TLC Vision Corp., which last month reported a $95.4 million fourth-quarter loss, said its CEO has left the company through a mutual agreement with its board of directors.
The eye-surgery corporation, with U.S. headquarters in Chesterfield, would not give a reason for Chief Executive James Wachtman’s departure. TLC Vision said Wachtman, who had the job since 2004, also has resigned from the board. The company’s main headquarters is in Mississauga, Ontario.
"It is Mr. Wachtman’s intention to pursue other interests," TLC said in a statement. Wachtman could not be reached for comment.
Before becoming CEO, Wachtman was president and chief operating officer of the company. TLC Vision was formed in 2002 through a merger of TLC Laser Eye Centers and Laser Vision Centers. Wachtman had held executive positions with Laser Vision since 1996.
When TLC reported earnings in March, it doubted it could comply with loan agreements for the balance of 2009 unless they were amended no teletrack payday loan. Based on its loan issues, Ernst & Young, TLC’s outside auditor, said it would raise concerns about the company’s viability in its opinion on 2008 fiscal financial results.
However, this month TLC said lenders granted a limited waiver for defaults, and the company is now working toward a permanent solution.
As part of Thursday’s announcement, TLC said it has created a chief restructuring officer position and has formed a three-person office of the chairman. The latter is comprised of Warren Rustand, chairman of the board; James Tiffany, the newly appointed TLC president and chief operating officer; and Michael Gries, the chief restructuring officer. Tiffany had been president of Sightpath Medical, a TLC subsidiary, and Gries also will remain a principal of a New York City financial advisory firm.
Fiat SpA would sign letter of intent on Tuesday to buy majority stake in GM’s Opel, according to Spiegel magazine’s website.
GM’s opel declines to comment on report
China’s economy slowed in the first quarter to its weakest pace on record, but an improvement in data for March offered tentative signs that the worst may be over for the world’s third-largest economy.
Annual economic growth slowed to 6.1 percent from 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, slightly missing economists’ forecasts of a 6.3 percent rise and marking the weakest expansion since quarterly records began in 1992. (For a graphic, click on: here)
Growth was dragged down largely by a sharp fall in exports, but a surge in lending in the first quarter spurred by the government’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package, helped cushion the blow.
“The overall national economy showed positive changes, with better performance than expected,” Li Xiaochao, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a news conference on Thursday.
Still, Li said the drop in exports was eroding corporate profits, reducing government revenues and making it harder to create jobs.
“The national economy is confronted with the pressure of a slowdown,” he said.
The yen gained against the dollar and other major currencies after the data, which prompted unwinding of trades by investors, who bought other currencies such as the Australian dollar and sterling, betting on a positive surprise.
Commodities markets, which had already braced for a slowdown in the first quarter, took the news in stride. Oil and copper prices were little changed after the figures were released, holding on to earlier gains.
Shares in Shanghai initially spiked to an eight-month high after the data only to give up the gains later guaranteed cash loans. They traded 0.14 percent down at 11:35 p.m. EDT.
Annual growth in urban fixed-asset investment surged unexpectedly to 28.6 percent in the first three months, while annual industrial output growth rebounded to 8.3 percent in March, from a record low 3.8 percent in the first two months of the year.
Economists said there were no big surprises in the data, which confirmed a scenario of a gradual recovery in the latter part of the year, though they were divided over whether the government’s 8 percent growth target for this year was still attainable.
“Overall, the data shows that China had a very weak start to the year, offset by some stabilization in economic conditions in March as the impact of policy stimulus starts to build,” said Brian Jackson, economist at Royal Bank of Canada In Hong Kong.
“We think that the economy will remain subdued in the next few months but should start to improve gradually in the second half of 2009.”
Still, the data kept market speculation alive that Beijing would top up its stimulus package with more spending, and economists warned that depressed global demand for Chinese-made goods would continue to weigh on the economy.
“The situation is still quite challenging as seen in the fall in the output of foreign-owned companies, which are mostly geared to exports,” said Suan Teck Kin, economist at United Overseas Bank in Singapore, who sees full-year growth at 6.5 percent.
U.S. banks that received money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) are facing a probe over increases in rates and fees, the Wall Street Journal said. The Congressional Oversight Panel, the body named by Congress to oversee the federal bailout, is working on a report examining instances of potentially inappropriate lending by banks that got taxpayer capital, according to the paper.
“The people who are subsidizing the activities of the banks through their tax dollars are the same people who are furnishing the high profits through consumer lending,” Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel told the Journal in an interview.
“In a sense, we’re asking taxpayers to pay twice,” Warren told the paper bad credit cash loan.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s $700 billion TARP was intended to provide lenders with more capital to spur lending and improve the economy.
Since TARP was launched in October, banks bolstered by capital infusions have boosted charges on a wide range of routine transactions, hiked rates on credit cards and continued making loans criticized as predatory by consumer advocates, the Journal said.
(Reporting by Amitha Rajan in Bangalore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators opened a public debate Wednesday over ways to restrict trades that bet against a stock, as investors and lawmakers clamor for brakes on moves they say worsened the market’s downturn.
One option the Securities and Exchange Commission advanced is restoring a Depression-era rule that prohibits short sellers from making their trades until a stock ticks at least one penny above its previous trading price. The goal of the so-called uptick rule is to prevent selling sprees that feed upon themselves — actions that battered the stocks of banks and other companies over the last year.
Another approach would ban short-selling for the rest of the trading session in a stock that declines by 10 percent or more.
Short-selling is legal and widely used on Wall Street. But as the market has plunged, investors and lawmakers have pressed the SEC to reinstate the uptick rule. They say its absence since mid-2007 fanned market volatility, prompting bands of hedge funds and other investors to target weak companies with an avalanche of short-selling totally free credit score.
Another option floated by the SEC, besides reinstating the uptick rule, is a sort of "circuit breaker" for stock prices.
That approach, in three variations, either bans short-selling outright for the rest of the trading session in a stock that declines 10 percent or more, or restricts short-selling of the stock for the rest of the session based on its previous sale price or highest bid.
The fifth alternative, known as an upbid rule, would allow short sellers to come in only at a price above the highest current bid for the stock.
The five SEC commissioners, who voted unanimously to put forward five alternative short-selling plans, could settle on one and formally approve it sometime after a 60-day public comment period.
U.S. securities regulators will consider about four proposals to restrict short selling, a type of investing blamed for accelerating the severe downturn in financial services stocks.
Proposals the SEC will consider at its Wednesday meeting include the restoration of the "uptick rule," which allowed short sales — a bet that a stock’s price will fall — only when the last sale price was higher than the previous price, the chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday.
"We are going to put forward about four different proposals, and one of them does include the original (uptick rule)," SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro told reporters on the sidelines of the Council of Institutional Investors conference.
"There are different modified versions because the markets have changed a lot, even since 2007." Schapiro said other proposals on the table include a so-called "bid test" and a "circuit breaker."
Schapiro did not provide details on how the bid test or circuit breaker could work and did not elaborate on the fourth proposal. One source familiar with the matter said the SEC bid test proposal would only allow shorting at a price above the highest available bid.
The source wished to remain anonymous because the proposals are still being drafted. The proposal for the updated version of the uptick rule would apply to all stocks, said the source who wished to remain anonymous because the proposals are still being drafted.
The SEC also is crafting two circuit breaker proposals: One would temporarily halt short sales of a stock if the stock has already fallen by a certain percentage, the source said.
The other would trigger the application of an uptick rule or bid test after the price of a stock experienced a decline by a certain percentage, such as 10%, the source said.
This version of the circuit breaker is similar to a suggestion put forth by the operators of the top U.S. exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq Stock Market and BATS exchange. SEC staff are still drafting proposals, the source and a second source familiar with the proposal said.
The second source cautioned that the current draft could go through several more adjustments before Wednesday’s meeting. In a short sale, an investor borrows stock and sells it in the hope that its price will fall faxless payday loans.
If the price does drop, the seller profits by buying the stock back at the lower price and returning the borrowed shares. In 2007 the SEC abolished the uptick rule after studies concluded that advances in trading strategies had rendered it ineffective.
At the time, the SEC’s action did not trigger cries from investors and lawmakers. However, as stocks of big investment and commercial banks sank over the past year, some members of Congress started pressuring the SEC to restore the rule.
Some short sellers have questioned the need for the reinstatement of the rule, saying they are being unfairly targeted. Two bills to reinstate the uptick rule have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and a similar bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate.
"Abusive short selling has gone unaddressed for too long and simply must end if the SEC is to restore investor confidence in the markets," six Senators including Democrats Carl Levin and Edward Kaufman and Republican Arlen Specter, said in a recent letter to Schapiro.
"In the absence of a strong message from the SEC, we believe Congress will need to consider legislation that directs the SEC to do so," the Senators said in a letter dated April 1.
Billionaire investor George Soros said Monday that he favored a reintroduction of some kind of rule to restrict short selling. "You do need to provide some protection against effectively the bear raids," Soros told Reuters Financial Television in an interview.
A final rule will not be adopted at this week’s SEC meeting. The agency will still need to solicit public comment on its proposals and hold another meeting to decide on final short sale restrictions as part of its normal rulemaking process.
When asked if she favored restoring the uptick rule, Schapiro said she was anxious to read the comments.
Earlier in a speech to institutional investors, Schapiro said the SEC would convene a roundtable later to discuss the proposals and potentially some broader issues on short selling.
Shares of Sun Microsystems Inc tumbled 24 percent on Monday after the company rejected rival computer and software maker International Business Machines Corp’s $7 billion offer.
Sun shares fell to $6.44 in pre-market trading after Sun pulled the plug on the deal which might have spelled the end of an era for a networking company that was once synonymous with the Internet.
The buyout was seen as a means for survival for the once-storied Silicon Valley company, which has been losing market share.
Sun was unhappy with IBM’s offer of $9.40 per share or below, and it was unclear if talks would resume, according to a source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. The bid represented a premium of up to 89 percent on Sun’s shares before deal talks were first reported last month.
Sun shares had risen to $8.49 on Friday, from $4.97 on March 17, a day before talks between the two technology companies were first reported affordable health insurance. The Wall Street Journal had previously said IBM’s original bid was $10 to $11 a share.
The deal may have helped IBM bolster its offering of computer servers, storage equipment and software as competition heats up with rivals like Hewlett-Packard Co.
Sun rose to prominence selling high-end computer servers in the 1990s but never fully recovered from the dot-com bubble burst earlier this decade. Analysts also say it failed to fully capitalize on its software assets including Solaris and Java.
Failed talks with IBM could mean that Sun will need to find another buyer, and contend with a lower offer. But no bidder other than IBM has emerged in the months that Sun has been shopping itself.
(Reporting by Franklin Paul)
Shares of HSBC vaulted more than 10 percent to a one-month high on Thursday, feeding off a rally in Wall Street banks, spurred by encouraging U.S. homes sales and an expected loosening in accounting rules.
By 0637 GMT, shares in HSBC had rallied 10 percent to HK$46.15, after hitting HK$47.30 earlier - its highest level since it reported 2008 earnings on March 2, as the technical overhang related to its massive $18 billion rights issue, announced in March, subsided.
Wednesday was the last day of trading of the bank’s nil-paid rights in London.
The stock fell 19 percent in March, far underperforming a 6 percent rally on the main index business
The Obama administration’s tenth week in office was a busy one. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner unveiled the next phase of the bank bailout. Congress took up the president’s budget. And the government outlined a plan to overhaul regulation of the financial system.
The administration’s efforts, along with some faint signs that economic conditions are stabilizing, helped improve the sentiment on Wall Street. Stocks posted strong gains for the week despite a selloff on Friday.
It was also a busy week on Capitol Hill.
Committees in the House and Senate largely supported Obama’s priorities for the 2010 budget, with certain caveats, in the early stages of what is expected to be a months-long debate.
Lawmakers also heard testimony from Geithner on how the administration hopes to prevent future meltdowns by increasing oversight of the financial markets and preventing companies from growing too big to fail.
Meanwhile, the president continued to promote his long-term economic agenda, stressing the need to invest in health care, education and energy.
In a new rhetorical tack, Obama sought to draw a direct connection between his budget proposal and the broader themes of economic recovery and future growth.
"This budget is inseparable from this recovery," Obama told reporters Wednesday night. "It is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity."
To promote his message, the president took a number of unconventional steps. He published an op-ed in more than 30 newspapers around the world, held his second prime time news conference, and broke technological ground with an online town hall meeting at the White House.
The flurry of activity comes as the president prepares to meet with world leaders at the G20 gathering of major economies next week in London. Obama is expected to address concerns over his economic policies with the leaders of China, Russia and India, among others.
Also next week, General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) and Chrysler LLC. will give Congress an update on their plans to become economically viable. Obama has signaled his willingness to give the automakers more aid, on top of the billions of dollars in federal loans they’ve already received, if they are willing to make the concessions required by the government.
100-day scorecard: Week 10. CNNMoney.com will continue to track Obama’s first 100 days in office and keep score of the government’s unprecedented efforts to fix the ailing economy. (Last week’s article is available here.)
Bad assets: On Monday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner officially unveiled the administration’s long-awaited plan to tackle the financial crisis by absorbing troubled bank assets.
Under the new so-called "Public-Private Investment Program," tax dollars will be used to seed partnerships with private investors to buy toxic assets, such as subprime mortgages and other loans.
Banks have reported massive losses on these assets and the government hopes its new program will take some of the pressure of the financial system and encourage lending to consumers and businesses.
The program aims to buy $500 billion of existing assets and loans, but could be expanded to $1 trillion, the Treasury Department said cashadvance.
Wall Street cheered the plan, with the major indexes on Monday posting their biggest gains of the year. It was something of a vindication of Geithner, who had struggled to gain Wall Street’s respect after his initial bailout plan was criticized for being too short on detail.
Obama touted the program in Wednesday’s press conference, reiterating his belief that stabilizing the financial system is a crucial part of his three-part plan to restore economic prosperity.
"We will continue to do whatever is necessary in the weeks ahead to ensure the banks Americans depend on have the money they need to lend, even if the economy gets worse," he said.
Budget: The debate over Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget outline got under way this week on Capitol Hill.
Budget committees in both the House and the Senate passed leaner versions of the plan this week, but the proposal will undergo several more votes before a final version is approved.
While Democratic lawmakers supported the spirit of Obama’s ambitious fiscal agenda, members of Congress from both sides of the isle expressed concern about expanding the national debt.
Among the potential sticking points: the president’s proposal to make permanent tax credits for low and middle-income earners, new funding for health care and an energy initiative known as cap-and-trade.
Obama has repeatedly called for increased investment in health care, education and energy. Making these areas a priority now will lead to future economic prosperity, he says.
"At the end of the day, the best way to bring our deficit down in the long run is not with a budget that continues the very same policies that have led us to a narrow prosperity and massive debt," Obama said. "It’s with a budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest."
Financial oversight: The administration also spent the week arguing for sweeping new powers to oversee the financial markets in order to prevent a repeat of the current crisis.
Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner both called for new legislation that would give regulators the power to "resolve" big financial firms the way the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation liquidates failed banks.
The authority is necessary to deal with non-bank financial companies like insurance giant American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) that pose a "systemic risk" to the overall economy, they said.
Geithner went before Congress Thursday to argue for tough new rules aimed at previously unregulated corners of the financial markets, such as hedge funds and derivatives trading. He also said the nation needs a single risk auditor to oversee big financial firms.
But some Republican lawmakers said the plan goes too far and questioned how effective the new regulations would be at cracking down on Wall Street shenanigans.
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