Money world

A military spokesman in Ivory Coast said the death toll from recent attacks by armed men from Liberia has risen to 23 dead.

A government official said the killings started Thursday night in an area of southwestern Ivory Coast which borders Liberia. The armed men crossed into Ivory Coast, attacking villagers just across the border, before retreating.

Capt. Leon Kouakou Alla confirmed that the death toll rose Monday from 15 to 23 dead.

The attackers are believed to be militiamen allied with ex-President Laurent Gbagbo who lost last year’s election and was eventually forced out in April following French and United Nations airstrikes.

His supporters fled to neighboring countries, and a large percentage of them are now housed in refugee camps in Liberia, from where the attackers came.

Source

First Bank is shuttering its small-business lending center in Folsom, Calif., and moving the office to its operations center in Hazelwood.

Having the center closer to other bank operations and executives will enable the bank to focus more on growing small-business lending, said Chris McLaughlin, executive vice president and director of retail banking for First Bank.

First Bank is a subsidiary of Clayton-based First Banks, which has 149 bank branches in Missouri, California, Florida and Illinois.

“For us, it will allow a faster response to our customers,” McLaughlin said. “We were never a large player in (Small Business Administration) loans in St. Louis or most other markets, and we want to grow that.”

Currently, First Bank has 900 small-business loans totaling about $100 million, and of that amount, 20 percent of its portfolio are SBA loans.

McLaughlin said that with the new small-business lending center, First Bank is seeking to grow its SBA loans to 60 percent of its small-business lending portfolio.

The California office, which had 25 employees and opened five years ago, will close this month. The expanded Hazelwood office will open Monday at First Bank’s current office space at 600 James S. McDonnell Boulevard.

First Bank has recently hired several senior-level employees to staff the small-business lending office, said Wayne Henson, the bank’s SBA lending manager. It also has shifted some internal employees to the expanded center. Including sales, underwriting and back office functions, the small business group will have 62 employees.

Low interest rates for some SBA loans are driving an increase in demand for the loans, Henson said. SBA 504 loans, for example, had interest rates of 4.69 percent for 20-year loans this week and 3.75 percent on 10-year loans.

“The opportunities for small business lending are very good right now,” he said.

The bank is focusing on growing loans in its own backyard after some of its nationwide expansion efforts have failed. Privately held First Bank expanded in California in the 1990s and in Florida in 2007, where real estate loan defaults skyrocketed during the recession. Last year, the bank shrank its geographic footprint by selling 19 branches in Texas, 24 in the Chicago area, and 11 in central Illinois.

In 2008, to boost capital, First Bank’s parent company participated in the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Through TARP, First Banks owes the treasury more than $32 million in unpaid dividends on a $295 million investment made by the treasury.

Source

Car sales up

Stocks rallied Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke proposed no new measures to stimulate the weak U.S. economy, saying he

NEW YORK

Global stock markets fell Friday after U.S. lawmakers put off a vote on raising the government’s debt limit and avoiding a potential default.

Oil fell below $97 a barrel as investors watched political wrangling in Washington and mulled possible worst-case scenarios of a U.S. default in the event lawmakers miss a Tuesday deadline to raise the amount the government can borrow.

The Treasury Department says the debt ceiling _ currently at $14.3 trillion _ must be raised or the government won’t have enough money to cover all its bills. That has led to fears the United States could default on its debt and harm the fragile global economy.

“We’re basically standing on the edge of an abyss peaking over, with the bottom nowhere to be seen,” said IG Markets strategist Ben Potter in a report. He warned that without a deal by Monday, markets could “risk significant fear-based selling that could rapidly get out of control.”

In Europe, France’s CAC-40 shed 1.1 percent to 3,672.93 while Germany’s DAX lost 1 percent to 7,118.76. London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.9 percent at 5,822.57.

Wall Street was set to fall. Dow futures dropped 0.4 percent to 12,148 and broader S&P 500 futures gave up 0.4 percent to 1,291.80.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average closed down 0.7 percent at 9,833.03. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.6 percent to 22,440.25 and China’s Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.3 percent to 2,701.73.

South Korea’s Kospi slid 1 payday lenders.1 percent to 2,133.21. Australia and Bombay also declined while Singapore gained 0.1 percent.

The dollar fell to 77.61 yen in Asia from 77.88 yen late Thursday in New York. The euro fell to $1.4279 from $1.4311.

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives delayed the vote on the bill to extend the government’s debt limit and cut federal spending, though there was an expectation it would occur later Thursday evening in Washington.

On Wall Street, a late sell-off Thursday erased earlier gains as investors fretted that the bill headed for a vote in the House of Representatives would fail to lead to a breakthrough in the debt stalemate.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 62.44 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 12,240.11 on Thursday. The index had been up as many 82 points earlier in the day following an unexpected decrease in new claims for unemployment benefits.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.3 percent to close at 1,300.67. The Nasdaq composite index, however, edged up 0.1 percent to 2,766.25.

Benchmark oil for September delivery was down 59 cents to $96.83 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude rose 4 cents to settle at $97.44 on Thursday.

In London, Brent crude slipped 23 cents to $117.13 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Source

Shares of real estate website Zillow have more than doubled in their trading debut Wednesday.

It’s the latest Internet company to climb sharply in its first day of trading following strong openings from jobs networking site LinkedIn, music service Pandora and Russian search engine Yandex _ although Pandora is almost unchanged from its first-day close, and Yandex trades lower than it did on the end of its first day.

Zillow, founded in 2004, provides online listings for more than 100 million homes for sale and rent. The portal’s “Zestimate” helps estimate property values.

Investors are bidding up Zillow Inc. stock, even though the Seattle company has never posted an annual profit.

Zillow priced shares for $20 per share late Tuesday, $2 more than the top of the range it had predicted Friday free credit score online.

In midday trading Wednesday, Zillow had risen to $38.80 after trading as high as $60 earlier in the session. That means that the value of the company has dropped from more than $1.6 billion to about $1 billion since trading began.

Including a private stock sale of 275,000 shares, Zillow raised $74.7 million. It has no specific plans for the funds, saying only that it will use them for general corporate purposes.

The stock is trading under the symbol “Z” on the Nasdaq exchange.

Source

At the center of the down payment debate in Washington are rules about what constitutes a “qualifying residential mortgage,” or QRM.

Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, a QRM would constitute a gold standard for home loans, and mortgages that meet it would be exempt from rules requiring the bank that generates a loan to keep at least 5 percent of the loan’s value on its books

Rupert Murdoch’s decision to close the 168-year-old weekly British tabloid at the center of a phone-hacking scandal is an example of what the controlling shareholder of News Corp. does best _ seize the news agenda, and when necessary, cut his losses.

He’s also got his eye on a much bigger prize.

Analysts say the surprisingly bold move to shutter News of the World, a financial pipsqueak, is the best possible way to stem the flow of damaging headlines at rival newspapers and clear regulatory hurdles that stand in the way of New Corp.s’ pending multi-billion-dollar acquisition of British Sky Broadcasting, a cash cow that will boost earnings of the media giant.

News of the World, accused of hacking into the phones of regular citizens, is “a drop in the bucket” compared to News Corp.’s overall $46 billion market capitalization, said Collins Stewart analyst Thomas Eagan.

He pegged the tabloid’s value at an optimistic $650 million, or 25 cents per share. That’s far less than the 70 cents that News Corp. shares have fallen since Wednesday when it was revealed the tabloid hacked into the voicemail of a murdered girl, potentially harming a police investigation, and jeopardizing the company’s proposed takeover of BSkyB.

“I think it assuages some of the concern over ongoing problems at `News of the World,’” Eagan said. “It’s unclear what it means for the actual (BSkyB) deal approval. But I would think that it would tend to assuage some of the concern.”

Shutting a newspaper amid an industry-wide decline in print advertising revenue and increasing its stake in a profitable and expanding pay TV company will actually improve News Corp.’s profitability.

Most have a “buy” rating on the shares, thanks in part to an improving TV ad market, the recent decision to sell off money-losing social network Myspace, and its thriving cable channels such as Fox News.

Its TV and movie businesses accounted for practically all of the company’s $1.06 billion in operating profits in the third quarter through March. The publishing division containing newspapers contributed $36 million, or less than 3 percent of the total, while Myspace and related Internet businesses lost $165 million.

News Corp. shares closed down just 4 cents at $17.43 on Thursday after being up most of the day following the announcement of the paper’s closure.

“At some point when the smoke clears, we’re optimistic that investors will ultimately return to analyzing News Corp. on the merits of its high quality media business, which first and foremost include its TV businesses,” said Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente.

The British government on June 30 already gave its qualified approval, allowing News Corp. to purchase the 61 percent of BSkyB that it doesn’t already own, on the condition it spins off Sky News as a separate company.

News Corp. made an initial offer of 700 pence per share to buy the 61 percent of the shares it doesn’t already hold, valuing BSkyB at 12.3 billion pounds ($19.8 billion).

Analysts believe News Corp. may have to go as high as 900 pence per share to persuade shareholders to sell out.

At the time of the qualified approval, the tabloid’s headline-grabbing hacks appeared to be limited to celebrities and politicians, to whom it was prepared to pay compensation.

But public sentiment was inflamed anew after it was revealed this week that the paper’s targets included missing children, the relatives of soldiers slain in Afghanistan and the families of victims of London’s 2005 terror attacks.

The outrage prompted the U.K. media regulatory body, The Office of Communications, to release an unusual statement on Thursday, confirming that “it has a duty to be satisfied on an ongoing basis that the holder of a broadcasting license is `fit and proper.’”

An investigation into whether News Corp. would pass this subjective standard of propriety was seen as potentially derailing Murdoch’s BSkyB bid.

“You don’t even want that question being posed if you’re a media business do you?” said Louise Cooper, a markets analyst at London-based BGC Partners. “This is, to me, Murdoch taking back control.”

Analysts see the BSkyB deal approval being delayed until at least September, as Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt is not expected to give his final go-ahead before the U.K. Parliament goes into recess on July 18.

Despite the public outcry, many analysts think Britain will still sanction the takeover, since officials have already said that threats to competition will be resolved with Sky News’ spin-off.

Source

The eurozone is set to release a vital installment of aid money for Greece Saturday, but will leave the final decision on a second bailout for the debt-ridden country until later this summer.

The finance ministers of the 17 countries that share the euro will sign off on an euro8.7 billion ($12.6 billion) tranche of Greece’s existing bailout in a conference call Saturday evening. An extra euro3.3 billion will come from the International Monetary Fund, whose board is expected to approve the loan next week.

Without the euro12 billion, Greece would default on its massive debts within days.

The parliament in Athens set the preconditions for getting the loan installment earlier this week, when it narrowly passed new austerity measures that should allow the country to hit budget targets set in return for its original euro110 billion rescue package last May.

But Greece needs tens of billions of euros in further assistance over the coming years, as its economy is shrinking amid the budget cuts and investors remain unwilling to lend it any more money. Eurozone leaders said last week that they will continue to support Greece, but the ministers are holding off on a new package until they know how much _ and under what conditions _ banks and other private creditors will contribute.

Talks with banks on a voluntary debt rollover, where they buy new bonds as their old ones mature, are likely to drag on for several more weeks, the European Union’s Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said yesterday payday loans in one hour. The biggest challenge for eurozone finance ministries, which are leading the discussions, will be to set terms for a rollover that do not trigger a negtive opinion from rating agencies.

The European Central Bank has warned that a rating that sees Greece even in partial default on its debts could spark new unrest on financial markets and drag down other struggling eurozone countries.

Rehn is pushing for finance ministers to reach a political deal on the new rescue package at their next meeting on July 11, even if the details of the private sector involvement still have to be ironed out. However, several eurozone official have said that a final deal may not come until later this summer or early fall.

Most economists doubt that even a second loan package will be enough to get Greece back on track, since it won’t reduce a debt load that is already approaching 160 percent of economic output. They warn that private investors will likely have to accept a cut to their holdings eventually, a move that the eurozone has so far ruled out.

Source