Tena Mayberry, the president of Brentwood-based Century II Inc., has been named as CEO of Century’s parent company, Indianapolis-based Fortune Industries Inc.
Mayberry, who was recently named one of Nashville Business Journal’s Women of Influence for 2010, will also continue to serve as president of Century II, and will remain in Brentwood.
She was named Fortune Industries’ president since last year, after the formerly diversified company decided to focus solely on providing professional employer organization services, such as payroll and human resources, to small and mid-sized businesses.
“I am excited to have the opportunity to lead the company through all the strategic plans we put in place,” she told Nashville Business Journal Monday.
She said she expects FFI to grow as the economy recovers, thanks in part to a continued emphasis on sales even while the company was cutting back on other costs.
“I think 2009 is the worst. We can’t have another 2009,” she said. “Everybody I speak with seems to be ready to start talking positively.”
Departing CEO John Fisbeck offered glowing words.
“Tena Mayberry is a proven top executive and one of the most knowledgeable senior managers in the PEO (professional employer organization) industry,” departing CEO John Fisbeck said in a statement. “Under her direction, FFI is one of the few PEO companies that has been profitable for the last year during this difficult economic environment. … She is an inspirational leader with boundless energy and will lead Fortune as it continues to expand in the U.S.”
Mayberry has more than 20 years of management experience, including time with Contract Sales Managers, Kroger Co., and Norrell Temporary Services. She holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business management from Tennessee Technological University.
Fortune Industries (AMEX: FFI) is the nation’s fifth-largest publicly traded PEO, representing 14,000 employees in 47 states.
The number of first-time filers for unemployment insurance fell last week to a nearly 15-month low, according to a government report released Wednesday.
There were 457,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Nov. 28, down 5,000 from a revised 462,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said.
That’s the lowest level since the week ended Sept. 6, 2008. The week being reported included the Thanksgiving holiday.
A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 480,000 new claims for the week.
The 4-week moving average of initial claims was 481,250, down 14,250 from the previous week.
Continuing claims: The government also said 5,465,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended Nov. 21, the most recent data available. That’s up 28,000 from the preceding week.
The 4-week moving average for ongoing claims fell by 75,750 to 5,541,500.
But the slide in continuing claims may signal that more filers are falling off those rolls and into extended benefits.
Continuing claims reflect people filing each week after their initial claim until the end of their standard benefits, which usually last 26 weeks. The figures do not include those who have moved to state or federal extensions, nor people who have exhausted their benefits.
Obama’s jobs forum. The Obama administration is holding a jobs summit Thursday. The president will meet with labor representatives, financial experts, small-business owners and other business leaders to discuss how to revive the labor market no fax pay day loan.
The 130 forum participants are meeting on the eve of the government’s November unemployment report.
The nation is expected to have lost another 125,000 jobs, with unemployment remaining at a 26-year high of 10.2%, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
Last month, the Labor Department reported that the nation’s unemployment rate rose above 10% for the first time since 1983.
A separate report released by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Wednesday showed the pace of job losses slowing to the lowest level in two years, but the number of cuts announced in 2009 have already exceeded last year’s total.
State-by-state data: Only one state reported initial claims fell by more than 1,000 for the week ended Nov. 21, the most recent data available.
Claims in Michigan decreased by 1,242, which the state attributed to fewer layoffs in the auto industry.
Nineteen states said that claims increased by more than 1,000. California reported that claims rose by 14,796; Illinois had 6,168 more claims; North Carolina’s increased by 5,557; Pennsylvania saw a jump of 5,285; and Texas claims rose by 3,500.
U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital is finalizing a roughly 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) deal to buy Japanese telemarketer Bellsystem24 from Citigroup Inc, three sources familiar with the matter said.
It would be the largest buyout by a foreign private equity firm in Japan in nearly two years.
Bain has beaten off rivals Permira PERM.UL and a team of CVC Capital and Blackstone, which had also made offers in the final round of bidding for Bellsystem24, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are not public.
Bain is working on final details and an official announcement could be made within the next few days, the sources told Reuters.
“A deal is imminent,” one of the sources said.
Bain had been tipped as the likely buyer when it secured exclusive negotiating rights earlier this month.
But the door was thought to be still open to the other bidders after the deadline for Bain’s exclusive rights passed on November 6 with no deal announced.
Talks had been ongoing with the CVC and Blackstone team after the exclusivity period ended, and that team had improved its bid, one source familiar with the move told Reuters.
Citigroup put Bellsystem24 up for sale as part of a global effort to raise cash and replenish its capital. It has already raised more than $7 billion by selling other assets in Japan including a broker, a trust bank and a fund management arm same day payday loans.
The sale of Bellsystem24 initially drew strong interest from a number of private equity firms including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co KKR.UL, which teamed up with trading house Itochu Corp before dropping out of the race.
The deal will likely reach or exceed 100 billion yen, sources said, making it Japan’s largest buyout by a foreign private equity firm since March 2008, when Permira bought agrichemical company Arysta LifeScience Corp for more than $2 billion.
Bellsystem24 is Japan’s largest telemarketing firm. It competes against Moshi Moshi Hotline Inc and Transcosmos Inc in Japan.
Bellsystem24 is now owned by Citigroup Capital Partners, which was known as Nikko Principal Investments, a private equity arm of brokerage group Nikko Cordial, which was bought by Citigroup in 2007.
Nikko Principal paid 220 billion yen to buy Bellsystem24 in 2004. The sale price would be lower than the purchase price but Citigroup had made returns from the investment by restructuring the company’s debt to take some cash out, a method known as recapitalization.
Bain’s financing will be supported by banking units of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, Mizuho Financial Group Inc and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc, according to sources familiar with matter.
Jes Staley is taking over as head of investment banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co, in line to succeed Jamie Dimon as chief executive of the No. 2 U.S. bank.
“With the credit crisis largely behind us and the economy recovering, the timing was right to begin the succession process,” Dimon said in a statement Tuesday.
Staley, 53, who joined the bank in 1979, returns to the investment banking unit after stints at JPMorgan’s private bank and asset management operation.
JPMorgan said Bill Winters, 48, co-CEO of investment banking, is leaving the company.
The other co-CEO, Steve Black, 57, becomes executive chairman of the investment bank to oversee the transition to Staley as the new CEO.
Staley will report to Black, who will work through a transition period until the end of 2010, the bank said.
Mary Callahan Erdoes, 42, chief executive of JPMorgan’s private bank, succeeds Staley as head of asset management.
Winters and Black were deeply involved in the acquisition and integration of Bear Stearns Cos.
JPMorgan shares were up about 5 cents in premarket trading at $44.86.
(Reporting by Elinor Comlay; Editing by Derek Caney and John Wallace)
Last month, Missouri gambling regulators essentially put the President Casino’s license up for grabs.
Now the company that owns the casino is crying foul.
Pinnacle Entertainment has asked a state appeals court in Kansas City to overturn a ruling by the Missouri Gaming Commission that said Pinnacle must reapply for a license if it hopes to move the President or replace or repair the aging Admiral Riverboat on which it sits.
That ruling, Pinnacle argues in an appeal filed Thursday, essentially revokes the President’s license — one of just 13 allowed in the state — because it ties the casino to the Admiral, which is widely expected to fail its next Coast Guard inspection in July. Pinnacle would like the court to overturn the decision and give it time to fix the President.
It is the latest step in a long discussion over what to do with the casino, which Las Vegas-based Pinnacle bought for $45 million in 2006 as part of its development of Lumi
If not, pay heed to this story.
Jacqueline Boone, who lives in England, had an accident in a rented car while visiting Toronto in 2006. While driving out of an underground parking lot downtown, she swerved to avoid a head-on collision with a car coming down and hit a wall.
Boone called the company, Advantage Car & Truck Rentals, immediately to report the damage.
She believed she was protected from extra costs since she had paid $25 a day for a loss-damage waiver, which is supposed to cover repairs to a rental car in an accident.
But when she checked her credit card bill online, she found an extra $5,558 in costs for the transaction.
Advantage later wrote to say repair costs weren’t covered because of a clause in its contract that excluded collisions with a stationary object – that is, a wall.
With her husband, Boone decided to fight Advantage in Ontario’s small claims court. She found the forms online and prepared a case.
She said the car rental office near the airport was poorly lit in the evening when she arrived. It was virtually impossible to read the terms and conditions in the agreement. Also, the clause excluding collisions with stationary objects was never brought to her attention. She wasn’t asked to initial it, as with other parts of the contract.
"Jackie asked the clerk whether we would be covered for everything with the loss-damage waiver that we purchased at an exorbitant rate. He said we would be," Robert Boone says.
In July 2008, Boone flew to Toronto for her day in court. She faced several lawyers on the other side. "My wife has no legal training, but with help from guidelines downloaded from the Attorney General’s website, she put the case together and won it," her proud husband says.
She cited another case, Tilden Rent-A-Car vs. Clendenning, in which the contract denied coverage for accidents if the driver had consumed any alcohol auto loan interest rates.
Clendenning hit a pole after having consumed alcohol and pleaded guilty to impaired driving. He won in court when the rental company wouldn’t pay for the damage.
In the Ontario court of appeal in 1978, Justice Charles Dubin said many standard-form contracts are signed without being read and understood.
A company seeking to rely on "stringent and onerous provisions" in a contract shouldn’t be able to do so without having first taken reasonable measures to draw the terms to the other party’s attention, he said.
Advantage launched an appeal, which was dismissed on June 2 of this year.
Superior court judge Andromache Karakatsanis said the small claims court judge had not made any errors.
In the circumstances of the case, a reasonable person would have known that Boone was not consenting to the exclusion, notwithstanding the clause in the written contract, she said.
"Advantage stands behind the facts and allegations made by it in the court proceedings, which are now a matter of public record," company spokesman Bruce Taylor says about the case.
The company was ordered to pay for the repair costs, plus $8,000 in court costs.
The Boones hired a lawyer for the appeal, so they’re still out of pocket.
They hope to inspire others to fight against contracts with unfair terms.
"We are the kind of people who stand up for what they believe in and will not be bullied when we have been wronged," Boone says.
"I hope that a precedent has been set for all those who are wrongly treated by car rental firms to stand up and be counted."
Write to onyourside@thestar.ca
or check the On Your Side blog at ellenroseman.com
But he’s made mistakes in handling his own money and still lives in his mother’s basement.
He hopes to be out by his 30th birthday next month.
"My dad is a successful accountant and my mother has been in finance for as long as I can remember," he says. "My parents just never taught me about the subject of money, nor did I think to ask."
He spent frivolously, having owned six cars by the time he got his first university degree.
Then, he borrowed $60,000 to pay for his MBA studies and moved to China for two years. He found a job there, but racked up another $10,000 in consumer debt.
Goodman likes the idea of teaching young people about personal finances in school – as long as they learn why they need to care about their money.
"Sometime in your life, something will change. And if you’re not prepared for the unexpected, you can get into trouble," he tells me.
"I never learned why it was important to save money until it was too late. I could have paid my debts faster and not had to move back home."
He tries to help others avoid the same plight in his book, Following the Goods: Financial Management for the Young and Ambitious, which he published himself and sells at his website, www.followingthegoods.com.
What if schools started teaching money skills to all students? What would be on the curriculum?
Compound interest is a good place to start, says high school teacher Mike Gentile, who has taught Grade 12 economics.
"Most students are completely shocked to understand how debt functions," he says. "The greatest consternation stems from the basic concept of amortization, where the lender is paid the bulk of the interest costs up front low rate payday loans."
He shows students how they can pay up to twice the original amount borrowed if they spread the interest over many years.
The shorter the better when it comes to loan repayments: That one lesson can help them save thousands of dollars once they start buying cars and homes.
Gary Rabbior, president of the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education, has three simple concepts he’d teach youngsters:
Students can go through school without ever being taught how to make decisions, he says.
They need a rational, step-by-step model to guide their future decisions on working, spending, borrowing, saving and investing.
They also need to consider the impact their decisions have on other people.
Rabbior thinks there’s too much focus on preparing budgets in money management courses.
"Almost no one works with a budget. Out of 100 people, maybe three will do it," he says.
"We’re pushing people into the details of something they’re likely never to use."
It’s better to focus on the big picture, he says. Are you saving enough to pay for what you want? Are you taking on more debt than you can handle?
(You can find a free 125-page book, Money and Youth, and help for parents and teachers at www.moneyandyouth.cfee.org.)
eroseman@thestar.com
General Electric Co said profit fell by almost half, on a deeper drop in revenue than Wall Street expected, as the slump that has gripped its finance and media businesses took hold of its heavy industrial units.
The largest U.S. conglomerate, whose shares fell 3.2 percent in premarket trading, reported earnings that topped Wall Street’s expectations, but posted a 17-percent drop in revenue that was far deeper than the 10-percent decline analysts expected.
Earnings tumbled at all its businesses except for the energy infrastructure unit, which makes equipment including electricity-producing turbines and gear used in oil and gas production.
GE’s second quarter net income came to $2.67 billion, or 24 cents per share, compared with profit of $5.07 billion, or 51 cents per share, a year earlier.
Profit from continuing operations came to 26 cents per share. On that basis, analysts on average had looked for 24 cents.
Revenue fell 17 percent to $39.08 billion. Factoring out fluctuating exchange rates, revenue would have fallen 12 percent.
“Hitting the bottom line number was pretty good news, but that top line revenue, that’s a big miss,” said Peter Sorrentino, senior vice president and portfolio manager at Huntington Asset Advisors in Cincinnati, which owns GE shares. “For them to come in at the $39 (billion revenue) range, that was definitely disconcerting.”
GE’s size and the scope of its operations — which range from commercial lending to building railroad locomotives to running the NBC television network — make it a bellwether of the world economy, which is facing a brutal recession quick payday loan.
“The numbers are far from inspiring, but in this environment that could be seen as a positive,” said Owen Ireland, analyst at ODL Securities in London.
The world’s largest maker of jet engines has been dragged down by deteriorating profit at its GE Capital arm, which has been hurt by heavy investments in commercial real estate and a weaker credit environment.
The company generated $7.1 billion in cash from operations and that its backlog of orders held steady at $169 billion.
Shares declined 40 cents to $12.00 in premarket trading.
GE shares have fallen about 24 percent so far this year, a much sharper decline than the 1 percent slide of the Dow Jones industrial average.
The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company competes with a lineup of some of the world’s largest companies, including German conglomerate Siemens AG, Swiss engineering group ABB Ltd and French industrial group Alstom SA.
(Additional reporting by Nick Zieminski and Ellis Mynandu in New York, Simon Falush, Harpreet Bhal, Atul Prakash and Joanne Frearson in London; Editing by Derek Caney)
CIT Group Inc, a lender to hundreds of thousands of small and mid-sized U.S. businesses, said bailout talks with the government had ended, a development that could ultimately drive the company into bankruptcy.
Wednesday’s announcement followed last-ditch talks in which Treasury officials had expressed concern about a worsening liquidity crunch at the 101-year old lender and indications that government aid would not put it on a path to recovery.
It also showed the possible limits of Washington’s ability and willingness to rescue companies, after multiple bailouts engineered by Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp for larger companies such as American International Group Inc and Citigroup Inc.
“At least in the eyes of the Fed and the eyes of the Treasury, we’ve turned the corner, such that the systemic kinds of risks facing the economy may be well past,” said Mike Knebel, a portfolio manager at Ferguson Wellman Capital Management in Portland, Oregon, which recently sold CIT bonds.
In a brief statement, New York-based CIT said “discussions with government agencies had ceased” and that “there is no appreciable likelihood of additional government support being provided over the near term,” CIT said its management, directors and advisers were evaluating alternatives.
CNBC, citing a source close to the company, said CIT is now pursuing a plan that is likely to include a Chapter 11 filing on Friday.
On Wednesday night, CIT’s representatives were trying to line up at least $2 billion in rescue financing from existing debtholders, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter health insurance quote.
CIT could not be immediately reached for comment on the reports.
A Treasury official said the talks ended after it became clear that CIT’s liquidity had deteriorated too much, and the company had failed to show that it could raise private capital to stay solvent. A CIT bankruptcy, nonetheless, is not a foregone conclusion, the official told Reuters.
The Treasury Department also said there were limits to its ability to help troubled companies.
“Even during periods of financial stress, we believe that there is a very high threshold for exceptional government assistance to individual companies,” it said in a statement.
CIT’s travails were also a vexing problem for the Obama administration, which had to assess the risk of failing to bail out a large company whose collapse would, by itself, likely not pose a “systemic” risk to the financial system.
TARP MONEY NOT ENOUGH
If CIT were to go bankrupt, it would join Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and Washington Mutual Inc among large financial companies to collapse since the credit crisis accelerated last September.
Standard & Poor’s said on Monday that a CIT bankruptcy was possible if no federal aid emerged.
U.S. earnings may not perform a turnabout in the second quarter, but expectations finally are looking up, suggesting financial statements could hold more than the usual share of surprises from prominent companies.
For the quarter, earnings are still expected to decline sharply from the year-ago period. Data compiled by Thomson Reuters shows analysts expect a decrease of about 36 percent in Standard & Poor’s 500 corporate earnings from a year earlier, which would mean no improvement from the first quarter.
But the early indication from companies and the recent trend in analyst revisions suggest that forecasts have finally bottomed out, possibly opening the door to stronger performances going forward.
That could bode well for stocks, which have rallied from 12-year lows in March on hoped-for signs of an economic rebound. The rebound in stocks presaged an upturn in earnings expectations, which started to improve in mid-May.
“The expectations are such that we’ll have more surprises to the upside than to the downside,” said Maury Fertig, chief investment officer of Relative Value Partners in Northbrook, Illinois.
Aluminum company Alcoa Inc, whose results on Wednesday will kick off the season’s reports, is expected to post a third consecutive quarterly loss. If there is going to be earnings strength, it is not likely to come from the materials sector, which is expected to show a year-over-year decline of 79 percent, according to Thomson Reuters.
A ROSIER PICTURE?
But earnings projections have seen an upward trajectory. Estimates for six of the 10 S&P industry sectors have been revised higher over the past four weeks, according to researchers at Birinyi Associates Inc cashadvance., led by the consumer discretionary sector, although much of the change has to do with the removal of General Motors Inc from the index.
Others revised higher include consumer staples, technology and telecommunications.
This trend could result in a higher-than-usual percentage of companies exceeding estimates, which has averaged 66 percent, according to Thomson Reuters.
Analysts seem less inclined to slash estimates, said Dirk Van Dijk, analyst at Zacks Investment Research in Chicago.
“We have been noticing recently there have been more positive upgrades to estimates than cuts,” he said.
There have been fewer warnings by companies as well, said John Butters, director of U.S. earnings for Thomson Reuters, noting that these changes may indicate a bottom in the earnings downturn.
The same can be said for actual results so far. Headed into the week, of the 23 S&P 500 companies that had reported results, 18 had exceeded expectations, according to Zacks. Should that continue, it could heighten the appeal of equities after stocks stumbled through most of May and June.
“The recent news is encouraging,” said Burt White, chief investment officer at LPL Financial in Boston. “We’re starting to see better-than-expected pre-announcements, which bodes well for the quarter.
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