First Fidelity Bank is acquiring deposits previously held by the Arizona operations of Home National Bank.
Oklahoma-based RCB Bank acquired all 15 branches of Home National Bank from the FDIC on July 9.
Under the purchase contract with RCB, First Fidelity Bank will expand its Phoenix-area market presence with the acquisition of approximately $80 million in deposits. First Fidelity says the transaction will close in roughly 90 days, subject to regulatory approval. Previous HNB Phoenix branch locations will operate under the RCB Bank name until then.
Oklahoma City-based First Fidelity is a family-owned, privately held full-service financial institution founded 90 years ago paperless payday loans. It expanded into the Arizona market with a loan production office in 2003. It has since grown to four Valley-area offices through a 2007 merger with the former Western Security Bank.
First Fidelity has 28 offices serving the Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Phoenix and Scottsdale markets. The bank has total assets of more than $1 billion.
For more: www.ffb.com.
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Tiny Maywood, Calif., laid off every single one of its city employees on Wednesday.
But that doesn’t mean the city is closing up shop. City Hall will still be open, as will Maywood’s park and recreation center. Police will continue to patrol the streets.
They just won’t be staffed by Maywood employees. The city can’t have any staff because it can’t get liability or worker’s compensation insurance for them. Maywood’s carrier, the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority, dropped it earlier this month in part because of several police-related claims.
Instead of declaring bankruptcy, Maywood officials decided to outsource all city functions. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will patrol the streets, while the neighboring city of Bell will cover other city functions, such as staffing City Hall.
Maywood already relies on contract workers and outsources many city services. The director of parks and recreation, for instance, is a contractor, and the city’s lights, landscaping and street sweeping are handled by private companies. Los Angeles County maintains the library and fire department.
Some of Maywood’s 96 employees — which include 41 police officers — will also continue as contract workers. Elected officials, such as the city council and the city clerk, will remain on the job in the 1.5-square-mile municipality, which has about 45,000 residents.
"Odds are residents will see the same faces as in years past, just under a different administrative process," said Magdalena Prado, the city’s community relations director, who is a contract worker and is keeping her post.
Maywood is billing itself as the first American city to outsource all of its city services. In an odd twist, officials say it can provide even better services because the shift will help it save money and close a $450,000 shortfall in its $10 million general fund budget.
For instance, the contract with the sheriff’s department costs about half of the more than $7 million spent annually to maintain the Maywood police department, Prado said check cash advance. And patrols will be increased.
"Our community will continue to receive quality services," Mayor Ana Rosa Riso said in a statement. "Maywood’s streets will continue to be swept, our summer park programs will continue to operate and our waste will be collected and hauled as scheduled."
Stressed cities
A growing number of cities are looking to contract out or share services regionally as the economic downturn takes its toll on municipal budgets.
"Everything is on the table," said Chris Hoene, research director at the National League of Cities. "The fiscal stress cities are feeling mean they are looking for alternative options to deliver services that cost less money."
Some 7 in 10 city officials said they are cutting personnel to balances their budgets, while another 68% are holding off on capital projects, according to a survey the league did in May. More than half of respondents say they will make to further slash city services next year if taxes or fees are not raised.
Not everyone is distressed by Maywood’s unusual plan for providing city services. While Jesus Padilla feels sorry for the workers being affected, he thinks things might improve. He’s made lots of calls to the county sheriff’s department when he worked as a security guard and said officers always responded promptly.
"The council made the best decision it could," said Padilla, a local activist who has lived in Maywood for more than 30 years. "It’s going to be good for the city and the citizens."
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Buffalo General Hospital has received state approval for an $8.4 million relocation project of its MRI and CT services.
The State Department of Health okayed the project in mid-May, which calls for shifting all of its MRI and CT services to one central site. The hospital plans to move the equipment and services from the second floor of the A and B buildings into the sub-basement of A building.
The plan better realigns imaging services and will allow improved access to the heart-vascular center under construction next door. The project also opens up space that will likely see future use as clinical services.
Completion is slated for this fall.
The University of Texas said it won’t join the Pacific-10 Conference, dealing a blow to efforts to grow conference influence and revenue.
Texas said Monday it will say in the Big 12 Conference, USA Today reported.
The news appears to dampen expectations of a seismic shift in the college sports landscape. After Nebraska officially left the Big 12 last week, the Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Texas A&M were expected to finalize plans to join the Pac-10 and create a 16-team conference.
The University of Colorado last week said it will join the Pac-10, leaving the Big 12 Conference.
The Pacific-10 seeks to grow revenues in an increasingly cutthroat world of big-time college sports bad credit payday advance.
Although a winner with its teams on the field, the conference is a laggard in revenues. The Pac-10 reported $96 million in revenue last year. That trails all but one of the major collegiate conferences, despite having prominent schools like the University of California, Los Angeles; University of Southern California; Cal and Stanford, which have traditions of football and basketball success.
Recently the Pac-10 hired Creative Artists Agency to advise on expansion and on upcoming broadcast negotiations. The conference’s agreements with ESPN and Fox expire after the 2011-12 school year.
Hewlett-Packard Co. took steps on Monday to allow printing through the Web from any type of device.
The world's biggest printer seller (NYSE:HPQ) said it plans to add an e-mail address for all its printers so users can send files from computers and mobile phones to printers or store them "in the cloud" for later printing.
The Palo Alto company said it plans to sell tens of millions of Web-connected printers by the end of next year.
It introduced four Photosmart all-in-one printers that include new ePrint software and have the new Web storage and printing capabilities. The devices start at $99.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) also said on Monday that it is working with HP on software that will let users connect to Google Docs, Photos and Calendar directly from their printers.
Others said to be working on ways to connect to their content directly through printers rather than computers are Facebook Inc. and Live Nation Entertainment Inc.
A McLean tech company recently opened a Columbia office — and it needs bodies to fill desks.
Internet telephone company iCore Networks took space last month at 5950 Symphony Woods Road in Columbia and has plans to employ 30 at the office by the end of 2010.
To date, around half of the 30 positions have been filed, meaning they’re still on the hunt for 15. CEO Stephen G. Canton said the Columbia office is searching for network engineers, salespeople and project engineers.
And in the middle half of 2011, Canton expects to hire another 20 employees in Columbia with a long-term goal of expanding that office to 100 workers. The jobs range in pay from $25,000 to $80,000, not including commission, Canton added.
McClean-based iCore was attracted to Columbia because of its proximity to both D.C. and Baltimore, Canton said.
The 9-year-old company has an annual revenue of $25 million, Canton said.
With many of their rivals on the ropes, Canada’s major banks are nicely positioned to catapult into the top tier of U.S. financial institutions — for the first time ever.
The main reason is that the country’s banks famously skated through the subprime and derivatives meltdown of 2008 with no government bailouts and comparatively few writedowns. As a result they replaced their Swiss rivals as the international standard for banking excellence and readied themselves for cherry-picking the best assets in the distressed banking industry south of the border.
On the surface, it looks like they’re on a U.S. buying spree. Since mid-April, three major Canadian banks — TD Bank Financial Group, Bank of Montreal (BMO) and Bank of Nova Scotia — have collectively acquired six failed U.S. institutions. All the acquisitions were cautiously negotiated with the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), which is taking on a heavy share of the potential loan losses.
But critics say the Big Five are playing it too safe, content to remain third- and fourth-string players in the U.S. markets where they operate, when they should be aiming for the No. 1 spot. If ever there was a time to do it, it’s now, but Canadian banks don’t seem to have the nerve to bust out and become truly global players.
That kind of reticence from the boardroom could be fatal for the future of Canada’s major banks, who run the risk of growing stagnant behind cushy domestic regulations that make it impossible for foreign rivals to compete on an equal footing. Consider that the six recent acquisitions add up to a mere US$22 billion in new assets for the buyers. That’s about 1% of total assets for these pillars of Toronto’s Bay Street — little more than a token gesture to make it seem Canada’s banks are not entirely asleep at the wheel.
Analyst Michael Goldberg with Toronto-based Desjardins Securities agrees the U.S. market offers a rich opportunity for Canada’s super-capitalized banks. "TD in recent years has been most aggressive in building its U.S. franchise," he says. "But reaction has been mixed payday advance. Some investors are very skeptical anytime Canadian companies buy anything in U.S."
Earlier this month, TD Bank (TD) acquired South Financial Group for US$61 million, adding more than 100 branches to its 1,000-plus locations in the Maine-to-Florida corridor. This follows on the heels of buying three small Florida-based institutions closed by regulators.
BMO (BMO), which bought assets of failed Illinois lender Amcore Bank, adds 52 branches in Illinois and Wisconsin, building on an existing network of 288 branches at its Harris subsidiary. Toronto-based BMO made its big U.S. push with its C$718 million (US$682.1 million) acquisition of Harris in 1984. It has since spent about C$2.5 billion (US$2.4 billion) buying U.S. banks, but only reached the No. 3 spot in Illinois by deposits.
Scotiabank (BNS) is the third Canadian lender to take advantage of U.S. government-assisted acquisitions, snapping up R-G Premier Bank of Puerto Rico, building on the 17 branches it already has on the Caribbean island. However rival Banco Popular de Puerto Rico acquired the deposits of Westernbank at the same time, securing its position as the largest insured bank on the island, despite the fact that Scotiabank has been doing business in tiny Puerto Rico for 100 years.
Canada’s big banks can afford to casually dabble in foreign markets because their domestic operations are reliable money-making machines that deliver billions of dollars in profit quarter after quarter.
But those profits come at the expense of Canadian consumers and small businesses, poorly served by a clubby group of banks whose domestic operations are perhaps the least competitive in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international group of 31 developed countries, including the U.S., Australia and South Korea, with free-market economies.
If Canada’s major banks are not prepared to go big in the U.S., they should just pull stakes and go home
Gas prices in Denver slipped a bit over the last week, but remain well over mid-February levels, according to the American Automobile Association’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report.
Monday’s average price for regular-grade gasoline in Denver is $2.694, down 1.1 cents from the price a week ago but up 1.3 cents from a month ago, AAA says.
Regular gas in Denver cost $2.46 in mid-February, when prices began a slow rise.
As of Monday, mid-grade gas in Denver averages $2.882 a gallon, down 1.1 cents from a week ago, and premium gas is $3.011, down 1.2 cents in a week, while diesel is $3.017, down 0.2 cents.
The highest price ever recorded for regular gas in Denver was $4.006 a gallon on July 17, 2008. A year ago Monday, regular cost $2.211 a gallon.
Statewide Monday in Colorado, the average price of regular gas is $2.742, AAA says, while mid-grade is $2.933, premium is $3.064 and diesel $3.058.
Nationwide, regular gas costs an average of $2.867 Monday, down 4.1 cents from a week ago but up 0.3 cents from a month ago.
Colorado is again among the 10 states with the cheapest gas, AAA says. Pump prices are lowest this week in Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio and South Carolina.
Gas is most expensive in California, Washington state, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Illinois, New York and Connecticut.
The Fuel Gauge Report is compiled for the AAA by the Oil Price Information Service with the help of Wright Express.
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.
A Congressional panel investigating the causes of the financial crisis criticized two former leaders of Citigroup on Thursday for failing to understand the risks that eventually brought the company to its knees.
In testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Charles "Chuck" Prince, former chief executive of Citigroup, apologized for his role in the crisis that roiled the U.S. economy.
"I’m sorry that the financial crisis has had such a devastating impact on the American people," Prince said. "I am deeply sorry that our management — starting with me — was not more prescient and that we did not foresee what lay before us."
Prince, who was CEO from 2003 to 2007, retired after Citi announced that it would write off up to $11 billion in losses related to its holdings of risky mortgage-backed securities. The bank eventually lost an estimated $30 billion on such securities and was forced to take a $45 billion bailout from the government.
Prince’s remarks came on the second day of this week’s three-day meeting of the commission, which was established last year to investigate the causes of the crisis. The hearings are aimed at exploring how the issuance of trillions of dollars worth of risky subprime mortgage debt contributed to the financial meltdown.
In addition to Prince, the commission heard from Robert Rubin, who was a board member and a top adviser at Citi until the end of 2009.
Rubin, who was Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, said he had been concerned that market "excesses" would lead to a downturn. But he acknowledged that most regulators misjudged how severe the threats to the economy were.
"We all bear responsibility for not recognizing this, and I deeply regret that," he said.
In their defense, both executives argued that the scope of the crisis could not have been fully anticipated, echoing remarks former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan made before the commission Wednesday.
However, at least two of the 10 bipartisan commission members were not satisfied with the responses provided by the former Citi executives.
"It seems to me that, at the end of the day, the two of you in charge of this organization did not seem to have a grip on what was going on," said Commission chairman Phi Angelieds. "I’m not so sure apologies are as important as assessment of responsibility."
Bill Thomas, a former Republican Congressman who is vice chairman of the commission, criticized the panelists for reaping huge rewards while being out of touch with the risks Citi traders were taking.
Thomas said Prince and Rubin earned a combined $150 million over a four-year period when things were going up. "But that same team, on the way down, didn’t have a nickel clawed back," he added.
Rubin responded that Citi did not pay him a bonus in 2007 and 2008, per his request.
In response to an earlier question, Prince said the bulk of his pay was in the form of Citi stock, which he said he still holds today.
"My interests were aligned 100% with stockholders," he said. "I saw a substantial part of my net worth disappear because my company suffered as a result of these problems."
The problems he referred to stemmed from Citi’s exposure to "super-senior" collateralized debt obligations, which were considered at the time to be the safest CDOs. These securities were backed by mortgages, in some cases subprime loans, which were believed to be at low risk of default.
However, after the housing bubble burst in 2008 and the financial markets went into a tailspin, the value of CDOs plunged and Citi was left with billions of dollars worth of illiquid assets.
Prince reminded the panel that most banks, regulators and rating agencies considered super-senior CDOs safe.
"In hindsight, it’s very hard to see how these structured products could have been accepted in the way they were accepted," he said.
In his testimony, Rubin said the main lesson of the recent crisis was that "the financial system is subject to far more downside risk that almost anyone had seen."
He said the private sector should take steps to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, but he maintained that the government also needs to overhaul how it regulates the financial system.
"Financial reform is imperative," Rubin said.
Among the reforms he suggested was "resolution authority," which would give the government power to break up institutions considered to be too big to fail. Rubin also called for constraints on leverage, derivatives regulation and increased consumer protections.
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