Business briefs

Gabelli names nominees

Investment manager Mario Gabelli is nominating Corning Natural Gas CEO Michael I. German and former CPI Corp. CEO James J. Abel for directors at Ampco-Pittsburgh. Mr. Gabelli and his affiliates own 17.2 percent of the Pittsburgh industrial products company’s shares. Mr. Gabelli also submitted a proposal to require all of the company’s

directors to be elected annually.

GNC cash dividend authorized

The board of directors for Pittsburgh-based GNC Holdings has authorized a first-quarter cash dividend of 16 cents per share of the company’s common stock, which will be paid on or about March 28.

PLS opening S. Side office

Cranberry-based PLS Logistics Services is opening a satellite office on Pittsburgh’s South Side, the company announced Friday. The company plans to hire about 100 people for the office on Wharton Street, which will be focused on sales.

Consumer sentiment lowers

The University of Michigan said its index of consumer sentiment dropped 1.3 points to 81.2 in January, up from a year ago, when the index was at 73.8.

Spending up; income static

Consumer spending rose 0.4 percent in December from November, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Income, however, showed no gain at all. For all of 2013, income growth was 2.8 percent, the weakest performance since 2009 when income fell 2.8 percent as the country struggled with a deep recession.

Twitter purchases patents

Twitter has bought 900 patents from IBM, and the companies have entered into a crosslicense agreement. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp. holds more than 41,000 patents and received a total of 6,809 last year.