Longtime Des Moines car dealership owner Bob Brown, 91, died Sunday at his home. Brown was born in Norden, Neb. He worked in an assembly plant in Detroit and became general manager of Hanley-Dawson Chevrolet before moving to Des Moines and purchasing Paul Manning Chevrolet at 11th and Locust streets in 1961. Bob Brown Chevrolet on Merle Hay Road has been in existence since 1967. Brown was a Mason and member of the Za-Ga-Zig Shrine and the Wakonda Club. A visitation is tomorrow from 5 to 7 p.m. at Iles Funeral Homes – Westover Chapel. The funeral will be on Thursday at 11 a.m.

Last week, the Iowa Power Fund approved contract terms for three projects requesting nearly $500,000 in funding, with more than $2.2 million in matching funds. The companies and their projects receiving approval are Carbon-Free Energy, to design and test vertical axis wind turbine prototypes for small-scale wind energy (awarded $250,000, with $171,885 in matching funds); Indigo Dawn LLC, to design, construct and operate a commercial building at a 75 percent energy-efficiency improvement over Iowa energy code standards (awarded $225,000, with $1.99 million in matching funds); and Consumers Energy Cooperative, to retrofit and test a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (awarded $19,000, with $81,205 in matching funds).

Principal Financial Group Inc. will raise $750 million through senior notes to refinance $441 million of notes due Aug. 15 and to fund general corporate purposes. The pricings are a total of $400 million for five-year fixed-rate senior notes with a coupon rate of 7.875 percent, and $350 million for 10-year fixed-rate senior notes with a coupon rate of 8.875 percent. Last week Principal announced that it planned to raise about $1 billion in a public stock offering for general corporate purposes.

American Equity Investment Life Holding Co. has entered into an agreement to exchange 5 million shares of the company’s stock at par value $1 per share for $37.158 million principal amount of the company’s outstanding 5.25 percent senior notes due 2024, it reported in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing yesterday. American Equity will not receive any cash proceeds as a result of the exchange agreement. The outstanding principal balance of the notes will be $144.766 million. Any accrued and unpaid interest due to the holder on the notes will be paid in cash.

In a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, a group of about 300 Chrysler LLC dealers from 45 states asked to delay the sale of most of the automaker’s assets to give the dealerships that the automaker wants to end contracts with more time to fight the rejections. Attorneys from Squire Sanders Dempsey LLP in New York filed the request today. Stephen Lerner, an attorney representing the dealer group, argued that Chrysler is manufacturing urgency and won’t suffer if the dealers that don’t cost the company money remain open. The filing also claims that the contract cancellations violate state laws. Chrysler asked the court for permission to cancel 789 dealership agreements last week.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley have asked the Federal Reserve if they can repay a combined $20 billion in federal bailout money, but no decision has been made yet, according to two people familiar with the matter, the Associated Press reported. The two financial firms and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have said they want to repay their share of the $700 billion government bailout so they can operate without government regulations on executive pay and other restrictions tied to the Troubled Asset Relief Program. All three banks declined to comment. If approved, Goldman and Morgan would be among the first of the nine largest banks that initially received bailout money to repay the government funds. Twelve smaller banks have returned nearly $1.2 billion.