Business briefs

Oakland tech firm partners with Yelp

Oakland-based tech firm NoWait Inc. announced it has partnered with Yelp Inc. to allow consumers with the Yelp app to check wait times and electronically get in line at casual dining eateries. Yelp will be making an $8 million strategic investment in NoWait as part of the agreement. Other investors in the company include Drive Capital and Birchmere Ventures. Nowait’s announcement indicated the host app is used in more than 4,000 restaurants nationally, including chains such as Chili’s and First Watch. The company said its app is used to seat more than 30 million guests every month. Yelp Inc., which claims millions of users, is known for userposted reviews of everything from restaurants to dentists.

Chesapeake Energy abandoning birthplace of shale revolution

Chesapeake Energy Corp. agreed to give away its Barnett Shale holdings to a private-equity backed operator, exiting the birthplace of the shale revolution to escape almost $2 billion in onerous pipeline contracts. Chesapeake will convey all interests in the Barnett region in North Texas to First Reserve Corp.backed Saddle Operating LLC. Quitting the gas fields will slash Chesapeake’s shipping and processing

costs by $715 million between now and the end of 2017 and eliminate a total of $1.9 billion in long-term pipeline agreements. Battered by cratering fuel prices, credit downgrades and a shareholder revolt that cost the company founder his job, Chesapeake has been shedding fields, cutting jobs and exchanging stock for debt to revive the second-largest U.S. gas supplier. The company will receive no proceeds from Saddle for handing over the Barnett assets, which in late July were estimated to be worth as much as $1 billion.

Tight job market putting slack employers at risk

Almost one of every four employees loses interest in an opening if they don’t hear back from a prospective employer within a week of being interviewed, according to a survey by staffing firm Robert Half. Make that two weeks of waiting, and the share jumps to 46 percent. Further, 39 percent of people surveyed said they’d move on to chase other openings when faced with a lengthy hiring process. “They have options, they want to move quickly,” said John Reed, senior executive director of the technology staffing division at Robert Half, the world’s largest specialized staffing company. The survey of more than 1,000 U.S. professionals was done in June.

Investor Bill Miller leaves Legg Mason after 35 years

Bill Miller is leaving Baltimore-based Legg Mason after more than three decades. The stock picker, famed for beating the S&P 500 Index for 15 straight years when he ran the Legg Mason Value Trust, will buy Legg Mason’s stake in LMM, an investment adviser that he and the company jointly own. LMM oversees $1.8 billion in assets, including the $1.3 billion Legg Mason Opportunity Trust, the Miller Income Opportunity Trust and related strategies. The buyout severs the last ties between Legg Mason and Mr. Miller, who for a long time served as the public persona of the company. Mr. Miller, a value investor known for his bullish views of the economy and stock markets, started Legg Mason’s first mutual fund, the Value Trust, and became a star when he beat the market every year from 1991 through 2005. He became mired in the worst slump of his career when he wagered heavily on financial stocks during the 2008 financial crisis.

Karma to challenge Tesla with solar-boosted hybrid

Karma Automotive LLC, the Chinese-owned carmaker once knows as Fisker Automotive, has taken another step in its resurrection with the online reveal of its plug-in hybrid sedan that seeks to compete with Tesla’s Model S electric car. The rebooted automaker has revealed the all-new Revero, which will cost more than the $115,000 sticker price on the original Fisker Karma when deliveries begin no later than next year’s first quarter. The car will be able to go about 50 miles (80 kilometers) in pure electric drive before a gasoline engine kicks in, said Chief Revenue Officer Jim Taylor. It also has a solar panel on the roof that can charge the battery, he said.

Arianna Huffington signs off at The Huffington Post

Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s editor-inchief, announced that she’s leaving to head a new health, wellbeing and productivity startup, Thrive Global. The one-time conservative commentator oversaw explosive growth at the liberal online news and blog site that she co-founded in 2005, which went on to win a Pulitzer in less than a decade. The site is known for its celebrity and newsmaker blogs and was a pioneer in the “aggregation” model in online news, posting stories that relied on articles and information from different news organizations as well as its own contributors. It was criticized for that practice. The site still has plenty of news from others, but it’s also invested in original reporting.