NEW YORK, N.Y.
The worldwide popularity of loyalty programs has created a headache for the companies that offer then. There are trillions of banked miles and travel reward points out there that they
NAI DESCO, a commercial real estate firm, today said it will buy Coldwell Banker Commercial’s St. Louis brokerage operation.
The move will increase DESCO’s local property inventory and agents by 50 percent. The price was not revealed.
The move doesn’t affect Coldwell Banker Gundaker, which is a separate residential real estate company.
Carl Conceller, a founding member of Coldwell Banker Commercial, will join NAI DESCO as a principal.
DESCO, based in Clayton, lists about 200 commercial properties and Coldwell about 100. DESCO’s listings include the Chrysler plant in Fenton, Northwest Plaza in St. Ann and the Merrill Lynch and Regions Bank buildings in Clayton.
DESCO was originally an acronym standing for Don and Ed Schnuck company. It’s sister firm, the DESCO Group develops real estate, including projects for the Schnuck supermarket chain.
Today’s news was the second ownership switch in the local real estate business in the past week. Last Tuesday, Brookfield Residential Property Services of Canada bought Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services, franchisor for the Prudential Alliance real estate operation in St. Louis.
Andrea Lawrence, president of Prudential Alliance Realtors, said she expects little change in the St. Louis operation. The realtors will continue to use the Prudential brand under the terms of the sale.
Two telecommunications giants now control the Toronto Maple Leafs, the biggest prize in Canadian sport.
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan announced on Friday that will sell its 79.5 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, owners of the iconic Leafs, to Rogers Communications and BCE for $1.32 billion.
The companies made the announcement in a morning news conference at the Air Canada Centre to confirm the blockbuster deal.
“MLSE is truly a world-class organization with some of the most iconic brands and popular sports teams across North America,” said Nadir Mohamed, Rogers president and CEO in a statement.
“This investment fits squarely into our strategy of securing premium content and making it accessible to Canadians when, where and how they want it.”
“Sports content is king. Let’s face it nobody wants to watch a game two days later,” Mohammed said during the announcement Friday morning. “Between the two organizations I can’t think of anybody that can bring live sports to Canadians wherever they are without missing a second.”
MLSE also owns the Raptors of the NBA, Toronto FC of Major League Soccer, the Marlies of the American Hockey League, the Air Canada Centre, two specialty television channels and Maple Leaf Square, a condominium development adjacent to the arena.
Under the agreement, Rogers and Bell Canada will divide their 75 per cent share of MLSE evenly. And Larry Tanenbaum whose firm, Kilmer Sports, owned 21 cash till payday.47 per cent of MLSE increases its ownership to 25 per cent.
“I am excited to welcome our new partners Bell and Rogers,” said Tanenbaum, who remains as chairman of MLSE, in a statement. “I am proud this is a made-in-Canada deal that will bring resources and expertise to help us win on and off the ice, court and pitch.”
“It really means we’re moving for those championship teams, the Stanley Cup, that NBA championship,” Tanenbaum said
There were provisions in the existing shareholders agreement that gave Tanenbaum key rights that would make it difficult for any owner with telecommunications properties to take advantage of MLSE’s rich broadcast assets without his approval.
Reports surfaced two weeks ago that Rogers and BCE had been working on an alliance to share control of MLSE, which also owns other sports properties and lucrative broadcast interests.
At that time, Teachers, one of the country’s biggest pension plans with assets of more than $107.5 billion, indicated it was pulling its stake off the market after an extensive search that formally started earlier this year. Teachers’ noted that several parties had made offers.
The Star reported a year ago that Teachers had been quietly talking to possible suitors including Rogers about selling its stake. Teachers’ played down the story but four months later announced that it would formally explore a sale.
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The Senate unanimously approved tough new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank amid fears of Tehran developing a nuclear weapon.
The 100-0 vote Thursday was for an amendment to the defense bill. Lawmakers had argued that concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran outweighed reservations about driving up oil prices and hurting Americans at the gas pump.
Sens. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Mark Kirk of Illinois offered the amendment that would target foreign financial institutions that do business with the Central Bank of Iran, barring them from opening or maintaining correspondent operations in the United States easy payday loans. It would apply to foreign central banks only for transactions that involve the sale or purchase of petroleum or petroleum products.
Administration officials cautioned that driving up oil prices could mean more money for Iran.
Plans are afoot to redevelop another of downtown’s biggest empty buildings.
A group of real estate investors from New York and Indiana want to buy the Chemical Building, at Eighth and Olive streets, and turn it into street-level retail and 120 apartments, according to Alderman Phyllis Young.
LandWhite Developers LLC is behind the $34 million project, said Young. They’re seeking $4.2 million in tax increment financing to help fund the deal, and would like to start work next year. An aldermanic committee approved the TIF on Wednesday; it will now go on to the full board.
Jay Landesman, a principal at LandWhite, declined to comment until more details are ironed out.
While the building was nearly half-occupied as recently as 2006, it has sat empty since as redevelopment efforts stalled paperless payday loans. In that year, a Los Angeles-based investment group bought it for $6 million, re-christened it the Alexa, and envisioned luxury condominiums. They filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010, and Centrue Bank foreclosed on the building in March. It is listed for sale at $3.9 million.
Developers are also moving forward with plans to redevelop two other major empty buildings downtown: The Jefferson Arms, on Tucker Boulevard, and one of the Cupples Station warehouse buildings.
A Russian businessman who owns Portsmouth Football Club has been arrested in London in connection with a Lithuanian money laundering probe.
Lithuanian prosecutors had issued a European arrest warrant for 36-year-old Vladimir Antonov, and his Lithuanian partner Raimondas Baranauskas, probing alleged fraud and money laundering at a bank that local authorities say will have to be liquidated.
Prosecutors said Friday that Baranauskas, 53, had also been detained in London. When asked whether Antonov had been been arrested, London police read a statement saying that two men _ age 36 and 53 _ were arrested in response to a Europe-wide arrest warrant.
British officials do not name suspects until they have been charged.
Police say the two men are due to appear in a London court later Friday.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) _ Lithuania’s central bank said it would dismantle a bank controlled by a Russian businessman after regulators discovered large sums of money missing.
Lithuanian prosecutors said Friday that Raimondas Baranauskas, minority owner of Snoras Bank, has been detained in London after they had issued a European arrest warrant on Wednesday.
Prosecutors could not say whether Russian citizen Vladimir Antonov, the bank’s majority owner, was also detained. Antonov is the owner of the Portsmouth football club.
The Bank of Lithuania said late Thursday that the dismantling of Snoras was the best solution for the Baltic state’s financial system and economy, which have been jolted after the bank was nationalized and its operations halted.
Bank chief Vitas Vasiliauskas said should not waste taxpayers’ money trying to help “a plane that won’t fly.”
“There is no other way to solve this situation,” he said.
Hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) are believed to have been siphoned off from Snoras and Latvijas Krajbanka, a subsidiary bank in neighboring Latvia.
Janis Brazovskis, an official with Latvia’s Finance and Capital Markets Commission who was appointed to oversee Latvijas Krajbanka, said Wednesday that Antonov’s failed attempt to acquire the troubled Swedish automaker Saab might have triggered the downfall of the two Baltic banks.
He said that approximately 100 million lats ($200 million) were siphoned from the bank to increase its charter capital and finance Antonov’s investment projects _ including the unsuccessful takeover of Saab.
Deposit holders in both countries are now forced to wait in long lines to withdraw money from cash machines, while companies and municipalities have seen the working capital virtually disappear.
Still, authorities in both Lithuania and Latvia say the two banks’ collapse does not pose a systemic risk since they are mid-sized and the two states have ample reserves to guarantee deposits.
Latvijas Krajbanka was Latvia’s 10th largest bank by assets after it was taken over by regulators on Monday.
In nearly every category from real estate loans to small business loans to consumer loans, banks in the St. Louis area are lending less than a year ago, according to data released from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The Federal Reserve, which tracks more than 70 banks chartered in the St. Louis area, released its third quarter report from locally chartered banks. The figures do not include financial services firm Stifel Financial or banks that are headquartered outside of St. Louis, such as Bank of America or M&I.
The number of locally chartered banks, 73, dropped by one in the quarter as Citizens State Bank of Shipman, Ill., merged in July with Carlinville National Bank in Carlinville Ill., creating the newly named CNB Bank and Trust.
Locally chartered banks’ loans for the third quarter that ended Sept. 30 totaled $20.04 billion, down from $22.2 billion in the third quarter of 2010. The third quarter loans are up slightly from the second quarter of this year, when locally chartered banks had $20.03 billion in total loans.
“What we’re seeing is that lending standards have changed from prior to the economic crisis,” said Julie Stackhouse, senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Banks have plenty of cash to lend. The disconnect is finding borrowers that have the demand and the credit record to support a loan.”
Some borrowers are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the economy to improve before they expand their businesses. Construction and industrial, or C&I, loans, which go to pay for equipment upgrades and inventory, fell in the third quarter to $3.3 billion, down from $3.6 billion a year ago. Many banks in the St. Louis area have targeted growing C&I loans to replace construction and land development loans, which had high default rates during and following the recession payday loans direct lenders.
Small business loans have also declined, to $3.6 billion in the third quarter, down from $3.9 billion a year ago.
“At this point, so much is dependent on confidence in the economy, and demand for loans is flat,” Stackhouse said. “Businesses don’t want to gear up until (consumer) spending is up.”
Not all banks are seeing slowdowns in loan activity. Clayton-based Enterprise Bank & Trust grew its loans, both organically and through acquisitions, with its fastest growth category in C&I loans.
“Overall, most business owners are careful about adding more people or equipment, but some segments are growing, such as health care and manufacturing,” said Enterprise Bank & Trust’s Chief Executive and President Stephen Marsh.
Nonperforming loans, or those that are at least 90 days past due, totaled $855 million for all St. Louis-chartered banks in the third quarter, down from $1.1 billion a year ago. Banks are also setting aside less for loan loan provisions, which fell to $545.1 million in the third quarter compared to $614.3 million a year ago.
“Credit quality is a slow, steady improvement,” Marsh said.
Another positive trend is that profitability is improving. Banks chartered in the St. Louis area had a combined profit of $104. 8 million for the year through Sept. 30, compared with a $50 million loss in the same time period last year. Of the 10 largest locally chartered banks, only two posted a loss for the first nine months of the year, First Bank and Reliance Bank.
First National Bank of St. Louis posted a $14.6 million profit for the first nine months of the year, up 8 percent from the comparable period a year earlier.
“Our customer base has seen some improvement in their businesses in the last 12 months, but this is still the worst economic downturn I’ve seen in 35 years,” said President Rick Bagy.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s government failed to come up with immediate growth measures to show a summit of world leaders, sending Italy’s borrowing rates to dangerous new highs Thursday and igniting talk of a possible government collapse.
Italy’s respected president, who would be responsible for choosing an interim government if Berlusconi’s did fail, was holding talks with party leaders in a search for possible alternatives.
Berlusconi’s weakening grip on his majority was evident in a Cabinet meeting that lasted late into the night Wednesday amid reports of discord with his finance minister, Giulio Tremonti. Berlusconi wanted the Cabinet to agree to enforce some emergency economic reforms as a decree, so they could take immediate effect, including selling government property and privatizing some local public services.
Instead, he headed Thursday to a summit in Cannes of the Group of 20 wealthy nations with only proposed legislation, requiring approval by a divided Parliament.
At Cannes, Berlusconi pledged to other eurozone leaders that he would put the measures to a vote of confidence within the next two weeks. If those measures fail, Berlusconi would be forced to step down.
Berlusconi has insisted that his government will survive its mandate until 2013, but even his coalition partners, the Northern League, have cast doubt on that.
“It is difficult to avoid the impression that this government’s time is numbered in days, or weeks, and that the legislature will finish at the beginning of 2012,” the Corriere della Sera newspaper wrote in a front page editorial.
“Berlusconi has become a puppet in the Italian political theater,” the speaker of the lower house and former Berlusconi ally, Gianfranco Fini, told state TV.
He urged Berlusconi to show his leadership by seeking a broad alliance to see the country through the crisis.
Market reaction to Italy’s political deadlock was withering. Italy is the eurozone’s third largest economy, far too large to be bailed out like Greece, Portugal and Ireland have been. Yet Italy has a debt of euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion), or 120 percent of GDP, second only to the debt ratio in extremely troubled Greece.
The yield on Italy’s 10-year bonds jumped to 6.4 percent on the secondary market at one point Thursday, 4.62 percentage points higher than the rate on the German equivalent bund. Speculation that the European Central Bank was back in the markets buying up Italian bonds took the yield back down to 6.17 percent.
The ECB has been buying up Italian bonds for weeks in an attempt to keep borrowing rates at manageable levels. Borrowing costs of 7 percent or more are widely considered unsustainable, which could cause a default on public debt.
President Giorgio Napolitano met with leaders of Italian parties Thursday to gauge the political situation and seek alternatives. If the government falls, Napolitano would decide if a technical government or someone else in the center-right would run the country before new elections.
Napolitano sought to reassure Italy’s partners and the markets, saying that both the majority and the opposition “are aware of the weight of the problems that Italy must confront with urgency.” He said the next parliament vote would allow him to better evaluate the political situation.
The head of Berlusconi’s party, Alfonso Alfano, insisted after meeting with Napolitano that Berlusconi has a majority to continue to 2013. But even he addressed the possibility of the government’s failure, saying that new elections, and not a technical government, should be next.
Berlusconi’s influence frayed further when six of his Party of Freedom (PDL) lawmakers signed a letter saying they would no longer support him in parliament if he did not seek to build a national unity government.
“The current government does not have the consensus in parliament to achieve the difficult agenda of commitments taken in front of European institutions, the parliament and the Italian people,” they wrote.
Later, another two of his lawmakers defected to a centrist party.
The government has been further weakened by reports of discord on emergency measures between Berlusconi and his finance minister.
After raising expectations of a decree, the government announced legislation reportedly after Napolitano suggested they would enjoy more legitimacy if passed by parliament. They include divesting government-owned real estate, privatizing local public companies, encouraging investment in infrastructure and liberalizing the labor market.
The measures must be approved by the end of the year, the government said in a statement.
They were outlined to the European Union last week after Italy and Berlusconi came under pressure from other eurozone governments and financial markets to find ways to boost the country’s anemic growth.
However, doubts have been growing that Berlusconi has the political muscle to push such reforms through.
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