Principal Financial Group

Touchstone Investments said Wednesday that it has purchased the two-building Anaheim Technology Center for $11.6 million from owner Principal Financial Group. The privately held real estate investment company said in a press release that the 240,000 square feet in the business park is fully leased to such tenants as Nordstrom department store, Walt Disney Co. and KIK-FM. The year-old Touchstone plans to move rents up to market rates over the next 24 months and sell or develop 2.

The Irvine Co. has added two more buildings to its holdings in the Silicon Valley. The company said Wednesday it has purchased two fully leased research and development buildings in Sunnyvale from the Principal Financial Group, bringing its Silicon Valley industrial portfolio to almost 1 million square feet. Company officials declined to disclose the price. One 65,000-square-foot building on a 4.3-acre site is leased to biomedical company Diagnostic Reagents Inc.

PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. agreed to sell its FHP of Illinois health plan to a Principal Financial Group unit, the companies said. Terms weren't disclosed. Cypress-based PacifiCare said it decided to sell the Illinois plan because it had to be allied with a larger company to remain competitive. The 76,000 members of FHP of Illinois will become members of Principal Health Care.

CareMore, a Cerritos-based health maintenance organization, is on a hiring binge that will require it to double its headquarters space in March. The company, which caters to Medicare recipients, has hired 220 employees since September and plans to add as many as 275 more next year, said Dawn Maroney, chief sales and marketing officer. CareMore has agreed to expand from 60,000 square feet to about 142,000 square feet in a lease valued at about $12 million. The company will grow into space in an adjacent building at 12898 Towne Center Drive, which is owned by Principal Financial Group.

Investors stepped up Monday to bid aggressively for an insurance company's initial public stock offering, the second well-received offering in that sector in two weeks. Underwriters for health insurer Anthem Inc. boosted the size of the company's IPO for a second time and sold 48 million shares at $36 apiece, raising $1.73 billion. The stock will begin trading today on the NYSE under the ticker symbol ATH.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, after unveiling a 21st Century Contract with America in an attempt to breathe life into his presidential bid, grew churlish when asked how his fundraising was going in advance of a key deadline. "See, I knew you couldn't resist. I'm not going to answer you," Gingrich said, speaking to reporters in an auditorium at Principal Financial Group. "You should really go home and think about why you would even ask that today. " Friday is the deadline for third-quarter fundraising, and the subsequent reporting will be used to gauge the health of the campaigns.

A large majority of workers over 45 plan to stay on the job into their retirement years, with 80% saying most people can't afford to quit work altogether, according to a survey by the AARP. The survey, to be released today along with the organization's list of best companies for older employees, found that 69% of workers said they would keep working in retirement. About three-quarters of those surveyed said money is one of the major reasons they plan to continue working.

Travelers Property Casualty Corp.'s shares notched solid gains in Friday's trading debut, bucking the market's down trend, after the Citigroup Inc. unit generated $3.88 billion in the biggest U.S. initial public offering this year and the biggest insurance industry IPO ever. Travelers, which trades under the ticker symbol TAP/A, climbed $1.06 to close at $19.56 on the New York Stock Exchange. With trading volume of 86.2 million shares, it was by far the Big Board's most active issue.