Finance Blog number 1

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U.K. shopper numbers fell yesterday as discounting and mild weather failed to entice cost-conscious Britons to spend, according to market researcher Experian Footfall.

Visits to shops and malls fell 0.7 percent on Dec. 27, compared to the Tuesday after Christmas last year, Experian Footfall said by e-mail. Shopper numbers surged 21.5 percent on Boxing Day, Dec. 26, with extended hours helping boost business limited last year by Sunday trading restrictions. The four-day U.K. holiday weekend ended on a Tuesday in both 2010 and 2011.

Stores including Debenhams Plc (DEB), the U.K.

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Covidien plc will spin off its Hazelwood-based drug business, turning it into an independent company that may restore the historic corporate name of Mallinckrodt.

Covidien, based in Dublin, makes medical devices and medical supplies in addition to drugs. The proposed spinoff also will have its legal headquarters in Ireland, largely for tax reasons, company executives said in a conference call.

But the spinoff’s U.S. operation will be based in Hazelwood, and its new CEO will work from here. Spokesman Steve Littlejohn said the company has not made a final decision on its name, “but chances are good that it will be Mallinckrodt.”

Covidien’s pharmaceutical business has $2 billion in sales, with two-thirds of that coming in the U.S. market. It turned an operating profit of $318 million this fiscal year.

The drug business is a large provider of acetaminophen, the ingredient in Tylenol, and the largest U.S. supplier of opioids; both are pain medicines. Other lines include contrast products used with medical imagery and nuclear medicine products.

The pharmaceutical operation currently employs about 2,500 people in metro St. Louis. A company spokesman said the move should have no immediate impact on jobs here. Some jobs might be added as the firm sets up its own administrative operation.

Analysts had speculated that Covidien might get rid of the drug operation. Although profitable, it is less lucrative than the rest of Covidien and demands a higher investment in research and development. The drug operation earns a 16 cent operating profit for every dollar of sales, compared with 28 cents for the rest of the company.

The drug operation has a “lumpy” revenue history, notes analyst Aaron Vaughn of Edward Jones in Des Peres. The division is largely a generic drugmaker, and that sector suffered through a price war in past years, he noted.

“We thought they would be getting the business right-sized so that they could spin it off and let it grow on its own,” he said.

Covidien Chief Executive Jose Almeida said the pharmaceutical drug division’s performance had improved in recent years.

“We’re confident the business can now stand on its own,” he said in a conference call Thursday morning.

He said the company had been thinking about shedding the business for several years, citing “major differences” between drugs and Covidien’s other medical products. The operations have different business models, sales channels, customers and capital requirements, and demand different talents, he said.

Separating the operations would allow both to focus on their own strategies, Almeida said. Shareholders also might get more value over the long term, he said.

The drug business “definitely needs some investment,” said analyst Jeff Jonas of Gabelli & Co. in an interview with Bloomberg News. “They need to find new products, invest in the pipeline. That’s a multiyear process.”

Research and development consumes 7 percent of revenue in the drug division, compared with 4 percent in the rest of Covidien.

The spinoff would be in the form of a stock distribution, tax-free to U.S. shareholders, the company said. That tax-free aspect made the option of a spinoff superior to the alternative of selling the unit, company officials said.

The spinoff could take 18 months to complete and would need approval of regulators.

Bloomberg News, citing unidentified sources, reported last summer that Covidien had tried to sell the unit, but talks broke down.

Almeida said he has picked a CEO for the new company, although he didn’t name the person. The person is a ’strong leader” with “broad pharmaceutical experience,” Almeida said, and will join the spinoff from another company.

The drug operation is now headed by Matt Harbaugh, the drug division’s chief financial officer serving as interim president. Based in Hazelwood, he has led the unit since the previous president left last year.

Besides its Hazelwood headquarters, the drug unit has a research operation in Webster Groves, a nuclear medicine facility in Maryland Heights and a plant just north of downtown St. Louis.

That plant sits on what was the Mallinckrodt family farm. G. Mallinckrodt & Co. was founded there in 1867 and grew up as a chemical and drug firm. It refined uranium for the Manhattan Project, which created the atomic bomb during World War II.

Avon Products acquired Mallinckrodt in 1982. Avon sold the company to International Minerals and Chemical Corp. in 1986, which later changed its own name to Mallinckrodt.

In 2000, Tyco bought the company. After Tyco went bankrupt amid scandals, its health care operations were spun off as Covidien in 2007.

Without the drug business, Covidien would have $9.6 billion in sales. Covidien’s remaining business makes trays, hypodermic needles, retractors, pumps for patient feeding and pain management, and other medical devices.

Covidien stock rose $1.39 to $43.55 on Thursday.

Source

Markets rose Monday on hopes that Europe’s leaders will agree on a plan to restore long-term confidence in the euro, saving it from collapse and averting global economic chaos.

A crucial week for the future of the euro kicks off later with a meeting of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. The two are expected to discuss how to achieve closer political and economic union of the 17 euro countries, including stricter budgetary oversight.

Merkel wants to change the basic EU treaty to reflect the tougher rules on euro countries and make them enforceable, while Sarkozy is resisting giving up more powers to Brussels, especially since he faces a tough re-election campaign in April. Sarkozy is thought to prefer an intergovernmental deal between the 17 euro countries.

The markets are hopeful that, given the gravity of the situation afflicting the eurozone, the two leaders will come up with a common proposal for tighter integration on budget matters. Analysts say that such a plan could lead to further emergency aid from the European Central Bank, possibly through the International Monetary Fund.

“Markets have gained ground ahead of a Franco-German summit which is supposed to resolve some long-standing issues between the two continental titans,” said Chris Beauchamp, market analyst at IG Index.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.5 percent at 5,582 while Germany’s DAX rose 0.9 percent to 6,133. The CAC-40 in France was 1.2 percent higher at 3,202.

The biggest gainer was Italy’s FTSE MIB, which was trading 2.2 percent higher, a day after the government led by Premier Mario Monti agreed big austerity and growth-boosting measures. They are to be presented to a skeptical Parliament later Monday.

Monti is to brief both Parliament chambers on the package, which includes euro30 billion ($27 billion) of spending cuts and tax hikes, euro10 billion of which will be reinvested to boost anemic growth instant payday loan.

His government agreed Sunday to slap taxes on property and luxury goods, increase the age at which retirees can draw pensions, trim the cost of Italy’s political class and give incentives to companies that hire women and young workers.

Significantly, the pressure on Italy eased in bond markets. The country’s ten-year bond yield was down 0.40 of a percentage point to 6.16 percent.

Italy is the eurozone’s third-largest economy and is considered too big to be bailed out. Its borrowing rates have in recent weeks hovered around the 7 percent mark, a level that eventually forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek financial help. By comparison, bond yields in Germany, Europe’s largest and most stable economy, are roughly 2 percent.

Wall Street was poised for a stronger opening, too _ Dow futures were up 1 percent at 12,120 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures rose 1.1 percent to 1,257.

The upbeat tone in markets helped the euro advance 0.3 percent to $1.3448 and the main New York oil contract rise 83 cents a barrel to $101.79.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index added 0.6 percent to close at 8,695.98 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.7 percent to 19,179.69. South Korea’s Kospi ended 0.4 percent higher at 1,922.90.

Mainland Chinese shares lost ground on worries over the economic outlook. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.2 percent to 2,333.23.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source

The Robin Hoods in this northern Greek town sport rubber gloves, fuses and orange stickers.

Nearly two years of pay cuts, job cuts and tax hikes have pummeled living standards in debt-crippled Greece and the country is facing record unemployment and a fourth year of recession in 2012. On a personal level, that means many in Veria can’t pay for basic necessities such as electricity and end up getting cut off from the grid.

That’s where the “Citizens of Veria” activists step in.

The group illegally reconnects needy households back to the electric grid in a direct challenge to the country’s dominant power provider, the Public Power Corporation.

“By cutting off power, (PPC) punishes young children, elderly people and generally those who can’t cope without it,” said activist Nikos Aslanoglou. “We decided that we had to reconnect them. We’re not hiding, everybody knows who we are.”

He says the group has so far reconnected dozens of households, particularly in the villages and small towns outlying Veria.

Greece sank into a financial crisis in 2009 after it emerged that authorities had been falsifying financial data for years. The fallout from that blocked the country’s access to bond markets. Greece only escaped bankruptcy with a euro110 billion ($147 billion) international rescue loan in May 2010, and when that was not enough, a second, euro130 billion ($174 billion) rescue deal that awaits final approval.

In return, the government has promised to slash bloated budget deficits through harsh austerity measures.

As jobs become rarer and worse-paid, many in this northern farming region are falling through a weakening social safety net. In the village of Agia Marina, 9 miles (15 kilometers) from Veria, activists recently reconnected the house of a disabled, 34-year-old single mother, who lives with four of her five children.

As they left, they placed an orange sticker on the electricity meter that reads: “Citizens of Veria. Social solidarity. We are reconnecting the power.”

The woman’s eldest daughter, a 19-year-old student, said before the activists came her siblings _ aged from 6 to 18 _ had to study by candlelight or with oil lamps in an unheated house.

“Our only income is a euro400-euro500 ($535-$668) welfare payment every two months,” said the student, Vasso. “PPC disconnected us because we owed them money, and we were left in the dark for about a month, but then some gentlemen came and reconnected us. Now we have heating again.”

She didn’t want her full name used because she was afraid authorities would track down her family.

What the activists are doing is illegal and can be punished by more than ten years’ imprisonment depending on the size of the outstanding bills, although in most cases sentences do not exceed five years no fax payday loan.

“Greek law treats the theft of electricity like any other common theft,” University of Thessaloniki law professor Lambros Margaritis said.

Undeterred, a three-strong activist team recently reconnected a house in the small town of Meliki, where a 54-year-old woman lives with her two unemployed sons in their thirties. Working deftly, it took them 15 minutes.

“We’re not stealing, the electricity consumption is recorded,” Aslanoglou said. “The poor houseowners can’t face consequences, it’s us who do the reconnecting.”

Hence the stickers.

Veria activists claim their campaign is catching on in other parts of the country _ particularly since the introduction in September of a deeply resented new property tax levied through power bills. People who can’t pay the new tax face losing their power supply.

That prospect has enraged even PPC employees, who staged a sit-in at a company office in Athens to disrupt the collection of the new emergency tax.

While the Veria municipal authority says have-nots should not be disconnected over the new tax, Mayor Haroula Ousountzoglou says the activists are going too far.

“What the group is doing may be very romantic, it is, however, dangerous,” Ousountzoglou told the AP. “PPC just goes and cuts off the electricity again, and imposes additional charges.”

In cases of repeated illegal reconnection, homeowners can also face prosecution _ or have their link severed at the nearest electricity pole, a drastic move that activists are powerless to counter.

PPC public relations officer Kimon Stergiotis warned that the company is determined to protect its interests.

“To illegally reconnect cut power links poses severe threats to the life and property of unsuspecting citizens,” he said. “In any case, PPC will use the law to its utmost severity.”

Ousountzoglou said her town has about 330 families on a welfare program that sometimes includes assistance in paying power bills.

“But our funds are constantly dwindling, and I keep making the rounds of local firms to ask for contributions,” she added.

The Veria mayor has threatened to sue PPC if people who really can’t pay the property tax are left without power.

“We told them we’re not joking,” she said. “PPC can’t behave like that to needy people.”

Source

The chief of the International Monetary Fund said Saturday that Italy’s financial reform is key to reducing the impact of the eurozone crisis, and that no country is immune to the consequences if the efforts fall short.

After meeting in Tokyo with top Japanese financial officials, including Finance Minister Jun Azumi, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Italy must restore political stability and implement financial reforms to provide “clarity and credibility” and restore confidence.

Italy needs “steady, solid and sustained implementation of measures,” she said at a news conference.

The eurozone financial crisis, set off two years ago by Greece’s overwhelming debt, has now engulfed Italy, which has the third-largest economy among the 17 nations that share the euro currency. The crisis has toppled Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who says he will step down once reforms are passed to help Italy control its own staggering debt payday advance.

Lagarde expressed concerns about the possible consequences outside the eurozone, particularly in Asia. She urged Japan to use caution against the impact of the eurozone crisis.

“I insisted with Minister Azumi that no country can be immune under the present circumstances, no matter how developed or how emerging or how far away it is,” Lagarde said. “Japan is no more immune than other countries.”

A major exporter, Japan “would be exposed if some of its large clients are in serious difficulty,” she said.

Europe has bailed out Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

Source

OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says the country’s annual inflation rate edged up a notch to 3.2 per cent last month as the cost of most consumer goods the agency tracks cost more from a year ago.

On a month-to-month basis, consumer prices rose two-tenths of a cent between August and September.

The increases were moderate, but if there was an alarming signal in the report it was that the Bank of Canada’s core inflation index shot up three-tenths to 2.2 per cent.

That’s the largest annual gain since December 2008, and puts core inflation above the central bank’s two per cent target for the first time since February 2010.

The major drivers of inflation remain gasoline and food. They were up 22.7 per cent and 4.3 per cent respectively from a year ago.

But the agency says other items also cost more, including shelter, the cost of transportation, car insurance, recreation and education, alcohol and tobacco, health and personal care and clothing and shoes.

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A civic support organization for the Basque separatist group ETA has disbanded in Spain, a newspaper that acts as a mouthpiece for the separatists reported Saturday.

The news adds weight to Spanish government claims that support for ETA’s violent tactics is crumbling. The group has been responsible for hundreds of killings since the late 1960s.

According to Gara newspaper, the support group, Ekin, formed in November 1999 with the aim of “impelling independence, nation-building and socialism at street level.” But on Saturday, the paper’s website said two unidentified spokesmen told it. “Ekin members have ended their endeavors as an organization.”

Interior Minister, Antonio Camacho, said Ekin’s disappearance proved ETA was “in an unstoppable process of dissolution.”

“We are experiencing the last phase of the terrorist group’s existence,” Camacho said.

Government spokesman Jose Blanco said Ekin’s disbanding was yet another step toward ETA’s demise, but he added that it was “not the final step” that Spain hoped for.

“What the whole of Spanish society yearns for is a statement announcing an end to terrorism, and the end of ETA,” Blanco said Saturday.

ETA, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Spain, the European Union and the U.S., has killed 829 people since the late 1960s in a campaign of bombings and shootings aimed at forcing the government to allow the creation of an independent Basque homeland No teletrak payday loan.

Former National Court judge Baltasar Garzon found in April 2001 that Ekin, like the banned Batasuna party, had acted as a political wing for ETA, “co-directing activity” such as low-level street violence.

In April 2001 Garzon banned Ekin for being part of ETA, and in July of that year he jailed 31 of its members for “collaboration with ETA.”

A week ago, a group representing 700 ETA prisoners in Spain and France called for an end to violence as a tool for achieving Basque independence.

The prisoners’ group also endorsed a groundbreaking agreement reached late last year by pro-independence Basque political parties _ chiefly the remnants of Batasuna _ and civic groups such as Ekin, that said Basque independence should be achieved through peaceful means.

ETA declared a cease-fire in September 2010 and went further in January by calling the truce permanent and saying it was prepared to let international observers verify it.

The separatist group has been decimated in recent years by arrests of its leaders and members, and it has not killed anyone in Spain in more than two years.

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A private research group forecast that the economy will grow slowly in the second half of the year because of the support it’s gotten from the Federal Reserve.

The Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.5 percent in July. The index had risen 0.3 percent in June.

This summer’s readings suggest that the economy won’t pick up enough this year for the jobless rate to drop much. The small moves higher however indicate that the country likely won’t fall back into recession, as some economists fear.

“The economy is slow, with little momentum, and shows no indication of acceleration,” said Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein. He added that despite “growing risks,” the economy would likely grow at a “modest pace” this fall and winter.

Prominent economists have been cutting their growth forecasts for the second half. Moody’s Analytics on Monday said it expects real gross domestic product to grow at an annualized rate near 2 percent in the second half of this year. It had earlier predicted growth of 3.5 percent.

In the first half of 2011, the economy grew at the slowest pace since the recession officially ended in June 2009 _ 0.4 percent in the first three months and 1 instant payday loans.3 percent in the April-June quarter. The slump sparked fears that the U.S. could “double-dip” back into a downturn.

The slow upward march in the leading indicators’ index has so far suggested that won’t happen. But jobs are likely to remain scarce. Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist, said the economy must grow 2.5 percent to 3 percent a year to add jobs fast enough to keep the unemployment rate stable. It currently stands at 9.1 percent.

Six of the 10 measures in the Conference Board’s index show improvement _ primarily its measures of the financial sector. They have been helped by the Fed’s record-low interest rate policy. Three of the Board’s measures dropped, one held steady.

The Conference Board is a private research group based in New York. Most of the data it uses in calculating the leading indicator index _ about real estate, manufacturing, employment, consumer confidence and financial markets _ has previously been released. The Conference Board also includes its own estimates about manufacturers’ new orders and the country’s money supply.

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Indoor fish farming, with a twist, appears headed to a long-vacant factory complex on the north St. Louis riverfront.

Urban farming is no longer rare in the United States, but this planned St. Louis project would employ ex-convicts who would live at the site, in a 119-year-old factory to be renovated as apartments.

Craig Heller, a downtown loft developer, is behind the $13.7 million project to put apartments, gardens and an aquaponics fish farm at the former Hammond Sheet Metal factory, at First Street and Cass Avenue.

A main feature is the aquaponics facility inside one of the old factory buildings. A city official said the project would further First Lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to encourage healthy eating.

The project is scheduled to be built in two phases, the first covering renovation of a four-story building into 56 studio apartments for ex-offenders. Phase two will include an aquaponics facility, produce gardens on vacant parts of the 4.5-acre site and a “green” industry business incubator.

“Urban agriculture is getting bigger and bigger,” Heller told members of the city’s Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority.

He spoke Tuesday at the authority’s regular monthly meeting, where members voted to approve 15-year tax abatement for the project. The project also has from the city a $5 million allocation of federal New Markets Tax Credits, plus $920,000 in state and federal low-income housing tax credits.

Heller said after the LCRA meeting that he hopes to begin construction of the efficiency apartments within three months. His Hammond Building LLC paid $450,000 for the old factory and has owned the site since 2005, city records show fast payday loan.

Working with Heller on the project is the St. Patrick Center, which plans to select the ex-offender residents. Greg Vogelweid, the center’s chief operating officer, said his organization hopes to get a HUD grant of up to $1.5 million over three years to provide rent subsidies for the development’s residents and to provide them support services.

“The cool thing about this is the link to food production,” he said.

The aquaponics project is modeled on a fish farm that produces tilapia and perch inside a former crane factory in Milwaukee, officials said. Aquaponics is the term given to a circulating water system in which fish waste fertilizes plant growth and the plants, in turn, filter the water used to raise the fish.

Gateway Greening, a nonprofit organization that helps groups establish community gardens, will provide training for the development’s residents to produce lettuce, beets, carrots, kale and other fresh items that can be sold at farmers markets, Vogelweid said.

Heller declined this week to discuss details of the project but Vogelweid said it will provide much needed housing, training and employment for ex-offenders. He said they will be carefully screened before they are accepted as residents.

Vogelweid said the St. Patrick Center should have no trouble filling the 56 apartments, each of about 450 square feet, with qualified ex-offenders. Sex offenders will not be considered but the development’s residents could have a wide range of convictions