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YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com
June 17, 2013 | VOL. 49, No. 24
Varta charges into rye
INSIDE
German battery maker expands regional footprint
AG URGES ELECTION CHANGES • 8
HV
BY BILL FaLLON bfallon@westfairinc.com
F
ew cameras in history have borne the must-perform pressure of Neil Armstrong’s Hasselblad, the first camera on the moon. That same pressure – including the Gs of liftoff and the airless, irradiated hell of the lunar surface – rested squarely on the camera’s battery. If that battery failed there would be, in nonNASA parlance, some explaining to do. The battery was a VARTA. It worked perfectly. The Apollo XI need for reliable batteries has skyrocketed since 1969; today, there are 10 billion battery-driven devices. VARTA Microbattery Inc., which on June 10 opened its North- and South American headquarters in the International Corporate Center at 555 Theodore Fremd Ave. in Rye, remains tethered to
GOOD THINGS HAPPENING • 30
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VARTA, page 6
Peter Fleiss of Corporate Angel Network
Legitimate thrashing
Cage matches eye last holdout states BY PaTRIcK GaLLaGHER pgallagher@westfairinc.com
figHT ProMoTers CHeered the passage of a bill to legalize mixed martial arts in Connecticut, predicting the oft-controversial but fast-growing sport could help generate millions of dollars in new tourism revenues. While mixed martial arts (MMA) isn’t a done deal until Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signs the bill into law – which he hadn’t done as of June 12 – several of the sport’s leading promoters were already beginning to ratchet up lobbying efforts in New
York, which, aside from Connecticut, is the only state that prohibits professional MMA fights. “I know New York likes to think of itself as a leader but when it comes to the fastest growing sport in the nation, New York is now the only outlier,” said Lorenzo Fertitta, chairman and CEO of The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is the country’s largest promoter of MMA fights. MMA features unarmed combat that can involve different techniques from various martial arts disciplines. New York state permits amateur Cage, page 6
SPECIAL REPORT: ELDER CARE • 19