factory’s bodyand general assembly linesand will cost about $100 mil-lion, he said.

“This represents the singlebiggest investment in theplant since we really started

operations and enables us forhigher volumes,” Sproule saidby phone Monday. “It gets usready to build X and to do iton the same line as the S.”

Chief Executive OfficerElon Musk, who also leadsrocket maker Space Explora-tion Technologies Corp., hassaid he wants Tesla to deliverat least 35,000 Model S se-dans to global customers thisyear, a jump of about 56 per-cent from 2013. The Palo Alto-based company’s expansionis led by the start of ship-ments to China and Britain inthe second quarter, followedby deliveries to Hong Kong,Japan and Australia in theyear’s second half.

Tesla, which charges from$71,000 for its Model S, wasproducing almost 700 unitsper week at the end of thefirst quarter with a goal of in-

creasing that to 1,000 laterthis year, Musk said in a May 7letter to investors.

Weekly production at theplant was approaching 800units ahead of the currentproject, Sproule said. Musk inMay had said the upgrades

would idle plant productionfor about 10 days in July.

“I’m sure with the popular-ity of the vehicle and need forproduction and the fact thatit’s the sole production facility,they are laser-focused onchanging over and revamping

it as quickly as they can,” saidMichael Robinet, a managingdirector at IHS Automotive inSouthfield, Michigan.

The Fremont plant, whichalso makes the car’s lithium-ion battery pack and motor,needs to be modified to startbuilding Model X sport utilityvehicles later this year,Sproule said. Pricing for thebattery-powered light truck,which ships to customersearly next year, hasn’t beenannounced yet.

During the retooling pe-riod, assembly workers cantake vacation time or come tothe plant for maintenance andtraining shifts, Sproule said.

Tesla is California’s largestautomotive employer withmore than 6,000 peopleworking at its plant, head-quarters, design center,stores and service facilities.

Tesla idles factory to retool for SUV modelBy Alan OhnsmanBloomberg News

Paul Sakuma The Associated Press

Tesla workers cheer the first Model S cars in 2012 at the Fre-mont factory. Production ceased Monday for a planned revamp.

WASHINGTON – Twogiant global banks helped atleast a dozen hedge fundsskirt full tax payment onmore than $100 billionworth of stock trades, ac-cording to a new congres-sional investigation madepublic Monday.

The probe by the SenatePermanent Subcommitteeon Investigations will be thesubject of a daylong hearingtoday and also spells moretrouble for the embattled In-ternal Revenue Service.

At issue is whether com-plex financial deals arrangedby London-based BarclaysBank PLC and Germany’sDeutsche Bank AG deliber-ately helped hedge fundsskirt U.S. tax laws for finan-cial advantage and bendrules designed to protect thefinancial system from exces-sive borrowing to financespeculative bets.

The IRS in 2010 issued awarning against the finan-cial instruments at questionin the Senate probe, butroughly four years later, noadditional tax money hasbeen collected from thehedge funds involved, Senateinvestigators said.

Hedge funds are privateinvestment vehicles forwealthy investors, and theirsteep costs to join effectivelylock out ordinary Americans.They are often partnerships,whose investors are partnerswho reap the tax savings af-forded by the deals.

The Senate report alleges

Panelprobeshedgefunds’taxes By Kevin G. HallMcClatchy Washington Bureau

PROBE | Page B7

RICHMOND, Va. – Helping toquench a growing thirst for Amer-ican craft beer overseas, some of theUnited States’ largest craft brewer-ies are setting up shop in Europe,challenging the very beers that in-spired them on their home turfs.

It’s the latest phenomenon in theflourishing craft beer industry,which got its start emulating theEuropean brews that defined manyof the beer styles we drink today.

The move also marks a contin-

uing departure from the status quoof mass market lagers or stouts,demonstrating a willingness ofAmerican breweries to explore –and innovate – old-world beer stylesfrom Belgium, Germany and theUnited Kingdom.

The U.S. craft beer scene is sofresh and dynamic, Europeans arebecoming as excited about it asAmericans, said Mike Hinkley, co-founder of San Diego-based GreenFlash Brewing Co. “Even thoughthey’re used to all these amazingEuropean beers, now there’s just

more variety.” U.S. craft beer exports grew six-

fold during the past five years,jumping from about 46,000 barrelsin 2009 to more than 282,500 bar-rels in 2013, worth an estimated $73million, according to the BrewersAssociation, the Colorado-basedtrade group for the majority of the3,000 brewing companies in theUnited States.

Of course, it’s still a fraction ofoverall production; U.S. craft brew-ers produced a total of 15.6 millionbarrels last year.

Just last week, Green Flash be-came the first U.S. craft brewery tobegin making and selling fresh beerin the European market under a

This historic gasworks in Berlin will house a Stone Brew-ing facility that will serve Germany and Europe.

U.S. craftbeer gainsfans abroad

Stone Brewing Co.

Stone Brewing Co. CEO and co-founder Greg Koch, center, toasts the crowd Saturday after announcing the Escondidocompany’s plan to build a brewery and bistro in Berlin. Stone Brewing is spending about $25 million on the project.

AS DEMAND GROWS, AMERICANBREWERIES SET UP SHOP IN EUROPE

By Michael FelberbaumThe Associated Press

BEER | Page B7