Sonic Corp., the nation's largest chain of drive-in restaurants, today announced that its Board of Directors has increased the amount available under the company's stock repurchase authorization from $10.7 million to a total of $100 million. The expiration date for the current stock repurchase program, at the newly authorized amount, remains August 31, 2007.

The American Stock Exchange(R) (Amex(R)) today listed the common stock of Challenger Energy Corp. under the ticker symbol CHQ. Challenger Energy Corp. is a Canadian company engaged in oil and gas exploration, with its primary emphasis on high impact opportunities offshore Nova Scotia and Trinidad and Tobago. Challenger will begin a three well back- to-back drilling program offshore Trinidad and Tobago with Amex-listed Canadian Superior Energy as the operator. The first well is scheduled to commence by the end of March 2007.

Alpine Woods Capital Investors, LLC announced today that it has successfully completed its second closed-end fund offering, the Alpine Total Dynamic Dividend Fund. The Fund began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on January 26, 2007 under the symbol AOD.

The Mexico Fund, Inc. announced today that it has paid to stockholders the recently announced distribution, which was comprised of cash and/or shares and payable on January 23, 2007 to stockholders of record as of December 29, 2006.

Private equity managers generated strong results over the past year, with both buyout and venture capital funds generating double digit returns, reports Mercer Investment Consulting (Mercer IC) in its January Private Equity newsletter. Fueled by one of the strongest merger and acquisition markets since 2001, buyout funds performed exceptionally well over the last year, posting returns above 25%, said Mercer IC, adding that these results were led by the performance of mega buyout managers. The venture capital sector posted a respectable return of 15.6%, although overall IPO volume activity was lackluster.

American Capital Strategies Ltd. announced today that it and an affiliate have invested $411 million in the One Stop Buyout(TM) of WIS International, a leading global provider of outsourced inventory management services. American Capital's investment takes the form of a senior term B loan, senior subordinated debt, holding company PIK notes and common and redeemable preferred equity. American Capital is also providing a revolving credit facility.

Weingarten Realty Investors announced today that it has priced 8,000,000 depositary shares with an aggregate public offering price of $200 million, each representing a one-one hundredth (1/100) fractional interest in a share of the Company's 6.50% Series F Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Shares.

Xinhua Finance and Milken Institute today released updated values for their Chinese Initial Public Offering (IPO) Indicator and Renminbi Pressure Indicator (RPI). The IPO Indicator rose nearly 20% in December, mainly due to the continued strong performance of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC/Code: A Share, 601398; H Share, 1398). The RPI continued its upward trend, increasing 0.86 percent in October, a slight acceleration from its 0.75 percent rise over the previous month.

Fastenal Company announced today that its board of directors has authorized purchases by the company of up to an additional 1,000,000 shares of its common stock in transactions on THE NASDAQ or otherwise. Fastenal Company has approximately 151 million shares of common stock outstanding.