Chester County daily news business briefs include these top stories:

Endo Selling Shares To Finance Acquisition Binge

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday Endo International (NASDAQ: ENDP) “plans to offer at least $1.75 billion of common shares to help fund its planned $8 billion acquisition of privately held Par Pharmaceutical Cos. as well as other purposes.”

Endo, who’s US headquarters (above) in Malvern sits aside an old quarry near the Route 29 Pennsylvania Turnpike slip-ramp, plans to acquire the New York-based generic drug maker, for $6.5 billion in cash and about $1.5 billion in stock. The deal would roughly double Endo’s generics revenue.

The acquisition is the latest in a string of purchases for Endo. Earlier this year Endo bought Malvern-based Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $2.6 billion, and it completed a deal to buy DAVA Pharmaceuticals of New Jersey last August.

Click here to read more about Endo’s financing plans on the Wall Street Journal.

Pennsylvania Rents Out Of Reach For Many Hourly Wage Earners

A study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that the average hourly wage needed to rent a $1,006 two-bedroom unit in Pennsylvania is is $17.57 — or $36,545 per year.

That’s more than two times the federal minimum wage, the report noted, and $2 over the estimated average wage of $15.16 that renters earn nationwide.

Pennsylvania rents ranked 20th in the nation behind Illinois, Rhode Island, and Nevada.

The map show how much hourly employees would have to make in order to avoid spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent, a historically recommended ratio, Huffington Post notes, that’s increasingly hard to maintain in today’s housing market.

The wage figures on the map also assumes that an employee is being paid for 40 hours per week every week of the year, when many hourly employees are not paid for sick leave, national holidays, or vacation time.

Victory Out Brews Delaware Valley Top Craft Brewer Ranking

Two Chester County craft beer brewers, Downingtown’s Victory Brewing and little known Evil Genius Beer Company operating out of West Grove, made Philadelphia Business Journals (subscription required) list of top Delaware Valley breweries included in the business paper’s May 29th edition.

The list, which ranked craft beer brewers by number of barrels brewed in 2014, placed Victory Brewing in first place at 125,000 barrels produced last year.

Evil Genius, at just 2,880 barrels, came in a distant, distant 7th on the list of twelve Philadelphia area brewers.

Philadelphia-based Yards Brewing Company at 38,000 barrels and Lancaster Brewing Company at 12,500 barrels took up second and third position on PBJ’s list.

Iron Hill Brewery, headquartered in Delaware but with a significant Chester County presence in both West Chester and Phoenixville, produced 8,100 barrels last year, earning it the 4th spot on PBJ’s list.

Pottstown’s Sly Fox Brewery did not respond to PBJ’s inquiries in time and was not included in the list.