INSURANCE

State finds forgotten pensioners owed money by MetLife

Massachusetts regulators said they have located hundreds of local residents who are due pension payments from MetLife, after the insurance giant had said in December that it had been unable to find pensioners for policies it issued years ago. Secretary of State William F. Galvin said his office managed to locate a majority of the forgotten pensioners, upwards of 400, in less than two months, after first requesting and getting a list of the customers from MetLife. “These were not people that had mysteriously disappeared,’’ Galvin said. “They hadn’t moved. They were people who were still active at the address we had for them and the address MetLife gave us. They should not have been that hard to find.’’ The missing pensioners have turned into a major problem for MetLife, which said it has received inquiries from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and New York State financial regulators. In February MetLife disclosed it had failed to pay approximately 13,500 pensioners monthly allowances for the last quarter of a century. “This is not our finest hour,’’ chief executive Steven A. Kandarian said to analysts during a Feb. 14 call on the company’s earnings. “We had an operational failure that never should have happened and it is deeply embarrassing.’’ Kandarian acknowledged the company’s past practice of trying to reach missing pensioners twice — first at age 65, and second when the minimum distribution is due at age 70.5 — “was no longer sufficient.’’ He said MetLife has since expanded its search methods, including “additional mailings, certified mailings, phone calls, and the use of additional third-party firms specializing in locating missing participants.’’ Also Thursday, MetLife confirmed that the executive who oversaw the benefits unit at the center of the problem, Robin Lenna, announced her retirement after 14 years as executive vice president of retirement and income solutions. — MARGEAUX SIPPELL

TRANSPORTATION

Proposed gondola in the Seaport would have about 70 cable cars

The proposed gondola system on the South Boston Waterfront would include a hulking terminal above Summer Street near South Station, 13 large towers spanning the one-mile route to the marine industrial park, and about 70 cable cars that could fit 10 passengers each, running every nine seconds. These are some of the details — and images — included in a presentation a development team gave to city officials in January, about one of the more novel solutions proposed for Boston’s infamous traffic to come along in years. The presentation included striking renderings of three stations on the proposed route. They show a system that fluctuates in height — higher than five-story buildings in some areas, elsewhere dipping down closer to street level to be out of the line of hotel rooms that are planned along the route. Millennium Partners, the big-time development company behind several major downtown towers, and its affiliate Cargo Ventures propose to build a $100 million gondola line as a transit option in the booming and increasingly congested Seaport District. It would help connect South Station to the 12-acre site in the marine industrial park where Cargo Ventures plans to build a large complex. The developers acknowledge a number of challenges, especially related to installing the tall poles that would be needed along the gondola route. Some of the towers could affect utilities, traffic signals, and a bus stop, while the gondola station near South Station could affect parking spaces for the handicapped. The idea is also running into resistance from some transit advocates who say they would prefer that the city and state governments implement bus-only lanes on Summer Street or increase the frequency of MBTA Silver Line buses that run through the Seaport. They worry that building a gondola system could interfere with future bus lanes. — ADAM VACCARO

TECHNOLOGY

Chairman and CEO of Avid ousted

Burlington-based Avid Technology on Monday said that it had ousted chairman and chief executive Louis Hernandez Jr. (left) over allegations of inappropriate behavior in the workplace. Avid, whose products help users create and edit movies and music, said it had fired Hernandez for “violations of company policies related to workplace conduct.’’ The publicly traded company did not elaborate on the allegations, but said the conduct was not related to Avid’s finances. The move comes at a time of heightened awareness over workplace behavior, with business figures facing discipline or removal for actions that range from overly demanding treatment of staffers to outright sexual misconduct. In Hernandez’s case, Avid said it hired an outside lawyer to help with an investigation into allegations about his conduct. The board eventually concluded that “the findings warranted immediate termination of Mr. Hernandez’s employment.’’ Jeff Rosica, Avid’s president, will take over as chief executive. Hernandez, who could not be reached for comment, became chief executive in February of 2013. By then, he had been on Avid’s board for five years. He got the job after­ his predecessor resigned, and weeks later the company announced it was reckoning with accounting problems that would eventually lead to its stock being temporarily delisted. Despite making a well-known product, Pro Tools, Avid has struggled in a slow-growing industry. — ANDY ROSEN

HEALTH CARE

State to close Lemuel Shattuck Hospital

The state plans to close the 64-year-old Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain and move its inpatient services across town to the Boston Medical Center campus. State officials said that modernizing the hospital or building a new facility at the existing site would cost $400 million to $500 million. Buying and renovating a building owned by Boston Medical Center, the Newton Pavilion, will cost about half that, they said. The move, planned for 2021, will also allow for closer collaboration with BMC, one of the city’s largest teaching ­hospitals. The Shattuck, located on Morton Street near Forest Hills Station, has 260 medical and psychiatric beds and ­employs 700 people. It provides care for some of the state’s most vulnerable patients, including the poor and homeless, as well as for Department of Correction prisoners. The state said it does not anticipate layoffs, but the fate of outpatient ­programs on the property is unclear. — LIZ KOWALCZYK

E-COMMERCE

Amazon to lease massive office in Seaport, hire at least 2,000

Amazon is poised to lease a massive new office in the Seaport District and hire at least 2,000 more employees in Boston over the next few years, Mayor Martin J. Walsh said Tuesday. If the deal closes as expected, it would nearly triple the e-commerce giant’s workforce in Boston and Cambridge, and make the company one of the region’s biggest private employers. According to documents filed with the city last week, Amazon is in nego-tiations to rent a building in the planned Seaport Square project along Congress Street, with an option to lease a second neighboring building for more growth. Developer WS Development said it could start construction on the first building this summer, and have it ready in 2021. While the expansion is not Amazon’s so-called second headquarters — that prize is still being sought by Boston and other cities around the country — the project has the potential to make Boston one of Amazon’s largest outposts beyond the company’s Seattle base, and further boost the city’s already robust tech economy. If Amazon fills both buildings, it would be able to add as many as 4,000 jobs in Boston over the next several years in the heart of the booming Seaport District. Most of the well-paying positions likely would be in technology-related areas such as robotics, cloud computing, and voice-activated systems. — TIM LOGAN