Duke Energy closes deals to repurchase 19.5M shares

On Monday, Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) closed deals to repurchase about 19.5 million shares of its outstanding stock from Goldman Sachs & Co. & JPMorgan Chase Bank.

The $1.5 billion paid for the deals comes from Duke’s $2.8 billion sale of its interests in 11 commercial plants in the Midwest and Pennsylvania. That deal with Dynegy Inc. closed April 2.

Under the terms of the agreements, filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Charlotte-based Duke will pay each financial institution…

Under Armour's Kevin Plank backs startup that will provide sports scores for Sinclair

Under Armour Inc. CEO Kevin Plank and Millennial Media founder Paul Palmieri are among the investors in a $2 million fundraising round by San Diego startup ScoreStream Inc.

The seed round was led by the newly launched Sinclair Digital Ventures, a division of Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. ScoreStream, founded in 2012, will use the new financing to expand the company’s crowdsourcing platform for high school sports.

ScoreStream gives live scores and photos from high school sports…

If baseball teams were housing markets…

If baseball teams were ranked based on their hometown housing markets, then the closest opening day matchup Monday is the Mets and the Nats.

The National Association of Realtors breaks down home prices and price gains in the 16 cities playing baseball today, and it says based on median home-price data, New York’s $390,000 median sales price is the closest to its opening day foe, the Washington Nationals, with a hometown median price of $372,800.

The biggest difference is San Francisco and Phoenix,…

Maximus completes $300M Acentia acquisition

About 1,000 workers in Northern Virginia have a new boss today.

Reston-based Maximus Inc. has completed its acquisition of Falls Church-based technology contractor Acentia.

It is the latest in a string of acquisitions among mid-tier contractors.

Maximus acquired the company for $300 million from private equity firm Snow Phipps Group LLC. The deal adds Acentia’s systems modernization, software development, program management and other IT work with federal government and civilian health agencies.

Maximus…

Navy Federal tops $1B in monthly mortgage activity

Navy Federal Credit Union says mortgage closings topped $1 billion in March, the highest monthly lending volume in the credit union’s history.

It says more than half of those mortgages were to first time homebuyers, bucking the national trend of low first time buyer volume. Nationwide, the National Association of Realtors says first time buyers account for about 29 percent of sales right now.

“Our goal is to bring awareness and opportunity to these young members,” says Navy Federal vice president…