Finance Blog number 1

Rand Capital Corp. reported a 15 percent increase in first quarter net asset value per share.

The Buffalo-based business development company (NASDAQ: RAND) said its net asset value per share increased to $3.45 from $3.01 for the comparable period of 2007.

Net asset value fell 2-cents.

Rand Capital provides capital and managerial expertise for small- to mid-size private companies payday loan.

The company’s investment portfolio was valued at $26.4 million, which exceeds its cost basis of $13.4 million, reflecting $13.0 million in net unrealized appreciation.

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U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-OH, blamed labor unions and partisan politics for a U.S. House vote this week rejecting an amendment that could have kept the Delta Queen riverboat from having to phase out its overnight cruise packages.

The historic riverboat has been operating with a special Congressional exemption from the federal Safety at Sea Act since 1968, an exemption that has been renewed eight times. The safety act bans the use of wooden vessels for overnight cruises. Backers of the exemption claim the Delta Queen deserves special treatment because of its historical significance and recently upgraded fire-safety systems. With the exemption scheduled to expire this year, local Congressional delegates have been pushing for an extension for months. Last year, the house passed the exemption, but the Senate failed to act on the measure by the time its session expired.

Some of the opposition to the exemption comes from a labor dispute involving the company that bought the Delta Queen in 2006. Majestic America Line, a subsidiary of the publicly traded Ambassadors International Inc., did not renew a collective bargaining agreement after taking over management of the Delta Queen.

This week, a House rules committee voted 9-4 against allowing the amendment to reach the House floor. All nine votes against the proposal were cast by Democrats, Chabot noted in his remarks on the floor of the House yesterday cheap payday loans. He used a parliamentary maneuver to bring the amendment to a floor vote, but lawmakers defeated the measure by a vote of 208-195.

"I can only conclude from this that the opposition we're seeing is not so much about the Delta Queen but more about a labor dispute," Chabot said. "If this is true, why should the American people be the victims, losing access to a national landmark? Why should American jobs be lost? Why should local businesses be ruined? All because of a labor dispute? I hope that unions do not have that type of influence here in Washington."

Majestic America said it is "evaluating strategic alternatives" for the Delta Queen, which could include the sale of the boat after the current cruise season, which ends in October. In the meantime, it's still hoping for another Congressional reprieve.

"We're still asking interested parties to contact their representatives in the House," said Vanessa Bloy, director of public relations for the company.

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Mesa Air Group has fired two go! pilots under investigation for possibly falling asleep during a Hawaii interisland flight in February.

"After a thorough internal investigation into the incident on Feb. 13 in which go! Flight 1002 overflew the airport at Hilo, Mesa has terminated the employment of both pilots involved," the company said Wednesday in a statement.

On the 50-minute flight from Honolulu, the airplane overshot the Hilo airport by 15 miles before returning and landing safely.

Air traffic controllers were unable to contact the pilots during that time and made repeated efforts to reach them by radio us fast cash.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Los Angeles said the FAA's own investigation would be completed in a few weeks.

Generally, FAA sanctions in such cases can range from a warning letter to suspension of the licenses of the pilots.

Phoenix-based Mesa (Nasdaq: MESA) has operated go! in Hawaii since June 2006.

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Demand for repairing cracked foundations and lifting sunken concrete has prompted Dwyer Cos. to expand at its West Chester headquarters.

The company said it is breaking ground Friday on a 35,000-square-foot manufacturing plant across from its headquarters on Schumacher Park Drive. The building, designed and built by KZF Design and Schumacher Dugan Construction, is scheduled to be completed in early to mid-October.

Bryan Dwyer, who founded Dwyer Concrete Lifting in 1985 to raise slabs of sunken concrete, added foundation repair services over the years and in 2000, purchased St. Louis-based Magnum Piering, which makes steel underpinning systems.

Demand for the systems has outgrown the company's current manufacturing capacity, Dwyer said in the release http://us-no-fax-payday-loans.com.

"We simply must have more space - not only to manufacture our products more efficiently, but also to support our ongoing engineering, training and support operations for our Magnum Piering dealers and installers," he said.

More than 100 employees have been added since the Magnum Piering acquisition, and sales volume has grown sixfold, the company said. The company employs 130 in total.

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Former Bank of England policy maker Willem Buiter said the central bank will need to offer loan swaps to financial institutions of at least 100 billion pounds ($200 billion) to kick-start the U.K. mortgage market.

The central bank, the Treasury and Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office may unveil a plan to swap mortgage-backed securities for government bonds as soon as next week, which the British Broadcasting Corp. reported yesterday will total 50 billion pounds. Banks including HBOS Plc have curbed lending and raised the cost of mortgage loans even after policy makers cut the benchmark lending rate three times since December to help avert a U.K. recession.

“In total, they would have to do — not in one big go — at least 100 billion for it to really actually make a difference to the liquidity position of banks, but also act as the catalyst for getting that market going again,'' Buiter said in an interview. He served on the bank's rate-setting panel from 1997 until 2000.

The plan's success “all depends on the scale,'' Buiter, a London School of Economics professor, said yesterday. “If they do 5 billion it's not going to do much. If they do 55 billion it would help deal with the overhang of illiquid mortgage-backed securities that mortgage lenders have on their balance sheet and prevent them from engaging in any new lending.''

Cash Injection

The U.S. Federal Reserve last month made up to $200 billion available to banks in return for debt including mortgage-backed securities and in December created a lending vehicle to make credit available to banks as an alternative to borrowing at its discount rate, which may carry a stigma.

To date, the Bank of England widened its collateral requirements just for three-month lending. It only accepts top- rated government securities at its weekly auctions.

The BBC said the mortgage rescue plan involves government bonds with a maturity of up to one year. They would be rolled over for up to three years, it said.

The plan would be the biggest special initiative by British monetary authorities to supply liquidity to the U.K. banking system and would meet banks' demands for “longer term loans'' while escaping being accounted for in the national debt, the BBC said.

Market Strains

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling “has made very clear that work is under way at the highest levels to ensure that the secondary market returns to functioning normally,'' an official at the U.K. Treasury told Bloomberg News late yesterday. “An announcement will be made in due course.'' The Bank of England declined to comment on the BBC report.

Central bank Chief Economist Charles Bean said April 17 that officials are working to try to relieve market strains, though he didn't give any details of the package being discussed paydayloans. Speculation a plan may be agreed helped send the pound to a 10-day high of 78.76 pence per euro yesterday.

Buiter's estimate of the size of aid contrasts with that of Simon Ward, an economist at New Star Asset Management Group Ltd., who says the central bank needs to swap up to 40 billion pounds in mortgage-backed securities for government bonds.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said April 18 that the value of new home loans fell 17 percent from a year earlier to 26.3 billion pounds last month. Total net mortgage lending in the year through February was 102 billion pounds, and outstanding mortgage debt that month was 1.2 trillion pounds, central bank data show.

Asset Swap

“The mortgage market has to shrink,'' Buiter said. “We've had an unsustainable housing boom. If we get 50 billion pounds of net mortgage lending this year, that would be ample to sustain mortgage financing at a reasonable level.''

The central bank lowered the key interest rate by a quarter point to 5 percent on April 10. The gap between borrowing pounds for three months and the benchmark rate still reached a 3-month high of 93 basis points on April 14. On April 17, financial institutions bid for 50 billion pounds in the bank's weekly auction, the most since January and triple the amount on offer.

An asset swap, “will help,'' Buiter said. “It's fear and loathing that's closing the market.''

The seizure of credit markets worldwide has already claimed a U.K. casualty. Northern Rock Plc struggled to fund its business and then faced a run on deposits in September. After five months of trying to find a buyer, the government nationalized the Newcastle-based mortgage lender in February.

`Banana Republic'

Richard Lambert, another former central bank policy maker, said in September that the Northern Rock situation made Britain look like a “banana republic.'' On April 18 he called for the Bank of England to be ready to take action, also in conjunction with other central banks.

“They need to be ready to join in concerted international action to ease strains on bank liquidity,'' Lambert, director- general of the Confederation of British Industry, said in a speech in Edinburgh. “They should be working to on ways to help unblock the logjam in wholesale financial markets.''

Buiter said that pledges on future aid will be important if a plan does get announced.

“If they do this kicking and screaming and the indication is we shouldn't count on it any more, it won't help as much as if the bank said it will do whatever it takes to get the markets moving again,'' he said. “It's the old credibility issue.''

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Google Inc. shares rose more than 18 percent Friday, a day after the company reported a 31 percent increase in first quarter profit and solid growth in its advertising business.

Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) went as high as $535.50 in early trading.

On Thursday the company reported net income of $1.31 billion, or $4.12 a share, from $1 billion, or $3.18 a share, in the same period a year earlier http://abc-cashadvance.com.

Revenue rose to $5.19 billion from $3.66 billion.

Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the company’s paid-click growth was "much higher than has been speculated by third parties."

Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal

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The Chandler Chamber of Commerce named Jerry Bustamante of Tucson president and CEO.

Bustamante, currently president and CEO of the Northern Pima County Chamber of Commerce, will start his new position May 19. Prior to the Pima County job, he was president and CEO of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Bustamante replaces Becky Jackson, who left the Chandler Chamber in March to become executive director of the Desert Southwest chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

"The applicant field was very competitive, this was a highly sought after position which gave us the opportunity to pick the ideal candidate," said Roz Santangelo, chamber board president quick payday.

"The Chandler Chamber is incredibly dynamic and I am so impressed with the tremendous work they have done in the community," Bustamante said in a statement. "My family and I are looking forward to being a part of the Chandler community — the schools, the lifestyle and the business community all make Chandler an ideal place to live and work."

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Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a bill Monday that would replace secret ballot elections for union representation with a simple petition.

The so-called "card-check" bill would replace a current law that requires an election by secret ballot when workers attempt to organize.

House Bill 2974 requires that union organizers only need to gather signatures from a majority of employees that favor forming a union.

The legislation is modeled after the Employee Free Choice Act, currently under consideration by the U.S. Congress.

HB 2974 has the support of the Hawaii State AFL-CIO, the ILWU Local 142, the Hawaii Government Employees Association and other labor groups.

The unions have said the card-check process is simply "streamlining" the present system and making it less "coercive" by toning down the rhetoric on both sides that typically accompanies such elections.

But the bill is opposed by the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, the Hawaii Hotel & Lodging Association and the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, who say the bill undermines workers’ rights because it removes the anonymity of the election process credit scores.

"Maintaining the secret ballot is the best way to protect workers’ privacy and to ensure workers have the ability to vote their conscience without fear of repercussion or retaliation," Lingle, a Republican, said in a statement. "There is no compelling justification for replacing a fair, democratic process with one that has the potential to erode a worker’s existing rights and protections under the law."

The Legislature has until May 1 to override the governor’s veto. A two-thirds majority in both chambers is required.

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Retail sales in the U.S. probably stagnated in March and residential construction dropped, demonstrating the biggest housing bust in a generation is hurting consumers, economists said before reports this week.

Sales were unchanged after dropping 0.6 percent in February, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of a Commerce Department report tomorrow. Builders broke ground on 5.2 percent fewer houses last month, a report April 16 is forecast to show.

Consumer spending is waning as fuel prices rise, property values fall and unemployment climbs. Other reports this week, showing that inflation accelerated in March, will not prevent the Federal Reserve from lowering the benchmark interest rate this month for a seventh time since the subprime crisis intensified.

“The consumer is having to deal with a very wicked combination of slowing income growth and higher gas and food prices,'' said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We're not looking for any improvement in housing this year.''

Excluding auto dealers, retail sales are forecast to rise 0.1 percent, reflecting a gain in receipts at service stations as gasoline prices jumped. The figures aren't adjusted for inflation, so price increases would make the data look stronger.

The report is expected to show Americans are buying fewer big-ticket items like cars and refrigerators as confidence drops and companies cut staff.

26-Year Low

Consumer sentiment slumped to a 26-year low this month, according to a preliminary report from Reuters/University of Michigan issued last week. The index of expectations for the next six months, a leading indicator of spending, dropped to the lowest level since November 1990.

Cars and light trucks sold at an average 15.2 million annual pace in the first three months of the year, the fewest since the third quarter of 1998. Auto sales will fall to 14.9 million this year, the lowest since 1995, Standard & Poor's forecast last week.

Purchases of less-expensive items, such as clothing, are also faltering. Sales at chain stores open at least a year fell 0.5 percent in March, the biggest decline since April 2007, the International Council of Shopping Centers said last week.

J.C. Penney Co. Chief Executive Officer Myron Ullman said last week he's not looking for a quick end to the U.S. economic slump.

Not `Optimistic'

“I don't think we're very optimistic about it ending anytime soon,'' Ullman told reporters at the World Retail Congress in Barcelona free credit report without a credit card. He reiterated that J.C. Penney plans to open 36 stores this year, down from an original plan of 50.

Housing starts, also from the Commerce Department, dropped to a 1.01 million annual pace from 1.065 million in February, according to the median forecast. Homebuilding reached a 16-year low of 1 million units in December.

M/I Homes Inc., a Columbus, Ohio-based builder of houses in the U.S. Midwest, Florida and the Mid-Atlantic states, said on April 10 that new contracts were down 40 percent from a year earlier and 23 percent of customers who agreed to buy properties canceled orders.

“Selling conditions in most of our markets remain difficult,'' Chief Executive Officer Robert Schottenstein said in a statement.

Companies and consumers are getting squeezed by rising costs for fuel and raw materials, reports from the Labor Department may show. Wholesale prices rose 0.6 percent in March after a 0.3 percent increase the prior month, according to the survey median ahead of an April 15 report.

Inflation Accelerates

The next day, figures from Labor may show consumers paid 0.3 percent more last month for goods and services after prices were unchanged in February, economists said.

Increases in the cost of living will probably cause consumers to rein in spending, indicating they represent a challenge for economic growth rather than inflation.

“Inflation is more of a concern in terms of what it means for the consumer than for monetary policy,'' Wachovia's Vitner said.

While there's a risk businesses may try to recover higher expenses by raising prices, the slowdown in demand means it will be difficult for companies to make the increases stick.

Investors are betting Fed officials will lower the benchmark rate by at least a quarter percentage point later this month. Policy makers have reduced the rate by 2 percentage points so far this year, the fastest drop in borrowing costs in two decades.

Contraction `Likely'

“Some contraction in economic activity in first half of 2008 now appeared likely,'' the minutes of the Fed's March 18 meeting said.

“Most participants still expected inflation to moderate later this year and in 2009,'' the minutes showed. Officials also noted that “significant uncertainty attended the near-term outlook for price pressures.''

Other reports this week are forecast to show manufacturing is contracting.

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One more candidate has been named to fill the 12 vacancies on the University of Hawaii Board of Regents.

The Regents Candidate Advisory Council has chosen Doris Ching to replace James Donovan III, who withdrew as a candidate to represent Honolulu County on the Board of Regents.

The council previously had given a list of 22 candidates for the 12 seats pay day loan. From that list, Gov. Linda Lingle has submitted five nominees to the Senate for confirmation: Artemio Baxa, for the Maui County seat; Carl Carlson Jr., West Hawaii; Kitty Lagareta, at-large; Teena Rasmussen, at-large; and Harvey Tajiri, East Hawaii.

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