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US Nov durable goods orders grow 3.8%

by on December 24, 2011

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(MENAFN) The US Commerce Department said that in November, orders to US plants for durable goods grew 3.8 percent, recording the largest increase in four months, reported AP. The department added …

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US Nov durable goods orders grow 3.8%

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DTZ Research: Global debt funding gap in commercial property …

by Roger I. Abrams on June 4, 2011

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DTZ Research Global Debt Funding Gap May 2011 « FHO NewsWatch

June 4, 2011

At a country level, Japan has the largest absolute debt funding gap standing at US$84bn, a US$14bn increase from the previous report. This is the result of a greater amount of debt to commercial real estate (up 10% since …

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Video: Loopt’s Altman Says Groupon Partnership Looks Promising

May 28, 2011

May 27 (Bloomberg) — Sam Altman, chief executive officer of Loopt Inc., talks about the company’s agreement with Groupon Inc. Groupon, the largest provider of online daily deal coupons, plans to alert customers to nearby discounts using location data from Loopt’s mobile-phone application. Altman speaks with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: KBW”s Threadgold Sees Value in Tokio Marine, NKSJ, T&D

May 27, 2011

May 27 (Bloomberg) — David Threadgold, a Tokyo-based analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc., talks about the impact of Japan’s March 11 earthquake on insurers. Japan’s four largest life insurers, including Nippon Life Insurance Co., reported a 10.5 percent drop in combined full-year profit on claims following the quake. Threadgold speaks with Rishaad Salamat on Bloomberg Television’s “On the Move Asia.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Industry Veterans Join AfterCollege Advisory Board and Board of Directors

May 26, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – May 26, 2011) – AfterCollege, the largest career network for college students and recent graduates, today announced the appointment of Marcel Legrand, formerly of Monster.com, to its board of directors. In addition, AfterCollege is pleased to announce the appointment of John Fees to its board of advisors. Fees is an entrepreneur and thought leader in affinity and collegiate marketing.

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Video: Jacob Says LinkedIn’s Share Price `Difficult to Justify’

May 20, 2011

May 20 (Bloomberg) — Ryan Jacob, chairman of Jacob Asset Management and manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, talks about the outlook for LinkedIn Corp. following its initial public offering this week. LinkedIn is the largest professional-networking website. Jacob speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness with Margaret Brennan.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Smith Expects Period of Volatility in LinkedIn Stock

May 20, 2011

May 20 (Bloomberg) — Kathleen Shelton Smith, principal at Renaissance Capital LLC, discusses the outlook for LinkedIn Corp. stock. Shares of LinkedIn, the largest professional-networking website, more than doubled on its first trading day. Smith speaks with Betty Liu and Dominic Chu on Bloomberg Television’s “In The Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Sen. Ron Wyden: Fact-Checking the Oil Companies’ Defense of Taxpayer Subsidies

May 19, 2011

Just one week ago the American people heard executives from the top five oil companies stand-up and explain why — despite record profits — they need the federal government to give them a break on their taxes. We’re talking about the billions of dollars in tax incentives and assistance that oil companies get for drilling in the United States. These incentives were put in place long ago when the oil industry was just getting started. Today, these major oil companies are among the largest corporations in the entire world. That hasn’t been the case for awhile. In fact, in 2005, representatives of the country’s major oil companies told me that they no longer needed tax incentives to keep drilling in the U.S. because oil was selling for $55 a barrel and that price gave them more than enough financial incentive to keep drilling. Well, if the oil companies thought that $55 a barrel oil was enough to keep them drilling in 2005, it would seem safe to assume that with oil hovering around $100 a barrel today, they would no longer be asking for their tax incentives to keep drilling. That wasn’t the case at last week’s hearing. So what’s changed since 2005? Why are some of the largest and most profitable companies in the world still telling Congress that they still need government assistance? Let’s break it down. Claim #1: Oil is getting harder and harder to find. The truth about oil supplies: If anything, U.S. oil supplies and prices are less tied to the global market now, and new oil supplies are easier to find, than they were in 2005. The location and technology for getting oil and gas, especially from on-shore shale formations, have not only dramatically increased U.S. oil and gas reserves, but the technology is now so well established that U.S. oil and gas production is rising rapidly as a result. According to a recent analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, oil production from the Barnett shale formation in Texas — literally in the backyards of the headquarters of these same companies — has tripled since 2005. In fact, total U.S. oil production has increased over 10% since hitting its low point in 2008 and EIA projects that because of increased production in oil shale and in the Gulf of Mexico and other sources that it will continue to grow. On top of that, the CEO of ExxonMobil said on CNBC in March 2011, “I am not aware of anyone who is having difficulty securing supplies of oil…there is no shortage of supply in the market.” Claim #2: Oil companies face global competition. The truth about global competition: U.S. oil prices are also less tied to global markets and competition now than they were in 2005, because of increased U.S. production and increased Canadian tar sands production flooding into the U.S. market. This should be of no surprise to the five major oil companies who testified last week, because every single one of them has made major investments in Canadian tar sands projects. Claim #3: The loss of tax breaks will drive up the price at the pump. The truth about the price at the pump: Recalling that hearing in 2005, I also asked the CEOs about ending these tax breaks on their companies and several of them said it wouldn’t affect them or would only minimally affect them. ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond said “As for my company, it doesn’t make any difference.” Chevron CEO James O’Reilly said ending these tax breaks would have “minimal impact on our company.” And, BP’s US CEO Ross Pillari agreed, saying “it’s a minimal impact on us.” So if taking away the tax breaks won’t have much of an impact on the oil companies, why would it have much of an impact on price? The American people should not be held hostage to the false claims that without the billions in taxpayer subsidies they currently receive, these companies will produce less oil and that will raise the price at the pump. It’s time for the oil companies to own up to what they said in 2005: they did not need taxpayer subsidies then, and they do not need subsidies now.

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At Epicenter of Past River Flood, A Town On Edge

May 15, 2011

GREENVILLE, Miss. — There’s an old saying in this stretch of the South: “The people of the Delta fear God and the Mississippi River.” That phrase has an added significance in this river town of about 35,000 people. It was just north of Greenville that the river burst its seams in 1927, causing the largest levee break in the history of the Mississippi Valley and forever changing the fate of this Delta town. With the peak of the Mississippi’s surge less than two days away from Greenville, there’s an uneasy edge to a town that deeply understands the natural forces at work on the other side of the levees. “The river has been winning all throughout history,” said H. Ben “Benjy” Nelken, a real estate agent and local history buff who presides over the Greenville History Museum, one of several around town with exhibits on the 1927 flood. “It’s just in the last 50 to 70 years that we’ve gotten it somewhat under control. … But you also know that that river can get pissed off.” Over the past few days, Nelken has had more than his fair share of museum vistors peppering him with questions about whether their part of town flooded during the big one in 1927. So far, Greenville and its surrounding areas have been largely spared from the flooding that is engulfing areas farther south, such as outlying parts of Vicksburg and communities along the Yazoo River. There, the sheer height and force of the Mississippi River is literally pushing smaller tributaries backwards, swallowing farmland and submerging rural neighborhoods. Greenville’s primary threat is from a wholesale failure of one of the main river levees, a scenario that the Army Corps of Engineers, local officials and most residents do not believe is possible. But as the town faces the highest river levels in recorded history, no one can ignore the drama that is unfolding. The high water levels have shuttered the town’s river port, slowing transport of fertilizer and fuel to farmers and preventing shipments of some commodities, including wheat. Greenville’s three casinos, built on the river side of the levee because of state laws, are completely swamped. And hundreds of area homes not protected by the mainline river levee are flooded up to the roofline. Flood watchers view two submerged casinos in Greenville, Miss. Reminders of the high river are everywhere. Wild animals driven from their natural habitats along the river have been spotted around town in increasing numbers. A few nights ago a deer tried to get into the local hospital. Residents have been buying mothballs in increasing numbers to prevent snakes from getting into their homes. And for the past three days, a steady procession of residents has been climbing up and down the steps of the levee to catch sight of the spectacle. “It’s scary. I haven’t ever seen anything like this,” said Dorothy Cosie, a lifelong resident of Greenville. She said she trusts in the strength of the levees, but added, “You can’t just depend on man. You can only depend on the Lord for something like this.” At an interdenominational religious service in the town’s synagogue Friday night, the Jewish rabbi and Presbyterian pastor presiding over the service both touched on the river several times. “I heard the Mississippi River referred to as ‘our dangerous neighbor,’ ” said Jonas Hayes, the Presbyterian minister. “Creation … the land and the rivers … can be dangerous. Just as it can be generous and bountiful.” “Benjy” Nelken, who runs a local history museum, shows parts of town that were ceded to the river after 1927 Greenville remains among the top 10 most populous cities in the state. But before the flood of 1927, its star was rising among the fastest in the South. Known as the “Queen City of the Delta,” Greenville was the largest port on the river between Memphis and New Orleans. With cotton rising to chief prominence among the nation’s commodities, the planters along this section of the river became some of the most powerful businessmen in the nation. The 1927 flood brought Greenville — and its rise — to an abrupt halt. After the levee break about 20 miles north of town, floodwaters inundated Greenville and a vast swath of the state stretching nearly 70 miles east. The aftermath of the flood led to one of the more wrenching dramas of the post-Civil War South. Many of the African American sharecroppers were left homeless but forced to stay in tent cities and work on repairs to the levees. Local planters, afraid of losing their labor force, refused to let thousands of African Americans evacuate on steamboats up the river. Author John Barry concluded in his history of the 1927 flood, “Rising Tide,” the flood was a major catalyst for the African American migration from the South to northern cities like Chicago. In the decades since the flood, Greenville has reworked its relationship with nature. The city has retreated from the river, ceding five blocks of the original downtown to the levee and the banks of the Mississippi. Yet the memories live on. Lifelong resident Iris Stacker, whose relatives were among those who worked on the levee in the wake of the 1927 flood, said tales of the flood are handed down each generation like heirlooms. People in town use 1927 as passwords and building access codes. “It’s almost like 1776, or 9/11,” Stacker said. “That’s out 9/11. It pretty much changed our town forever.”

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NAFTA Cost U.S. 700k Jobs, Report Says

May 12, 2011

When the North American Free Trade Agreement was first signed in 1994, proponents said it would eventually create jobs for the U.S. economy. 17 years later, a new report estimates, the American worker only has hundreds of thousands of job losses to show for it. According to a report by Economic Policy Institute economist Robert Scott, entitled “Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA,” an estimated 682,900 U.S. jobs have been “lost or displaced” because of the agreement and the resulting trade deficit. The historic agreement, signed just three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, tore down trade barriers between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, making trade and investment easier for businesses without allowing for the cross-border movement of labor. Despite the agreement being considered a boon for Mexico, the country’s economy grew only 1.6 percent per capita on average between 1992 and 2007, The New York Times reported in 2009. The EPI’s calculation of 682,900 jobs lost to NAFTA takes into account jobs created as a result, too. Last year, for example, U.S. exports to Mexico supported 791,900 jobs. It’s just that those jobs created pale in comparison to the 1.47 million U.S. jobs that would be necessary without the imports resulting from NAFTA, the report found. Still, the number of jobs lost to NAFTA looks minimal when placed against the havoc freaked by the financial crisis. Only in 2008, at the height of the crisis, the U.S. economy hemorrhaged 2.6 million jobs, according to CNNMoney . The U.S. is currently considering a similar trade agreement with South Korea, called U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). KORUS, like NAFTA, could similarly displace American jobs, EPI warns. Perhaps the most drastic switch post-NAFTA has been in the two country’s trade deficit. In 1993, before the signing of NAFTA, the U.S. held a $1.6 billion trade surplus over their neighbor to the south, which supported 29,400 jobs. By 1997, the tides had turned, and Mexico laid claim to a much larger surplus of $16.6 billion. As of 2010, it’s not even close. Mexico’s trade surplus now hovers around $97.2 billion. Jobs continue to be lost to NAFTA today. In the years 2007-2010, the U.S. economy has lost 116,400 as a result of the trade deficit created by NAFTA. And last year, the growth of Mexican auto exports to the United States alone created more Mexican jobs — 30,400 — than the entire U.S. auto industry. It’s the U.S. manufacturing sector that has suffered most mightily from NAFTA, alone accounting for 60.8 percent — 415,000 total — of the jobs lost to the agreement. Specifically, those making computer of electronic parts have accounted for 22 percent of all job losses, and motor vehicle and parts workers accounted for 15 percent of job losses. Job losses haven’t been limited to certain geographic regions, either, as all fifty states have lost jobs as a result. And while the states with the largest total number of job losses, California and Texas, do hug the southern border, it’s actually manufacturing-heavy states to the north, such as Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky, that have lost the largest share of jobs to Mexico. The below chart tracks jobs displaced as share of total state employment:

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Video: Ryder’s Swienton Says Leasing Rates Are Set to Rise

May 2, 2011

May 2 (Bloomberg) — Greg Swienton, chief executive officer of Ryder System Inc., talks about the performance of the largest U.S. truck-leasing company and the outlook for leasing rates. Swienton speaks with Pimm Fox on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Americans Spending More With Inflation Growing At Fastest Rate In Ten Months

April 29, 2011

Rising gasoline and food prices lifted consumer spending in March and the increase in overall inflation from a year-ago was the largest in 10 months, government data showed on Friday. The Commerce Department said consumer spending increased 0.6 percent, rising for a ninth straight month, after an upwardly revised 0.9 percent advance in February. Economists polled by Reuters had expected spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, to rise 0.5 percent in March after a previously reported 0.7 percent rise. When adjusted for inflation, spending edged up 0.2 percent last month after rising 0.5 percent in February. The government reported on Thursday that consumer spending grew at a 2.7 percent annualized rate in the first quarter after a 4 percent increase in the final three months of 2010. The moderation in spending was not as sharp as economists had feared, suggesting that consumers were somewhat adapting to the high commodity prices, but could face a litmus test should gasoline prices shoot above $4 a gallon. High food and energy prices kept inflation elevated last month, with the personal consumption expenditures price (PCE) index up 0.4 percent after rising by the same margin in February. Compared to March last year, the index was up 1.8 percent – the largest increase since May – after rising 1.6 percent in February. The core PCE index — excluding food and energy – slowed to a 0.1 percent increase after rising 0.2 percent in February. The core index, which is closely watched by Federal Reserve officials, increased 0.9 percent in the 12 months through March. The index rose 0.9 percent in February and the Fed would like (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani, Editing by Andrea Ricci) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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Video: Kennedy Says Job Cuts Would Align Louisiana to Region

April 21, 2011

April 21 (Bloomberg) — Louisiana Treasurer John Kennedy talks about the state’s economy and environment a year after the largest offshore oil spill in the U.S., the outlook for the resumption of deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the impact of federal budget cuts on Louisiana’s public workforce. Kennedy speaks with Margaret Brennan on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Charles Gasparino: Goldman Sachs, the Tallest Midget in the Room

April 19, 2011

What passes for top-notch financial journalism these days is an in depth report in the New York Times about why Goldman Sachs, the most successful of all Wall Street firms, is so modest. Amid billions of dollars in profits, a rising share price, the big Wall Street firm doesn’t like to take full credit for its success. The Times seems to think the Goldman brass, led by CEO Lloyd Blankfein, is being too modest mainly because the firm is afraid to flaunt its brilliance at making money during a time of economic hardship. The writer implores Blankfein & Co. to remember that making money is good for shareholders and taxpayers, and thus they should “take a bow. Don’t hide behind the curtain” and starting telling the world how great they really are. Far be it for me to give my “friends” at Goldman advice (we’re so friendly that Blankfein once described me as a “thug”). but the last thing Goldman should be doing right now is taking a bow and telling the world it’s a great firm, because when it comes down to it, Goldman isn’t really a great firm. What is it then? Well, in the words of a drinking buddy who is a frequent consumer of financial news, “Goldman is like the tallest midget in the room.” For the record, I’m not and never have been in the Goldman is the root-of-all-evil-camp, though I’ve gone my rounds with some of the senior people there, including its top flack, Lucas van Praag, who recently tried to deny my story on the Fox Business Network several weeks ago that the last two years of regulatory and media scrutiny into how the firm has made money, often by screwing its clients, has left Blankfein so tired and exhausted that friends say he now appears ready to leave at the end of the year. It baffles me as to how van Praag can deny someone’s impression from a private conversation (his denial in the Times follow-up story was less forceful, it should be noted). But Goldman has done dumber things, including telling the world that the firm didn’t need a bailout during the dark days of the financial crisis in late 2008, all of which gets me back to the reason the firm should remain as modest as possible: Its status as a midget, albeit the largest one on Wall Street. As much as the nation’s big banks want you to think that they’re the heart of our free market system, they’re not. In fact they never have been. For decades they’ve been feasting off of subsidies and mini-bailouts granted to them by the Fed and the Treasury, often from government bureaucrats who have worked on Wall Street and return there once their “public service” is complete. The hundreds of billions in cash and guarantees handed the banks in 2008 was just the latest, albeit the largest of the bailouts and subsidies the big banks have received over the years. In other words the banks may be big in size and “too big to fail” as far as the government is concerned, but in terms of innovators and creators of wealth, they’re actually quite small, because unlike the guy who does your laundry or owns your favorite restaurant, they couldn’t and didn’t survive on their own. Standing the tallest among these little men is Goldman, the firm most adept at exploiting the corrupt system that puts the government in bed with the big banks. Just today, Goldman announced that it earned $1.64 billion in the first quarter of 2011 even after repaying Warren Buffett the $5 billion he lent them in 2008 when the firm was teetering with the rest of Wall Street. Seems like a pretty amazing feat until you consider how Goldman earned all that cash. Low interest rates from the Fed over the past two-plus years means Goldman can basically borrow at next to nothing to place its market bets. Those bets, it turns out, really aren’t bets at all. Firms like Goldman began buying depressed mortgage bonds in 2009 because they knew prices would rise. How did they know something like that? The Fed instituted a program to buy these bonds in the open market as a way to support the housing market. Like most things tried by the Obama administration to jump-start the economy, the plan didn’t work for Main Street. But not long after the buy-back program commenced, Wall Street — and Goldman in particular — began announcing record profits and bonuses to its bankers and traders. All of which transpired as Blankfein and his team tried to convince the world that Goldman really didn’t need all that bailout money in late 2008 and that they accepted the $10 billion in cash from then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson because they were forced to do so by a government more worried about the health of entire financial system than the financial condition of Goldman Sachs. Sounds like a very modest gesture until you calculate how the taxpayer bailout of the giant insurer AIG was in actuality a back-door bailout of Goldman Sachs . Just before Paulson signed over the $10 billion bailout check, AIG handed Goldman a check for $13 billion a direct result of the Fed’s bailout of the insurance company. The money was for “collateral payments” AIG owed Goldman, that once the bailouts commenced, became collateral payments owed to Goldman by the US taxpayer. In other words, the day the Fed decided to make good on all of AIG commitments — 100 cents on the dollar for contracts banks like Goldman held to insure their portfolio of risky debt — it also bailed out Goldman. Without the taxpayer bailout of AIG, those Goldman’s shareholders that the Times cares so much about, would have been without a $13 billion cushion during the darkest days of the 2008 financial crisis. More than that, they would have been forced to take losses on the firm’s portfolio of toxic debt. So much for Goldman’s modesty in the face of such greatness. As all this came to light back in late 2009, I wrote a column here on HuffPost saying Blankfein should just resign and save the world the trouble of holding him accountable for explaining why Goldman is such a large midget. Now that would have been the modest thing to do.

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S&P Lowers Credit Outlook For World’s Largest Economy, U.S. Dollar Benefits From Flight To Safety

April 18, 2011

S&P Lowers Credit Outlook For World’s Largest Economy, U.S. Dollar Benefits From Flight To Safety

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Howard Steven Friedman: 10 Largest Economies in the World

April 15, 2011

The ten largest national economies in the world comprise nearly 70% of the entire world’s economy. Of these ten countries, four are in Europe, three are in the Americas and three are in Asia. The GDP per capita is greater than $30,000 for seven of the top ten countries with Brazil, China and India having significantly lower GDP per capita. The United States has the largest economy — about the same size as the second (China), third (Japan) and fourth (Germany) largest economies combined. Many economists project that China will supplant the United States as the largest economy in the world within the next few decades. Because China’s population is about 4 times larger than that of the United States, equal size economies would mean that China’s GDP per capita would reach about one-fourth that of the United States. China’s GDP per capita is currently about one-tenth that of the United States. Note: GDP has a number of limitations as a measure of economic strength but is still the most commonly cited measure of economic size. This article uses nominal GDP as reported by the IMF (2010). Nominal GDP refers to the GDP evaluated at current market exchange rates. An alternative is the Purchase Price Parity (PPP) which is a theoretical construct that seeks to represent the exchange rate that would allow for a basket of goods to cost the same in different countries. PPP can vary based on the basket of goods sold and have sometimes undergone major adjustments such as in 2005 when China’s PPP was adjusted by 40%.

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Video: Chachas Says Google Has to Protect Core Search Business

April 15, 2011

April 15 (Bloomberg) — John Chachas, founder and managing partner at Methuselah Capital Advisors, discusses Google Inc.’s first-quarter earnings and the outlook for the largest Internet-search company. Chachas, speaking with Betty Liu, Dominic Chu, and Cris Valerio on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop,” also discusses the future of News Corp.’s Myspace unit. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Chachas Says Google Has to Protect Core Search Business

April 15, 2011

April 15 (Bloomberg) — John Chachas, founder and managing partner at Methuselah Capital Advisors, discusses Google Inc.’s first-quarter earnings and the outlook for the largest Internet-search company. Chachas, speaking with Betty Liu, Dominic Chu, and Cris Valerio on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop,” also discusses the future of News Corp.’s Myspace unit. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Charles Says BofA Can Absorb Mortgage Losses Over Time

April 15, 2011

April 15 (Bloomberg) — Brian Charles, an analyst at R.W. Pressprich & Co., talks about Bank of America Corp.’s $2.05 billion first-quarter profit reported today and the impact of mortgage-related losses on earnings. Bank of America, the largest U.S. lender by assets, reported its first profit in three quarters and settled more claims tied to faulty mortgages. Charles speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Miller Says Mortgage Issues to Remain a `Drag’ on BofA

April 15, 2011

April 15 (Bloomberg) — Paul Miller, head of financial-services research at FBR Capital Markets, talks about Bank of America Corp.’s $2.05 billion first-quarter profit reported today and growth outlook. Bank of America, the largest U.S. lender by assets, reported its first profit in three quarters and settled more claims tied to faulty mortgages. Miller speaks with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television’s “InsideTrack.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Duke/CBRE Realty Trust JV Completes $516M Portfolio Acquisition

April 12, 2011

A partnership between Duke Realty Corp. and CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust finalized the purchase of 13 office buildings totaling 2.05 million square feet for approximately $342.8 million. The deal, which is the largest transaction in the REIT’s history, concluded a three-phase acquisition involving 20 office properties consisting of 3 million square feet valued at $516 million. Wells Fargo Bank NA provided a $275 million unsecured term loan to…

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Duke/CBRE Trust JV Completes $516M Portfolio Acquisition

April 12, 2011

A partnership between Duke Realty Corp. and CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust finalized the purchase of 13 office buildings totaling 2.05 million square feet for approximately $342.8 million. The deal, which is the largest transaction in the REIT’s history, concluded a three-phase acquisition involving 20 office properties consisting of 3 million square feet valued at $516 million. Wells Fargo Bank NA provided a $275 million unsecured term loan to…

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Duke/CBRE Trust JV Completes $516M Portfolio Acquisition

April 12, 2011

A partnership between Duke Realty Corp. and CB Richard Ellis Realty Trust finalized the purchase of 13 office buildings totaling 2.05 million square feet for approximately $342.8 million. The deal, which is the largest transaction in the REIT’s history, concluded a three-phase acquisition involving 20 office properties consisting of 3 million square feet valued at $516 million. Wells Fargo Bank NA provided a $275 million unsecured term loan to…

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U.S. Banks Relying On Rainy Day Funds, Not Revenue To Turn Profits

April 9, 2011

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Joe Rauch) – Investors looking for loan growth and surging revenues at the biggest U.S. banks, including Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are likely to be disappointed by first-quarter earnings. Banks have been generating most of their profits in recent quarters from dipping into money they previously set aside to cover bad loans. Those reserve reductions make sense if credit losses are stabilizing, which seems to be the case. But banks cannot reduce their loan loss reserves forever and at this point profit growth must come from making more money from loans and generating more fees, analysts said. Boosting interest income from loans is tough when the interest rates at which banks lend are so low and loan demand is still tepid. Fee income, meanwhile, is being threatened by future regulatory changes. “The revenue line will be key, that’s what most investors will be focusing on,” said Jason Ware, senior equities analyst at Albion Financial Group. The Salt Lake City-based wealth manager oversees $650 million in client assets. “The question everyone has is ‘Where does the top line go from here?’” he said. Some banks will be particularly hard hit by weak trading in the quarter, as the stock market sagged on Middle Eastern political upheaval, a Japanese earthquake and tsunami sent the yen to record highs and markets were broadly unpredictable. But what many analysts are focusing on now is loan growth and data show the results may not be great. Bank loans outstanding declined 0.9 percent in January and 6.8 percent in February, according to a report from the Federal Reserve. Commercial and industrial loans were on the rise, which many analysts see as a positive sign, but meanwhile a broad array of consumer loans — mortgages, credit cards — are posting declines, so total bank credit outstanding are shrinking. The first quarter, analysts said, is typically the weakest of the year for banks. But the analysts with the best track records foresee a quarter that was tougher than usual for many banks, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine Smart Estimates. These “smart analysts” believe other analysts are far too optimistic about some banks, and only a little too pessimistic about the others. The analysts that have historically been the most accurate believe that results for Citigroup, Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will fall short of analysts’ average estimates, according to Starmine Smart Estimates. Starmine’s analyst estimates, for example, indicates Morgan Stanley may miss estimates by as much as 22 percent. The Starmine “smart analysts” are projecting that Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will beat broader estimates by a fairly small margin. BofA is projected with the largest earnings beat at 7.7 percent above the average estimate, Starmine estimates. NEW NORMAL For even the largest U.S. banks, interest income from loans is a key driver of earnings growth, but the total number of outstanding loans continues to stagnate, even as banks appear to have solved many of the credit issues that have dogged them for the last three years. The fees that banks get from processing debit cards will likely be limited by provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, which will pressure fee income for banks in the future. Marty Mosby, bank analyst with Guggenheim Securities, said he is expecting banks will show a 10 percent decline in total charge-offs of bad loans, with some showing charge-offs shrinking by as much as 50 percent. While that will be a boost to earnings as banks continue to release reserves protecting against loan losses, Mosby said he does not expect loan growth for the next few quarters. “This will be a different model than what we’re used to seeing, based more on profitability, consolidation and efficiency, rather than outright organic growth,” Mosby said. In the fourth quarter of 2010, loans at U.S. banks totaled $7.38 trillion, the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2009 and off from the peak of $8 trillion in the second quarter of 2008, FDIC data show. Long term, investors may need to adjust their expectations for the industry’s earning ability. Mosby said banks that were once able to produce a 20 percent return on shareholder equity may not be able to top 15 percent. Bank’s return on equity could dip to as low or 10 or 12 percent, he added. Halle Benett, a banker in charge of financial institutions merger advisory at UBS for the Americas, said: “I do think you’ve got to come to a decision as to what is generally accepted profitability for banking institutions and I’m not sure the cycle we came out of was the long-term norm.” (Reporting by Joe Rauch; Additional reporting by Clare Baldwin and Lauren LaCapra in New York; Editing by Gary Hill) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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QualityHealth Adds Performance Marketing and Technology Talent to Executive Team

April 6, 2011

JERSEY CITY, NJ–(Marketwire – April 6, 2011) – QualityHealth , the largest targeted online customer acquisition solution for healthcare marketers, announced today that Chris Mancini and Malcolm Smith have been appointed to executive leadership positions. Chris Mancini assumes the role of Executive Vice President and General Manager and Malcolm Smith takes on Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer. Mancini and Smith are accomplished industry veterans with extensive experience in performance-based and online marketing in health and other verticals. Their expertise will contribute significantly to the growth and management of the QualityHealth performance marketing platform.

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Go Daddy CEO Defends Elephant-Shooting Video

April 1, 2011

Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons is not one to back down from a little controversy. The outspoken entrepreneur helped make his company a household name — and the largest Internet domain registrar in the world — with edgy Super Bowl commercials that have become perennial water-cooler fodder. Now, he finds himself in the crosshairs of the equally outspoken PETA and other animal-rights advocates over a graphic video he posted online, which depicts him shooting and killing an elephant in Zimbabwe. The video has already been viewed more than 300,000 times. Parsons, a member of the AOL Small Business Board of Directors, says he was working with tribal authorities to prevent “problem elephant” from decimating crops, legally, and that the slain elephant provided food for impoverished villagers. PETA is leading the charge against Parsons, branding him the “Scummiest CEO of the Year,” canceling its Go Daddy account and encouraging others to do the same. “Instead of coming up with flimsy excuses for killing these highly intelligent and social animals, Parsons should use his wealth to fund humane solutions to human/elephant conflicts,” PETA said on its website.

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Federal Reserve Lent To Gaddafi-Owned Bank

April 1, 2011

At a time when credit markets shunned even the most worthy borrowers, foreign banks, including one partly-owned by Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, fled to the Federal Reserve and borrowed at rock-bottom interest rates, Fed documents released Thursday show. During the height of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, as investors and firms hoarded cash, the Fed reduced its rates to kickstart lending in the broader economy. Arab Banking Corp., a $28 billion lender now 59 percent-owned by Libya’s central bank, borrowed at least $3.2 billion during this time. The Fed charged it an interest rate ranging from 2.25 percent to as low as 1.25 percent on those borrowings, regular Fed data show. AAA-rated corporations paid bondholders an average rate ranging from 5.63 percent to 6.37 percent during the same period, according to the Fed. The Fed lends money to banks at cheaper rates than the market because it intends for those funds to be distributed throughout the economy. The primary facility, known as the discount window, has been in practice since 1914. Arab Banking Corp., which can borrow from the Fed because it has a subsidiary in the U.S., was among the foreign banks that had difficulty accessing cash from other lenders during that time, leaving it to turn to America’s central bank. Records show the Libyan bank borrowed its funds beginning on September 18, 2008 and lasting through at least November 13 of the same year. The daily high point came on three separate occasions in October and November, when the lender tapped the discount window for $600 million. Beginning Oct. 8, those loans were available at a 1.75 percent interest rate. A few weeks later, the rate dropped to 1.25 percent. These disclosures and more were buried in nearly 30,000 pages spread across almost 900 computer files that the Fed released to reporters under court order in response to lawsuits launched nearly three years ago by Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, and Fox Business Network, the financial news television channel of Fox News. The Fed had fought against disclosing data surrounding its activities during the financial crisis. After President Barack Obama signed his financial reform package into law last July, calling for the nation’s central bank to release documents on most of its lending programs, a coalition of the nation’s largest financial institutions took the Fed’s case to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to keep the records hidden. The high court declined to hear the case, and in December, the Fed released critical details on its emergency crisis-era programs. For the first time it revealed the identities of the banks, investment firms, insurance companies, automakers, corporations, and other borrowers it flooded with more than $3 trillion in taxpayer-backed cash. But it took federal courts and two determined news organizations to force the public release of the Fed’s discount-window activities during the same time. On Thursday, the Fed finally disclosed such information. Now, for the first time, the public can see which banks, from the smallest community lender to the largest Wall Street bank, accessed the backstop at their regional Federal Reserve bank during the worst financial emergency since the Great Depression. The loans are far more generous than what banks get from the market. Trillion-dollar financial behemoths like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup accessed cheap Fed cash through the discount window, as did smaller firms like Proficio Bank, a Utah lender with just $125 million in deposits. After changing its legal status from an investment firm to a bank, Goldman Sachs also benefited from the Fed’s discount window. A top Goldman executive had previously testified under oath to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that it accessed the program simply to test its systems. In September 2008 — the month that saw the federal government takeover Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the failure of Lehman Brothers, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history; the forced-sale of Washington Mutual, the largest bank failure in U.S. history; and a government rescue of AIG, the world’s largest insurer — the Fed lent borrowers $1,574,142,741,934 through its discount window and emergency programs, documents show. During the same period, 22 foreign-based banks borrowed $56.6 billion on 42 separate occasions from the Fed’s discount window, according to a Huffington Post analysis of Fed documents. The disclosures led Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, to write Fed chairman Ben Bernanke asking why the central bank lent U.S. funds to foreign firms. Sanders wrote that he had “serious concerns” in particular over the Fed’s lending to Arab Banking Corp., the Libya-owned lender. The Federal Reserve did not respond to a request for comment. William Alden contributed to this report. ************************* Shahien Nasiripour is a business reporter for The Huffington Post. You can send him an e-mail ; bookmark his page ; subscribe to his RSS feed ; follow him on Twitter ; friend him on Facebook ; become a fan ; and/or get e-mail alerts when he reports the latest news. He can be reached at 917-267-2335.

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Fed Accepted Nearly $1 Billion In Defaulted Debt From Banks As Collateral During Crisis

March 31, 2011

The Federal Reserve accepted more defaulted debt than U.S. Treasuries as collateral to back $155.7 billion on the largest day of borrowing from the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, according to documents released today.

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Number Of People Seeking Jobless Aid Drops

March 31, 2011

WASHINGTON — Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that layoffs are dropping and companies may be stepping up hiring. The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of people seeking benefits dipped by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000 for the week that ended March 26. That’s the second decline in three weeks. Applications near 375,000 or below are consistent with a sustained increase in hiring. Applications peaked during the recession at 659,000. The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, rose to 394,250. Still, that figure has dropped by 35,500, or 8 percent, in the past eight weeks. “The downtrend … is undeniable,” Joshua Shapiro, chief economist at MFR Financial Inc., said. “We believe that this improvement will continue in the weeks and months ahead.” The department also revised the previous five years of data. The changes showed that applications in recent weeks were moderately higher than previously reported. As applications have fallen, hiring has started to pick up. Economists forecast that employers added a net total of 185,000 jobs in March. That would be just below February’s gain of 192,000 – the most jobs added in nearly a year. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 8.9 percent. The March data will be released Friday. Still, hiring must rise by about 300,000 per month to rapidly bring down the unemployment rate, economists say. The economy has gained more than a million jobs in the past year but still has 7.5 million fewer jobs than before the recession. The number of people collecting benefits also dropped. It fell by 51,000 to 3.7 million in the week ending March 19, the latest data available. That’s the lowest figure since October 2008. But that doesn’t include millions of people receiving aid under the emergency unemployment benefit programs put in place during the recession. All told, 8.8 million people received unemployment benefits in the week ending March 12, the latest data available. That’s slightly higher than the previous week. There have been other positive reports about jobs and hiring this week. More than half of the largest U.S. companies plan to step up hiring in the next six months, according to a survey by the Business Roundtable, released Wednesday. That’s the highest proportion of the group’s members that plan to add workers since the quarterly survey began in 2002. The Roundtable represents the CEOs of roughly 200 of the largest U.S. companies. And the Conference Board said more job openings were posted online in March. The number of postings rose by 208,800, or nearly 5 percent, to 4.45 million. Job openings have increased by 600,000 in the first three months of this year. The Conference Board is a nonprofit business research group.

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B. Jeffrey Madoff: An Honest Bank Is Hard to Find

March 29, 2011

In the mid 1990s, Fleet Bank, originally out of Boston, aggressively pursued business in the New York City market. They got mine. In 2003 Fleet was faced with a class action suit involving a bait-and-switch credit card scam where it promised no annual credit card fees then would bill the fees a few months later. An honest bank is hard to find. I should have known better than to sign with a bank named after a bottled enema. Fleet was acquired by Bank of America in 2004. I filled out the requisite papers; my financials were sent to Rochester NY, my account representative was in Boston, the underwriter in Chicago. I had a business line of credit, like I always had, paid the fees as I always had and so it went. I never actually met anyone in person from Bank of America. I was not too big to fail; I was too small to notice. Countrywide, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, misrepresented its financial condition and the soundness of its loans in security filings, the officials said Saturday… The company was forced in August to draw down its entire $11.5 billion credit line from a consortium of banks because it could no longer sell or borrow against home loans it had made. It has laid off about 11,000 employees since the summer. ( From the New York Times , March 2008) Countrywide Financial was valued at $24 billion in 2007. It was taken over by Bank of America in 2008 for $4 billion. At the end of 2009, with the economy going badly and so many businesses doing poorly, my line was reviewed. I was fortunate to have an underwriter assigned to my account that, after several conversations and reviewing my financials, believed in my business. He approved my line, kept the fees reasonable and wished me luck going forward. The underwriter had recently come to Bank of America as a result of one of the many bank acquisitions made with TARP funds. In the fall of 2008 through the federally funded, taxpayer-backed Troubled Asset Relief Program, Bank of America received $25 billion. Bank of America, along with other banks, who also received federal funding, essentially ceased making money available to small businesses. They did go on a spending spree to diminish their competition through acquisition and increase fees on everything else. We taxpayers not only bailed out the banks, they charged us additional funds through those fees to do it. “The major credit-card lender [Bank of America] in mid-January sent letters notifying some responsible cardholders that it would more than double their rates to as high as 28%, without giving an explanation for the increase.” ( BusinessWeek , Feb. 7, 2008) It was a busy fall for Bank of America; they announced their intent to take over Merrill Lynch & Co., saving them from bankruptcy on the same day that Lehman Bros. announced theirs. The Merrill deal closed on January 1, 2009. “Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. bank by assets, received a $138 billion emergency lifeline from the government to support its acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. and prevent the global financial crisis from deepening. ($20 billion in TARP funds, $118 billion in government asset guarantees.)” ( Bloomberg News , Jan. 16, 2009) Although Merrill surprised its new owner by suffering a massive $15 billion loss in their fourth quarter, CEO John Thain doled out bonuses of $4 billion to Merrill executives. “The Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges Monday against Bank of America for misleading investors about billions of dollars in bonuses paid to top executives at Merrill Lynch following its purchase of the brokerage giant.” ( CNNMoney.com , Aug. 3, 2009) In August 2009, without either admitting or denying guilt, Bank of America agreed to pay a $33 million fine, to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “Bank of America will pay $108 million to settle federal charges that Countrywide Financial Corp., which it acquired nearly two years ago, collected outsized fees from borrowers facing foreclosure. It’s the latest evidence of misconduct at Countrywide, once an industry giant that has since fallen. Last year, three top executives, including former CEO Angelo Mozilo, were charged with civil fraud and insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission.” ( Associated Press , June 7, 2010) By the end of 2010, my business improved substantially. I was proud of the fact that I had not laid off any employees, continued to provide health care and never missed any payments to anyone. Like my parents, who owned their own small business, surviving tough times is an accomplishment to feel good about. “Bank of America will pay $137.3 million to settle allegations that it defrauded schools, hospitals and dozens of other state and local government organizations, federal officials said Tuesday. The settlement stems from a long-running investigation into misconduct in the municipal bond business that raises money for localities to pay for public services.” ( Washington Post , Dec. 7, 2010) Don’t worry about those fines hurting Bank of America. Their global banking and markets division made $6.2 billion dollars in 2010. At the end of 2010 I received a letter from Bank of America informing me that my credit line would not be renewed. I immediately called my representative and discovered I had been assigned a new person. “How are you today?” He had an upbeat voice, in total opposition to the downbeat news he was giving me. “When I got your file”, he continued, “I couldn’t help but to notice your last name, Madoff.” He said as if performing a level of detection equal to Sherlock Holmes. “Don’t you always notice the name on your client’s file?” “Well, your name is kind of famous in financial circles.” “I go around in financial circles when I talk to bankers.” “If you don’t mind me asking; are you any relation? Not that it makes a difference.” “Then why are you asking?” “Just curious.” He said. “No, I’m not that Madoff. But I’m curious as to why you are discontinuing my line of credit.” “I’m sorry,” He said as if comforting me about someone’s death, “but it’s not up to me.” He was the messenger and had no authority to do anything other than politely show me the exit. The underwriter I had worked with last year was no longer on the account. I was informed that establishing relationships is what makes bankers susceptible to making bad decisions; the bank was trying to avoid that by constantly switching who works on what account. Maybe they learned something from their acquisitions of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. I got on a conference call with my new representative in Boston and underwriter in Chicago. They had never met in person and most likely never will. “We assessed your metrics and parameters of your KPI, key performance indicators and made our decisions based on that,” said the underwriter. “I don’t know what that means, but does the fact that I’ve been a client for years, never missed a payment, have no debt and have increased my business with new and long term blue-chip clients in a very challenging economy mean anything?” “How do you know you won’t lose those clients?” she asked. “I don’t know. How do you know you won’t die in your sleep?” I realized the significance of the abbreviation for Bank of America: B-o-a, as in boa-constrictor, it squeezes the life out of its victims by applying constant pressure. I was told I’d get their final decision in a week. During that time I approached two banks, both of which offered me the line of credit I requested at far lower rates than Bank of America. In February of 2011, I signed with a new bank. I had my last conversation with my Bank of America representative: “We value our relationships with our clients.” He said. “If there is anything I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to ask.” An honest bank is hard to find.

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Martha Burk: Wal-Mart’s Woman Troubles — Too Big to Be Sued?

March 28, 2011

Seven years ago a judge in California ruled that women suing Wal-Mart for sex discrimination could move forward as a class. That meant the women with various claims wouldn’t have to go it alone, each with a separate lawyer and separate expenses. Essentially what the judge said is that the six women who filed the lawsuit can represent a whole group of women who might have similar complaints — all 1.6 million of them. Wal-Mart appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Taking a page from the big bank playbook, the company claims that it is too big to be sued . The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday as to whether the class certification stands. If so, Dukes v. Walmart will be the largest class action suit in history. Then if women can prove a “pattern and practice” of discrimination at Wally Mart, back pay and promotions could be due, and the company might have to mend its gender-biased ways. If the Supremes rule against them, it could mean the end to redress for sex discrimination at work . Well, OK. Gender bias hasn’t been proven yet. But look at the numbers : According to walmartclass.com , close to 70% of the employees are women, but less than a third of the managers are female (up from 14.3% when the suit was filed in 2001). The rest are concentrated in the lowest level jobs. Data presented by the plaintiffs showed that 93% of cashier positions were held by women, and they made less than the male cashiers ($13,800 and $14,500 respectively). It doesn’t get any better at the higher levels, where the few women who made it to store manager earned average of $89,300, while the guys pulled down $105,700. Data from the past couple of years are not available — if Walmart has corrected the problem, it doesn’t want the world to know about it. And even if 100% of the wage discrimination has gone away (and cows can do cartwheels), it won’t erase the damage to the women with short paychecks over several past decades. One of the women in the suit, a single mother working as an assistant manager, was told, according to walmartclass.com , that a male in the same position making $10,000 more a year was paid more because he had ” a wife and kids to support. ” When she protested, she was asked to submit a personal household budget — and got a $40 a week raise. Looks like a duck to me. Most people don’t know that the majority of the working poor, and Wal-Mart is responsible for a bunch of them, are adult women. They’re also mostly white (58%) and mostly high school educated or higher (77%). Wal-Mart is ranked second in the Fortune 500, and is the nation’s largest non-government employer. Members of the Walton family hold four of the top ten positions on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans , with assets of over $80 billion. If they gave up just a measly nickel on the dollar, they could raise the wages of their approximately 869,000 female workers by over $2.20 per hour — enough to lift many of those lowest paid women above the poverty line — and just incidentally keep the company out of the courthouse. Of course Wal-Mart is entitled to a fair profit, as are all businesses. But the key word is fair . If corporations are entitled to the most profit they can possibly make, we should go ahead and abolish the minimum wage and repeal our employment discrimination laws, or maybe just go back to slavery and forget about paying workers altogether. In granting the female employees the right to stand together against the largest company in the nation, the lower court has took a small step for womankind. Let’s hope the Roberts Corporate Court doesn’t knock the feet out from under those same women, and gut over 40 years of precedent in the process.

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Sara Ackerman: Over 4 Million Move Their Accounts From Wall Street Banks in 2010

March 25, 2011

More than 4 million accounts have already moved away from the nation’s largest banks and this trend will only increase according to Moebs Services, an economic research firm in Lake Bluff, IL. Previously, large banks with over $50 billion in assets held 45% of the 130 million consumer checking accounts in 2009. That number has been decreasing dramatically with Bank of America losing 400,000 accounts in 2010 alone. This trend will only continue, according to Michael Moebs, CEO of Moebs Services, who predicts an additional 7 to 9 million accounts moving by the end of 2011. The trend should plateau in 2012 after the nation’s largest banks see between 13 and 17 million accounts moving to local community banks and credit unions in just three short years. If Moebs’ predictions come to fruition, the largest financial firms will only hold a third of all free checking accounts in the US by the end of 2012, a huge drop from the 45% they held in 2009. This mass-exodus from the nation’s ‘Too Big To Fail’ firms is by no means accidental. Customers are beginning to wise-up to Wall Street’s abuses and are choosing to vote with their dollars. The Move Your Money project, a campaign that began around a Christmas dinner table by Arianna Huffington and a few friends, encouraged individuals and institutions to divest from the nation’s largest Wall Street banks and move to local financial institutions. One year later, the campaign has been a major success, boasting over 36,000 supporters and coverage in more than 150 different media outlets. The Move Your Money project continues to give the disenfranchised American a chance to truly make a statement against the financial firms who wreaked havoc on our economy. Not only are people seeing the moral imperative to move their money out of the ‘Too Big To Fail’ firms, they are also growing weary of the exorbitantly high fees that Wall Street execs continually dream up and dupe their customers into paying. Previously, banks were allowed to enroll consumers into “overdraft protection” which allowed a person to spend beyond their checking account, but with a hefty fee ranging from $25-35. After the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform bill passed in July of last year, the rules have changed and consumers have to opt-in for overdraft protection. Unfortunately, it didn’t take the banks long to come up with new ways to swindle money from their customers. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase have already begun experimenting with new fee structures based on consumer behavior such as maintaining a certain minimum balance, enrolling in direct deposit and using a debit card a certain number of times each month. Banks are also beginning to charge customers monthly fees for what once was a free checking account, and customers are beginning to take notice. Derek Juhl of Seattle went into Chase to close his account after he found a monthly fee had been attached to his once free checking account and was told, “Congress made us do it,” a fairly disingenuous claim considering 65% of banks still offer free checking in-spite of the new rules. Moebs predicts that with an increase in fees, the largest banks have signaled an intention to move away from free checking accounts altogether, in large part because the endeavor is no longer profitable for them. Moebs explains, “If banks have high overhead, deposit accounts are not helpful. Usually banks in the transaction business have to be very efficient and be within their economies of scale.” Moebs, who created a process on economies of scale, patent pending, explains that the large financial institutions have long surpassed this mark and are currently trying to reign in on overhead by getting rid of their least profitable customers–people who maintain low balances and commit too many errors like overdrawing their account and bouncing checks. However, “this is not the death of free checking” says Moebs. Rather, small regional and community banks, as well as credit unions are still willing and able to offer free checking accounts and on average, charge 70% less in overdraft fees. With lower overhead costs and higher efficiency, small financial institutions can still offer free checking accounts and remain profitable. So what are you waiting for? Don’t wait for the Wall Street firms to nickel-and-dime you, move your money today! To find a community bank or credit union near you, visit www.moveyourmoneyproject.org

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Potential Sale of Grubb & Ellis Dramatizes Ongoing Shift in CRE Brokerage Landscape

March 24, 2011

The trend among the business services sector, including those providing commercial real estate services to other businesses, appears to be get bigger and go global, or go small and specialize by serving a specific niche or providing high-touch service. With the largest CRE companies increasingly on the hunt for external growth opportunities and mid-market firms under rising competitive pressure to sell or merge in order to maximize their service…

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Video: NRG’s Crane Says Texas Nuclear Project Facing `Hurdles’: Video

March 23, 2011

March 23 (Bloomberg) — David Crane, chief executive officer at NRG Energy Inc., the largest U.S. independent power producer, talks about the company’s South Texas nuclear power plant expansion. Crane talks with Matt Miller and Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Study Shows Too-Big-To-Fail U.S. Banks Grew After Crisis

March 18, 2011

March 18 (Bloomberg) — The largest U.S. banks have grown larger since the financial crisis, and the number of “too-big-to-fail” banks will increase by 40 percent over the next 15 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Dodd-Frank law would prohibit the largest banks from merging with one another. The law would not prevent the largest banks from growing in other ways, according to the Bloomberg Government Study, “Too-Big-to-Fail Banks Get Bigger After Dodd-Frank.” Bloomberg’s Lizzie O’Leary reports. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Study Shows Too-Big-To-Fail U.S. Banks Grew After Crisis

March 18, 2011

March 18 (Bloomberg) — The largest U.S. banks have grown larger since the financial crisis, and the number of “too-big-to-fail” banks will increase by 40 percent over the next 15 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Dodd-Frank law would prohibit the largest banks from merging with one another. The law would not prevent the largest banks from growing in other ways, according to the Bloomberg Government Study, “Too-Big-to-Fail Banks Get Bigger After Dodd-Frank.” Bloomberg’s Lizzie O’Leary reports. (Source: Bloomberg)

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PNC Bank Expands to 116,000 SF at One N. Franklin

March 14, 2011

PNC Bank inked an extension and expansion deal at One North Franklin in Chicago. The lease extension will last until 2022. PNC currently has approximately 80,000 square feet in the tower and plans to expand to nearly 116,000 square feet. The expansion will make the bank the largest tenant in the building. One North Franklin is a 36-story, 617,000-square-foot, Class A office building in Chicago’s West Loop. The property was designed by Skidmore…

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Investment-Grade Properties See Largest Year-Over-Year Gain Since 2006

March 10, 2011

CoStar’s index tracking repeat sales of investment-grade commercial properties jumped 10.6% in January over the same period last year, the largest year-over-year gain since the height of the real estate boom in 2006. The increase in the index for higher-quality properties hit a five-year high for January despite dipping slightly from December, a reflection of how hard the index fell a year ago and how strongly it has recovered within 12 months…

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A Federal Board for Building Sales? U.S. Govt. Looks To Expedite Sales, But Obstacles Remain

March 10, 2011

As far as rummage sales go, the federal government’s proposal to set up a board to sell its vacant and underutilized commercial real estate may rank as one of the largest ever proposed. But like any white elephant sale, it could be a mammoth undertaking with uncertain results for the sellers and the buyers. The U.S. General Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget are backing President Obama’s proposal to create a board to expedite…

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Job Outlook: Better!

March 2, 2011

Following a salary survey that gave accounting students something to cheer about, the National Association of Colleges and Employers has some good news for the rest of the class of 2011 — February data shows that entry-level hiring is on the rise. NACE’s college hiring index — scaled from 0 to 200, with 100 as a base indicating no change from the previous month — revealed that from January to December 112 employer organizations reported what amounted to a jump in entry-level hiring from 120.9 to 126.3. This is the largest increase the NACE index has reported so far. NACE further notes that 53.3 percent of survey respondents said they plan on hiring more college grads than they did last year, and that students should expect more aggressive on-campus recruiting. And Beyond.com ‘s Fourth Quarter 2010 Career Trend Analysis Report found that 78 percent of online classifieds are for positions that require less than one year of experience — which, according to Bnet.com , might make entry-level jobs positions an area of growth following the 2008 recession. The NACE index shows, however, that the 126.3 February figure still falls short of November 2010s reported hiring index, which weighed in at 127.7. Are you optimistic about job prospects? Let us know how you feel in the comments section.

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Treasury: $30 Billion In Libyan Assets Frozen

February 28, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department says that at least $30 billion in Libyan assets have been frozen since President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Libya last week. David Cohen, Treasury’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that the $30 billion represented the largest amount ever frozen by a U.S. sanctions order. He said that there had been no evidence that Moammar Gadhafi or agents working on his behalf had tried to withdraw funds before the sanctions order went into effect. Cohen, speaking to reporters on a conference call Monday, refused to provide any details on how many U.S. financial institutions held the Libyan assets or how the money was divided between Gadhafi and his family and the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

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Liberal Tea Party? U.S. Uncut Disrupts Service At Bank Of America

February 27, 2011

Demonstrators posing as a liberal Tea Party disrupted service at banks across the country on Saturday, in an effort to spotlight the gimmicks multi-billion dollar corporations use to avoid paying their fair share in taxes. Self-organized through anti-austerity movement U.S. Uncut , regional captains helped organize demonstrators at more than 40 different branches of Bank of America. The newly-minted group was inspired by an article published recently in The Nation by Johann Hari: ” How to Build a Progressive Tea Party .” Hari writes: Imagine a parallel universe where the Great Crash of 2008 was followed by a Tea Party of a very different kind … Instead of the fake populism of the Tea Party, there is a movement based on real populism. It shows that there is an alternative to making the poor and the middle class pay for a crisis caused by the rich. It shifts the national conversation … This may sound like a fantasy–but it has all happened. The name of this parallel universe is Britain. As recently as this past fall, people here were asking the same questions liberal Americans have been glumly contemplating: Why is everyone being so passive? Why are we letting ourselves be ripped off? Why are people staying in their homes watching their flat-screens while our politicians strip away services so they can fatten the superrich even more? Hari evokes the spirit of UK Uncut — a movement made up of British citizens, who, in the face of brutal budget cuts, have sought to shame corporate tax dodgers through public demonstrations — and suggests Americans follow suit. U.S. Uncut is doing just that; Saturday marked the group’s first coordinated event. “Billionaires got bonuses, bailouts and tax cuts, too — the least they can do is pay their fair share of taxes,” said Ryan Clay, a 28-year-old media analyst who helped organize the U.S. Uncut demonstration in Washington, DC. “I got inspired, other people got inspired, we met online, and we’re working through social media to really bring these abhorrent facts to the public.” A rally in San Francisco drew scores of protesters to a branch of Bank of America at Union Square; dressed in ordinary street clothes, they filed into the bank one by one, getting in line to speak with the tellers. Each of them carried a fake check from Bank of America made out to “The United States c/o Tax Paying Citizens,” for $1.5 billion. The sum would cover all the bank’s unpaid taxes on its 2009 earned income of $4.4 billion, demonstrators said. Only a few people had presented their fake checks to the tellers before the bank temporarily closed for business; protesters were peacefully escorted out of the building by the police. Once on the street, however, they stayed put and kept handing out fake checks, which had facts about corporate tax avoidance written in fine print on the back, as fliers. “Two-thirds of all U.S. corporations do not pay federal income tax,” the fliers said. “BofA is the largest bank and the 5th largest corporation in America.” “I think our fliers did better than political fliers usually do,” said Leslie Dreyer, 32, a resident of Oakland, Calif., who came up with the idea of using checks as props. “People were like, ‘Oh, a check!’” A Bank of America spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment. Many of the largest corporations in the country have mastered the art of evading taxes, booking expenses in the U.S. and profits in low-tax countries. A list compiled by Forbes shows that Bank of America was far from being the only multi-billion dollar corporation to avoid paying taxes on billions of dollars in earnings in 2009; it is also not the only bank to spark angry demonstrations this week. On Wednesday morning, New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams marched into a Park Avenue Chase bank to denounce the bank’s failure to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. HuffPost’s Laura Basset reports : After denouncing the bank to a cheering crowd and calling its executives “bloodsuckers” for accepting bailout money and refusing to help the suffering homeowners they “preyed on,” Williams was stopped by security guards at the door and told the branch was closed. The mob then chanted “open the door” until Williams was let in, at which point he closed his account. Williams told HuffPost that when campaigning in New York City, he met at least two people on every block with mortgage troubles. He said he doesn’t want the bank to use his money to “further deteriorate the community” he represents, especially in light of chief executive Jamie Dimon’s recent $17 million bonus. “It’s incredible what these banks are making people go through,” he said. “It’s disgusting. They’re like bloodsuckers, just sucking the lifeblood out of communities and refusing to help out. I understand that people need to get paid to get the best and brightest and these bonuses help with that, but you can’t do that and then not assist the community and then get a taxpayer bailout to the tune of billions of dollars. That’s just greed at its worst.” To help readers navigating an underwater mortgage, HuffPost has scheduled a meetup where homeowners can get together and talk about their mortgage-related troubles. The next meetup is slated for the second Tuesday in March, and each subsequent meeting will also be held on the second Tuesday of the month; locate your local meetup chapter here . If you’re interested in organizing a meetup and need help doing it, email us at lucia@huffingtonpost.com, arthur@huffingtonpost.com or ryan@huffingtonpost.com. If you’re a real estate professional or attorney with experience in short sales and foreclosures who can help with the meetups, contact us or find your local chapter.

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Beijing Breaks Ground In Bahamas With $3.4 Billion Mega Resort

February 21, 2011

NASSAU, Bahamas — Chinese and Bahamian dignitaries celebrated Monday as workers broke ground on what is being billed as the largest project of its kind in the Caribbean – a megaresort that will be financed and largely built by Beijing. Baha Mar, a $3.4 billion complex on Nassau’s Cable Beach, will employ some 8,000 workers and is projected to generate a 10 percent boost to the Bahamas gross domestic product, according to development company Baha Mar Ltd. The development plan calls for four hotels with a total of about 2,250 rooms, as well as a golf course, retail space, a convention center and what the developer says will be the largest casino in the Caribbean. It is scheduled to open in December 2014 and is aimed largely at North American consumers, who make up the vast majority of tourist visitors to the Bahamas, said Don Robinson, president of Baha Mar Ltd. In overall size, it will be comparable to the Atlantis resort on nearby Paradise Island. But that project was built in stages over a number of years, not all at once like Baha Mar. Robinson said the resort’s ambitious scope is part of its marketing plan, an effort to capture the public’s imagination and attract tourists who have abandoned the Bahamas for other destinations. “The vision was a large destination resort that would drive visitation,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press before the ceremony. “Anything smaller became less of an ability to increase the market. It needed to be large enough on the world stage that it could significantly drive demand.” Caribbean tourism took a steep dive with the global economic downturn, but there have been signs of life: Hotel room revenue in the region rose about 3 percent and occupancy edged up 1 percent last year, compared with 2009, according to travel industry watcher STR of Nashville, Tennessee. The crisis forced some developers to scale back plans made in rosier times, but Baha Mar appears to be wagering that it can create a destination resort and keep people spending money at stores and shops within the walls of the complex, said Jan Freitag, vice president for global development at STR. “The question is: Is that a good enough driver in this economic environment?” Freitag said. For the resort’s concrete and steel main structure, Baha Mar hired China State Construction Engineering Co. Ltd., which brought in the Export-Import Bank of China to finance the project when a previous partner dropped out. This is the first tourism project outside China for either of the state-owned enterprises, Robinson said. As part of its agreement with the Bahamian government, Baha Mar will import about 7,000 Chinese construction workers in stages. The project is also expected to create about 4,000 construction jobs for local workers, the developer said. “The great geographical distance between our two countries has not impeded our friendship,” Chinese Ambassador Hu Dingxian said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “This project is evidence.

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Grubb & Ellis Restructures Troubled TIC Unit; Hires FBR Capital Markets To Identify Capital Sources

February 17, 2011

Grubb & Ellis Co. has created Daymark Realty Advisors Inc., a wholly owned and separately managed subsidiary that will now be responsible for managing the company’s entire tenant-in-common (TIC) portfolio and provide specialized management services to the owners of the tenant-in-common properties. As a result of the restructuring, Daymark Realty Advisors becomes one of the largest real estate asset management companies in the country, serving more…

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Grubb & Ellis Restructures Troubled TIC Unit; Hires FBR Capital Markets To Identify Capital Sources

February 17, 2011

Grubb & Ellis Co. has created Daymark Realty Advisors Inc., a wholly owned and separately managed subsidiary that will now be responsible for managing the company’s entire tenant-in-common (TIC) portfolio and provide specialized management services to the owners of the tenant-in-common properties. As a result of the restructuring, Daymark Realty Advisors becomes one of the largest real estate asset management companies in the country, serving more…

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CBRE To Buy ING Real Estate Investment Management Business For $940M

February 16, 2011

Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. announced Tuesday it is acquiring most of the global real estate investment management business of Netherlands-based ING Group NV for $940 million in cash. The combination creates the largest real estate investment platform in the world with more than $97 billion in assets under management. Dutch financial conglomerate ING, seeking to reduce its exposure to commercial real estate, is divesting its ING…

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CBRE To Buy ING Real Estate Investment Management Business For $940M

February 16, 2011

Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. announced Tuesday it is acquiring most of the global real estate investment management business of Netherlands-based ING Group NV for $940 million in cash. The combination creates the largest real estate investment platform in the world with more than $97 billion in assets under management. Dutch financial conglomerate ING, seeking to reduce its exposure to commercial real estate, is divesting its ING…

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Mayor Daley Meets With Airlines To Talk O’Hare Expansion

February 9, 2011

CHICAGO — Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is giving no hint he’s close to a deal with airlines on securing funding for the rest of a $15 billion expansion of O’Hare International Airport. In a statement released Wednesday after he met airline executives in Washington, Daley called the conversation “candid” but didn’t discuss any progress. United and American are the largest airlines operating out of O’Hare. They’ve balked at having to foot most of the bill for expansion. They’ve even sued over the issue. O’Hare expansion is a legacy project for Daley. He has accused airline executives of being short-sighted and avoiding him. As his time in office winds down, Daley says ensuring the project’s long-term viability is a priority and that he’ll pull out the stops to make it happen.

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Digital Media Pioneer Patrick Seaman Named Chief Information Officer at Cinsay, Inc.

February 4, 2011

LOS ANGELES, CA–(Marketwire – February 4, 2011) –  Technology and new media pioneer Patrick Seaman has been named Chief Information Officer for Cinsay, Inc., it was announced today by Matthew D. Papish, President and CEO, Cinsay, Inc. Seaman is known throughout the industry for his pivotal roles at Yahoo! and AudioNet/broadcast.com, where he pioneered the intersection of technology media and communications, helping to create the largest aggregator and distributor of audio and video content on the planet. He was an integral part of the team that shepherded Yahoo’s 1999 purchase of broadcast.com by Yahoo! for an amount in excess of $5 billion. In his new role at Cinsay, Seaman will oversee the company’s technology initiatives and applications, which include Cinsay’s proprietary video player technology that allows unprecedented marketing and sales capabilities in the enterprise e-commerce sector.

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