Finance Blog number 1

Fifth Third Bank has opened a new branch downtown and has tapped former Cardinals player Lou Brock to make an appearance at a grand opening event Friday.

The Baseball Hall of Famer is slated to sign autographs and be available for photos free of charge for customers at the branch at 921 Olive Street from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. immediately following a ribbon cutting at 10 a.m.

Fresh off the Cardinals’ win against the Houston Astros Wednesday night, giving the team a playoff berth, Fifth Third Bank’s Senior Vice President and Retail Executive Tony Manisco said Brock’s appearance is good timing. “We could not have planned this any better,” he said.

The downtown location, which opened in the Syndicate Trust building on Aug. 29, is the Cincinnati-based bank’s 14th local branch since entering the St. Louis market in 2005.

In the last two weeks, Fifth Third Bank has started banking relationships with more than 100 households from the downtown branch, Manisco said. “The density of people downtown during the daytime was very compelling,” he said.   

The new branch won’t be Fifth Third Bank’s last in the area. “We do have bigger plans for the St. Louis area,” Manisco said.

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A British employment tribunal filing shows that News of the World’s chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck is claiming unfair dismissal from his former publisher, Rupert Murdoch’s News International.

News International said Wednesday it “will vigorously contest the case,” filed on Sept. 13. Thurlbeck is expected to claim he was sacked for whistleblowing in the phone-hacking scandal that brought down his tabloid.

A preliminary hearing will take place at the East London Tribunal Service center on Friday.

Murdoch’s News International had long maintained that the eavesdropping was limited to a single rogue reporter, Clive Goodman, and the private investigator he was working with to break into voice mails of members of the royal household bad credit payday loans.

But an email uncovered during legal proceedings seemed to cast doubt on that claim. It contained a transcript of an illegally obtained conversation, drawn up by a junior reporter and marked “for Neville” _ an apparent reference to Thurlbeck.

Thurlbeck, 50, was arrested in April on suspicion of conspiring to intercept voicemail messages and released on bail.

On Tuesday, he had his bail extended through the end of the year.

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As the prospect of a disastrous debt default hung over Greece, the government faced more strikes and protests against its new austerity measures needed to appease the country’s rescue creditors.

Athens commuters faced more misery as metro, tram and suburban rail workers were on a 24-hour strike, while buses and trolleys were to stop operating for several hours in the middle of the day. Airline passengers also faced delays as air traffic controllers implemented work-to-rule action, refusing to work overtime. A 48-hour strike by all transport workers is expected later this week.

Greek police held their own protest, with the force’s Special Guards unit hanging a giant black banner from the top of Lycabettus Hill in the capital reading “Pay day, day of mourning.”

Faced with mounting anger from the country’s international creditors, the government recently announced a raft of new austerity measures in an effort to secure the next euro8 billion ($10.7 billion) installment of bailout loans from the euro110 billion rescue package it has been dependent on since last year. Without the funds, Greece only has enough funds to see it through mid-October, when it faces the prospect of a messy default.

In July, when it became clear that Athens needed more help, eurozone leaders agreed on a second, euro109 billion bailout, although several aspects of that deal still need to be finalized guaranteed fast personal loans.

The government’s new measures include a new property tax to be paid through electricity bills to make it easier for the state to collect, as well as pension cuts and more tax hikes. Greeks have been outraged by the new steps, as they come on top of previous austerity measures which failed to sufficiently reduce the country’s budget deficit.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in the capital’s central Syntagma Square on Sunday night, scuffling briefly with police who pushed them back with truncheons and small amounts of tear gas.

Debt inspectors from the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank, known collectively as the troika, are expected to return to Athens this week to resume a review suspended earlier this month amid talk of delayed implementation of reforms. No specific date has been set for their return, however.

Prime Minister George Papandreou heads to Berlin on Tuesday, where he will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of a parliamentary vote there on approving plans to beef up the eurozone rescue fund. German lawmakers vote on Thursday on expanding the powers of the euro440 billion ($595 billion) the European Financial Stability Facility.

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With NATO jets roaring overhead, revolutionary forces fought their way into Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown Saturday in the first significant push into the stubborn stronghold in about a week.

Libya’s new leaders also tried to move on the political front, promising to announce in the coming week a new interim government that it hopes will help unite the country. However, disagreements remain about what the Cabinet should look like.

The National Transitional Council led the rebellion that forced Gadhafi into hiding and has taken over the leadership of the oil-rich North African nation even as it continues to fight forces still loyal to the fugitive leader.

The NTC-appointed prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, sought support from leaders at the United Nations on Saturday, telling them that “a new Libya is coming to life” as a nation committed to democracy, equality and reintegration into the international community. He said the council was committed to drafting a constitution that would be put to the Libyans for a referendum.

More than a month after seizing Tripoli and effectively ending Gadhafi’s rule, revolutionary forces have been unable to rout well-armed Gadhafi loyalists from strongholds in his hometown of Sirte, Bani Walid and some southern enclaves. Taking the cities is key for Libya’s new leaders to extend their control over the large desert nation.

Explosions rocked Sirte throughout the day as fighters pushing in on four roads came under heavy fire from loyalist snipers and artillery guns. Along the city’s main thoroughfare, they faced close-range gunfights with loyalists hiding in apartment buildings and throwing hand grenades at them from windows.

Moftah Mohammed, 28, said snipers shot two of his friends as they advanced to fire a rocket-propelled grenade on a loyalist truck. When others approached to help the wounded, Gadhafi supporters opened fire and hurled hand grenades, injuring two more.

By evening, however, the fighters had pushed east along the city’s main thoroughfare into its urban center, overrunning a TV station and pushing loyalists farther back. NATO warplanes patrolled overhead during the fighting, and revolutionary commanders said airstrikes took out some loyalist tanks, although that could not be confirmed immediately.

Walls along the town’s main boulevard were pockmarked from heavy caliber machine-gun rounds, and the charred metal hulks of cars lined the streets in front of shuttered shops, some of which had been torched.

Gaping holes marred the walls of the TV building, and two of the Gadhafi regime’s green flags still flew from the roof. Two tanks sat nearby, and rebel trucks with mounted machine guns raced forward while blasting at loyalist positions. In front of a convenience store, a group of men fired a half dozen mortars, yelling “God is great!” after each one flew into the distance.

Most of the fighters came from the western city of Misrata, which saw some of the fiercest fighting in the civil war that erupted after Libyans rose up against Gadhafi in mid-February. For the assault on Sirte, they have used many of the urban battle tactics developed in the defense of their own city, including blocking the road with shipping containers and filling them with sand so they couldn’t be moved.

“When we fought in Misrata it was all new to us,” said Adnan al-Zredi, 25, a former clothing store clerk who manned an anti-aircraft gun on the back of a truck. “Now we’re fine in war. We know exactly what to do.”

Some fighters said Gadhafi forces in the city had adopted similar tactics, building a similar barricade of shipping containers and sand elsewhere in the city. “They got some ideas from us,” fighter Abdel-Aziz Salim said proudly.

He spoke from an elementary school on the city’s edge that had been transformed into a military staging ground. Nearby, fighters pounded huge bullets into ammunition belts and armed rocket-propelled grenades before heading back to the front.

Sirte is the Libyan city most associated with Gadhafi. Revolutionary fighters tried to push into the city last weekend but were driven back in fighting that killed at least 25 and wounded dozens. They pulled back to regroup and let civilians leave the area, although the two sides exchanged fire daily.

In the meantime, more than 1,300 families have left the city, fighters said. A few dozen waiting at a checkpoint outside the city on Saturday described rapidly deteriorating conditions. Many had been clustered in basements, eating once a day and drinking water from nearby wells or water tanks. Some said their children had gotten diarrhea from the water.

Over the last week, fighters said they wouldn’t attack until all the city’s civilians were out. In the end, they decided to advance Saturday because they feared many families from Misrata that were stuck in the city were in danger, said a brigade commander, Mohammed al-Sugatri.

“There are lots of people from Misrata who are stuck in the city living in basements. They have no food or water and many of their children are sick so we had no choice but to attack,” he said.

It remains unclear how many civilians remain in the city and how many of them remain loyal to Gadhafi and his forces.

At a small mosque outside town that has been converted into a field hospital, Dr. Mahmoud Khlef said six revolutionary fighters were killed Saturday and close to 80 wounded, most of them by shrapnel from rocket-propelled grenades.

Members of the National Transitional Council have been struggling to form a new interim government amid political infighting over everything from which cities should be represented and how many Cabinet ministers there should be. That has raised concerns that the former rebels will splinter into rival factions now that they no longer have the ouster of Gadhafi as a common cause.

NTC chief Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, speaking to reporters in Benghazi after attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York, acknowledged differences but said a new government would be named next week to guide the country until formal elections can be held.

“This is the crisis management phase and it should be led by people who are efficient, even if they have to be from the same city, until the liberation of the country and until the constitution is established,” he said. “Then they can choose a government that they want.”

In the capital, Tripoli, a series of explosions went off at a military storage warehouse on a Libyan naval base near the harbor Saturday afternoon and heavy black smoke poured out of the facility, although no injuries were reported. A revolutionary command spokesman, Abdel-Rahman Busin, said it was an accident caused by either an electrical problem or the improper storage of ammunition.

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TORONTO — The loonie tumbled more than two cents in early trading Thursday as investors turned to the U.S. dollar as a safe haven and commodity prices continued to fall.

The Canadian dollar was down 2.47 cents to 96.96 cents US on financial markets.

The decline came as the U.S. dollar held steady against the euro.

Rising global economic uncertainty has pushed investors to the greenback as it is perceived as a safe option during times of financial turbulence. More: World stocks nosedive after Fed releases gloomy assessment Whenever there is a flight to quality towards the U.S. currency — even amid a slumping American economy — the Canadian dollar usually gets caught in the crossfire.

Besides a move toward the greenback by international money traders, falling commodity prices have also hit the Canadian currency, which is seen as linked to the price of oil, minerals and other resources.

Earlier Thursday, oil prices fell below US$85 a barrel in Asia, extending losses from the previous session after the U.S. central bank warned of major risks to economic growth.

Benchmark oil for November delivery was down $1.35 at $84.57 at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude dropped $1.00 to settle at $85.92 on Wednesday.

Elsewhere Wednesday, global mining giant Rio Tinto plc said some of its customers are asking the company to delay shipments of iron ore and other metals — the latest sign the global economic slowdown is squeezing the resources sector.

“It is noticeable that markets are somewhat weaker,” Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese said in an interview with the Financial Times of London published Wednesday business

General Mills Inc.’s fiscal first-quarter net income fell 14 percent, but its adjusted results beat Wall Street’s expectations as revenue climbed on higher prices, solid demand and new products.

The Minneapolis-based food maker also reaffirmed its full-year adjusted earnings outlook.

The maker of Cheerios cereal and Haagen-Dazs ice cream said Wednesday that its net income fell to $405.6 million, or 61 cents per share, for the period ended Aug. 28, down from $473.6 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding the effects of a reduction in the market valuation of commodities positions, adjusted earnings came to 64 cents per share.

That topped the 62 cents per share that analysts surveyed by FactSet predicted.

Revenue rose 9 percent to $3.85 billion from $3.53 billion, beating Wall Street’s forecast of $3.81 billion.

The period included one month of results for Yoplait, which the company acquired a controlling stake in during the quarter.

General Mills announced in May that it would pay $1.15 billion to acquire a controlling interest in the yogurt company from a French investment firm and dairy group.

General Mills said the Yoplait deal added 3 percentage points to its revenue increase.

Aside from Yoplait, Chairman and CEO Ken Powell said in a statement that increased prices, resilient consumer demand for existing products and a good early response to new products that debuted in the quarter all contributed to its revenue performance.

Revenue for the company’s U.S. retail division increased 3 percent to $2.51 billion.

Cereal sales edged up 1 percent, helped by brands such as Chex and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. New products included Cinnamon Burst Cheerios, Cocoa Puffs Brownie Crunch and Fiber One 80 calorie cereal also added to results.

At the snacks unit, sales rose 17 percent, driven by Nature Valley and Fiber One snack bars. Sales for the baking products division increased 5 percent, while Pillsbury segment sales gained 4 percent.

The Small Planet Foods division reported a 13 percent sales increase, helped by Cascadian Farm cereal and Larabar.

Results were disappointing for the meals unit, which posted a 4 percent sales decline due to lower shipment volumes for dinner mixes, canned vegetables and soup. Yoplait sales fell 3 percent.

General Mills’ overseas performance was strong, with revenue up 30 percent to $856 million. The results were propelled by strength in Europe, which reported a 36 percent gains. This was followed by a 15 percent gain for the Asia/Pacific region and a 12 percent increase for Latin America. Canada posted an 8 percent increase.

Bakeries and foodservice segment revenue rose 13 percent to $481 million, with sales to bakeries and national restaurants up 18 percent.

Powell predicts General Mills’ earnings will rise over the next nine months. The company maintains that hits fiscal 2012 adjusted earnings will come in between $2.59 and $2.61 per share.

Analysts expect earnings of $2.61 per share for the year.

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A person briefed on the new contract between General Motors and the United Auto Workers union says it will increase the company’s fixed costs by only a small amount.

The tentative agreement on the four-year deal was reached late Friday. It includes a $5,000 signing bonus and the possibility of sweeter profit-sharing checks for GM’s 48,500 factory workers. Most of them aren’t like to get any pay raises.

The person says that because recurring costs were contained, GM still will be able to break even in a depressed U.S. auto sales market of around 10.5 million vehicles. The person did not want to be identified because the terms of the deal haven’t been released to union members.

Members will vote on the pact in the next week or so.

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Talk to people involved in economic development in Missouri, and it won’t be long before you hear this lament: “Texas can write checks to companies to get them to move there.”

So can Georgia and Mississippi, Arkansas, Virginia, Florida and other states.

If a bill moving through the Legislature becomes law, Missouri, too, will be able to write those kind of checks.

Actually, not checks literally

Educated at an exclusive school in a picturesque patch of English countryside, Ghana-born trader Kweku Adoboli was known to neighbors as a polite and well dressed young man who mixed grueling hours in London’s financial district with a lavish social life in the capital’s nightspots.

But even the 31-year-old Adoboli, who was charged Friday with fraud and false accounting, appeared to foresee his work hard, play hard lifestyle unraveling. “Need a miracle,” he posted on his Facebook page, just hours before his arrest early on Thursday.

Analysts and regulators were left questioning why Swiss banking giant UBS and its monitoring systems had failed to spot Adoboli’s alleged fraud, which will cost about $2 billion in losses.

“Nobody blames the tiger for stalking its prey, but you do blame the zookeeper for leaving the tiger’s cage open,” said Stephen Brown, professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Between 1992 and 1998, Adoboli was a boarder at Ackworth School, founded in the late 18th Century by Quakers, the religious organization which asks followers to develop a personal approach to religion.

Also known as the Religious Society of Friends, the Quaker faith stresses the importance of honesty and, according to the school’s website, students are asked to observe periods of “reflective silence before meals,” and attend regular worship meetings.

According to Vida Yeboah, a member of staff at the United Nations office in Ghana’s capital Accra, John Adoboli, Kweku’s father, had worked at the U.N. and was know by colleagues as a gentle, humble man.

The Times of London reported that Adoboli’s father’s worked in Ghana, Israel, Syria and Iraq _ sending his son away to England to be educated.

At Adoboli’s $31,500-a-year school, set in rolling countryside close to the town of Pontefract, about 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of London, Adoboli would have been taught the value of a peaceful, simple lifestyle.

Despite the childhood schooling in prudence, Adoboli lived in an expensive loft apartment in a trendy corner of east London _ close to the capital’s financial district _ and discussed on his Facebook profile a fondness for fine dining.

Philip Octave, Adoboli’s former landlord, said he left the 4,000 pounds ($6,300) per month apartment four months ago. “He was a very nice guy, very polite. He would speak to anybody. I haven’t got a bad word to say about him,” Octave said.

“He was very well spoken and dressed very smartly. He was a very quiet chap, actually,” he added.

According to his social media profiles, Adoboli embraced his bustling and ethnically diverse area of east London _ once downtrodden, but now home to well-paid traders and bankers working at nearby financial firms poor credit personal loans.

A favorite local nightspot was The Boundary, a swank rooftop bar and restaurant with views across London’s banking district, known for its $1,200 magnums of champagne and pricey menu of seafood and traditional British game.

Adoboli also listed interests including expensive wine, photography and the gritty U.S. crime drama “The Wire” on Internet profiles, and disclosed he had been dating a nurse for at least a year. The banker said he enjoyed traveling to France, the U.S. and returning to Ghana to visit his parents.

After he graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2003 with a degree in e-commerce and digital business, Adoboli won a job with UBS as trainee investment adviser in 2006 _ rising through the company to join its equities desk.

The trader’s LinkedIn profile confirmed he worked on a desk known as Delta One and worked with exchange-traded funds _ which track different types of stocks or commodities, such as precious metals. Adoboli and colleagues performed similar work to Jerome Kerviel, who gambled away $6.7 billion at French bank Societe Generale.

Brown said that banks have shown a tendency to fail to spot cases where ambitious and intelligent employees run into difficulty.

“These top banks hire the best and brightest ambitious young people and when they outperform everyone else the bankers want to believe in their brilliance so they look the other way,” said Brown. “That’s exactly what happened at UBS.”

Brown drew parallels with the case of Nick Leeson, the Singapore-based trader who brought down British bank Barings in 1995 after he made around $1.4 billion of losses in unauthorized trades. Law firm Kingsley Napley, which represented Leeson, confirmed on Friday that it had been hired to represent Adoboli.

Kimberly Krawiec, a law professor at Duke University, in Durham, N.C., agreed that the culture inside UBS would need scrutiny following Adoboli’s arrest.

“In the Kerviel case all the blame went to the rogue trader and Societe Generale got away with a slap on the wrist,” Krawiec said. “That was a disappointing outcome because you have to accept there are broader forces at work when traders take on positions that are large enough to threaten large institutions and markets.”

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Adding fuel to a contract dispute, Express Scripts Inc. has accused Walgreens drugstores of launching a false advertising campaign to steer patients away from the St. Louis-based pharmacy benefit manager.

In a court filing last week, Express Scripts asked a federal judge in Chicago to grant an injunction to stop Walgreen Co. from making what it calls false and misleading statements that are designed to persuade Express Scripts members to switch over to health plans that include Walgreens in their networks.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, accuses Walgreens of breach of contract and of staging an aggressive promotional campaign in the wake of stalled contract talks between the two companies.

“Walgreens has crossed a line and is not negotiating in good faith,” Express Scripts spokesman Thom Gross said Wednesday in a written statement. “We are appalled by Walgreens’ reckless effort to mislead and manipulate clients and members.”

As part of that campaign, the suit alleges, Walgreens launched a website on or about Sept. 1