Financial News

An increasingly likely playoff berth and fan interest in hockey after the Vancouver Olympics could be accounting for the increase in attendance at Phoenix Coyotes games.

The Coyotes, which have won two straight games, drew a crowd of just under 15,000 on Saturday against the Anaheim Ducks and 12,400 on Thursday against the Colorado Avalanche. The Coyotes average a National Hockey League attendance low of 11,200 fans per game.

The team is in fourth place in the NHL's Western Conference. The top eight teams make the playoffs, and the Coyotes are getting close to assuring themselves a spot. The team has not made the playoffs since 2002.

Strong performance on the ice and fan interest in hockey during the Olympics could help bolster the Coyotes. The team could have moved to Canada in the offseason while they were in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Coyotes even are promoting Stanley Cup playoff ticket deals to season ticket holders.

The 15,000-fan draw for the Coyotes also comes on a night when they were competing directly with the Phoenix Suns and Cactus League baseball for fans. The Suns drew 18,200 for their win over the Indiana Pacers.

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President Obama was stumping once again Tuesday for his plan to reimburse homeowners who invest in energy efficiency and create jobs.

But the president’s plan offered less money than had been previously hoped.

‘It’s going to be politically difficult to get this done," Obama said at a speech at Savannah Technical College in Georgia. "But it’s the right thing to do."

The plan, officially known as Home Star, would give rebates of 50% up to $3,000 for energy saving purchases like new appliances, furnaces, or insulation.

Consumers would get the rebate from a store, contractor, or utility.

It would also offer a larger rebate for homeowners who performed a more comprehensive energy audit of their home. Under that plan, homeowners could be reimbursed for up to half the cost of hiring contractors to do things like add insulation, swap out old appliances, and caulk leaky windows and doors.

Rebates depend on a home’s energy savings. Cut energy use by 20% and homeowners could get back half the money they shell out, up to $3,000. Homeowners who cut more than that might get up to $8,000, depending on how much they cut, according to people familiar with the plan.

A typical home energy audit and retrofit costs $5,000 to $8,000, and generally shaves 20%-40% off the monthly energy bills.

Unlike the Energy Department’s Weatherization program, which is targeted to low-income people and has been criticized for taking too long to get going, this plan would be available to everyone.

The $8,000 rebate is less than the $12,000 proponents originally wanted, and the $6 billion proposed for the program is less than the $10 billion originally hoped for creditreport.

Nonetheless, environmentalists praised the idea.

"Even the most basic upgrade puts money in our pockets, puts Americans back to work and puts energy waste on the run," Lane Burt, manager of Building Energy Policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. "It’s a triple play on a more efficient future."

The program, dubbed "cash for caulkers" by some, has been touted by the president for months. It even won a mention in his State of the Union Address.

But whether it becomes reality is far from certain.

Congressional Democrats are also behind the idea and have said it is a part of their larger job creation strategy. But it was not included in a recent jobs bill, which focused more on extending current tax breaks rather than enacting new programs.

And it faces likely opposition from lawmakers concerned about rising government spending.

"Democratic leaders in Congress will still need to test the level of support for ‘cash for caulker’ programs relative to other jobs priorities," Whitney Stanco, an energy policy analyst at the brokerage firm Concept Capital, said in an e-mail.

The plan could appear in another jobs bill, or in separate energy legislation expected later this year.  

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Bank Indonesia is “confident” the country will meet the central bank’s inflation target this year, Senior Deputy Governor Darmin Nasution said today.

The projection takes into account rising prices and a recovery in the global economy, Nasution said in Jakarta. Consumer-price gains are expected to average 4 percent to 6 percent in 2010, he said Jan. 6.

Indonesia’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate at 6.5 percent for a fifth month Jan. 6, saying it wasn’t concerned about inflation pressures in the first half. Consumer prices in Southeast Asia’s largest economy held near a decade low in December, giving the bank more time before it joins other Asian policy makers in raising borrowing costs fast cash now.

Indonesia’s inflation will probably be “relatively tame” at about 5.3 percent this year, Helmi Arman, an economist at PT Bank Danamon Indonesia, said in a research note Jan. 18. Economic growth will probably be “close to 5.2 percent,” Arman said in the note.

“The odds are rising for the BI rate to stay at 6.5 percent this year, which paves the way for a smoother recovery of commercial bank credit growth,” Bank Danamon said.

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Peopleclick, a Raleigh company that makes human resources software, has been purchased by New York private equity firm Bedford Funding for about $100 million, the companies announced Tuesday.

Bedford owns Massachusetts company Authoria Inc., a Peopleclick competitor. Bedford will merge the two makers of human-resources software into a combined entity called Peopleclick Authoria.

Charles S. Jones, managing partner of Bedford Funding, will become chairman and CEO of Peopleclick Authoria, working from the private equity firm's White Plains, N.Y., headquarters. At this point, the new company does not have specific plans to choose a headquarters in either Raleigh or Waltham, a spokeswoman said business?ards.

Bedford bought Waltham, Mass.-based Authoria, in 2008 for $63.1 million and immediately committed to invest $8 million more in the company, which makes talent management software. Peopleclick makes talent acquisition software. Bedford plans to integrate the two companies' products to include more analytics capability, the firm said in a press release.

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The Bank of Nova Scotia said Tuesday it has been approved to set up independent operations in Dubai's financial district, making it the first Canadian bank to do so.

The licensing clearance from the Dubai International Financial Center allows the bank's ScotiaMocatta division to open an independent branch in one of the Middle East's hubs for international finance.

ScotiaMocatta has operated in Dubai since 1998 through an alliance with the National Bank of Dubai to provide financial services to gold traders, jewellers and others.

"This is a strategic initiative that reflects our confidence not only in the precious metals market, but also in the region," said Barry Wainstein, vice-chairman and deputy head, of Scotiabank Global Capital Markets.

The move comes as debt-burdened Dubai struggles to retain its prominence as a centre for Middle East investors and traders.

"We are very happy to welcome Scotiabank, the first Canadian bank to join the DIFC," said DIFC governor Ahmed Humaid Al Tayer in a statement Tuesday morning.

"As the DIFC begins to play a more prominent role in the global economy, we are keen to expand the industry cluster within the financial district with new companies from across the global financial industry," he said.

Pramod Mohan, a senior executive at Scotiabank's Dubai branch, said the bank recognized the importance of establishing a stand-alone presence in the region as the previous metals market in the Middle East continues to grow.

"Dubai is ideally located in a large wholesale and consumer market and is uniquely positioned to channel gold from the international markets to the ultimate destination," he said.

ScotiaMocatta is the precious metals division of the Scotiabank Group. Scotiabank Group currently employs close to 68,000 people in about 50 countries.

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Apple Inc. is in talks to acquire online music service Lala, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The terms of the deal weren’t known. The people declined to be identified because talks are still in progress.

The Lala service lets users listen to any song on its site once for free. Customers can then opt to buy the track for 10 cents and listen to it on the Web paperless payday loans.

The service differs from iTunes because the music is stored on servers via so-called cloud computing, instead of being downloaded to the user’s computer.

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The U.S. Treasury Department’s refusal to sell its 34 percent stake in Citigroup Inc. is hampering the bank’s plans to repay $20 billion of remaining bailout funds, people familiar with the bank said.

Executives at the New York-based bank are growing frustrated because they can’t sell stock to raise money for repayment until the Treasury signals when and how it will unload its 7.7 billion shares, said the people, declining to be identified because the matter is under discussion. Investors may be reluctant to buy shares because a Treasury sale could drive down the price.

“The ball is in the government’s court,” said Chris Kotowski, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, who has a “market perform” rating on the bank’s shares. “It’s not Citibank’s decision to sell them or not sell them.”

Bank of America Corp.’s plan to repay $45 billion of bailout funds would leave Citigroup as the only large bank subject to compensation reviews by Treasury paymaster Kenneth Feinberg. Other bailed-out companies under his purview include insurer American International Group Inc. and carmakers General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons said in September that the bank must pay employees competitively to ward off poaching by rivals. Under pressure from Feinberg, the bank cut total 2009 compensation for its 25 highest-paid people by about 70 percent from 2008.

$6 Billion Paper Gain

For almost three months, executives at the bank have tried to persuade Treasury to move ahead with a sale, the people said. At the current market price, the Treasury’s shares are worth about $31.2 billion. Because the common shares were converted from $25 billion of bailout funds, that’s a paper gain of about 25 percent, or more than $6 billion.

Meg Reilly, a Treasury spokeswoman, declined to comment on whether the government has sold any shares or when it may do so. “Treasury does not comment on individual institutions as a general policy,” she said. Citigroup spokesman Jon Diat said he couldn’t comment.

Treasury hasn’t told Citigroup how or when it plans to dispose of the stake, the people said. The shares are held within the department’s Office of Financial Stability, run by Herb Allison, the former chief executive officer of retirement- services firm TIAA-CREF payday loans for bad credit. Allison reports to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Pandit’s Vow

Citigroup got a total of $45 billion last year from the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. In September, $25 billion of that was converted into common stock, which the Treasury is free to sell at any time.

Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit, 52, said Oct. 15 he was “focused on repaying TARP as soon as possible.” He said, “We’re going to do so in consultation with the government and our regulators.”

In a report, CreditSights Inc. analyst David Hendler said Citigroup could repay the $20 billion of TARP funds by selling about $10 billion of common stock along with $10 billion or more of junior debt securities. Regulators may be keeping Citigroup in TARP because of lingering concern that the economy won’t recover quickly, Hendler wrote.

The company has almost doubled its cash holdings to $244.2 billion over the past year, the biggest such stockpile of any U.S. bank.

‘Not Cash’

“It’s not a question of cash,” Kotowski said. “It’s a question how much the regulators will force banks to raise to clear themselves of the stigma of being a TARP bank.”

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, all based in New York, repaid bailout funds in June. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co., which hasn’t repaid $25 billion of bailout funds, isn’t subject to Feinberg’s rules because it hasn’t received “exceptional assistance.”

Even if the Treasury sold its Citigroup shares and the bank paid off the remaining $20 billion, it still might be subject to the paymaster’s purview because it has $301 billion of government asset guarantees, the people said. Citigroup has no plans to terminate the guarantees, which remain in effect for 10 years on home loans and mortgage-backed securities and 5 years for other types of assets, the people said.

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Cheryl Gray knew she had a problem on her hands when cleaning staff in one of the buildings she was responsible for started showing up to work with masks.

It was the summer of 2003 and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, had hit Canada’s largest city. By the end of the outbreak there were 443 probable cases, with 44 deaths. Tenants in her Toronto buildings were clamouring for information. Was it even safe to touch the elevator buttons?

Gray, a senior vice-president at Canadian property manager and developer Bentall Capital, knew she had to be prepared if there was a next time. "There was a lot of angst amongst tenants and we really didn’t have a clear game plan on what to do," Gray said.

What Gray did was create what some describe as the gold standard of pandemic planning for commercial buildings in North America.

Gray’s obscure manual is getting more attention today after long lines for H1N1 flu vaccination shots in Ontario created a heightened sense of urgency for Canadian businesses. About 2.5 million people have been vaccinated in three weeks, with 198 deaths across the country.

Apart from the health implications, the virus can have severe consequences on the economy if commercial and retail operations close.

Written in the wake of the SARS epidemic, the manual is considered the go-to document in pandemic preparedness, written on the front lines by property managers like Gray who were at the epicentre of the SARS outbreak.

"We were caught by surprise with SARS, and Cheryl took the initiative to reach out to the industry so we could collectively come up with a game plan," said Diana Osler-Zortea, president of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada, which represents commercial real estate landlords.

"We really needed to figure out how you continue to service everyone when all your workers are sick. How would your business continue in the event of an emergency?"

At the time, Gray was responsible for managing 20 million square feet of properties in eastern Canada, mostly in Toronto. After the SARS outbreak, she got in touch with other members of BOMA, a group whose members include major landlords such as Redcliffe Realty, Brookfield Properties and Oxford Properties, and formed a group that met monthly for 18 months to prepare the 95-page document now used by building managers worldwide.

The committee used input from not just real estate experts, but legal, insurance and medical experts as well. Toronto microbiologist Dr. Donald Low is also a consultant.

Ralph Dunham, managing director of risk consultancy Marsh Canada Ltd., said he uses the guide as a good starting point for clients.

"Not only is it a gold standard in the North American real estate industry, but it is valuable to other non-real estate organizations," he said.

"Each company is different, but the principles of preparedness are the same."

The guide looks at basic issues such as how to maintain contact with tenants and employees, preparing for the possibility of closure, travel policies, education and even rent defaults by tenants in the wake of a pandemic.

It discusses whether there is even a legal obligation for owners and building managers to have a pandemic plan. It argues employers have a duty to do this because legislation requires that they maintain a safe workplace.

"We tried to look at everything that could happen," said Gray. "If the cleaning company has a 40 per cent absenteeism rate, how are you going to cope with cleaning the premises effectively? Another example might be that some people may not want to take public transit during an outbreak, so they drive in. How do you respond to the need for extra parking spaces?"

Over the past year the guide has been fine-tuned with more input from stakeholders. Gray says it is necessarily a work in progress as building managers learn from the real world.

"When I finished working on the first manual, I was hoping it would have some value one day. I just didn’t think it would be this soon," said Gray.

"People thought, well, that’s interesting, but I guess it didn’t have the kind of relevance and immediacy it has now."

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Kraft Foods Inc faces a tougher task winning over Cadbury Plc shareholders after disappointing results reinforced the view that it will formalize its existing offer for the British chocolatier next week rather than present a higher bid.

An announcement formalizing Kraft’s current offer is expected on Monday, under a deadline set by the UK Takeover Panel, one source familiar with the situation told Reuters. The source could not be identified by name because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

Kraft is unlikely to raise its offer or change the cash-and-stock mix of the bid at this time because it faces no rival suitors for Cadbury, said the source familiar with the situation, who cautioned that plans could still be altered, before or after Monday.

“Formalizing the bid is just a starting point,” said the source. “Anything could change after that.”

If Kraft failed to formalize its bid by 1700 GMT on Monday November 9, it would have to walk away from Cadbury for six months under UK takeover rules.

Kraft made a cash-and-shares offer in early September that was rejected by Cadbury. Formalizing the offer without a recommendation from Cadbury would turn the bid hostile.

The initial approach was priced at 745p a Cadbury share, or 10.2 billion pounds ($16.8 billion), but the fall in Kraft shares makes it presently worth around 733p, against a current Cadbury share price of around 767p.

Kraft released its quarterly results after the U.S. market close on Tuesday, reporting revenue that fell short of Wall Street expectations and cutting its sales forecast.

The world’s No. 2 foodmaker has insisted it would not overpay for Cadbury. But it has also secured a $9 billion bridge loan and could use it to sweeten the cash element of its offer at a later date.

Kraft shares were down nearly 3 percent on Wednesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, while Cadbury closed down 1.4 percent in London.

HOW MUCH SWEETER?

Pablo Zuanic at broker JPMorgan said Kraft’s results were likely to cap any eventual improvement in its offer.

“Re: the Kraft bid, we now assume a lower price on lack of competing bids, lower synergy assumptions and our growing belief Kraft could walk away … We doubt Kraft will go over 780 pence,” he added.

Investec Securities, meanwhile, said it expects Kraft would not be willing to pay more than 800 pence a share for Cadbury.

“We now think Kraft will be willing to pay only 800p, and the probability of a successful bid falls accordingly,” said analyst Martin Deboo at Investec Securities, one of the few big brokers not involved in advising or financing in the bid battle. 

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P&G reported first quarter sales and EPS exceeded expectations.

* Q1 earnings per share $0.97 from continuing operations

* Q1 earnings per share $1.06 * Q1 sales $19.8 billion

* Sees 2010 core earnings per share $3.47 to $3.59 * Says for 2010 the company increased range of expected organic sales growth by one percent to plus two to four percent

* Says net sales are expected to increase three to seven for October-December quarter

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