Laclede Group Inc., the owner of Missouri’s largest natural gas utility, overcame one of the mildest winters on record to post a higher fiscal second-quarter profit.
Net income for the three months ended March 31 rose 6 percent to $29.7 million, or $1.32 a share, from $27.9 million, or $1.25 a share, for the same period last year, the St. Louis-based company said.
Sales fell more than a third to $358.2 million.
Earnings for the company’s gas utility, Laclede Gas Co totally free credit score., fell slightly to $25.9 million as customers ran their furnaces less because of the warmer winter.
The company’s wholesale natural gas marketing business more than made up the difference, more than doubling its profit to $3.8 million.
fast cash loan is fast becoming a viable financial option for consumers who need a few extra dollars.
The Senate on Thursday passed a bill making it easier for more companies to become publicly traded by bypassing audits and disclosures now required for investors.
The Senate voted 73-to-26 to pass the House version of the bill with one small change intended to help protect investors. Because of the change, the bill returns to the House.
"The bill is far from perfect, but it’s a good bill," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "It’ll help capital formation."
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor indicated support for the Senate change and promised quick passage of the bill, meaning it could arrive on President Obama’s desk next week.
Earlier this month, the House overwhelmingly passed the measure that rolls back some rules the Securities and Exchange Commission enforces on small and medium companies attempting to make an initial public offering.
The measure sparked concerned letters from investor groups, unions, consumer groups and even the head of the SEC. All of them said the bill could open the door for more failed IPOs and investor fraud.
In a letter last week, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro asked lawmakers for changes, saying "too often, investors are the target of fraudulent schemes disguised as investment opportunities."
The bill would relax SEC rules for small and medium-sized companies with less than $1 billion in gross revenue seeking to go public. The measure gives them up to five years, or until revenue tops $1 billion, to supply an independent audit and certain investor disclosures.
Critics said $1 billion is too high a threshold — some 80% of firms going public would be able to bypass disclosures.
It would also make it easier for companies with as many as 2,000 shareholders to avoid registering with regulators.
The bill would also exempt firms from nonbinding shareholder votes on executive pay and benefits packages, which just came as part of the Wall Street reform law paperless payday loans. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the law made it tougher for CEOs to reap bonuses tied to soaring stock prices — particularly when the company is over-leveraged and making risky bets.
Stocks: Retail investors ‘not in the game yet’
Critics, including the Council of Institutional Investors, said that easing the rules applied to far too many companies and could make investors wary of investing in them.
"A company (with $1 billion in revenues) has the resources to comply with disclosures," said Jeff Mahoney, general counsel to the Council of Institutional Investors.
The bill would also allow companies to solicit investors — including the use of advertisements — when going public, which is currently prohibited. And it would allow them to raise money from larger numbers of small, less sophisticated investors.
Barbara Roper of the Consumer Federation of America warned the provision would make it easier for companies to take advantage of seniors, luring them to sink their retirement savings into an IPO.
"A retiree who has that nest egg isn’t necessarily a sophisticated investor and shouldn’t be speculating on private offerings," Roper said.
The bill would also allow what’s called "crowd funding," allowing firms to bypass regulations to raise money from large pools of small investors by directly soliciting them over the Internet. Critics are concerned about the potential for fraud.
The only change that the Senate added was to require that those working as an intermediary to such crowd funding register with regulators.
– CNN’s Ted Barrett contributed to this story.
Anonymous and other "hacktivist" groups rose to new prominence in the cybercrime universe last year, and a new report shows that they made some serious mischief.
Verizon’s (, Fortune 500) annual Data Breach Investigations Report, released Thursday, found that hacktivist groups were responsible for 58% of all data stolen last year. The telecom giant compiled data breach information from its customers and from law enforcement agencies in five countries.
The hacktivists’ success is partially due to the sharp rise in the number of attacks Anonymous and its peers launched last year. Verizon, which has been tracking hacktivist activity since 2004, said that last year’s collection of hacktivist breaches exceeded the total from all previous years combined.
That trend is "probably the biggest and single most important change" in this year’s report, said Bryan Sartin, head of Verizon’s data breach investigations team.
When online hacktivism first started in the 1990s, most of what the attackers accomplished were website defacements and denial of service attacks — annoyances more than serious problems.
How they hack you
But last year, Verizon began to notice what it calls a "major shift" in hacktivist activity. In addition to their usual methods, Anonymous and its cohorts were starting to launch data breach attempts against their targets, in what became a new "core tactic" for the groups.
"2011 saw a merger between those classic misdeeds and a new ‘oh by the way, we’re gonna steal all your data too’ twist," Verizon said in its report. "This re-imagined and re-invigorated specter of ‘hacktivism’ rose to haunt organizations around the world."
Here’s a startling twist: Verizon found that in many cases the denial of service attacks served as diversions. The hacktivists would often publicly announce a big attack, and the target would dedicate all of its resources to stopping that. While that was happening, hacktivists would go in unnoticed and steal some company data.
"It’s the old bait-and-switch," said Sartin. "That concept, as basic as it seems, is a level of ingenuity we’ve never seen before."
In all, hacktivist groups stole more than 100 million records last year, almost twice the amount of data captured by financially motivated cybercriminals payday loans with no fax.
Still, just 2% of all attacks could be attributed to Anonymous and its peers. The vast majority of online data thieves remain professional criminals looking to steal information that can lead to money.
The cost of cybercrime
So why did hacktivists manage to grab so much more data than the pros?
Those big-time cybercriminals — typically organized crime rings — are usually surgical in their attacks. They take a "rinse and repeat" approach, stealing small chunks of data on a massive scale.
Hacktivists, on the other hand, go after big organizations, since their goal is to get the public to notice them. Some prime targets of Anonymous and other hacktivists last year included News Corp. (), Sony (), PBS, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Justice, and a multitude of security firms.
The "good" news is that most of what hacktivists stole was relatively benign data. Customer lists of names, usernames and e-mail addresses were the most commonly grabbed data. Hackers were rarely able to capture — or perhaps didn’t go after — more sensitive data like credit card information or passwords.
But it wasn’t all "protest and lulz," Verizon said. Sartin now thinks that hacktivists are a more significant threat than previously believed.
Fighting the cyber Mafia
"The numbers suggest clearly that people need to reevaluate how they view the capabilities of hacktivists," he said. "The tools, tactics and methods of advanced persistent threats and hacktivists are largely the same."
Traditional cybercriminals are also upping their game.
Cybercriminals last year went after end-user devices like ATMs, laptops and smartphones much more often than they did in previous years. Those devices accounted for 60% of all attacked targets, and Sartin said he wouldn’t be surprised if smartphones make up the majority in 2012.
In all, Verizon said it and its partners recorded 855 data breaches, encompassing 174 million compromised records. That represented the second-highest total since Verizon’s report was first issued in 2004.
TORONTO
Increased domestic sales helped Synergetics USA Inc. raise profits in the second quarter of fiscal 2012, which ended on January 31.
The O’Fallon, Mo.-based maker of equipment for eye and brain surgeries reported a net income of about $1.9 million, or 7 cents a share, compared to $1 cashadvance.3 million, or 5 cents a share, a year ago. Sales rose 14 percent to $15.1 million.
Asian stock markets fell Tuesday even as European leaders appeared to have finally clinched a deal for a rescue package to prevent Greece from going belly up.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index was down 0.2 percent at 9,464.19. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.5 percent to 21,323.99 and South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.8 percent to 2,009.79. Benchmarks in Taiwan, Singapore, mainland China and the Philippines also fell.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.7 percent to 4,287.10. New Zealand and Indonesia also rose.
Early Tuesday, a EU diplomat The Associated Press that European leaders had agreed to a rescue package for Greece, which has been teetering on the brink of a major debt default. The rescue money had been delayed because lenders wanted the country to do more cost-cutting first.
The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because a formal announcement was pending.
Greece urgently needs the euro130 billion ($170 billion) package before it can move ahead with yet another deal to sharply reduce the amount of money Greece owes its private investors. Without the money, Greece will default on its debts, starting on March 20 when a bond repayment is due.
But the reported deal didn’t make a dent on markets. Many observers feel it falls far short of what Greece needs to prevent financial collapse.
On top of that: Europe does not have the will or the ability to spend the amount actually required to keep Athens afloat, analysts said.
“Greece is a hopeless case,” said Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong.
In Tokyo, a waning yen failed to perk up many of Japan’s big exporters, whose profits increase when the home currency weakens. Panasonic Corp. lost 2.1 percent, Sharp Corp. fell 1.6 percent and Nintendo Co. fell 1.4 percent.
In Australia strong earnings reports helped set a positive tone. OneSteel, the country’s second-biggest steel maker, jumped 11.9 percent after releasing a bullish forecast about growth from its mining interests.
U.S. markets were closed Monday for President’s Day holiday. Traders will be looking for signs of economic recovery in the world’s No. 1 economy on Wednesday, when the National Association of Realtors releases existing home sales for January.
Benchmark oil for March delivery was up $1.65 to $105.25 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The euro jumped to $1.3269 from $1.3159 late Friday in New York. The dollar rose to 79.68 yen from 79.46 yen.
World stock markets rose Wednesday after Greece indicated a willingness to commit to spending cuts to secure its bailout and moves by Japan’s central bank to support the economy lifted its powerhouse export sector.
Benchmark oil rose above $101 per barrel while the dollar fell against the euro and was steady against the yen.
European shares rose in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.2 percent to 5,912.27 and Germany’s DAX added 1.1 percent to 6,799.65. France’s CAC-40 gained 0.7 percent to 3,399.91.
Wall Street was set to head higher, with Dow Jones industrial futures rising 0.4 percent to 23,893 and S&P 500 futures adding 0.4 percent to 1,353.30.
The gains followed strong advances in Asia. The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo soared 2.3 percent to close at 9,260.34, its highest close since Aug. 5. The surge comes a day after the Bank of Japan announced a further loosening of monetary policy through increased purchases of government bonds, raising hopes the yen’s strength could abate.
South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.1 percent to 2,025.32. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.1 percent to 21,365.23, its highest finish since Aug. 4. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index closed up 0.3 percent at 4,253.40. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia also rose while Indonesia and New Zealand fell.
Markets found hope in reports quoting Greek government officials as saying party leaders would promise by Wednesday to implement deep spending cuts and other reforms.
That came after talks to extricate Greece from a two-year debt crisis appeared to unravel late Tuesday after European finance chiefs canceled a meeting to discuss a second international bailout for the country.
The meeting was called off after Athens failed to deliver on several demands made by its partners in the euro currency union. Greece needs a $171 billion (euro130 billion) bailout by March 20 to avoid a default that could rattle the world financial system.
The country has already passed some of the deep spending cuts its lenders were demanding but hasn’t really satisfied anyone. Greeks have rioted, saying the cuts are too harsh, and Greece’s neighbors have expressed concern that the cuts are not enough.
Greece also said its economy shrank drastically at the end of last year, and Europe is expected to report Wednesday that the economies of the 17 countries that use the euro shrank 0.4 percent after growing 0.1 percent the quarter before.
Late Monday, Moody’s also downgraded its debt ratings on six European countries, including Italy, Portugal and Spain. Moody’s also said it might cut France, Austria and the U.K. as well.
Japanese exporters rose sharply as the persistently strong yen showing signs of abating on the heels of the central bank’s surprise announcement Tuesday. Mazda Motor Corp. jumped 8.3 percent and Toyota Motor Corp. surged 4.7 percent. Sony Corp. was 5.7 percent higher. Nintendo Co. added 4.5 percent.
But shares of Japanese computer chip maker Elpida Memory Inc. plunged 14.4 percent, after the company said Tuesday that talks were not going well with other companies on investments, loans and partnerships to improve its dire financial conditions.
South Korean technology shares jumped. Samsung Electronics Co. added 5.1 percent while Hynix Semiconductor Inc. gained 5.3 percent.
Mainland Chinese shares advanced with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index climbing 0.9 percent to 2,366.70, its highest close this year. The Shenzhen Composite Index gained 1.5 percent to 925.99.
A pledge by China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, for China to continue investing in crisis-stricken Europe helped fuel the rally, said Peng Yunliang, an analyst based in Shanghai.
“Trading volume was about 30 percent more than yesterday and investors expect the authorities to boost liquidity,” he added.
Shenzhen-based Dongfang Electronics Co. and Gohigh Data Networks Technology Co. both hit the daily upside limit of 10 percent on expectations that authorities will promote further development of the Internet as a national strategy.
Benchmark oil for March delivery was up 74 cents to $101.48 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 17 cents to finish at $100.74 per barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.
In currency trading, the euro strengthened to $1.3158 from $1.3095 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar slipped slightly to 78.43 yen from 78.45 yen.
Shares of Apple reached $500 for the first time on Monday, setting yet another high-water mark for the tech giant.
Apple’s (, Fortune 500) stock has been soaring lately, boosted by record sales of the iPhone and iPad. Even the 28-year old Macintosh line continues to set new sales records.
Shares closed at a record $502.60, up 2% from Friday’s close.
But this rise isn’t a recent development. Apple shares have been rising at a consistent trajectory for the past three years.
It was just six months ago that Apple cracked the $400 level for the first time, and it’s been 16 months since it passed $300. Shares traded above $200 for the first time in October 2009. At this time three years ago, shares traded at just $78.20.
Despite Apple’s stunning rise in share price, the company’s stock gains haven’t even kept pace with its earnings.
The stock has grown 40% over the past year, but Apple’s profit has grown 117% since the fiscal first quarter of 2011. Over the past two years, Apple’s stock has grown 150% and profits have soared 286%.
The stock has risen 539% in the past three years, but profits have grown 711% over the same time period.
That means Apple’s shares are relatively cheap.
The tech giant’s stock trades at just 12 times its expected earnings for 2012, which makes it cheaper than the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100, which trades at about 18 times forecast earnings no fax cash advances. And Apple is wildly cheaper than some of the other tech companies out there with far less predictable futures, like Netflix (), Zynga (), LinkedIn () and Facebook.
Apple had $127.8 billion in sales during the 2011 calendar year, putting it neck-and-neck with Hewlett-Packard (, Fortune 500), the nation’s largest tech company by revenue. Yet Apple continues to grow like it’s a startup. This year, Apple is on pace to become the biggest technology company in the world, measured by revenue, outpacing current global No. 1 Samsung.
Last quarter, Apple posted $13 billion in sales. It was one of the most profitable quarters ever for any U.S. company, trailing only ExxonMobil’s (, Fortune 500) record-setting $14.8 billion quarter from the fall of 2008, when oil prices were at an all-time high.
Apple recently surpassed Exxon’s market capitalization to become the most valuable company on any American stock market. Apple’s market cap is nearing $500 billion, which would put it in elite territory. That’s a threshold only reached by Microsoft (, Fortune 500), Cisco (, Fortune 500), General Electric (, Fortune 500) and Exxon for brief moments over the past decade and a half.
BRIDGETON • Officials at the new 60-bed SSM Rehabilitation Hospital hope that it will become a regional center for the treatment of brain and spinal cord injuries.
Doug Brewer, president and chief executive of SSM-Select Rehabilitation, says the hospital brings together several services that previously were provided at other SSM sites, and the hospital also has all new equipment to help improve the rehab services offered by SSM.
Brewer said the hospital would focus particularly on helping those with brain or spinal cord injuries, in addition to providing a variety of other rehab services.
The $23 million Rehabilitation Hospital on the campus of DePaul Health Center, 12380 DePaul Drive in Bridgeton, began accepting its first patients this week. The three-story, 66,914-square-foot hospital was built over the past 18 months and has opened on schedule.
“I think we can all agree that this building has exceeded our expectations,” Brewer said at a dedication ceremony last week.
“Yes,” he added, “it’s a beautiful building, but exceptional, compassionate care for patients cannot be faked, and that’s what we’ll strive to provide here.”
The new hospital features these amenities:
• Therapy gyms on the third and fourth floors with ceiling-to-floor windows that provide a panoramic view of nearby interstates 70 and 270 and St. Charles Rock Road. Brewer said viewing the hustle and bustle outside can help stimulate those with certain types of brain injuries and hasten their recovery.
• Private, windowless therapy and consultation rooms for those whose injuries respond best to very little outside stimulation.
• Brightly lit patient rooms and hallways designed to look more like a hotel than a hospital. Large photos of St. Louis-area attractions hang in each patient’s room. Brewer said most patients will be at the hospital for at least two weeks or much longer, so designers tried to make the rooms as inviting as possible without forgetting the facility’s medical mission.
• A large dining area with both indoor and outdoor seating.
• An outdoor ambulation course for patient therapies.
• A courtyard for use by patients and their families.
• Nurses’ stations facing large windows on the nearby therapy gyms and therapy rooms, giving workers a good view and allowing them to respond quickly to any emergencies credit reports free.
The new hospital also houses the SSM Day Institute, a specialized outpatient program for people who are recovering from a traumatic injury or illness but who no longer require 24-hour nursing or acute rehabilitation care.
The hospital opened with about 150 employees and will employ 250 when it reaches full occupancy. SSM Rehabilitation Hospital is operated by SSM-Select Rehab LLC, a joint venture of SSM Health Care-St. Louis and Select Medical, which is based in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
David Chernow, Select Medical’s president and chief development and strategy officer, said he was excited about the new hospital and all of its new equipment and technology.
“But it will be the patients’ experience itself that they and their family members will remember the most after they go home,” he said.
“Our mission is to help them regain their independence. Truly, we will improve their quality of life.”
Chris Gonzalez, the hospital’s director of rehabilitation, said, “One area that will differentiate us is our care of people who have dual diagnoses — a spinal cord injury and a brain injury. Many times when there are traumatic injuries, especially in car accidents, both of these injuries occur.”
The brain injury rehab program is being relocated from St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights to the new hospital. The SSM Rehabilitation network will continue to operate general inpatient rehab programs at both St. Mary’s and St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles.
Dan Blaker, vice president of design and construction for Select Medical, said the new hospital looks in many ways like other medical facilities Select Medical has helped build in recent years.
“We basically incorporated rehab design features that we have incorporated over a number of years at other facilities,” he said.
He said the SSM Rehabilitation Hospital site was somewhat unusual in that it is long and narrow and on a hilltop. So the hospital was built with long hallways to fit the terrain.
Alberici Constructors Inc. was the general contractor on the project, and Stock and Associates were consulting engineers.
Brooke Gray could be either of two things: an insufficiently educated opportunist, trying to pass herself off as an equine dentist, or a young woman dedicated to horses, performing an age-old practice for an honest wage.
A circuit court judge recently said the former. Her attorney, a St. Louis-based litigator with a history of challenging the government’s licensing power, says the latter — and believes the judge’s ruling could limit everyone from cattle hands to dog groomers.
A Clinton County Circuit Court judge ruled in December that Gray had to stop a practice called “teeth floating” after the Missouri Veterinary Medical Board, which oversees veterinary licenses in the state, sued Gray because she does not have a veterinary license.
Her attorney plans to appeal the ruling, saying that Gray is merely practicing something that unlicensed lay people have done for hundreds of years.
“Up until 15 years ago no one in Missouri considered these animal husbandry practices veterinary medicine,” said Gray’s attorney, David Roland, who helms the libertarian Missouri Freedom Center. “That’s how animal agriculture has always been done.”
Roland calls Gray’s case “the tip of the iceberg” and says it could have ramifications for anyone who wants to perform “basic animal husbandry” without a license.
But state law, veterinarian groups and the board say veterinary practices are regulated for a reason: to protect animals and their owners from untrained, unskilled workers. They say the practice of teeth floating, which often requires sedation, should be done either by, or under the supervision, of a licensed veterinarian.
“The public seems to think the licensing board is there to protect veterinarians,” said Bruce Whittle, chair of the equine committee for the Missouri Veterinary Medical Association, the group that represents the state’s vets. “It’s to protect the public against veterinarians that are doing harm.”
Gray, who lives north of Kansas City, grew up on an Iowa farm and always wanted to work with horses. So, about eight years ago, she got two months of training at an equine dentistry school in Idaho, then moved to Missouri and opened B & B Equine Dentistry.
She built a steady clientele floating horses teeth, which involves filing down the sharp points that emerge on the enamel. Sharp edges can make it difficult for the horse to eat. Her customers, she says, liked her work.
“I’ve never had a complaint from a client,” Gray said.
She did, however, get a complaint filed against her from a local Clay County vet, David Leighr, whose clients told him that Gray was improperly sedating horses and, in some cases, extracting teeth. Under state law, sedation by anyone other than an owner or licensed vet is illegal, while extraction is a surgical practice, which makes it a veterinary practice, and therefore also illegal for someone to perform without a license.
“One of my clients told me that Brooke had sedated an animal and hit a vein,” Leighr said. “Brooke also had them sign a piece of paper that said she was not responsible for anything that happens. A vet doesn’t do that. That raised a red flag with me.”
When asked if she had extracted teeth, Gray said: “I’ve taken some things out of horses mouths that didn’t belong there.” When asked if she had sedated horses, she said: “I’ve been informed not to say anything about the sedation issue.”
Leighr called the board, and eventually, it began to pursue the matter.
After sending two cease-and-desist letters, the board sued Gray to make her stop. She didn’t. So in September, the matter went to trial.
Roland says he believes the board pursued the case on behalf of veterinarians who felt they were in danger of losing income to untrained teeth floaters, not because they were concerned about animal welfare.
“One of the quirks of the law is that it’s not illegal to do the work on the animals,” he explained. “But if they get paid for it, it’s a criminal offense. So this is not a health issue.”
Several states, he said, have recently changed laws to allow teeth floating by nonvets, and he’ll push for Missouri to do the same.
He also points to a number of cease-and-desist letters sent by the board aimed at stopping everything from branding to pet grooming practices. These, he says, are evidence the state is trying to regulate practices that should not require licensing.
“This is an issue that’s been gaining momentum for a couple of years,” he said.
Gray believes the board is merely requiring a costly education — vet school runs an average of $150,000 — for something she specifically trained to do.
But veterinarians, including Leighr — a fourth-generation vet who said news coverage of the issue in his practice area had cost him business — maintain this issue centers on animal welfare and training.
“Her attorney is trying to convince the public that lay professionals have been doing this for years and that it’s safe,” he said. “I don’t think it’s safe. … And the fact that’s she’s using sedation and there’s no oversight makes it even less safe.”
“I went to school for eight years,” Leighr added. “I’ll put my records out there all the way back to high school, and I challenge her to do the same.”
Gray said she would continue floating teeth, only under the supervision of vets, until the appeal is resolved. That, Leighr insisted, is all he’s wanted all along.
“I said to her: ‘You can do this all day long by having a vet present,’” he said. “Missouri is full of vets retiring every day. They’d be tickled to death to get in the truck with you and go on a farm call.”
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