Finance Blog number 1

A call center for 21st Century Insurance and Financial Services Inc. will be filling 40 positions at a job fair on Monday.

The company, which has about 200 people at its call center in Phoenix that it shares with its parent, Farmers Group Inc., plans to split the positions among customers service and sales, said Deb West, the company’s director of operations.

The jobs will be full-time, and the company also is looking for some people with bilingual skills.

The job fair runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and again from 4 to 7 p.m. at the call center, 16001 N. 28th Ave.

Those interested also can apply online at www.farmers.com and clicking on “corporate careers.”

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The first big renovation of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium in 40 years — a $375 million, three-year project — hosts its first event this weekend.

It’ll be a test run for the Chiefs, who are using the renovation as a springboard to improve customer service and the fan experience. The project — which includes an array of features evoking Chiefs history and highlights — added about 430,000 square feet to the stadium, for a total of more than 1.64 million square feet.

“This is the culmination of a five-year process designed to return Arrowhead to its status” as the finest stadium in the National Football League, Chiefs Chairman Clark Hunt said Friday as he gave a media tour of the recently completed facility.

Kelly Kerns, a principal with Kansas City-based Populous, the project architect, said the Arrowhead work kept about 100 of the firm’s local employees busy — and gave him a welcome period of work close to home for the past five years no fax payday loan.

But more than that, the project put Populous in a good position to take advantage of what Kerns said probably is going to be the next building trend.

The professional sports marketplace has experienced a big building boom during the past several years, but those projects in large part have been completed. Now, Kerns said he expects a flurry of projects to improve existing facilities. And Arrowhead provides a showpiece as to the possibilities and Populous’ capabilities.

It’s also a sustainable, green approach, Kerns said. By tackling the project using the existing structure, masses of concrete were kept out of landfills.

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BP will have to pay the U.S. government royalties on oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico if it is found that "negligence or regulatory violations" contributed to the accident, according to a government statement Thursday.

U.S. regulators are investigating what caused the April accident, but the findings aren’t expected for several months.

All oil companies pay royalties on oil produced from wells on government land or water.

BP is currently paying royalties on the oil that it is collecting and selling from its damaged well. BP is donating proceeds from those sales to a wildlife fund.

Based on the oil BP has collected as of last week, current oil prices, and the 18.75% royalty rate on the well, BP has paid about $8 million to the government.

But the well is estimated to be leaking up to 60,000 barrels a day. If the company was charged for that full amount, it would owe another $65 million.

BP has set up a payment plan with the government where it has promised at least $20 billion to pay for damages caused by the spill.

BP officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

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New York state legislators have avoided a government shutdown—for now—by enacting another emergency spending plan for the state.

The state has funded bare-bones operations through a series of the one-week plans, which are necessary because the full budget is now 76 days past due. For weeks, negotiations have produced few results.

Legislators passed the 11th straight emergency spending plan on June 14, allotting money needed to keep the lights on through June 20.

The bill’s fate was never in doubt in the Assembly, where Democrats enjoy a wide 107-42 margin. But three Republicans, including two Capital Region legislators, were critical in ensuring the bill passed the Senate.

Rejection of any earlier spending bills would also have led to a government shutdown. But this time, the odds of a shutdown were larger than ever, since at least one Democrat voted against the bill, and others threatened to do so.

Government would have shut down had the bill failed. It would have meant the closure of state agencies, parks and construction projects. State workers, vendors and unemployment benefits would not have been paid, or received IOUs.

A bipartisan vote was necessary because Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. (D-Bronx) voted against the bill, protesting the cuts it made to welfare and public assistance.

Democrats have just a 32-30 margin in the Senate, and at least 32 votes are needed to pass a bill.

Republican Sens. Hugh Farley (Niskayuna), Roy McDonald (Saratoga) and Charles Fuschillo Jr. (Long Island) voted in favor of the bill.

The final Senate tally was 34-27.

Farley and McDonald faced particular pressure, since thousands of state workers live in their districts.

“Fear was used as a weapon today,” McDonald said on the Senate floor payday loans for bad credit.

Farley said he could not vote to shut down state government, at least this time.

“It enables this dreadful, dreadful budget process to keep going on. It lets this dysfunctional process continue,” Farley said in an interview. “But you can’t shut down state government. That would be a calamity.”

Still, Farley said he likely would not vote for future emergency spending plans if they included new or higher levels of taxes, fees or borrowing.

Sen. John Sampson (D-Brooklyn), the top Democrat in the Senate, thanked the three Republicans for their “courage and leadership.”

By law, Gov. David Paterson authors the emergency spending plans, which court cases have established as all-or-nothing votes for legislators.

This time, Paterson forced legislators to lock in full fiscal year spending on public assistance and welfare programs, including $3.5 billion for the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, a slight decrease from the 2009-10 fiscal year.

The state is saving $327 million by cutting support of some welfare-related programs, while also budgeting increased attrition and revenue from audits. There are no tax increases in the bill.

Last week, Paterson used the emergency spending plan to force legislators to establish almost all of the state’s Medicaid budget for the fiscal year, totaling more than $50 billion of spending. Medicaid and school aid, which legislators have not yet voted on, together make up more than half of the state’s annual budget.

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The city of Scottsdale will hold funeral services June 8 for City Councilman Tony Nelssen, who died May 26 after a battle with cancer.

The services will be start at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the WestWorld center in North Scottsdale.

The city is reminding those attending the services that temperatures could reach 110 degrees, so they should dress appropriately. The event is being held outdoors.

Nelssen, 59, had served on the council since last June.

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Charlie Dooley may not like the idea of a casino in north St. Louis County, but that’s not stopping the people who want to build one.

The day after the St. Louis County executive made public his opposition to the proposal to build a $350 million casino just south of the Columbia Bottoms Preservation Area, the developers’ attorney said his group plans to plow ahead regardless.

The site, in Spanish Lake along the Mississippi, is a good spot for Missouri’s 13th casino, said Ed Griesedieck, lawyer and spokesman for North County Development LLC. And it’s in a part of the region that sorely needs the jobs a casino would bring.

"Mr. Dooley spells out that he has a vague notion that people don’t want this," Griesedieck said Wednesday. "I think that comment is not in touch with the tens of thousands of out-of-work workers in that area."

Local environmentalists have argued that the project would harm fragile wetlands by the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi, and on Tuesday, Dooley said he agreed. But Griesedieck notes that the project was previously zoned for industrial use and is not in a conservation area, just near one.

"There needs to be a distinction there," he said.

The project has strong support from labor unions and some elected officials. But it also has met with vocal opposition from various corners.

Dooley presented his stance in a letter to the Missouri Gaming Commission, which will ultimately decide where to put the casino. A "no" vote from the county executive would likely weigh heavily in their thinking.

Griesedieck said his group — which includes Madison County attorney Brad Lakin and Argo Products owner Kenneth Goldstein, among others — will try to prevail on Dooley to change his mind.

"We hope he reconsiders," he said.

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Aryx Therapeutics Inc. lost $6.4 million in the March quarter, down from a loss of $9.8 million a year earlier.

The Fremont drug business (NASDAQ: ARYX), which cut itself down to 17 workers in February, had no revenue during the quarter. It also had no revenue a year ago in the first quarter.

Since it started, Aryx has accumulated a deficit of $193,499,000. Drug companies often run up big deficits while seeking and testing possible treatments.

At quarter’s end, Aryx had $6.3 million in cash and near money. That’s just enough money to operate until September.

Aryx has hired investment bank Cowen to help it figure out its future.

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Stock Building Supply on Monday closed on its acquisition of National Home Centers Inc., an Arkansas-based supplier of construction materials that had been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Raleigh-based Stock had issued a stalking-horse bid in late February to purchase National Home Centers Inc. A bankruptcy court judge approved the sale April 2.

Ken Greene, a Stock veteran, will serve as market manager for the company’s Arkansas operations.

The expansion adds to Stock’s 19-market footprint.

Financial terms of the deal were not released. It was not immediately known how many employees and stores the acquisition would bring to Stock.

A Stock spokeswoman did not immediate return a phone call seeking comment.

Stock’s expansion comes after a tumultuous two-year period for the company. In response to a stalled housing market, the building material supplier slashed more than 5,000 jobs and closed more than 100 stores as part of its own bankruptcy reorganization last year. As part of that process, British giant Wolseley PLC sold a majority stake in stock to The Gores Group, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that provided the financing to bring Stock out of Chapter 11 protection.

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In the wake of recessionary conditions, television company Belo Corp. is reporting a promising trend on the advertising side of the business.

Dallas-based Belo (NYSE: BLC) presented at the Barclays Capital High Yield Bond and Syndicated Loan Conference on Thursday.

During the presentation, Belo President and Chief Executive Officer Dunia Shive said first-quarter spot advertising revenue is better than expected and is “pacing up in the mid-teens no fax cash loans.”

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CHICAGO — U.S. consumers are starting to look like a frugal, debt-fearing lot as they pay down billions of dollars in credit-card obligations. But an alarming trend is emerging: A small but growing number of people are skipping mortgage payments in favor of paying their credit card bills.

In an unprecedented shift, for some consumers having a credit card in good standing appears to have taken priority over having a roof over one’s head, experts said.

"This is not a carefree or nonchalant decision," said Ezra Becker, director of consulting and strategy at TransUnion, the credit-tracking firm. "But it really is a clear illustration of the impact this recession has had on consumer preferences and behavior."

While overall consumer debt rose unexpectedly in January, consumers continued to pay off their credit cards that month — a record 16th straight month of lower credit card debt — with such debt dropping about $1.7 billion to $864.4 billion, according to the Federal Reserve.

But a small slice of those consumers are paying down credit cards to the detriment of their mortgage loans. The number of consumers delinquent on their mortgages but current on their credit cards rose to 6.6 percent in the third quarter of 2009 from 4.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008, according to a TransUnion study of 27 million anonymous consumer records pulled randomly from its database. Meanwhile, the portion of those who fell behind on credit-card payments but paid their mortgage dropped to 3.6 percent from 4.1 percent.

TransUnion calls it the new "payment hierarchy" and first began noticing the shift in the fourth quarter of 2007. Experts thought the pattern would reverse itself once the worst of the recession passed, but TransUnion’s latest study confirms that the new behavior is becoming more prevalent and stretches across all income groups.

The trend is more common among consumers with the lowest credit scores. The percentage of consumers with low scores who paid credit cards rather than home loans shot up to 29 percent in the third quarter of 2009 from 19.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to TransUnion. And in that low-credit-score group, consumers falling behind on credit cards but keeping pace with mortgage payments declined to 14.5 percent in 2009 from 18.1 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

But mortgage-payment problems are moving up the credit score ladder, according to FICO, the credit score company. A recent FICO Score Trends report found that mortgage-default risk for consumers with high scores now exceeds their credit card default risk, "reversing a long historic trend."

In 2009, 0.3 percent of consumers with FICO scores between 760 and 850 fell into arrears on real estate loans, versus 0.1 percent who did on credit cards.

In 2009, credit card accounts were 1.6 times more likely to become 90 days late than were mortgages, a steep drop from 2005 when credit card accounts were more than three times likely to fall behind 90 days, according to FICO.

Although the numbers are small, the trend is disturbing, said Mark Greene, chief executive of FICO. "We’re identifying lending-industry situations in FICO Score Trends that, to our knowledge, have never been seen before," he said in the report.

You can blame those trends on a deep economic slump that’s pulled the rug out from under long-held jobs, home values and retirement accounts. And, in the wake of a new credit card law as banks tighten the screws on who gets credit and how much they get, some consumers are getting more protective of their credit cards. Plus, with the unemployment rate at a hefty 9.7 percent, people are worried about losing their jobs and perhaps needing their plastic to get by.

On top of that, home values have taken a beating, and many homeowners now find themselves underwater on their home loans, meaning the mortgage outweighs the current value of the real estate. For some, holding on to the undervalued house suddenly doesn’t look like the smartest thing to do now.

"The combination of all these things makes some consumers think that paying money on the mortgage might not be in their best interest relative to the credit card," said TransUnion’s Becker. "If I’m unemployed, I need to rely on the credit cards to get me through it till I get a job."

Another thing to consider, Becker said, is that customers get kicked off credit cards far more quickly than they get kicked out of their homes. It could take a year or longer to get thrown out on the streets; a bank can pull a credit card in default in 90 days, or even less if payments are habitually late.

The mortgage mess isn’t done yet, even as the economy hobbles its way into a recovery. Rachel Bell, FICO’s senior director of analytics, said she expected to see more consumers with high scores go into the home-foreclosure process, particularly on their second homes, as interest rates rise on adjustable-rate mortgages.

"If they have second homes, they’re more willing to walk away," she said. "But even on first mortgages, there are these strategic default decisions we’re seeing where consumers are willing to walk away from a home. If they’re under water financially, they don’t see the benefit of holding on to it."

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