Hewlett-Packard once again raised its offer for storage company 3PAR on Thursday, outbidding Dell’s revised deal made earlier in the day.
HP’s new offer is $27 per share, up from its previous bid of $24 a share and Dell’s latest offer of $24.30, which was made Thursday morning.
The deal values 3PAR at $1.8 billion, up from the $1.6 billion that Dell offered. HP’s latest bid represents a 180% premium over 3PAR’s closing price of $9.65 the day before Dell’s initial bid.
Both Dell and HP submitted bids for the company last week, but HP raised its bid to just under $1.6 billion after Dell’s initial $1.15 billion offer was announced publicly. On Wednesday, 3PAR told Dell that Dell had three days to raise its offer, or it would go with HP’s deal.
"Not only is our offer superior to Dell’s proposal, HP remains uniquely positioned to execute on this combination given the number of synergies between the two companies," said Dave Donatelli, general manager of HP’s servers and storage unit, in a prepared statement.
As part of 3PAR’s revised deal with Dell reached Thursday morning, the storage company would owe Dell $72 million if it accepts HP’s higher offer business
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Union Bank has tapped veteran banker Ronald Heller as its market president for Washington state.
Union Bank N.A., a subsidiary of UnionBanCal Corp. of San Francisco, Calif., gained a stronger foothold in Washington on April 30, 2010, when it acquired Frontier Bank of Everett in a purchase and assumption agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. While Union Bank has has a presence in the Pacific Northwest for nearly a century, it now has branches in 38 Washington cities.
Heller comes to Union Bank with 32 years in the banking industry under his belt, most recently as senior vice president and community banking president for the Northwest division of Wells Fargo and previously with First Interstate Bank payday loans no teletrack.
Heller will start his new role with Union Bank from its Everett office on Aug. 30. He will report to Senior Vice President and head of Pacific Northwest Branch Banking Brian W. Hawley. Heller will work closely with Patrick Fahey, former chairman and CEO of Frontier Bank who has assumed the role of regional chairman of the Pacific Northwest for Union Bank.
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It is not the kind of view you expect these days in downtrodden Michigan. From this rooftop plaza on the 17th floor of Bridgewater Place, evidence of urban renewal spreads in every direction. Directly to the south is the modern campus of Grand Valley State University, home to 11,000 students. Across the Grand River lies the sprawl of the redeveloped entertainment district, with its new arena and convention center, steps away from downtown business and government office buildings. Atop a hill to the east is the city’s crown jewel: a $1 billion (and growing) medical complex that includes a cancer research center, specialized treatment facilities, and a medical school.
This is Grand Rapids, a small city (pop. 200,000) in western Michigan with a redevelopment plan that has lessons for other cities looking to engineer new growth after the decline of old-economy industries. That this plan has taken hold in, of all places, the Rustbelt of Michigan makes it all the more remarkable. Two decades ago the city could have been headed the way of Flint, Pontiac, and, yes, Detroit. But instead its fortunes have steadily improved, thanks to a remarkable combination of business leadership, public-private cooperation, and the deep pockets of local philanthropists.
Grand Rapids is much smaller than that city on Michigan’s eastern coast, Detroit (pop. 800,000). Its populace is a bit more diverse, its suburban leaders were willing to work with city government, and its issues were much less complex. But at a moment when corporate, philanthropic, and political leaders in Detroit are just beginning the process of working together to help revive the city (see "Downsizing Detroit" on time.com), the Grand Rapids reinvention is worth examining. For years Detroiters were promised that one master project after another would solve their woes. None did. But in Grand Rapids, business leaders painstakingly set goals, aligned with government officials, generated support, and empowered key players. "Every community has a culture, and you have to pick out what works in your own town," says Birgit Klohs, the energetic head of Right Place, a local economic development group. "You have to figure out who the leaders are, get them onto a team, create the vision, and get everybody headed in the same direction."
During the dismal recession of the early 1990s, things were not going well in a town some still call "Bland Rapids." Sure, the city had the Gerald R. Ford Museum, honoring its most famous citizen. But its signature furniture-making industry had long since given way to more anonymous auto parts and steel office furniture, businesses that were both hit hard by the economy. And while Grand Rapids was suffering from statewide and national economic trends, the pain was local: high unemployment, a lifeless downtown, and little to build upon for the future, given its dependence on cyclical industries with scant growth potential.
But Grand Rapids had an unusual set of assets. "The wealth in this city in proportion to its size is extraordinary," says John Canepa, who retired as chairman and CEO of Old Kent Bank. Much of that wealth is in companies, many closely held, like Amway, the direct seller of health and beauty products; Meijer’s, a supermarket chain; and Steelcase (SCS), the office furniture giant. The founders of those companies or their descendants still reside in the Grand Rapids area, and match their deep roots with deep pockets of philanthropic dollars. Says David Van Andel, son of Amway co-founder Jay Van Andel: "If you want to be a player in this community, it is give first and get later."
Back in 1991, the community needed lots of giving. So Dick DeVos, son of Amway’s other founder, Rich DeVos, convened a group of more than 50 community and civic leaders to begin the process of revitalizing downtown. The group, which at first called itself Grand Vision, began making plans for an entertainment and sports arena and the expansion of local convention facilities. Rather than tackle the project on its own, the group conducted a feasibility and economic-impact analysis and studied the project for two years. Then DeVos got together with Canepa and David Frey, another local banker, to make the plan a reality. "We decided," says Frey, "that we were not going to let the economic vagaries of the state define our city." They built community support and went to work.
The group, renamed Grand Action, was able to do so courtesy of $21 million from a group of private donors led by Jay Van Andel, who was awarded the privilege of having the arena named after him. (As you’ll see, the city is awash in buildings named for its wealthy patrons.) The arena had reasonable goals and was an immediate success.
The arena was the start of a 20-year effort that hasn’t stopped. In cooperation with city officials, business leaders revamped downtown. One strand of the plan was designed to woo and satisfy visitors. A gift from Amway’s Rich DeVos led a $33 million fundraising effort toward construction of a $212 million convention center that bears his name. To comfortably house all those conventioneers, DeVos and Van Andel sponsored the building of a new J.W. Marriott Hotel downtown. And to entertain them, other givers added even more. After watching a play from the balcony of the aging Civic Theatre, supermarket magnate Fred Meijer decided to help finance a $10 million renovation — which was then rechristened the Meijer Majestic Theater. Steelcase heir Peter Wege gave $20 million to help fund the creation of an art museum (which for some reason does not bear his name). And the 132-acre Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park … well, you can figure out who helped fund that beauty.
But the plan was more far-reaching than simply a play for tourists. Grand Action knew it had to lead the city into growing businesses, and plunged into two areas that have grown quite nicely in the past couple of decades: education and health care. With the help of local businessmen — Rich DeVos, Ford adviser William Seidman, banker Dick Gillett, and Steelcase executive Bob Pew — Grand Valley State University built a satellite campus on the Grand’s west bank, with Steelcase donating much of the land. And Frederik Meijer donated more land for yet another campus to the west of Grand Rapids, in a suburb called Holland, a name that reflects the region’s deep Dutch roots.
In health care, the catalyst was once again a private donor — this one with a very personal reason for the investment. In 1996, Jay Van Andel decided to fund a new institute for biomedical research, with an emphasis on cancer and Parkinson’s — the disease that contributed to his death in 2004 at the age of 80. Outsiders urged him to erect it on a greenfield site outside the city or, more sensibly yet, to connect it to the University of Michigan medical school across the state in Ann Arbor. Van Andel decided his institute belonged in Grand Rapids. "They told us we were nuts," recalls his son David, who heads the institute. "We had no affiliation with any medical school, no history of medical research. But our family had a big stake in the community."
The result of all this hard work? Exactly what Grand Action had hoped for: a more stable economy, one that can better withstand the ups and downs of economic trends. Now, manufacturing ranks as the region’s second leading employer, replaced at No. 1 by those sectors poised for the demographics of the early 21st century: education and health services.
Despite its intensive redevelopment, Grand Rapids has not solved all its problems. Unemployment is still high. Michigan’s manufacturing decline, which has emptied thousands of square feet of factory space in the city, has disproportionately hit minorities. But 20 years of reinvention have seeped into the city’s blood. Grand Rapids is now trying to redefine itself as the greenest city in the U.S. It claims more LEED-certified buildings per capita, a measurement of environmentally friendly design, than any city in the U.S.
It’s this kind of planning, a continual reinvention with clear goals, that has been lacking in Detroit. For years city leaders failed to deliver a long-term vision of an economic future that could alleviate the impact of a declining auto industry. Now, with a businessman mayor, Dave Bing, who imagines a reinvention driven by private and public capital, the city is trying to embark on such a plan. In Grand Rapids they’re rooting for their bigger neighbor to the east. "We cannot afford to see Detroit fail," says Mayor George Heartwell. But if Grand Rapids’ recovery took two decades, how long will it take Detroit?
HealthPartners members are able to price shop for even more health procedures under an expanded Web tool the health insurer offers its members.
The secure website, available only to HealthPartners members, recently added prices for 32 previously unlisted procedures, including various lab tests, MRI/CT scans, immunizations and complex surgeries and outpatient procedures such as gall bladder surgery, hysterectomy, colonoscopy, hip replacement and hernia repair surgery.
“Providing more specific prices for our members is another way we can be as transparent as possible,” said Scott Aebischer, HealthPartners’ senior vice president of customer service and product innovation.
“If you’re paying out-of-pocket fees, seeing the actual price really helps you determine if the care provider is right for you.”
The Bloomington-based health provider and insurer’s members can now check the price of 126 procedures, including several major surgeries and outpatient procedures.
HealthPartners launched its Web price tool in the fall of 2008.
Procter & Gamble Co. and Kroger Co. topped the list of eight Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky firms that made repeat appearances on the Fortune 500 list this year, joined by insurance/financial services firm American Financial Group.
Fortune ranks companies based on annual revenue. Walmart Stores ranked at No. 1, with $408 billion in revenues.
P&G ranked 22nd, down from 20th in 2009, with $79.7 billion in revenue versus $83.5 billion last year; and Kroger ranked 23rd, down from 22 last year, with $76.7 billion in revenues, up from $76 billion a year ago.
Other firms on the list included:
• Macy’s Inc. at 103, down from 98, with $23.5 billion in revenues, down from $25 billion last year;
• Fifth Third Bancorp at 248, up from 302, with $9 on line pay day loans.5 billion, up from $8.6 billion;
• Ashland Inc. at 280, up from 310, with $8.1 billion, down from $8.4 billion;
• Omnicare at 347, up from 392, with $6.2 billion, down from $6.3 billion;
• Western & Southern Financial Group at 420, up from 441, with $5 billion, down from $5.4 billion;
• General Cable Corp. at 469, down from 396, with $4.4 billion, down from $6.2 billion;
• American Financial Group at 478, with $4.3 billion in revenues.
AK Steel, which had ranked at 334 in 2009, fell off the list this year.
Job cuts accelerated in March, driven by planned reductions on government payrolls, a report released Thursday showed.
Employers announced plans to cut 67,611 jobs in March, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. That’s up 61% from February, when 42,090 jobs were lost, the lowest level in nearly four years.
"Unfortunately, many people are still jobless and many businesses still shuttered," said John Challenger, chief executive officer of the firm, in a statement. "This combination is having a significant negative impact on state and local tax revenues and, in turn, leading to continued downsizing in this sector."
Government job cuts led March’s surge, accounting for nearly 75% of the total jobs shed. Year to date, government job losses have made up about a third of all announced cuts.
There were 50,604 announced government job cuts in March, and the United States Postal Service alone plans to reduce its workforce by 30,000 workers this year through retirement and attrition. The rest of the government jobs will be shed by state and local agencies suffering from budget shortfalls.
But overall the trend was still positive. March job cuts were down 55% from the same month a year ago, when 150,411 cuts were announced.
In the first quarter of 2010, a total of 181,183 job cuts were announced, the lowest first quarter total since 2000 and down 69% from the first quarter of 2009.
A separate report Wednesday from payroll processor ADP showed that private-sector employers cut payrolls by 23,000 jobs in March, marking the smallest monthly decline since February 2008. ADP’s report does not include government jobs.
The report sets the stage for the highly anticipated monthly jobs report from the government due Friday. The Labor Department is expected to show a gain of 190,000 jobs in March, compared to the 36,000 lost in February. Economists forecast the unemployment rate will remain unchanged at 9.7%.
Bob Williams, publisher of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, is leaving his position to become publisher of The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale.
Both companies are subsidiaries of Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises Inc., which also owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Williams has been publisher of the Suburban Journals since 2007. Before that, he was Lee’s corporate director of sales and development and advertising manager for the Missoulian in Missoula, Mont. He spent a decade with Gannett Co. Inc. before joining Lee in 1998. Williams, who is married with four grown children, graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in advertising paydayloans.
Greg Veon, Lee’s vice president for publishing, said Williams was selected after a nationwide search for a new publisher.
Williams will be replaced by Tom Wiley, a Lee executive now in charge of the Suburban Journals and Daily Journal in Park Hills.
The current publisher of the Illinoisan, Dennis DeRossett, is leaving the paper to become executive director of the Illinois Press Association.
DETROIT — As Toyota dealers across the country work to repair the defective gas pedals in millions of vehicles, they also are trying to repair the automaker’s reputation by extending hours, making house calls and offering other services.
Toyota Motor Corp. recalled eight vehicles Jan. 21 and stopped selling those vehicles five days later because their accelerator pedals could stick in a depressed position. Toyota is sending dealers a piece of steel about the size of a postage stamp that can be inserted into the accelerator mechanism and eliminate the friction that causes the problem.
Kent Newbold, president of Newbold Toyota in O’Fallon, Ill., said Wednesday that he was even offering customers free tickets to a movie at the nearby O’Fallon 15 Cine while repairs are made to their recalled vehicles.
Nobody had taken him up on that offer, but he said it would remain until all of the recalled vehicles were fixed. "They’re our customers and we’re going to take care of them. … I was even tempted to sneak out and see ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks 2′ myself," Newbold said.
Jim White Toyota, a dealership in Toledo, Ohio, received about 350 steel pieces, or shims, and began repairs Wednesday morning. By mid-afternoon, about 25 cars were fixed, said Terry Treter, service manager.
Repairs were going smoothly and a little faster than the half-hour Toyota estimated, he said. Technicians do a test drive as part of the repair.
Dealers said they would extend service hours as needed to make repairs at the convenience of their customers. "The main thing the dealers want to do is to get the cars repaired and back on the road," said John S. Poppell, president of Twin City Toyota in Herculaneum.
Tom Seeger, owner of Seeger Toyota in Creve Coeur, added, "We’re going to get this done as seamlessly and comfortably for our customers as possible."
Dealers said customers had been calm despite a warning early Wednesday from U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who said owners of recalled Toyotas should stop driving them. LaHood later said he misspoke and told owners to get their cars repaired.
"There was an (increase in) concerned calls five minutes after Ray LaHood made his first comment, but people calmed down after he later explained himself," Seeger said.
Toyota is giving U.S. dealers payments of up to $75,000 to help them offer extra measures such as house calls. The automaker also suggested other steps, such as additional hires to help with recall repairs, dedicated recall service lanes and complimentary oil changes.
Toyota is sending checks this week based on the number of cars each dealer sold in 2009. Dealers who sold fewer than 500 cars will get $7,500. Dealers who sold more than 4,000 will get $75,000.
Robert Kelly of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
Independent Bank Corp., the parent of Rockland Trust Co., said net income in the fourth quarter increased 33 percent to $9.1 million from the previous three months as the bank saw a strong upswing in wealth-management revenue.
Net income was up more than 200 percent when compared with the year-ago quarter, or before the bank acquired Benjamin Franklin Bancorp Inc.
For the year ended Dec. 31, Rockland Trust’s (Nasdaq: INDB) net income was $23 million compared with $24 million in 2008.
Total assets increased by $48 million, or 1.1 percent, to $4 us fast cash.5 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with the previous quarter.
The company recorded non-interest income of $10 million during the fourth quarter, an increase of $5.6 million when compared with the quarter ended Sept. 30. The change in non-interest income included a wealth management revenue increase of $451,000, or 19.8 percent, because of general stock market appreciation and strong sales results. Assets under management in the wealth management division were $1.3 billion at the end of December.
Four top bank chief executives told a panel probing the financial crisis Wednesday that they made mistakes but didn’t realize how bad they were at the time.
In a heated exchange in Washington with the head of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’ CEO, agreed the banks had assumed too much exposure to risk at the height of the crisis, and he wished he could go back and change things.
"Anyone who says I wouldn’t change a thing, I think, is crazy," Blankfein said. "Knowing now what happened, whatever we did, whatever what the standards of the time were — It didn’t work out well."
"Of course, I’d go back and wish we had done whatever it took not to find ourselves in the position we found ourselves in," he added.
The remarks came during a hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a 10-member panel appointed last summer by Congress. Testifying were chiefs of some of the best-known and largest banks: Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500).
The panel’s chairman, Philip Angelides, said he wanted to hear about the banks’ role in creating the crisis and benefiting from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was set up to provide them with liquidity.
During the hearing, Angelides cast doubt on Blankfein’s defense of Goldman Sachs’ actions in the mortgage markets — such as buying parts of risky mortgages and then placing bets against such morgages — as part of their job as a "market maker."
"It sounds to me a little like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the buyers of those cars," Angelides said. "It doesn’t seem to me that that’s a practice that inspires confidence."
Blankfein responded that Goldman was just selling what investors wanted.
"These are the professional investors who want this exposure," he said. "Even today, people are coming for exposure to these very products. .. That’s what a market is."
The chief executives — Blankfein, John Mack of Morgan Stanley, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America — testified under oath, standing up for a swearing-in during the public session.
The hearing lasted more than three hours and most of the testimony revolved around bad lending in the housing market.
Dimon said that one of the the banks’ "big misses" was failing to "stress test" the housing market.
"We didn’t stress test housing prices going down by 40%," Dimon said.
It has been suggested that this lack of accountability could be remedied if all of the firms and individuals involved in the creation of financial instruments had to "eat their own cooking." That would, for example, require that the bulk of their fees not be taken in cash, but in the securities they created, which they would be required to hold unhedged until maturity.
One commissioner asked Morgan Stanley’s Mack if investment banks could have remediated the volume of illiquid toxic securities by eating "their own cooking," and taking fees for financial transactions via toxic securities, instead of cash. Mack said his firm did hold some of those securities.
"We did eat our own cooking and we choked on it," Mack said. " We kept positions and it did not work out."
‘Sound’ regulatory changes
Blankfein, Dimon and Mack all talked about the need for "sound" regulatory changes to help ward off future crises bad credit unsecured personal loans.
"I want to be clear that I do not blame the regulators … however, it is important to examine how the system could have functioned better," Dimon said. "The current regulatory system is poorly organized with overlapping responsibilities, and many regulators did not have the statuatory resolution authority needed to address the failure of large, global financial companies."
In written testimony, the bank chiefs laid out their banks’ mistakes that led to the crisis, detailing the housing bubble, with "new and poorly underwritten mortgage products," "excessive speculation," and mortgage securitization that allowed people to duck responsibility for poorly underwritten loans.
However, they added they didn’t expect the financial crisis and especially its magnitude.
"After the fact, it is easy to be convinced that the signs were visible and compelling," Blankfein said. "In hindsight, events not only look predictable, but look like they were obvious or known. But none of us know what is going to happen."
In the past several weeks, the commission has talked to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, but that testimony isn’t being made public yet.
Lawmakers say the commission was modeled after the Pecora Commission, a panel that was convened after the 1929 Wall Street crash and other events leading to the Great Depression.
The Pecora panel’s findings led to an overhaul of federal banking laws, including the creation of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. Glass-Steagall divided investment banking from government-insured commercial banking; ending that separation in the 1990s was seen by some critics as contributing to the current crisis.
Slow start
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has taken a while to get up on its feet.
The panel was appointed last July and held its first meeting in September. It has only started getting staffed up over the past few months.
It has new offices in downtown Washington, a few blocks northwest of the White House. Funded to the tune of $8 million, it aims to employ between 40 and 50 investigators and other staffers.
The crisis panel’s one big goal is to complete a final report, sort of like the final 9/11 Commission report that found federal agencies missed signs of the impending terrorist attacks in 2001. The financial crisis report is due Dec. 15.
Critics have noted the panel’s impact may be blunted by timing, as the House has already passed a bill to overhaul regulations and the Senate is deep in negotiations on similar proposals.
But panel members have consistently pledged their work will serve as more than window dressing for politicians worried about the appearance that they allowed the financial crisis to happen.
The panel, which has subpoena power, plans to issue interim reports as it collects data, Angelides has said.
The panel’s second-in-command is Bill Thomas, a retired California Republican congressman described as strong-willed during his tenure running the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
Other key panel members include: Keith Hennessey, an economic adviser under President George W. Bush; former Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat; and Brooksley Born, a past chairwoman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, who called for stronger regulation of complex financial products such as derivatives in the 1990s.
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