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| Chicago's Northern Trust hopes to hear about repaying TARP funds in next several weeks
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| Northern Trust Corp. said it hopes to hear back from the federal government "in the next several weeks" on whether the Chicago-based financial services firm, which last November received $1.58 billion in the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, qualifies to repay the money, Northern Chief Executive Frederick Waddell said after the company's annual meeting Tuesday. Northern is filling out a nearly 100-page application regarding capital and income levels and how they'd be affected by various economic scenarios, Waddell said after the meeting. "It'll be a back and forth process for the next couple of weeks," he said. "It's an assessment of do we have enough capital relative to the risk profile of the organization" to repay the TARP money.
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| @ Chicago Tribune | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0201 EDST
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| Fee-income slump drives down Northern Trust earnings
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| Northern's foreign-exchange trading operation continued to generate profits, contributing a very strong $131.1 million, up 16 percent from $113.2 million a year earlier. And sharply lower bank-borrowing rates helped fatten the company's net interest income -- money earned by lending activities -- by 8 percent, to $287.8 million. But Northern is a trust bank, and the core driver of its earnings is he management and servicing fees it draws from tending clients' investments. Such fees are based in part on the dollar value of the holdings, and a dramatically lower stock market has meant starkly lower results for the operation that serves wealthy families and institutional clients. Trust, investment and other fees sank 22 percent, to $410.7 million from $526.8 million.
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| @ Chicago Tribune | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0315 EDST
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| Rockford builders issue reminder: We’re ready to make deals
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| The Home Builders Association of the Greater Rockford Area is holding a first-time promotion, a New Home Sale Event, the first two weekends of May to remind potential buyers about some great deals to be found in the new home market — without having to worry about what they are buying in a foreclosure.
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| @ Rockford Register Star | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0320 EDST
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| Caterpillar posts first quarterly loss since 1992
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| Caterpillar posted a net loss of $112 million, or 19 cents a share, for the quarter, compared with a profit of $922 million, or $1.45 a share, in the first three months of 2008. While sales volume was down considerably — at $9.23 billion, off 22 percent from a year earlier — what dragged the company into red ink was the $558 million in redundancy costs related to the mass layoffs and other cost cutting the company has done, actually since before the year began. Without those costs Caterpillar had a profit of $237 million, or 39 cents a share, which exceeded Wall Street expectations of a profit of 4 cents a share.
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| @ Peoria Journal Star | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0330 EDST
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| In home defaults, Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice market just shy of national Top 20
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| The local market had 4,991 filings, or 1.28 percent of its total housing units, during the quarter. Tops on the list was Las Vegas, with 35,321 filings, or 4.48 percent of its households with a filing -- a notice of default, lis pendens, an auction or a notice of foreclosure sale. Second was Merced, Calif., with 4.21 percent of households, and third was Cape Coral-Fort Myers, with 3.85 percent, representing 13,875 properties.
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| @ Sarasota Herald Tribune | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0345 EDST
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| Tampa home foreclosures decline
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| Foreclosure activity in Tampa Bay decreased 11 percent in the first quarter. The drop likely is a result of temporary foreclosure moratoriums by lenders and not because more people are finding ways to keep their homes. The foreclosure rate in the metro area of Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater ranked 23rd among 203 metro areas. The area ranked 18th in the nation in the fourth quarter.
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| @ Tampa Tribune | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0400 EDST
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| Sarasota / Manatee manufacturers push tax abatement
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| The Sarasota Manatee Area Manufacturers Association wants Manatee and Sarasota county commissioners to develop a tax abatement program that would eliminate the property tax manufacturers pay annually on heavy machinery and equipment. “The key issue here in Florida is why does Florida generate low-wage service jobs?” said Kevin Connelly, president and chief executive officer of Apollo Sunguard Systems. “The reason is Florida is one of the few states that taxes production equipment. Modern manufacturing is very capital intensive with state-of-the art production equipment, and they don’t dare come to Florida because Florida taxes that equipment.”
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| @ Bradenton Herald | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0415 EDST
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| Florida house approves time share legislation
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| The Florida House of Representatives today unanimously approved a bill to help the time-share industry by allowing developers to sell debt-cancellation policies and ensuring time-share exchanges aren’t subject to taxes. The House voted 112-0 for the measure (HB 61), which has been lobbied for by the American Resort Development Association, Walt Disney World and a number of others.
Just before the final vote, the House stripped out a controversial provision that would have allowed counties to spend hotel taxes building publicly owned convention hotels. The language had been inserted to help Broward County, which is trying to build a 1,000-room hotel next to its convention center in Fort Lauderdale, but it ignited fierce opposition from hoteliers.
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| @ Orlando Sentinel | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0419 EDST
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| Japanese Exports Fell in March
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| Japan's big manufacturing exporters have been hit hard by the worst global downturn since the 1930s Great Depression but analysts pointed to a slowing pace of falls and suggested that exports may have stabilised on a month-to-month basis. They also pointed to a slowing pace of decline in shipments to China as a sign that China's huge stimulus package is starting to benefit Japanese exports.
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| @ New York Times | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0646 EDST
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| U.K. Unemployment Rises to Highest Level in 12 Years
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| The number of jobless based on International Labour Organization methods rose 177,000 in the three months through February to 2.1 million, the most in 12 years, the Office for National Statistics said today. Claims for jobless benefits rose 73,700 in March to 1.46 million.
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| @ Bloomberg News | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0652 EDST
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| Canadian jobless picture may be even worse
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| Canada's official unemployment rate, currently at 8 per cent, or 1.45 million people, counts only those who are out of work and actively looking for a job. That's R4 in Statistics Canada's parlance; the agency slices and dices the population into various groups to better analyze how strong the labour market is. The R8 reading has offered a grim perspective on Canadians' job status: 12.4 per cent of people over the age of 15 are now counted as R8 – an increase of 4.4 percentage points since October and the highest point in a decade. In contrast, the official unemployment rate (not seasonally adjusted) has risen 3.2 percentage points since October.
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| @ Globe and Mail - CA | Posted: 04/22/09 at 0655 EDST
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