NATIONAL

KESKEY’S DEPARTURE FROM BEST BUY A SURPRISE

The departure of the head of Best Buy’s American retail business in the midst of the busy holiday shopping season came as a surprise and left some market watchers wondering exactly what happened.

The consumer-electronics retailer announced yesterday that Michael P. Keskey, president of Best Buy’s American retail stores, left the company Friday. He was replaced by Brian J. Dunn, who was named president of North American retail.

Mr. Dunn, 44, had been executive vice president of Best Buy’s American retail sales since 2002. He joined Best Buy in 1985 as a sales consultant.

Mr. Keskey left for personal reasons, a Best Buy spokeswoman, Sue Busch said, adding that she didn’t know if he was asked to leave or where he might work next. Mr. Keskey, 50, had been with the retailer for 17 years, starting his career at a store in Milwaukee, Ms. Busch said. He had been president of Best Buy’s American retail stores since February 2002, she said.

“It does raise an eyebrow that the head of North American retail has left the company in the middle of the holiday season,” FTN Midwest Research analyst Daryl Boehringer said. “I view it as negative press release in terms of the timing in the holiday season.”

– Dow Jones Newswires

RITE AID EX-COUNSEL BROWN, 76, WINS DELAY OF 10-YEAR JAIL TERM

Franklin Brown, the 76-year-old former chief counsel of Rite Aid Corporation, won a delay of his 10-year prison term until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of federal sentencing guidelines.

U.S. District Judge Sylvia Rambo stayed the term she imposed October 14 on Brown. He was convicted of conspiring to obstruct justice and inflate earnings at Rite Aid, the no. 3 American drugstore chain. Brown, who got the most serious term of six Rite Aid executives sentenced, was slated to enter prison by December 13.

Brown’s attorneys asked for a delay until the Supreme Court rules on the guidelines that govern 64,000 federal criminal cases every year, including Brown’s.

At his sentencing hearing, Brown’s lawyers called him a “cardiovascular time bomb” who had a pacemaker and heart stent implanted. They said a long term would be a death sentence.

The Rite Aid fraud led the company to erase $1.6 billion in profit in July 2000. Mr. Rambo had sentenced former Chief Executive Officer Martin Grass to eight years.

– Bloomberg News

LOCAL

CHARTWELL’S TODD BERMAN ADMITS STEALING $3.6 MILLION

Chartwell Investments co-founder Todd Berman pleaded guilty to federal charges accusing him of stealing $3.6 million from his private equity firm, his partner, and an investor, prosecutors said.

Berman, who resigned from Chartwell in October 2003, stole $2.1 million from the firm between 2001 and last year, interim U.S. Attorney David Kelley said in a statement. He also charged hundreds of personal expenses totaling at least $1.5 million to Chartwell and to companies it invested in, Mr. Kelley said.

Berman, 47, faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced March 9. Manhattan federal prosecutors filed the charges against Berman yesterday.

“In order to conceal his transfers from his partner and Chartwell’s investor, Berman instructed Chartwell’s accountants not to inform anyone about the transfers and provided his partner and Chartwell’s investor with false financial information,” Mr. Kelley said.

Prosecutors didn’t disclose the name of the investor or the partner from whom Berman stole. Chartwell partners Michael Shein and William Reid told investors yesterday that they alerted prosecutors to the theft. They noted that Berman is obliged to pay about $3.1 million in restitution, under the terms of his guilty plea.

– Bloomberg News