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When Alan and Pat Richardson moved their upscale European furniture store to downtown St. Louis from Ballwin in June 2007, they expected a temporary slowdown because of the relocation.

But what the owners of English Living didn’t count on was the recession, and within months of the move tough times came calling.

"We saw what was happening in the housing market," said Alan Richardson. "We knew we were facing something, and we had to make some significant changes.

"We trimmed 40 percent of our payroll in preparation for what we thought was a storm coming. The storm came, and we thought by now, we’d be out of it."

Such hasn’t been the case.

Sales in October and November, typically the strongest months, were down 5 percent for the store at 1520 Washington Avenue. And that was on top of a 10 percent decline a year ago, after the store moved.

While the economy is hurting a range of retailers, merchants in the furniture and home furnishing business are particularly being slammed because of plunging house sales and cutbacks in big-ticket discretionary purchases.

Nationally, sales by furniture and home furnishing stores totaled $8.7 billion in November, down nearly 11 percent from sales of $9.8 billion in November of last year, according to advance figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. In comparison, sales at clothing and clothing accessory stores fell 5.8 percent. "For (furniture) retailers, it’s pretty bleak right now," said Jackie Hirschhaut, vice president of marketing for the American Home Furnishings Alliance, the nation’s largest trade association for furniture manufacturers.

Factors that can compound the problems range from bad locations to run-of-the-mill merchandise.

"It’s been rough this past year," said Susan Block, owner of The Designing Block, at 7735 Clayton Road near Hanley Road. "First we got hurt by Highway 40. Then we got hit with the economy. We really got a double dose.

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"We’re not dying, I’m not going belly up, but I’m off a whole lot from the previous year."

For example, gifts being shipped from the store are about 80 percent fewer than last year, and the store was struggling to sell a piece of furniture this holiday season.

In contrast, Mueller Furniture, at 1004 East Main Street in Belleville, says its location is a huge plus.

"When the big financial crisis hit in October, we had three unusually slow days," said owner Lynwood Mueller. But that was it.

October sales figures were slightly more than the previous year, and November brought a double-digit increase. Mueller also is expecting an increase in December figures, even though the month is usually slow for furniture sales.

Mueller says the Metro East area, which is home to major employers such as Scott Air Force Base and hospitals, has helped insulate his business from the recession.

"We’re not so dependent on manufacturing," he said.

Being able to offer more promotional goods has helped Carol House Furniture at 2332 Millpark Drive in Maryland Heights, said co-owner Brook Dubman.

"There are many more opportunities for us to buy closeouts and specials. We have the warehouse space to stock up," he said.

While business is down for the year, it’s only by a little, he said.

"That’s pretty good considering the stories you hear out there," Dubman said.

Discount prices also are helping Good Works at 6323 Delmar Boulevard, which opened an outlet store in August. Both stores are in the Delmar Loop area.

Owners Chris Dougher and Rita Navarro made the move after closing the Good Works location in downtown St. Louis because of a lack of customers. The store, which was shuttered in June, was open about eight months.

"There’s no question it’s a tough time. Fortunately we opened the outlet and it helped us maintain levels," Dougher said.

The outlet, at 6707 Vernon Avenue, is open Fridays and Saturdays and offers furniture at about 40 percent off the regular price.

Although Good Works didn’t succeed downtown, Alan Richardson says he believes the locale is the right spot for English Living and he plans to stay.

Located in the historic Ely Walker building, the store offers hard-to-find imported wooden furniture, antiques and custom-made pieces.

A big plus is the store’s bustling tea room that sells about 50 loose teas.

"The tea room has scored for us. It makes the store a destination," Richardson said.

gappleson@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8331

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You’re paying your bills, but your landlord isn’t. And you’re the one holding the eviction notice. What should you do if you have such a notice or believe one is coming?

"Don’t panic or stick your head in the sand," says Robert Baker with Housing and Credit Counseling Inc. in Kansas. Here are some actions you should consider taking:

— Call the sheriff’s department. Find out how long the foreclosure process takes. Is it 60 days or 90? Then you’ll have a timeline.

— Get on the Internet. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development outlines tenant rights by state on its website, www.hud.gov. Some states, including California and Illinois, allow grace periods.
— Contact the lender or the lender’s attorney on the eviction notice. Find out if you can sign a new lease or if the bank is offering cash assistance for moving out.

— Contact a local nonprofit housing counseling agency for help no teletrack payday loan. HUD’s website lists agencies by state, or you can call its toll-free number 1-800-569-4287.

— Find out about your landlord’s financial situation. Go to the county courthouse or its website and do a rudimentary background check. Or, contact your local Better Business Bureau.

— Check to see if your landlord isn’t making repairs; maybe it’s because he can’t pay for them.

— In the meantime, save your money for a rainy-day fund.

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Federal regulators are moving to sell the remnants of failed IndyMac Bank before year-end, mopping up from the second-largest bank failure this year.

It was unclear whether the government would sell it off as a whole or in pieces. IndyMac had about $32 billion in assets when it was seized by the FDIC. Its collapse is expected to cost the federal bank insurance fund $8 payday loan.9 billion. Final bids for its assets were due Dec. 15.

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How is your money protected when you open an account with an investment adviser?

It’s good to ask questions right at the beginning of a relationship.

Pushed to do so by governments, the investment industry has set up compensation funds to reimburse clients in case of corporate failures.

Unfortunately, these funds can’t help when investments go down in value. Nothing protects you from losses – except time and patience – when stock markets drop.

First question: Which investment firm are you dealing with? What is the corporate name that appears on the letterhead?

Let’s look at RBC, Canada’s largest bank, which has many operating divisions that sell investments.

You might do business with RBC Dominion Securities Inc. (a full-service broker), RBC Direct Investing Inc. (a discount broker) or Royal Mutual Funds Inc. (a mutual fund dealer).

There’s also RBC Insurance Services Inc., which sells insured investments called segregated funds.

You need to know the full company name – RBC or Royal Bank is not enough – because that’s the only way you can find out which compensation fund covers you if the company goes under.

RBC Dominion and RBC Direct Investing are both members of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). If you’re a client, your investments are covered by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund.

Royal Mutual Funds belongs to the Mutual Fund Dealers Association. Investments are covered by MFDA Investor Protection Corp.

Finally, RBC Insurance Services is a member of Assuris, which is funded by the life insurance industry and covers your investments if the company fails.

The role of these protection funds is to transfer assets from an insolvent company to a solvent company. They do it quite seamlessly without clients even knowing what is going on behind the scenes.

CIPF is the oldest fund health insurance quote. Since being started in 1969, it has seen 17 members become insolvent. All eligible customers had their assets returned to them.

Thomson Kernaghan, which collapsed in 2002, was the last investment dealer whose losses were covered by the fund.

"Others have wound up their businesses since then, but didn’t require CIPF protection," says chief executive Rozanne Reszel.

Clients of member firms are covered for up to $1 million in cash and securities (such as GICs, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, commodities and futures contracts).

U.S. dollar cash and securities and other foreign account balances are also eligible for coverage.

If you have two separate accounts with the same dealer – an RRSP/RRIF account and a non-registered account – each qualifies for up to $1 million coverage.

The MFDA Investor Protection Corp. is similar to CIPF in what it covers and the amount of coverage (up to $1 million).

Customers who have accounts in Quebec are not covered; MFDA is not recognized as a self-regulatory organization in the province.

The Investor Protection Fund has had no claims against it since inception in July 2005, says chief executive Joni Alexander.

Mutual fund dealers rarely go bankrupt. But mutual fund management companies have gone under in a couple of recent cases, leaving investors unprotected.

There are no laws yet requiring mutual fund managers to set up funds to compensate customers in an insolvency.

Assuris was set up in 1990. If you have money on deposit, you are covered for up to $100,000.

Rules for segregated funds are complex. Check www.assuris.ca.

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It’s rare for Anheuser-Busch to sell one of its company-owned beer distributorships. It’s rarer still for the company to sell to an outsider, someone who is not already involved in carrying A-B’s beer.

But sell it will. The St. Louis-based unit of Belgian brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev will sell its Western Beverage Co., a huge wholesale operation based in Eugene, Ore., to Todd Epsten.

Epsten is the CEO of Major Brands Inc., a massive Missouri wine and liquor operation based near the Maplewood exit off Interstate 44.

Now, Epsten is forming a new company called Major Eagle Inc. to buy Western Beverage, which churns out an estimated 6 million to 7 million case equivalents per year and reportedly ranks among A-B’s top 25 distributorships.

Major Eagle will purchase A-B’s 56 percent stake in Western Beverage as well as the 44 percent stake held by other shareholders. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Epsten said he was excited about the prospect of being "in the beer business in an even larger way, and being part of the A-B network no fax pay day loans."

Anheuser-Busch has traditionally liked to own a few distributorships to give the company a better sense of how things are going in the market.

In a statement, Tony Short, Anheuser-Busch’s vice president of business and wholesaler development, stressed that the transaction "was under consideration for several months prior to the close of the A-B InBev merger."

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Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) agreed to sell its 29 percent stake in Sanyo Electric (6764.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) after Panasonic Corp (6752.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) slightly sweetened its offer, three financial sources said, clearing the way for a deal worth at least $6.4 billion.

The move by Goldman, which, unlike two other major Sanyo shareholders, had rejected Panasonic’s earlier lower offers, came after the Wall Street firm reported its first quarterly loss since going public.

The combination of Panasonic, the world’s biggest plasma TV maker, and Sanyo, the top producer of rechargeable batteries, would create Japan’s No. 2 electronics manufacturer after Hitachi Ltd (6501.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) with $120 billion in annual sales.

Sanyo shares closed down 1.4 percent at 141 yen on the news that a deal had been reached below the company’s current share price.

Panasonic and Sanyo plan to hold a news conference on Friday to give details of a planned tender offer, in which Panasonic will offer 131 yen per Sanyo share, the sources with direct knowledge of the matter said, 1 yen more than it had earlier offered this month.

Officials at Goldman Sachs and Panasonic declined to comment.

Goldman appears to have taken its chance to sell its stake, despite the price being far below what it had been seeking, due to the increasingly bleak outlook for Japanese consumer electronics makers.

Late last month, Panasonic, formerly known as Matsushita Electric, cut its annual net profit forecast by 90 percent and announced plans to restructure as the global financial crisis dampens sales of TVs and other electronics on line pay day loans.

Some analysts have also said the market price of Sanyo shares may not have fully factored in a dilution in per-share value, which comes with the conversion of preferred shares into common shares.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, Daiwa Securities SMBC and Goldman hold nearly 430 million of Sanyo’s preferred shares, each of which can be exchanged for 10 common shares when a restriction is lifted in March.

If converted, Goldman and Daiwa Securities SMBC would each hold a 29 percent stake in Sanyo, while Sumitomo Mitsui Banking would hold 12 percent. The combined 70 percent stake would be worth about $6.4 billion, based on the offer price of 131 yen.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management, said Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo would have a tough time creating synergy effects even though the deal now looks set to go through.

“When things are good and top lines are growing, it is easy for Japanese companies to carry out restructuring. They are not very good at streamlining in an environment like this since no one would rehire the employees they let go,” he said.

“His pain from overseeing the birth of a successful merger has just begun.” 

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Ontario’s ailing auto sector will get the CPR it needs from the federal and provincial governments to avoid a "doomsday scenario" that would result in thousands of job losses, Ontario Economic Development Minister Michael Bryant said today.

A report prepared for the Ontario government warning Canada could lose more than 580,000 jobs within five years if the Detroit Three automakers go out of business shows that a proposed $3-billion rescue package is needed to avoid a "catastrophic" chain of events, Bryant said.

"We are talking about CPR, literally, CPR for a company to avoid it from going under and causing a chain of events that would be catastrophic to the economy," Bryant said.

"It’s our job as government, because there is no private capital available, to step in and provide that CPR and eventually that life support to allow the intensive care to these businesses that will allow them to transform."

On Friday, federal Industry Minister Tony Clement said Ottawa and Ontario agreed to provide the equivalent of 20 per cent of whatever emergency aid the Bush administration gives to the companies – a figure proportional to the number of vehicles produced in Canada.

The aid won’t come until the U.S. makes its own plans known. The plan has been criticized by some for using taxpayer money to bailout international companies that have failed to manage their own affairs.

Bryant said the government isn’t looking to enhance or even preserve shareholder value for GM, Ford and Chrysler, nor does it want to necessarily sustain the current management.

"We’re not just talking, in that sense, about GM and Chrysler as manufactures themselves, it’s also all of their creditors, all of those workers, all of those suppliers, all of those parts manufacturers and all of those car dealerships," he said payday loans for bad credit.

"All that adds up to a massive industry.

"Auto is to Ontario what the oilsands is to Alberta, and I don’t anybody would suggest that the oilsands is expendable to our economy."

The report paints a gloomy picture if the Ontario, federal and U.S. governments do not bail out the automakers.

It warns the collapse of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler would send lasting shock waves through the economy, and that Ontario alone would lose 517,000 jobs.

If auto output by U.S.-based manufacturers in Canada was cut in half, at least 157,400 jobs would be lost right away, 141,000 of them in Ontario.

"This report says that Canada is better off providing life support to GM and Chrysler because the demise of auto in Canada is the economic equivalent of a nuclear freeze with catastrophic effects that would knock us into a deep recession," Bryant said.

He denied that the report is alarmist or that it was released to rally support for the government’s plans.

"They’re doomsday scenarios and the governments of Ontario and Canada will make sure that they don’t happen," he said.

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Shares in China Construction Bank (0939.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(601939.SS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the country’s most valuable lender, slid more than 4 percent on Monday even after Bank of America (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) poured cold water on a local newspaper report it planned to unload its stake in the Chinese bank at a discount.

The No. 3 U.S. bank, which owns 19.13 percent of Construction Bank, aims to sell 3-6 billion of the Chinese lender’s Hong Kong shares at a discount of 13-17 percent to its Friday close, raising up to $3 billion, the Apple Daily cited unidentified market sources as saying.

Both the U.S. firm — which is slashing up to 35,000 jobs over three years to save $7 billion and offset an erosion of business from a global economic downturn — and a source close to Construction Bank, denied the report.

The source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the issue, told Reuters the report was simply untrue but gave no other details.

Several local fund managers contacted by Reuters also said they had not received any information relating to the possible sale of Construction bank shares.

“It is not true,” Bank of America spokesman Robert Stickler said in an emailed reply to Reuters questions.

Still, the Chinese lender’s stock fell as much as 4.4 percent in the morning. Analysts said investors believed Bank of America, which is set to fold in Merrill Lynch (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) via a merger valued at $20.5 billion, would eventually reduce its ownership in the state-run bank in future.

“There is a possibility that Bank of America might sell its shares in CCB before the end of the year to capture the rise in CCB shares since the end of October,” said Y advance payday loans.K. Lee, analyst at Core-Pacific Yamaichi. “That’s the main reason why CCB is down.”

“Bank of America needs more money because it is facing difficulties in its home market. Its delinquency ratio is rising,” he added.

MATTER OF TIME

Speculation that Bank of America would unload part of its stake in China’s largest property lender, has surfaced sporadically and many analysts say it’s just a matter of time.

The report comes about a month after Bank of America actually nearly doubled its stake in the Chinese firm, which investors — shell-shocked by a year-long market slide — feared signaled the U.S. lender was preparing to sell some of its pre-existing holdings in the bank to bolster its capital base.

Bank of America, which is facing increasing troubles at home, was barred from selling those newly acquired shares until August 29, 2011, but holdings it had bought previously were released in November from a three-year lock-up period, allowing them to be sold at any time.

Bank of America paid $3 billion for a 9 percent stake in CCB in June 2005, and invested another $1.9 billion this July. Despite a sharp slide in Chinese share prices this year, that $4.9 billion total investment was worth $14.5 billion as of September 30, almost tripling in value, Bank of America has said.

But just last week, Construction Bank president Zhang Jianguo told reporters he believed Bank of America would not sell shares of China’s top property lender in the near term, citing his own communications with the U.S. firm. 

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For St. Louis-area Chrysler workers and the community, the possibility of reopening the Chrysler LLC minivan plant in Fenton seems almost too alluring, too unthinkable to believe.

Then, the unthinkable was suggested in a news report Tuesday.

According to the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail, Chrysler Canada Inc. warned Ottawa and Queen’s Park that the automaker could close two assembly plants and shift the manufacturing work to the United States if it doesn’t get emergency funding from the Canadian government.

Such a shift would include dusting off the Fenton plant that was idled six weeks ago today, according to the Globe and Mail report, citing anonymous sources briefed on plans Chrysler submitted to Canadian lawmakers.

But was the warning, if true, just a bluff to spur Canada to provide financial aid? Or, was the threat a public ploy to garner support among U.S. lawmakers, who also are considering an aid package for the Detroit Three? Or both?

A Chrysler spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

Joe Shields, president of the union that represents the Fenton minivan workers, said he couldn’t speculate about the possibility of resuming minivan production in the St. Louis area. "I haven’t been told anything," said Shields of United Auto Workers Local 110.

Foreign and domestic automakers have been battered by high gas prices and a global credit crunch. Chrysler is in a particularly precarious situation because its product portfolio is laden with sport utility vehicles and pickups at a time when consumers want small cars.

The automaker’s U.S. sales through November are down 28 percent from a year ago. In Canada, it reported a 1 percent dip during the same time period.

Any money, from anywhere, certainly would be welcomed, analysts say.

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"Chrysler is desperate for cash right now, and they are looking at all sources to keep the lights on," said Ken Elias, a Scottsdale, Ariz car insurance quotes.-based partner at auto consulting firm Maryann Keller and Associates.

According to The Globe and Mail, Chrysler is asking for nearly $1.3 billion in U.S. dollars from the Canadian government and warned it could transfer its production of sedans from a Brampton, Ontario, plant to a facility in Detroit. The automaker also said that it could shift production of its Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country from a plant in Windsor, Ontario, to Fenton’s South Assembly Plant.

While Elias said the shift is a possibility, he added that Chrysler would need to examine "the economics of the whole situation" before making such a move. That includes looking at the work force costs, the price of shipping vehicles and other operational expenses.

At the moment, the production change is speculative and may be a political move, said Richard Cooper, vice president of J.D. Power and Associates’ Canadian operations in Toronto. He said any aid from Canada would depend on the terms the U.S. makes with Chrysler and the other domestic automakers.

A production shift would be a reversal from the message St. Louis-area workers got from Chrysler this summer.

In June, Chrysler said it could satisfy demand for the Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivan — which had a 20 percent drop in sales through June compared with the same time in 2007 — with three shifts in Windsor. Some Windsor workers also build the Volkswagen Routan.

As Fenton workers protested the idling of the minivan plant this summer, Chrysler said the Windsor operation always was the primary spot for making minivans. The Fenton plant, officials said, was for overflow.

Shields of UAW Local 110 said Tuesday that he’s not getting his hopes up for any production shift back to St. Louis until he hears from the international UAW. But Shields said the local, regional and international unions will continue to lobby for reopening the plant.

"We haven’t given up by any means," he said.

Tuesday’s report also comes less than a week after local union officials said Chrysler will shed more than 1,800 Fenton hourly workers from its payroll through severance and early retirement packages.

atablac@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8140

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Nintendo Co Ltd said sales of its Wii game console more than doubled during the week of Thanksgiving in the United States, apparently defying the retail gloom of the global economic crisis.

President Satoru Iwata told Reuters in an interview that Wii sales more than doubled to about 800,000 units during the week of Thanksgiving, from about 350,000 units a year earlier.

While Iwata did not give specific dates, he said the sales were measured over a seven-day period that included both Thanksgiving and the so-called Black Friday for U.S. retailers, which is the traditional start of the holiday shopping season and when retailers rack up their biggest sales of the year.

“Fortunately for us a lot of shoppers put our products at the top of their list,” Iwata said on Monday.

He said sales of its DS handheld game player were up about 20 percent year-on-year during the holiday period. European Wii sales so far this holiday season have outstripped last year’s, he said.

“We are shooting for quite big numbers as our annual (unit) sales targets. But we are not in a situation where it is getting difficult to hit that target or our plans are getting off track,” Iwata said.

Nintendo, locked in a three-way battle with Sony Corp and Microsoft Corp in the global video game industry, aims to sell 27.5 million units of the Wii in the year to end-March, up 48 percent from a year earlier.

Since 2002, Iwata has focused on expanding the overall gaming population by launching game machines and software like the ‘Wii Fit’ home exercise game, rather than competing head-on with Sony and Microsoft in enhancing the speed and power of game consoles fast pay day loan.

That strategy appears to have paid off handsomely as the Wii is outselling Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 by a large margin, allowing Nintendo to forecast an operating profit more than three times as big as Sony’s.

“When similar products are on store shelves, price competition is inevitable. Nintendo has been trying to steer clear of that direction and create a market of our own,” Iwata said. “Our effort in the past is now bearing fruit.”

NOT OUT OF STEAM

Worldwide Wii sales came to 34.6 million units at end-September, against about 16.8 million for the PlayStation 3 and about 22.5 million for Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360.

“The competition stage is over,” Nomura Securities analyst Yuta Sakurai said. “The spread on shipment volumes is so large that it’s not even worth talking about it. They aren’t rivals.”

For a graphic on hardware sales by Nintendo and its rivals, click here

Iwata said people tended to pick video games even when their budget was tight as they were affordable. 

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