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Here is a tale of savvy branding, chutzpah, bubbles - and a mask.

Tonight, when ABC airs a special edition of its hit show “The Bachelorette,” a surreptitious form of advertising will work its way into the program.

Jeff Medolla, the Clayton entrepreneur known to “Bachelorette” viewers as “masked Jeff” or just “the guy in the mask,” will return for the “Men Tell All” episode, during which the men kicked off the show during the regular season gather for a postmortem of sorts.

The show will give Medolla, 35, yet more air time, he hopes, to give his latest venture a bigger buzz.

Late last year, Medolla helped launch Freaky Muscato, a sparkling, bubbly wine made by Ste. Genevieve-based Crown Valley Winery. His masked-man semi-fame, which for a time became fodder for late-night talk shows and reality show blogs, has helped him get the word out.

“As soon as you get kicked off the show, no one wants to talk to you. But I had the mask. I had 15 radio stations and 20 magazines calling me,” Medolla said in a recent

interview. “I have this opportunity to go promote the wine. I’m not just any guy.”

Medolla says he conceived of the whole mask-donning concept as a way to promote Freaky. “It was a joke with a cool message,” he said. “But I also did it for business.”

Freaky, a bubbly blend of muscato grapes, appears to be the lucky beneficiary of some oddball circumstances - and not just Medolla’s notoriety. Freaky’s association with local hip-hop artists the St. Lunatics lends the brand street cred among hip-hop fans, its target audience. Also, the growing popularity of muscato (also know as moscato or muscat) is appealing to people who want to “trade down” from other sparkling wines in a less-than-sparkling economy.

“Muscatos are the hottest thing going,” said Bryan Siddle, operations manager at Crown Valley.

Freaky seems to be riding high on the trend. “I’m buying 50 cases at time,” says Jase Bennett, a wine buyer at Randall’s Wine and Spirits.

“It sells very well.”

Wine industry analysts said they know of only one other hip-hop wine venture - rapper Lil Jon’s Little Jonathan Winery - but the wine-rapper pairing might be the start of larger movement.

“I think it’s a unique idea. Just given wine and the hip-hop community, it’s not their typical choice,” said Derek Groff, of Frank, Rimerman & Co., a wine-focused accounting and consulting firm in California’s Napa Valley.

“The hip-hop community has been a trendsetter for decades now. Whether it’s clothes or drinks, they’re using their leverage with new brands. Maybe the next phase will be wine.”

The idea for Freaky was born, Medolla recalled, as he was driving down the highway listening to music - country music, oddly. But his mind, apparently, was on hip-hop.

“In all of hip-hop music they use the word

The economy is at risk of slipping into another recession.

It nearly stalled in the first six months of the year, the government reported Friday. Economic growth was feeble in the second quarter and practically nonexistent in the first no fax payday advances.

The new picture of an economy far weaker than most analysts had expected suddenly made a second recession a more serious threat

Medical device maker Boston Scientific is reporting a nearly 50 percent increase in second-quarter profit and says it will cut up to 1,400 employees to streamline operations.

The company is announcing a restructuring program to eliminate unnecessary administrative positions and automate other production work. The company expects to shed between 1,200 and 1,400 employees by the end of 2013. Boston Scientific expects the cuts to save between $225 and $275 million annually, some of which will be invested in other areas of the company.

For the second quarter, the Natick, Mass., company earned $146 million, or 10 cents per share, up from $98 million, or 6 cents per share, in the prior-year period.

Company sales grew 2 percent to $1.98 billion, which was above Wall Street estimates.

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Ford’s ambitious plans to grow in Asia took a toll on its second-quarter profit, with higher costs to design and sell cars offsetting rising sales.

The company’s net income fell 8 percent to $2.4 billion for the April-June period. Ford blamed higher prices for steel and other commodities, but also said that after years of restructuring, the company is strong enough to spend heavily on future growth. Ford spent $400 million more on engineering and advertising new vehicles than it did a year earlier.

“That’s the new thing for Ford, that we are investing in the future,” Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said.

Rival Chrysler Group also took a hit, reporting a loss of $370 million in the quarter. Like Ford, Chrysler said the loss was a sign of a healthier balance sheet. Without a $551 million accounting charge for refinancing bailout debts to the U.S. and Canadian governments, Chrysler would have earned $181 million.

Ford’s worldwide sales were up 7 percent. Revenue rose 13 percent to $35.5 billion. But the company warned last month that its profit could slip, citing investments in future products.

Investment in Asia is the next step in President and CEO Alan Mulally’s plan to move beyond the company’s near collapse in 2006, when it took out $23 billion in loans to restructure. Since then, it has cut costs and sunk billions into improving Ford cars, resulting in nine straight quarterly profits. Now, the company aims to expand its business in Asia, where it’s dwarfed by General Motors Co.

Ford plans to roll out 15 cars in India and China over the next four years, and as a result, it’s spending hundreds of millions more on product development than it did a year ago. In Asia, Ford reported a pretax profit of just $1 million, down $112 million from the same time last year. The company also took a hit because some of its hottest cars are smaller and less profitable than its older models, like the $8,000 Figo in India. It hopes to make up for that by selling more cars.

An investment now could mean a windfall for Ford later. GM sells three times more cars in China than Ford does in all of Asia, and GM booked a $600 million profit in its international operations _ which includes Asia _ in the first quarter cash advance companies. Ford currently controls less than 3 percent of the market in both India and China, but wants to increase its sales by 50 percent by mid-decade.

Ford also said it is spending more on production to meet post-recession demand in the U.S., where people are expected to buy nearly 2 million more cars this year than they did last year. Ford projects that annual U.S. sales will be in the lower end of its 13 million to 13.5 million forecast. The company lowered its forecast for European sales, which were weakened by the debt crisis in the latest quarter. Ford now expects sales no higher than 15.3 million vehicles, down from 15.5 million.

One reason sales softened in the U.S. was a lack of discounts. Both Ford and Chrysler were able to command higher prices for their cars and trucks last quarter, partly because of tight supplies of Japanese cars following an earthquake in that nation.

Chrysler’s average selling price rose nearly 5 percent from a year earlier to $29,964 while Ford’s rose 1 percent to $31,179, according to Edmunds.com automotive website. Both spent less on rebates and other deals.

While Chrysler was focused on paying off its government loans, Ford paid $2.6 billion of its own debt during the quarter. The company now has $14 billion in debt, a legacy of its 2006 restructuring. Ford hopes its steady reduction in debt will convince ratings agencies to return the company to investment-grade status, which would make it cheaper to borrow money.

Ford may not have to wait long. Standard and Poor’s Ratings Service said the company’s “financial performance is tracking levels consistent with a higher rating,” although it said it is waiting to act until Ford completes contract talks with the United Auto Workers union. Ford and the UAW are expected to kick off negotiations on a new four-year contract this Friday.

GM is scheduled to release its second-quarter earnings Aug. 4.

Ford shares fell 30 cents, or 2 percent, to $12.89 in afternoon trading.

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GE Healthcare, a maker of diagnostic imaging equipment, said Monday it is moving its X-ray global headquarters from the United States to Beijing as it seeks to tap China and other emerging markets.

The General Electric Co. unit is the first business of the industrial and financial giant to relocate to China.

Anne LeGrand, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare Global X-Ray, told a news conference that the decision to move from Waukesha, Wisconsin, was made two years ago and will be completed by early fall.

She said “there is certainly the opportunity” to move other GE Healthcare units to China, but that is “something that we will continue to evaluate.”

The move involves LeGrand and a handful of her top managers. In an interview, she said they will add other people to the team as they expand in China, but no jobs will be lost.

The move follows an announcement last year that GE plans to invest $2 billion in China, including $500 million in six research centers, one of which GE X-ray is developing in Chengdu in central China. The company has already hired “close to 100 engineers” for the center in Chengdu, LeGrand said.

Rachel Duan, president and CEO of GE Healthcare China, said they plan to launch more than 20 new products in China over the next two years. Some 70 percent of those will be aimed at general medical professionals who make up the primary healthcare sector.

Duan said they will be developed for customers in China, “but we see a potential down the road for exporting to some of the other emerging markets.”

LeGrand said some of the products they had developed in China were now being sold elsewhere, such as the Ling Long digital X-ray, now being sold in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. She said emerging markets represented “double digit growth” for GE’s X-ray business.

Over the past two decades, GE Healthcare China has focused on the high-end market in cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou and selling to large hospitals. Now they also intend to focus on the primary care sector in poorer parts of the country, including rural areas, Duan said.

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Latch on early to a growing market. Relentlessly drive down costs. Research and innovate. Take large but calculated risks. Wait for your competition to weaken, then gobble them up.

Over 25 years, that formula took Express Scripts from a five-person startup in 1986 to a company with $45 billion in revenue and 14,000 employees.

Three times, in 1998, 1999 and 2009, the pharmacy benefits company bought competitors twice or nearly twice its size in bet-the-company gambles that paid off.

On Thursday, it made its biggest bet yet: the $29.1 billion purchase of Medco, its biggest rival.

If antitrust regulators approve, and executives can successfully knit the two firms together, it will become the banner corporate success story of the new century in St. Louis. The bold acquisition further provides a lesson for St. Louis in corporate Darwinism, analysts say.

“If you’re not one of the sharks, then you’re the food,” said analyst Juli Niemann of Smith Moore & Co. in Clayton.

St. Louis has its share of shark food; companies that grew fast in the 19th and early 20th century, only to atrophy once complacency set in.

May Department Stores stood idle as discounters stole business from old-fashioned department stores. It was swallowed by Federated Department Stores in 2005 online payday loan lenders.

The St. Louis banking business was almost entirely home-grown 20 years ago. Now it’s dominated by giant banks based elsewhere.

Anheuser-Busch may provide the most striking comparison to Express Scripts. One was flabby, and the other lean, says Keith Womer, dean of the business school at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

A-B dominated the American beer industry with nearly half the market. But that industry wasn’t growing, and the brewer sat back while competitors sought growing markets overseas. Eventually, one of those overseas giants, InBev, devoured Anheuser-Busch.

“A-B had gotten a little slow, a little comfortable in the way things had been,” Womer said. “If you walked into the executive suite at Anheuser-Busch, it was a very plush place. Walk in to the executive offices at Express Scripts, and you’re hard-pressed to tell the difference with any other office in the building.”

Other old-line companies survived by evolving, in some cases radically. Monsanto morphed from a chemical company to a plant biotech powerhouse in Creve Coeur. It’s now the biggest seed company in the country.

Starting from scratch

Express Scripts had no choice but to innovate

The U.S. government no longer owns a piece of Chrysler.

Italian automaker Fiat SpA paid $560 million for the government’s remaining 98,000 shares of Chrysler Group LLC, the U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday. Fiat has run the company since it emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2009.

U.S. taxpayers gave $12.5 billion to Chrysler and its financing arm after the recession hampered sales and brought Chrysler and General Motors Co. to the brink of collapse. The funds came from the government’s $700 billion bank bailout fund.

Under a bankruptcy deal, Fiat received a 20 percent stake in Chrysler for taking over management of the Detroit carmaker. The Italian automaker has gradually raised its stake in Chrysler, and Thursday’s purchase of the last U.S. shares, along with a small stake held by Canada, means Fiat owns 53.5 percent.

Now that Fiat has majority control of the company, CEO Sergio Marchionne, who runs both, plans to consolidate management. But he faces a thorny decision of where to place the corporate headquarters. Fiat is Italy’s largest employer and a source of national pride. U.S. politicians are likely to be upset if the new company is based in Turin, Italy, where Fiat is headquartered.

Chrysler has made a remarkable turnaround from two years ago, when it was bailed out. After cutting costs and reviving sales of Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Ram vehicles, the company earned net income of $116 million in the first quarter. It is forecasting profit of $200 million to $500 million this year.

Of the original bailout, $11.2 billion has been repaid. The Treasury says it likely won’t recover the remaining $1.3 billion. Chrysler also has repaid $5.1 billion in other loans from the government.

Fiat’s stake is likely to rise to 58.5 percent later this year when it begins making a car in the U.S. that gets 40 miles per gallon, a benchmark set by the U.S. government when Fiat took over Chrysler.

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Marlboro maker Altria Group says its net income fell about 57 percent in the second quarter on charges related to lease transactions by one of its subsidiaries.

The owner of the nation’s biggest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, reported Wednesday that it earned $444 million, or 21 cents per share, for the period ended June 30. That’s down from $1.04 billion, or 50 cents per share, last year.

Excluding one-time items, earnings were 53 cents per share, matching analyst estimates.

But revenue, excluding excise taxes, tumbled nearly 8 percent to $4 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $4.36 billion

The company, based in Richmond, Virginia, says it sold less than one percent fewer cigarettes than a year ago and 2 percent less smokeless tobacco like Copenhagen and Skoal.

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“Store closing” banners should soon go up outside the six remaining Borders stores in the St. Louis region.

The beleaguered bookseller announced this afternoon that it will ask a judge on Thursday to approve a sale to liquidators. Store closing sales at its remaining 399 stores could begin as soon as Friday.

At the beginning of this year, there were nine Borders in this area. Three of those locations — Chesterfield, St. Peters, and Ballwin — closed earlier this year after the company first filed for bankruptcy.

Now the six stores left in this region appear headed the way of their counterparts. The remaining stores are in Brentwood, Sunset Hills, Creve Coeur, Fairview Heights, Edwardsville, and South County cash advances pay day loan.

“Bam!” multimedia superstores have already claimed two of the vacant Borders — in Chesterfield and St. Peters. But I’m not sure if the Joplin-based company would be interested in the other Borders locations.

As I’ve mentioned before, Ross Dress for Less is reportedly looking around for other locations in the St. Louis region, so they might be interested in some of these spots. Or maybe Big Lots?

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Missouri’s fledgling solar power industry could be severely wounded by a recent court decision declaring that mandated rebates on solar installations violate the state constitution.

The $2-a-watt rebate, approved by Missouri voters in 2008, shaves thousands of dollars off the cost of solar energy systems