Toyota is planning to suspend production at two U.S. plants as sales lag following the automaker’s massive recall of its vehicles.
Mike Goss, a Toyota spokesman, said the company will retain all of its workers during the suspensions, which will take place at plants in Kentucky and Texas in the weeks ahead.
The temporary shutdowns are aimed at adjusting production levels following a series of recalls that forced Toyota to halt sales of some of its most popular models.
"We don’t want inventory to build up for our dealers," Goss said. "We can’t keep sending vehicles to dealers until they can start moving those vehicles."
He said the company has used other methods to slow production in the past, such as limiting overtime, but that "elimination days are kind of the final step in that process."
The Kentucky plant, where Toyota’s top-selling Camry is made, will not produce cars on Feb. 26. Goss said the plant could go dark on a few more days the following week, though no official plans have been made.
The Texas plant will halt production the week of March 15 and again in mid April. The plant, where Toyota makes Tundra pickup trucks, will be modified to begin producing Tacoma trucks during the suspension, Goss said.
Toyota has recalled more than 8.1 million vehicles worldwide for problems related to sudden acceleration and unresponsive break pedals, among other things. The company has apologized for the safety lapses and pledged to repair the recalled vehicles quickly.
Meanwhile, the number of customer complaints filed with federal safety regulators has spiked in recent weeks. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there have been a total of 34 Toyota complaints alleging fatalities since 2000.
The widely publicized safety issues have taken a toll on sales. Earlier this month, Toyota said January sales fell 16% from a year earlier, worse than a forecast of a 12% year-over-year decline from sales tracker Edmunds.com.
To help revive sales, the automaker is considering a variety of incentive options aimed at drawing customers back into its showrooms.
At the same time, Toyota has launched a public relations campaign aimed at salvaging the company’s once-sterling reputation.
Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, and other company executives will take questions about the recall efforts Wednesday at a press conference in Tokyo.
The company has been ramping up lobbying, consulting and attorney teams ahead of appearances on Capitol Hill. Toyota is scheduled to go before two House committees next week and a Senate committee next month.
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In his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, President Obama touted a slew of federal initiatives aimed at stimulating small business hiring and growth. Again.
Small companies employ around half of America’s workers and drive most of the country’s job growth. Obama talks frequently in his speeches about the vital role small companies play, and his administration has launched several efforts to bolster struggling Main Street businesses. But most of the president’s small business proposals remain in limbo, caught in bureaucratic logjams and the Great Black Hole of Congress.
A year ago, Obama set the stage during his first major economic speech to Congress. "I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can’t pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can’t get a mortgage," Obama said in February. "That’s what this is about. It’s not about helping banks; it’s about helping people."
But small business owners across the nation say they feel left out of the stimulus and recovery action.
"Basically, it seems to me that Washington’s efforts have been to help Wall Street, not Main Street," said Kim Griebling, president of Custom Flag Company in Westminster, Colo. Griebling and her father bought the company in 1998 and now employ a staff of eight. As the economy deteriorated, so did the demand for flags.
Griebling applied in September for an America’s Recovery Capital (ARC) loan, an emergency financing program created as part of February’s stimulus bill. The program offers qualifying business owners a small, government-backed loan on very attractive terms, but those trying to land ARC loans face a gauntlet of administrative obstacles. While bailed-out financial giants like AIG got financing fast from Washington, business owners wait months.
"People don’t realize that $35,000 for a small business makes a huge difference. I am on the verge of possibly having to lay off people," said Griebling. Her loan was approved in December, but she hasn’t received the money yet — and her patience is wearing thin.
"I definitely pay attention, but I would say I am more skeptical," she says of politicians’ talk of helping small companies like hers.
Geoffrey Zeamer, the owner of scientific instrument maker Abbess Instruments in Holliston, Mass., also feels that small companies are being overlooked.
"I listen very carefully and on a daily basis as to what is going on, and I have found the last year extremely disheartening because everything is going to banks," Zeamer said.
Zeamer is an engineer who has owned his 17-employee company since 1982. He thinks the government got it backward by funneling money to banks to save the economy.
"If the government really wanted to stimulate business, then you give out orders. You order more planes, trains, you buy more bridges. If you give banks money, they look out and say, ‘nobody has any orders, we are not going lend out,’" said Zeamer. "That seems to have escaped them. I think it’s Basic Economics 101."
Here’s a rundown on where President Obama’s small business proposals from throughout the past year currently stand:
Tax credits for jobs: The government’s economists estimate that small businesses have created 65% of America’s new jobs over the past 15 years. In December, Obama delivered a speech at the Brookings Institution in which he endorsed tax breaks to encourage small businesses to hire.
But there’s a blizzard of competing proposals for what form those incentives should take, from a temporary payroll tax holiday to per-worker tax credits for new hires, and none have yet gained momentum in Congress.
In the same speech, Obama backed a trifecta of tax cuts intended to spur small business investment and capital spending. Congress hasn’t yet taken significant action on any of them.
TARP for community banks: Small businesses are still struggling to access the capital they need for their day-to-day operations.
"When you talk to small business owners in places like Allentown, Pennsylvania or Elyria, Ohio, you find out that even though banks on Wall Street are lending again, they are mostly lending to bigger companies," Obama said Wednesday. "Financing remains difficult for small business owners across the country."
In October, the President proposed a collaboration between the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration to make capital cheaper for community banks that commit to increasing their small business lending.
Under the proposed plan, banks with less than $1 billion in assets would be able to borrow money from the government at a 3% dividend rate. That’s a discount on the 5% rate the Treasury currently offers borrowers through its Capital Purchase Program, a TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) initiative.
Three months later, the government is still drafting guidelines for the initiative.
Obama invoked the plan in Wednesday’s speech.
"I’m proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat," he said.
Loan limits: In the same October speech, Obama also threw his support behind Congressional efforts to raise the ceiling on SBA loans. Currently, the maximum loan size available under the SBA’s major lending programs is $2 million. Policymakers would like to lift that limit to $5 million.
Both houses of Congress have considered the measure, but they’ve failed to agree on legislation to enact it into law.
Bigger incentives for loans: Amid a slew of stalled initiatives, one program has seen success.
SBA-backed loans represent a tiny portion of the overall small business lending landscape, but they’re a vital lifeline for many new and growing companies. Last year, the SBA’s loan volume plunged.
February’s Recovery Act set aside a $375 million funding pool to temporarily eliminate fees for a SBA loans and increase the portion of each loan that the government guarantees, up to 90%. That move proved so popular that the money allocated for it ran out around Thanksgiving. Just before Christmas, Congress appropriated another $125 million to keep the incentives running.
The data shows that lending has rebounded from last year’s lows. In the three months ended Dec. 31, the SBA’s 7(a) program processed more than 12,000 loans totaling $3.8 billion. That’s a sharp pickup from the 9,070 loans, totaling $1.9 billion, the agency backed a year earlier.
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NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company.
The move is an effort to improve sales at Sam’s Club, which has underperformed the company’s namesake stores in the U.S. and abroad.
The cuts represent about 10 percent of the warehouse club operator’s 110,000 staffers across its 600 stores. That includes 10,000 workers, most of them part-timers, who offer food samples and showcase products to customers. The company also eliminated 1,200 workers who recruit new members.
Employees were told the news at mandatory meetings on Sunday morning.
"In the club channel, demo sampling events are a very important part of the experience," said Sam’s Club CEO Brian Cornell in a phone interview. "Shopper Events specializes in this area, and they can take our sampling program to the next level."
Shopper Events, based in Rogers, Ark., currently works with Wal-Mart’s namesake stores on in-store demonstrations. Sam’s Club is looking to the company to improve sampling in areas such as electronics, personal wellness products and food items to entice shoppers to spend more.
Sam’s Club has performed more poorly than Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s namesake stores in the U.S. and abroad. Cornell has been working to improve results since taking the helm in early 2009, introducing new store formats, price cuts and offering more variety and more brands of items from take-home meals to baked goods.
As consumers eat out less in the shaky economy, Sam’s Club has tried to steal customers from grocery chains and rival warehouse stores such as Costco Wholesale Corp no fax payday loans. by offering more everyday goods such as food and health and beauty items and by paring its assortment of general merchandise such as furniture and clothes.
But in Wal-Mart Stores’ most recent quarter, revenue at the Sam’s Club division slipped nearly 1 percent to $11.55 billion while U.S. Walmart stores posted a 1.2 percent sales increase to $61.81 billion. Earlier this month, Wal-Mart Stores closed 10 underperforming Sam’s Club locations, resulting in the loss of about 1,500 jobs.
"Sam’s has been the relative laggard, and it has lagged relative to its direct competitors, Costco and the smaller BJ’s (Wholesale Club)," said Craig Johnson, president of retail consultancy Customer Growth Partners.
The move to outsource its food sampling efforts is a way for the company to tout its fresh food offerings in a cost-effective manner, Johnson said.
—"’Fresh’ is where the real competitive battles are being fought in the club sector," he said.
Shopper Events will launch a new demo program called "Tastes and Tips" with new carts, signs, uniforms and a trained team, said Cornell. He said the move was not made to save money.
"It’s not a cost-cutting measure, it’s really an investment in enhancing our demo program," he said. Cornell added that Shopper Events planned to hire "roughly the same number of people" cut, and said Sam’s Club workers are invited to apply for those positions.
Virginia Power is committing $4 billion over the next three years to improve and expand its electric service.
Dominion Virginia Power CEO Paul Koonce, in a letter to be included with bills sent to Virginia customers in January, outlines plans for improving service reliability and adding more renewable sources of energy.
Koonce was named chief executive in June.
"Keeping your lights on safely, efficiently and at a reasonable cost are my highest priorities,"Koonce said in the letter.
To keep up with growing demand, the company will add new, gas-fired generating units and a hybrid coal station. It is also making environmental improvements to older stations to reduce emissions.
Dominion says it is committed to meeting Virginia's goal of achieving 15 percent of its electricity sales from renewable sources by 20205, and to reducing the growth in customer demand for electricity by 10 percent over the next 12 years high quality business cards.
"Meeting these goals will be a challenge," Koonce says. "Despite the recession, customers are using more power, lending credence to the forecast that demand will rebound as the economy recovers."
Dominion Virginia Power plans to offer new energy efficiency programs this year for both residential and business customers, and digital meters are now being installed in some of its service areas.
Last summer, Dominion (NYSE: D) applied for $200 million in federal stimulus money to speed up the installation of 2.4 million smart meters.
Thirteen of Arizona’s 21 billion-dollar public companies saw their stock prices move up during the fourth quarter.
Seven of the companies posted double-digit gains, with Clear Channel Outdoor leading the pack at 58 percent, according to the Phoenix Business Journal’s analysis of prices from Sept. 30 through 30 through Dec. 18.
Penny stock Mesa Air Group mirrored that performance with a 58 percent decline to lead the group of eight companies with a drop in price per share over the quarter.
Over the same period the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 6.4 percent and the Nasdaq Composite moved up 4.2 percent.
The Arizona group did better when price changed is measured over all of 2009, but all but four of the stocks still lag from the end of 2007. Click here for the 2009 wrapup and here for a two-year look at local stocks.
Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said Friday it had stronger advertising sales in November and expects declines in revenue to ease for the company’s fiscal first quarter ending Dec. 27.
"Based on trends through early December, we’re hopeful that the turnaround has begun," Mary Junck, chairman and CEO, said in a news release. "Although it’s premature to guess when year-over-year revenue comparisons will turn positive, we expect our aggressive cost reductions will enable meaningful earnings growth when they do."
Among the cost reductions were increases in premium cost-sharing for some participants in retiree medical plans and elimination of retiree health care coverage for other participants. Lee said these changes will reduce annual retiree medical costs beginning in 2010 and will cut benefit obligation liability by up to $30 million.
Lee said it expects operating revenue for the quarter ending Dec paydayloans. 27 to fall 14 percent to 15 percent compared to the same period in 2008. Revenue declined an average of 20 percent in the last three quarters of fiscal 2009.
The company also said that debt refinancing, adequate liquidity and improving business conditions allowed its accounting firm, KPMG LLP, to drop from this year’s annual report an explanatory paragraph in 2008’s annual report that raised doubt about Lee’s ability to continue as a going concern. Lee filed the 2009 report Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Lee, based in Davenport, Iowa, owns 49 newspapers and has a joint interest in four others. It also has online sites and nearly 300 specialty publications in 23 states.
Gulf markets dropped again on Tuesday, taking little comfort from Dubai World’s plan to restructure about $26 billion of debt and despite reassurances on economic resilience from the rulers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Dubai stocks fell a further 5.6 percent and the Abu Dhabi bourse lost 3.6 percent on their second trading day since Dubai last week asked creditors of Dubai World and its property arm Nakheel for a six-month delay on debt repayments. Qatar’s bourse was also more than 8 percent lower.
State-controlled Dubai World, which led the emirate’s transformation into a regional hub for finance, investment and tourism, unveiled details late on Monday of the restructuring and which parts of its empire were affected. The process will focus on $26 billion of debt owed by its main property firms, Nakheel and Limitless.
Dubai World said it had appointed Moelis & Co, the investment bank created by former UBS president Ken Moelis, to advise on the restructuring while Rothschild would continue to be its investment adviser.
Global markets took a pounding when news broke last week that Dubai World was unable to pay its debts, although on Tuesday, Asian and European stocks were up, following the lead from Wall Street overnight as fears of contagion eased.
Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also the United Arab Emirates’ vice president, prime minister and defense minister, said the global reaction had shown “a lack of understanding.”
“We have the determination and will power to face all challenges, including the ill-intentioned media challenges,” Sheikh Mohammed said, according to a statement from his office.
John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Banque Saudi Fransi-Credit Agricole Group in Riyadh, said the Dubai ruler’s remarks “although very broad, should be welcomed by global markets at a time when they are thirsty for clarity, reassurance and information.”
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, said the UAE economy was showing signs of gradual growth in the fourth quarter.
Dubai’s troubles could shift political power in the UAE, a seven-emirate federation celebrating 38 years of unity on Wednesday, toward oil-producing Abu Dhabi and away from its exuberant neighbor.
The Dubai World group, whose total liabilities are estimated at nearly $60 billion, said the restructuring would exclude “financially stable” units such as Infinity World Holding, Istithmar World and Ports & Free Zone World, which includes DP World, Economic Zones World, P&O Ferries and Jebel Ali Free Zone.
Dubai World would look at options for cutting its debt, including asset sales, it added.
But the group may not be able to keep revenue-generating assets such as port operator DP World and Istithmar’s 2.7 percent stake in Standard Chartered, while selling its battered property firms.
“I don’t think they’re in a position to choose,” Khuram Maqsood, managing director of Emirates Capital and a former director at Istithmar.
“Dubai World desperately needs cash. Everything is for sale. I don’t think anything is sacred in the current environment.”
The U.K. economy shrank less than previously estimated in the third quarter as consumer spending stopped falling and the service industries slump eased, bringing the longest recession on record closer to an end.
Gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent from the previous three months, compared with a prior measurement of a 0.4 percent drop, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The result matched the median prediction of 28 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week called for stimulus to stay in place to avoid “choking off recovery” as an election looms within six months. The Bank of England has expanded its bond-purchase plan three times since March to ensure Britain’s escape from recession and Governor Mervyn King said yesterday the pickup isn’t “particularly strong.”
“Over the coming quarters the economy will accelerate pretty sharply,” said Nick Kounis, chief European economist at Fortis Bank Nederland NV in Amsterdam and a former U.K. Treasury official. “In third quarter the U.K. was one of the sick men of Europe but it’s going to step up a few gears and will be one of the stronger performers in Europe next year.”
The pound rose 0.8 percent against the dollar today and traded at $1.6704 as of 11:04 a.m. in London. The yield on the 2-year gilt fell 6 basis points to 1.16 percent.
Lagging Behind
The U.K.’s recovery has lagged behind that of the U.S. and the euro area, which have both returned to growth. Data yesterday showed Germany’s economic growth accelerated in the third quarter, while the U.S. economy expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate, less than the government reported last month.
Brown is trying to revive the U.K. economy in time to defeat Conservative Leader David Cameron at the election, due by June. An Ipsos Mori poll in the Observer on Nov. 22 showed the Conservatives with a six-point lead, the least since December.
Consumer spending was unchanged in the third quarter, the first time it hasn’t dropped in 1 1/2 years. Government spending rose 0.2 percent, while fixed investment fell 0.3 percent, the statistics office said.
J Sainsbury Plc, the U.K.’s third- biggest supermarket owner, on Nov. 11 reported growth in first-half profit that beat analysts’ estimates. John Lewis Partnership Plc, owner of the namesake department stores and Waitrose supermarkets, said Nov fast cash advance loan. 22 that sales gained 15 percent in the week of Nov. 21.
Inventories fell by 4.1 billion pounds ($6.8 billion), the fourth consecutive decline. The slump in inventories is now the biggest on record, the statistics office said.
Services, Manufacturing
Officials revised up the GDP data because the decline in services output was smaller than previously estimated, at 0.1 percent instead of 0.2 percent. Manufacturing dropped 0.1 percent, up from the prior measurement of 0.2 percent.
Compass Group Plc, the world’s largest catering company, today reported full-year profit that beat analyst estimates. Lloyds Banking Group Plc, the U.K.’s biggest mortgage lender, gained in London trading yesterday after it announced plans to raise a record 13.5 billion pounds in the country’s biggest rights offering.
The Bank of England forecasts Britain will exit the recession in the fourth quarter. The economy will expand 2.2 percent in 2010 and 4.1 percent in 2011, according to policy makers’ projections published on Nov. 11.
Policy makers have cut the benchmark interest rate to a record low of 0.5 percent and pledged to buy 200 billion pounds in bonds to aid the economy. While policy maker Adam Posen told lawmakers that “one hopes that we are coming to the end” of the purchase program, King said he “can’t rule out” buying more assets.
Data ‘Surprise’
Policy maker Andrew Sentance said in a speech on Nov. 16 that the “surprise” gross domestic product estimate may be revised later, and told Bloomberg Television that “the broad balance of evidence is that the U.K. economy has started to grow in the second half of this year.”
Unemployment rose at the slowest pace in 18 months in October, retail sales climbed for a second month and the inflation rate increased more than expected, to 1.5 percent. The bank aims to keep inflation at 2 percent.
Banks are still working to shore up their finances after government-led bailouts of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc during the 2008 financial crisis. Lloyds said yesterday it plans to raise a record 13.4 billion pounds in the country’s biggest rights offering.
The U.S. recession that began in December 2007 cost the top metropolitan areas all of the 2.29 million jobs they had gained in the previous expansion, according to a report released on Wednesday.
“All of the job growth that occurred in the top U.S. metropolitan areas from August 2000 through August 2007 was erased by the subsequent recession,” New York City Comptroller William Thompson said in a quarterly economic report.
The net loss is 7,000 jobs.
The two mature cities with the biggest job losses were Chicago, whose employers cut 257,700 workers, and Detroit, which lost over 467,400 jobs, the report said.
Boston lost 103,500 jobs, followed by Minneapolis-St. Paul, with a loss of 35,500 positions; St Louis, which shed 28,400 jobs, and Philadelphia, where 21,400 positions were lost.
But there were two upbeat notes in this sour trend.
In spite of the financial crisis on Wall Street and thousands of high-paying jobs lost after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008 and other banks merged, New York City emerged as part of a positive trend over the entire nine-year period covered by the city comptroller’s report.
The New York-New Jersey area was one of only two “mature metropolitan areas” that succeeded in increasing jobs from August 2000 to August 2009. The New York-New Jersey area added 95,700 positions over that nine-year period, according to the report from Thompson, a Democrat.
Baltimore was the other bright spot, chalking up a gain of 26,500 jobs in that nine-year period,
But in the last expansion, New York City underperformed Washington, D loans until payday.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia in increasing the number of high-paying professional and business services jobs that tend to face less of a threat from foreign rivals than manufacturing, for example.
FEELING WALL STREET’S PAIN
Although New York City fared better than some of its peers, the city comptroller’s report revealed the widespread devastation caused by Wall Street’s implosion due to the credit crunch and the stock market’s slide after the housing market’s bubble burst. A total of 40,000 financial jobs have been lost since August 2007. And the city’s jobless rate jumped to 10.3 percent in September from 6 percent a year-ago.
New York City’s fortunes rise and fall with Wall Street because banks and brokerages spur hiring in service sectors, from florists to law firms, during profitable years.
General sales-tax collections fell 12 percent in the third quarter from a year ago, while income taxes withheld from paychecks dropped 7.2 percent. Manhattan’s office vacancy rate shot up to 11.1 percent in the third quarter — the highest level since the 2004 third quarter, the report said, citing Cushman & Wakefield data.
How swiftly the city exits the downturn rests partly with Congress. The federal government’s newfound zeal for reining in Wall Street’s risk-taking and compensation could crimp the financial industry’s ability to kickstart the city’s economy.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday is expected to reaffirm its intention to keep U.S. interest rates at ultra-low levels for a long time to support the economy, even as signs of recovery accumulate.
The U.S. central bank cut overnight rates close to zero percent last December and it has vowed to keep them there for an “extended period.” While some analysts think the Fed could start to tip-toe away from that pledge, most say it is too soon.
“Once they start removing that, that’s a real sign that they intend, within six months, to start raising rates,” said Deutsche Bank economist Torsten Slok. “But it’s just premature, looking at the economic numbers, to arrive at that conclusion.”
The Fed will issue a statement around 2:15 p.m. EST at the conclusion of its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday. Analysts expect the Fed to nod to modestly encouraging signs suggesting the economy is gaining strength, but still expect a cautious tone on policy.
Policy makers will need to take into account the economy’s faster-than-expected 3.5 percent annualized growth rate in the third quarter, which effectively signaled the end of the most painful recession since the 1930s. Suggesting further momentum, data on Monday showed manufacturing activity hit its highest level in 3-1/2 years last month.
Improved third-quarter corporate earnings have also fed optimism that the upturn can be sustained next year even after government help has dried up.
In an act underlining rising confidence in the recovery, billionaire investor Warren Buffet on Tuesday said his company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc, agreed to purchase the nation’s largest rail company, saying it is poised to benefit from the recovery.
Fed officials in recent weeks, however, have sent the message that while the outlook has improved, the recovery is likely to be sluggish and needs continuing support.
Unemployment is expected to climb above 10 percent before the labor market improves, damping the consumer spending that accounts for around 70 percent of U.S. output. The banking system is still under pressure from loan losses, and credit remains tight.
“We have to think about our exit policy and are looking at it very carefully, but at the moment, that’s not our first order concern. At the moment, it’s policy accommodation,” Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans, a voter on the Fed’s policy-setting panel, said on October 22.
Other central banks are also wrestling with how best to spur growth and when to withdraw extraordinary measures to support their economies.
The European Central Bank is expected to keep rates on hold at a record-low 1 percent on Thursday, while there is a good chance the Bank of England will expand its large asset purchase program at a meeting the same day.
Most analysts at top U.S. banks expect the Fed to keep interest rates on hold until mid-2010 or later, although interest rate futures markets are pricing in an increase earlier in 2010.
(Editing by Leslie Adler)
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