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Spanish stocks dropped sharply early Friday morning after ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its credit score of 16 Spanish banks in the latest blow to the troubled financial sector.
The Ibex 35 index was off more than 2 points shortly after trading began Friday. Banks were among the biggest losers.
Moody’s acted late Thursday, citing banks’ load of non-performing loans amid a recession-plagued economy, their creditworthiness and the government’s sovereign debt problems, among other woes.
Those punished included Banco Santander, SA, the eurozone’s largest bank by market capitalization.
Shares in Bankia SA, a recently nationalized bank, took a roller coaster ride Thursday, ending up sharply lower on reports depositors pulled out a (EURO)1 billion in a week.
On the bond market the interest rate on 10-year bonds was unchanged at 6.25 percent.
Avon shares plunged 14 percent in premarket trading Tuesday after Coty dropped its $10.7 billion takeover bid for the cosmetics company.
Coty Inc., a privately held rival, had raised its original offer last week by about 6.5 percent, but set a deadline of Monday for the company to accept the bid.
Avon asked for more time to consider the bid over the weekend, but it appears that Coty would have not of it. It slammed that door shut on the troubled company Monday and investors are following suite even before the markets open Tuesday in some heavy trading.
If the current prices hold, Avon shares will be worth less than when Coty made its original offer back in April. Shares fell $3.06 to $17.90.
The big question now is what comes next for Avon?
The company is embroiled in a bribery scandal that led to the ouster of its vice chairman in January personal business card. The investigation, which initially involved executives in Asia, has spread and late last year federal regulators began looking into the New York company’s dealings with financial analysts.
Earlier this month, under the leadership of recently arrived CEO, Sherilyn McCoy, Avon reported that its first-quarter profit tumbled 82 percent, even worse that Wall Street had feared.
That has become the norm. Profits have been shrinking for three years and Avon is suffering even in places it had seen as strongholds.
Avon Products Inc. holds its shareholders meeting in two weeks.
The U.S. trade deficit rose in March at the fastest rate in 10 months. A rise in consumer goods lifted imports to a record level, outpacing a solid gain in U.S. exports.
The Commerce Department says the trade deficit widened to $51.8 billion in March, up from $45.4 billion in February. Imports rose 5.2 percent to a record $238.6 billion, reflecting more foreign oil, autos, cell phones and clothes.
Exports increased 2.9 percent to $186 instant payday loan.8 billion. Sales to Europe reached an all-time high despite the region’s debt crisis.
Economists caution that export growth, a bright spot for the U.S. economy, could slow in coming months if more European countries fall into recession.
The Wendy’s Co. returned to a first-quarter profit as it recorded a large gain on the sale of an investment.
The casual dining chain reported net income of $12.4 million, or 3 cents per share for the period ended April 1. That compares with a loss of $1.4 million, or breakeven results, a year ago.
Excluding items, earnings were 1 cent per share. Analysts expected earnings of 3 cents per share.
Revenue rose 2 percent to $593.2 million. That missed Wall Street’s estimate of $608.1 million.
Its shares fell 22 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $4.65 in premarket trading.
Company-run restaurant margin fell due to increased commodity costs, particularly for fresh beef.
The Dublin, Ohio company cut its 2012 earnings forecast mostly because of weaker-than-expected sales and the company-run restaurant margin.
It’s barely a rounding error in their multimillion-dollar pay packages, but America’s imperial CEOs are losing some of the trappings of power.
Companies that once paid for their leaders’ cars and club memberships – and sometimes handed them extra cash to pay the taxes on those goodies – are now taking a principled stand against perquisites.
Among St. Louis firms, Olin and Spartech eliminated their executive perks at the beginning of last year. Express Scripts, Reinsurance Group of America, MEMC Electronic Materials and a few others already had no-perks policies.
Spartech used to give auto allowances of more than $10,000 to some executives. Olin provided company cars along with financial planning services to help executives manage their millions. As of last year, those goodies are gone.
Pay consultant Steven Hall says Olin and Spartech are part of a trend. “In the last few years, companies have been eliminating these kinds of benefits,” he said. “In some cases, the amounts are not meaningful at all, but companies are saying it’s a matter of principle.”
Hall, managing director of Steven Hall & Partners in New York, was speaking about the largest U.S. companies, which tend to be trendsetters in pay practices. St. Louis CEOs, especially at smaller companies, have been slower to give up their perks.
Among 40 St. Louis companies that have made their pay disclosures for 2011, three-fourths offered special benefits to top executives. A car allowance was the most common perk, offered by 17 companies. Fourteen firms let the boss and/or a spouse take personal flights on the company dime, and 12 paid for club dues. Six gave the boss extra cash to pay taxes on the benefits, a practice that shareholder-advocacy groups frown upon.
One of the longest lists of perks went to payday loan.stltoday.com/business/columns/david-nicklaus/smaller-bonus-shrinks-pay-total-for-viasystems-ceo/article_84c7c0e0-7384-11e1-b7ba-0019bb30f31a.html” target=”_blank”>Viasystems Chief Executive David Sindelar: a $33,994 car allowance, $15,337 worth of financial consulting, $31,296 in club dues, $61,603 for entertainment, $6,110 worth of continuing education and $1,000 in charitable contributions. Some of those amounts were grossed up to cover taxes.
The biggest single perk, though, belonged to David Farr, chief executive of Emerson. Farr took $304,007 worth of personal flights on company aircraft, a practice that Emerson justifies on security grounds.
Other frequent fliers included Energizer CEO Ward Klein, who took $176,478 worth of free flights; Brown Shoe Chairman Ronald Fromm ($165,365) and Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant ($124,665).
Free flights seem to be the one perk that isn’t going away, Hall says. Companies justify it based on security – Emerson and others actually require their CEOs to use company planes for all trips – and efficiency.
For watchdog groups, though, such perks are a red flag. They are indicators of an entitlement mentality and a situation in which the board is subservient to an imperial CEO.
As the Corporate Library, a governance-research firm that’s now part of GMI Ratings, said in a 2010 study, “If the board cannot set appropriate limits for the CEO in this regard, will it be able to do so in matters of greater strategic consequence?”
No one took issue with Antonio Hegwood’s dreadlocks when he worked for the temp service. Or the fast food restaurant before that.
But in mid-April, four months after a service station and convenience store hired him as an overnight clerk, Hegwood learned his hair style had suddenly became a problem.
Hegwood, 24, hasn’t been fired. But he hasn’t collected a paycheck since.
His supervisors at a St. Louis Petro Mart have told Hegwood that he’s welcome to return to work — if he shears the dreadlocks that run about halfway down his neck.
Hegwood doesn’t understand the fuss.
“It’s a gas station,” he said. “People aren’t going to not buy gas just because the clerk has dreads.”
Policies on the personal grooming habits of employees land on the edge of state and federal employment discrimination laws.
Companies doing business in Missourihave the right to terminate or suspend any employee that doesn’t meet established guidelines addressing hair, tattoos or dress.
“An employer may condition a job on an employee’s compliance with the employer’s hair styling preferences, unless the employee’s alternative hair styling preference is connected with the employee’s inclusion in a protected category,” Missouri Department of Labor spokeswoman Amy Susan explained in an e-mail. “For example, a particular hair style may be a tenet of the employee’s religion, or the employer may decline to hire a prospective employee because the employee is considered to be disabled because of his or her hair style (such as believing someone without hair to be suffering from cancer).”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a bit more exacting. It looks at how various groups of people wearing various hairstyles are treated in comparison to other groups.
“The baseline for evaluating grooming policies is to look at their overall burden on different groups of employees,” EEOC spokeswoman Justine Lisser wrote in a general overview of the Petro Mart matter.
“…If an employer prohibits a range of hair styles, such as both corn rows and mohawks, and the no cornrows/dreadlocks policy affects 30% of its African-American employees while the no mohawks affects only 3% of its white employees, we could say that the policy had a disparate impact on African-Americans, even if it applies to all employees.”
Hegwood has sported dreads on and off for years. The dreadlocks were in place when he applied for and was offered the $8.50-an-hour position at Petro Mart late last year.
“They didn’t say anything about it then,” he said.
Nor, Hegwood added, was there any mention of the dreads posing a threat to safety or the health of co-workers.
Owned and operated by Western Oil Co. in Earth City, Petro Mart does have a written policy stipulating that hair should be “kept neat and clean…immoderate styles… such as corn rows, braids etc. must be approved by a supervisor…dreadlocks and mohawks are unacceptable.”
Western Oil did not respond to requests for a response.
A father of three, Hegwood doesn’t know how long he can take a principled stand against Petro Mart and its grooming policy.
He needs a salary to support his children and pay for the remainder of his education at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park, where Hegwood hopes to earn a degree in business.
The worst of the job crisis may be over — unemployment in the St. Louis region dropped to 8.1 percent in March.
But back in the hunt four months after starting a job “I really liked,” Hegwood fears landing employment remains a challenge.
“Maybe I’ll start my own business,” he said, looking ahead. “That way I can wear my hair anyway I want.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“We’re all technology companies at heart. Whether you’re a law firm or a bank, the core of your company is technology. And that is kind of shaking the core of the office today.” — Thomas Vecchione, head of Workplace Design at Gensler, the global architectural firm, on the work space evolution that includes “free range” offices in which employees take a seat each day at whatever desk is available.
Source: The Point, WBUR/Boston
BY THE NUMBERS
3.9 million - The population of Oregon — and the number of Americans who continue to suffer the effects of unemployment lasting more than a year. The long-term unemployed represent 29.5 of the nation’s jobless.
Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts
FINAL WORD
“You know, how could you not look?” - Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III on whether he tracks the struggles of a former employee, Albert Pujols, in the box scores each day.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Shares of H&R Block tumbled 16% in premarket trading Thursday after the tax prep company announced significant staff cuts and office closings, and projected weaker-than-expected earnings.
The company also announced a series of changes in its top executive ranks in its after-hours statement Wednesday, including that it is looking for a new chief financial officer, and that the president of its retail tax services is leaving the company effective April 30.
Shares tumbled $2.74 to $14 ahead of the market open.
The company said it will cut about 350 full-time positions throughout its Kansas City headquarters and nationwide field organization, and close about 200 company-owned offices, which will result in a drop in seasonal temporary employment Payday Loan for Bad Credit.
The moves are expected to save the company of $85 million to $100 million a year. It will take a $30 million charge in the quarter associated with the staff reductions.
H&R Block () also expects full-year earnings of $1.09 to $1.15 a share, well below the forecasted earnings of $1.39 a share.
Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you can’t be robbed.
Identity thieves steal the personal information of about 2.4 million deceased Americans each year, according to a new report from fraud prevention firm ID Analytics. That amounts to a rate of more than 2,000 thefts per day.
Using these stolen identities, criminals typically apply for credit cards, cell phones and anything else requiring a credit check, the report found.
About 800,000 deceased Americans get their identities stolen intentionally, and another 1.6 million identities are stolen by chance — when an identity thief uses a Social Security number that happens to match that of a deceased individual, for example.
Debt after death: Banks chase down mourners
Lenders are typically the main victims when thieves use identities of deceased people to apply for credit products. But surviving family members should also be careful, said Stephen Coggeshall, chief technology officer at ID Analytics bad credit personal loan lenders.
"Surviving family members can also be the victims of this identity fraud as they are left to manage the estates of their deceased loved ones," he said. "It’s important for people to monitor their deceased family member’s identities for at least one year."
Social Security pays millions to dead people
To determine how many deceased people get their identities stolen each year, ID Analytics collected the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers on 100 million credit applications.
It then calculated how many of these applications used information that was associated with deceased individuals listed in the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File — a government database of deceased Americans.
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