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Sequent Energy President Doug Schantz Missing in New Orleans, Company Says

by on March 7, 2010

By Samantha Zee March 7 (Bloomberg) — Douglas Schantz , president of AGL Resources Inc. ’s Sequent Energy Management, has been missing since the early morning of March 5 in New Orleans, the company said. Schantz, 54, was last seen on the city’s Bourbon Street after being out with a group of fellow employees. The group had traveled to New Orleans to make a donation to Tulane University’s energy graduate program. “Doug was due back Friday morning and hasn’t been seen since 2 a.m. Friday when he was out with a group of co- workers,” said Alan Chapple , a spokesman for AGL and Sequent, in a telephone interview. “We are working with all law enforcement officials,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to locate Doug and bring him back safely.” The New Orleans Police Department didn’t immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. Schantz was scheduled to attend a staff meeting at his office at noon on March 5 and co-workers became concerned after he failed to attend. Schantz has been president of Sequent, AGL’s asset manager serving natural gas wholesale customers, since 2003, Chapple said. Atlanta-based AGL is an energy-services company with about 2.3 million customers in six states, mostly in the southeast U.S. In addition to Sequent, it operates natural gas storage facilities and sells natural gas in Georgia under the Georgia Natural Gas brand. Schantz’s disappearance was earlier reported by the Houston Chronicle. To contact the reporter on this story: Samantha Zee in San Francisco at szee@bloomberg.net

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Sequent Energy President Doug Schantz Missing in New Orleans, Company Says

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Kuwait’s Sovereign-Wealth Fund Sells Stake in Citigroup for $4.1 Billion

by on December 6, 2009

Bloomberg:

By Fiona MacDonald and Poppy Trowbridge Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) — Kuwait Investment Authority, the nation’s sovereign-wealth fund, sold its stake in Citigroup Inc . for $4.1 billion after helping the U.S. bank boost capital amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The fund converted preferred securities of Citigroup that it purchased for $3 billion last year into common shares and sold them, making a profit of $1.1 billion, KIA said in an e- mailed statement today. The transaction “will be a confidence-booster,” said M.R. Raghu, head of research at Kuwait Financial Center, a Kuwait- based investment bank, in a telephone interview. “It looks to be good news, making a profit in these times.” Sovereign wealth funds are selling investments in financial stocks as they seek to reduce risk and address domestic criticism over investment priorities. The funds, fueled in part by oil revenue, had become sources of capital around the world for companies including Citigroup and Morgan Stanley , helping them to withstand the credit market seizure that followed the collapse of U.S. subprime mortgages. Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte , KIA and China Investment Corp. are among the sovereign funds that helped U.S. investment banks replenish more than $200 billion of capital. KIA and Temasek owned shares in Merrill Lynch & Co., which was bought by Bank of America in 2008 after the shares slumped 35 percent. Alwaleed Stake Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal remains a shareholder in New York-based Citigroup, even after an 88 percent drop in its stock price during the past two years. Alwaleed has been among the company’s top shareholders since the early 1990s, when he helped rescue it from near-collapse. He said Dec. 1 that he expects 2010 to be a year of “stabilization” for the bank. Barclays Plc , Britain’s second-biggest bank, avoided a government bailout in part by selling 5.3 billion pounds ($8.7 billion) of stock and convertible notes to the Qatar and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds. The bank’s Abu Dhabi investors made a profit of 1.46 billion pounds when they sold shares in the lender in June. Sovereign funds, together valued at about $3.2 trillion, operate as government-owned, special purpose investment vehicles. To contact the reporter for this story: Fiona MacDonald in Kuwait at fmacdonald4@bloomberg.net ; Poppy Trowbridge in London at ptrowbridge@bloomberg.net

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Kuwait’s Sovereign-Wealth Fund Sells Stake in Citigroup for $4.1 Billion

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Updated: FDIC Adopts Guidelines For ‘Prudent’ CRE Loan Workouts

November 4, 2009

As CoStar reported a couple weeks ago, the government announced plans to unveil workout guidelines encouraging banks to restructure troubled commercial construction and mortgage loans as banks continue to fail at a rate not seen since the early 1990s…

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Michael Pento: A Jobless Recovery Part Three

September 10, 2009

It looks like this will be the third jobless recovery in a row. Coming out of the last two recessions we had what has become to be known as a jobless recovery. Job growth usually surges coming out of a recession as companies rush to bring on new employees to rebuild inventories that were depleted in the downturn. However, what has occurred since the early 1990′s is that we have had to wait until the economy was able to build an asset bubble before significant job growth was able to be realized. The truth is that a substantial percentage of GDP growth and job creation has surrounded the financial services industry and real estate-bubbles that were wrought upon the consumer, thanks to the Federal Reserve and financial institutions. This is the direct result of imbalances that have occurred from the false signals caused through inflation. We have to allow the economy to retool itself into a more balanced condition where manufacturing levels increase. Or, we will have to wait until another asset bubble is created before job growth, income growth and the consumer can start to be healed. To further illustrate the condition of a jobless recovery, we were treated to last Friday’s Non-Farm Payroll report. In it we found that August shed another 216 thousand jobs, as the unemployment rate jumped to 9.7%-the highest since June of ’83. And last Thursday we learned that continuing claims spiked by 92k to reach 6.23mm. The stubbornly high continuing claims number shows how difficult it is to find gainful employment after being laid off. But perhaps the most disturbing number from either report on employment trends came from the NFP account. The report indicated that the goods producing sector shed another 136,000 jobs for the month. And the economy has lost an unbelievable 3.47 million goods producing jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Even with all of the government’s interference with the free market (cash for clunkers and an $8,000 tax credit to those who have not owned a home in the last three years), the country continued to lose employment. So why aren’t employers stepping up their hiring? As my friend Larry Kudlow puts it: The threat of higher payroll taxes and energy costs is more than enough to deter new hiring. Taxes on upper-end investors are going to rise, too, and there may be health-care surtax on top of that. And don’t forget that small businesses pay the top personal tax rate, which is going up. Oh, and how about the recent minimum-wage hike? Yet another business cost. Unless the U.S. rediscovers its manufacturing base and rebuilds the goods producing sector of the economy we will not create the necessary amount of viable job growth. Unfortunately, the likelihood of rejuvenating our productive capacity remains low, precisely because we believe a lower dollar is the way to boost exports. The correct way to boost exports is to lower the corporate tax rate and reduce regulations. The way I see it is this: until the legislative ambiguity abates and/or the government has successfully inflated another asset bubble, we will suffer with the condition of a jobless recovery. And even if accomplished, that job growth will be of the non-viable and unsustainable variety once again. Michael Pento is the Chief Economist for Delta Global Advisors and a contributor to greenfaucet.com

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Madoff Financial Exec To Plead Guilty In NY: Feds

August 8, 2009

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors expect the former chief financial officer for disgraced financier Bernard Madoff to plead guilty Tuesday to criminal charges. Frank DiPascali, long rumored to be cooperating with authorities, agreed to enter the plea in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said Friday in a letter to a judge. The charges were not specified. A phone call to DiPascali’s attorney, Marc Mukasey, was referred to a law firm spokeswoman who declined to comment. Earlier Friday, prosecutors filed a one-page notification with the court that they would charge DiPascali. Such a filing usually means that there’s a plea deal and that the defendant is cooperating. Madoff, 71, pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges that his secretive investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme run at least since the early 1990s. The fraud demolished the life savings of thousands of people, wrecked charities and shook confidence in the U.S. financial system. The former Nasdaq chairman was sentenced in June to 150 years in prison. Customers have described DiPascali, 52, as their main contact with the firm. He was the person whom they spoke with if they had questions about their accounts or wanted to add or withdraw money. He also has a long history with Madoff: Both come from the same part of Queens. His first job was as Madoff’s assistant. He went on to hold titles in the 1980s that included director of research and director of options trading. He became the firm’s chief financial officer in 1996 – a post he held until the firm’s collapse. Madoff has insisted that he acted alone, and only one other person – his accountant – has been charged during the seven-month investigation. But Madoff’s brother and sons, who ran a trading operation under the same roof, large investors and other insiders have come under intense scrutiny, and the FBI has said it expects more arrests before it concludes the probe. Bradly Simon, a former federal prosecutor now in criminal defense, said it’s likely DiPascali has been giving investigators inside information from the start on other potential defendants. After Madoff’s arrest late last year, DiPascali “suddenly dropped out of sight,” Simon said. “It’s obvious that they got to him early.” The probable plea deal, he added, signals “more indictments are coming, and probably quite soon.”

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IEA Projection for 1.7% Gain in Oil Demand Looks Optimistic: Chart of Day

July 27, 2009

By Mark Shenk July 27 (Bloomberg) — The International Energy Agency’s forecast for a 1.7 percent gain in global oil consumption next year may be too optimistic, based on the historic relation between gross domestic product and energy consumption. The CHART OF THE DAY shows the IEA’s projections for oil demand growth will trail the World Bank’s forecast for GDP growth by 0.8 percentage point, the least in 14 years. Since 1997, oil use has followed GDP by an average of more than 2 percentage points and in 2006 the spread widened to 3.9 percentage points.

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