Saturday, January 31, 2009

Νέο σχέδιο οικονομικής ανάκαμψης επεξεργάζεται ο Ομπάμα

Νέο σχέδιο οικονομικής ανάκαμψης επεξεργάζεται ο Ομπάμα

Ένα νέο σχέδιο, το οποίο θα αναζωογονήσει την αμερικανική οικονομία, θα επαναφέρει την πίστωση και θα μειώσει το ύψος των χρεών από τα ενυπόθηκα δάνεια, σκοπεύει να παρουσιάσει σύντομα ο Μπαράκ Ομπάμα.

Στο εβδομαδιαίο ραδιοφωνικό διάγγελμά του, ο νέος πρόεδρος των ΗΠΑ, ο οποίος έχει τοποθετήσει στην κορυφή της ατζέντας του την ανάκαμψη της αμερικανικής οικονομίας, κάλεσε τη Γερουσία να εγκρίνει το νομοσχέδιο οικονομικής τόνωσης, το οποίο ψήφισε την περασμένη εβδομάδα η Βουλή των Αντιπροσώπων.

Ωστόσο, επειδή επιδεινώνονται οι οικονομικές συνθήκες, ο Αμερικανός πρόεδρος δήλωσε ότι επεξεργάζεται νέα στρατηγική για την αντιμετώπιση του προβλήματος.

«Σύντομα ο υπουργός Οικονομικών, Τιμ Γκάιτνερ, θα ανακοινώσει μια νέα στρατηγική για την ανάκαμψη του οικονομικού μας συστήματος που θα επαναφέρει την πιστωτική ροή στις επιχειρήσεις και τα νοικοκυριά», δήλωσε ο Ομπάμα στο ραδιοφωνικό διάγγελμά του.

Όπως τόνισε, το σχέδιό του θα διασφαλίζει ότι οι επικεφαλής των εταιρειών δεν θα πλουτίζουν εις βάρος του φορολογούμενου. Προειδοποίησε, πάντως, ότι η οικονομική ανάκαμψη θα χρειαστεί χρόνια, όχι μήνες.

NAFTEMPORIKI

Job cuts exceed 100,000 for the week

Job cuts exceed 100,000 for the week

U.S. job losses continued to mount this week, with Pfizer, Caterpillar and Boeing reporting massive reductions.

President Obama inherits an economy mired in recession and rising unemployment.
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CNN’s Ali Velshi and a panel of experts analyze his rescue plan.
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How will the economic stimulus package help your job situation?
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In a brutal week for the job market, an assortment of companies across various industries announced more than 100,000 job cuts.

The bulk of the job loss news occurred on Monday, when several major U.S. companies announced sweeping job cuts, pushing the day's total to more than 70,000.

"The picture is still pretty glum out there," said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's, noting that January is often a bad month for the job market, because companies want to include the reductions in their annual tax returns.

Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500), the leading drugmaker in terms of annual pharma sales, and Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500), a heavy equipment manufacturer based in Peoria, Ill., each said they would cut 20,000 jobs. These are the biggest reported eliminations among U.S.-based companies.

New York-based Pfizer said the cost-saving restructuring would occur before and after its merger with Wyeth (WYE, Fortune 500), to be completed later this year.

Caterpillar Chief Executive Jim Owens blamed the "rapidly deteriorating global economy" in his quarterly earnings report. Later, on Friday, Caterpillar added another 2,110 job cuts to its previously announced reductions, bringing its tally to more than 22,000.

Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) announced its massive layoffs on Wednesday. The Chicago-based airplane manufacturer said 10,000 workers, including 4,500 previously announced reductions, would lose their jobs. The company blamed this on dwindling demand for its aircraft.

Chico's (CHS), a retailer of women's clothing based in Fort Myers, Fla., said on Friday that it was cutting 180 positions. The retail industry has been hard-hit in recent months by a slow-down in consumer spending, partly because so many people have lost their jobs.

Also on Friday, the newspaper publisher A.H. Belo (AHC) said it was cutting 500 jobs. Chief Executive Robert Decherd, in a letter to colleagues, blamed the "rapid deterioration in the U.S. economy."

The U.S. economy lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008, according to government reports. This includes 21,137 mass layoffs, a seven-year high. In a mass layoff, 50 or more workers are laid off at a time.

2009 job loss tally
The job market isn't expected to get any better any time soon. The Council Board forecast two million job losses for 2009.

"[The job losses] are going to continue until sales stabilize and that might not become apparent until the summer," said Moody's chief economist John Lonski. "There's every reason to believe that the magnitude of job destruction will rise yet again in February and March."

Not everyone agrees that job losses will continue at their current pace. Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics, said that "when the pace of the loss is this severe, the period of severity isn't very long." He said companies might be overzealous in reporting their eliminations, lessening the need for further cuts down the road.

While opinions differ about the severity of cuts, nobody's talking about job growth for the foreseeable future.

"There's no reason to anticipate a hiring frenzy any time soon," said Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, in an email to CNNMoney.com. "Labor usually accounts for about 75% of a company's costs, and if the outlook remains bleak, they slash jobs. There is no reason to believe this trend will stop any time soon."

CNN

Three regional banks fail

Three regional banks fail

FDIC says local banks in Maryland, Florida and Utah were closed by financial regulators Friday.

How will the economic stimulus package help your job situation?
It won't make any differenceIt will help me find a jobIt will help me keep my job or View results
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Three regional banks were closed Friday, bringing the total number of failed banks this month to six, as the financial crisis continues to take a toll on small banks nationwide.

Suburban Federal Savings Bank in Crofton, Md., was closed by the Office of Thrift Supervision. The FDIC said the failed bank's seven offices will reopen on Saturday as branches of Tappahannock, Va.-based Bank of Essex.

The FDIC said it entered a "loss-share" agreement with Bank of Essex, whereby the purchasing bank will share some of the losses associated with certain of the failed bank's "asset pools." The arrangement is intended to maximize returns on the assets by keeping them in the private sector, according to the FDIC.

In Florida, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency shuttered the four locations of Ocala National Bank and entered into a purchase agreement with CenterState Bank in Winter Haven, Fla.

Ocala National Bank had total assets of $223.5 million and total deposits of $205.2 million, while Suburban Federal had total assets of approximately $360 million and total deposits of $302 million.

Taken together, the two failures will cost the FDIC an estimated $225 million.

Separately, the FDIC said it was unable to find another financial institution to take over the banking operations of Salt Lake City-based MagnetBank, which regulators also closed on Friday. As a result, it expects to mail checks to retail depositors for their insured funds Monday morning.

MagnetBank, which is estimated to have no uninsured deposits, had total assets of $292.9 million and total deposits of $282.8 million as of last month, according to the FDIC. It was the first bank to fail in Utah since 2004.

The FDIC said it conducted "an extensive marketing process" to seek a buyer for MagnetBank's assets, but it found no takers.

David Barr, an FDIC spokesman, said MagnetBank had only one branch and did not have the "franchise value" or the "core assets" that would have made it attractive to other banks.

So far this year, bank failures are averaging more than one per week. Last year, 25 banks were closed nationwide, which was the highest annual total since 1993, when 42 banks went under.

Economists expect the number of failed banks to continue rising this year as the financial crisis plays out and the economic outlook remains dark.

CNN

OTS Says IndyMac, 4 Thrifts Allowed to Restate Capital Levels

OTS Says IndyMac, 4 Thrifts Allowed to Restate Capital Levels


Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- IndyMac Bank and four unidentified U.S. savings and loan associations violated Office of Thrift Supervision policies when revising their capital reports, a disclosure the agency admitted may further erode its reputation.

The agency let IndyMac backdate a capital injection that helped the lender avoid regulatory restrictions, and also found four other cases where lenders failed to follow reporting policies, OTS Director John Reich wrote yesterday to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, his boss, and four U.S. lawmakers.

“Let me assure you that the OTS takes this matter very seriously, and fully appreciates its potential impact on the reputation of the agency and the perception of the quality of OTS bank supervision,” Reich wrote.

The OTS has become a target for lawmakers as the Obama administration and Congress consider an overhaul of U.S. financial regulations. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in March suggested merging OTS with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks. Lawmakers fault OTS for failing to spot problems at its lenders and sought investigations into the IndyMac backdating.

The federal regulator let IndyMac Bank record $18 million of a $50 million infusion from its holding company, received May 9, as first-quarter capital, the Treasury Department’s inspector general concluded last month. Of the four lenders, only one backdated a capital infusion to a previous quarter, Reich said.

IndyMac’s capital injection was recorded in the 2008 first quarter report, rather than when received in the second, and let the bank avoid slipping below a “well-capitalized” standing, and face an order to raise capital, OTS said in the letter.

Shouldn’t Be Included

“We have concluded that the $18 million capital infusion that occurred on May 9, 2008, should not have been included in IndyMac’s thrift financial report for March 31, 2008,” Reich wrote. The letters were obtained by Bloomberg News through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The backdating was detected in a routine federal investigation into the failure of IndyMac, one of five OTS- regulated lenders to be shuttered last year. The regulator also oversaw Washington Mutual Inc., whose September collapse was the biggest bank failure in U.S. history.

“During our inquiry, we also discovered that OTS had allowed other thrifts to record capital contributions in an earlier period than received,” Eric Thorson, the Treasury Department’s inspector general, wrote in a Dec. 22 letter to U.S. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

Reich disagreed with the inspector general that OTS “regularly” permits capital infusions to be posted to prior quarters, saying “an ongoing internal review by the OTS shows this is not the case.”

West Coast Office

The agency is taking steps to ensure its West Regional Office, which has responsibility for IndyMac, is “fully compliant with all OTS supervisory policies and practices,” Reich wrote.

OTS West Region Director Darrell Dochow, who approved the IndyMac backdating, has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, Reich wrote. An OTS regional accountant was assigned to conduct a forensic accounting review and an outside expert was hired for an independent investigation of that office’s management, he wrote.

The OTS only identified violations as occurring in its Northeast, Southeast and West regions.

“You don’t know whether this was an agency policy, or whether it was rogue employees in various regions allowing it to occur,” Gilbert Schwartz, a former Federal Reserve counsel and now a partner at law firm Schwartz & Ballen in Washington, said in a telephone interview.

Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, on Dec. 26 asked lawmakers to investigate why IndyMac was allowed to backdate its capital. Lawmakers “should investigate how and why the OTS permitted IndyMac to backdate capital injections as well as other instances of regulatory flexibility gone bad,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

“It is troublesome to hear so many instances of regulators picking and choosing what they enforce,” Bachus said.

BLOOMBERG

Η μερισματική απόδοση το 2008

Η μερισματική απόδοση το 2008

Στο 8,9% και 9,7% διαμορφώνεται η μερισματική απόδοση των Eurobank [EFGr.AT] Properties ΑΕΕΑΠ (Εταιρεία Επενδύσεων Ακίνητης Περιουσίας) και Πειραιώς ΑΕΕΑΠ, αντιστοίχως, με βάση τα μερίσματα που θα διανείμουν για τη χρήση του 2008.

Οι δύο εταιρείες ανακοίνωσαν χθες τα ετήσια αποτελέσματά τους και τα βασικά τους μεγέθη διαμορφώνονται ως εξής:

" Eurobank Properties [EUPr.AT] : Τα έσοδα από μισθώματα αυξήθηκαν κατά 44% και ανήλθαν σε 38,7 εκατ. ευρώ από 26.8 εκατ. που ήταν το 2007. Τα κέρδη από την αναπροσαρμογή της εύλογης αξίας των ακινήτων επένδυσης διαμορφώθηκαν σε 2,1 εκατ. 19.6 εκατ. την αντίστοιχη περίοδο του 2007 (μείωση 89%).

Η μείωση αυτή αντικατοπτρίζει τις ισχύουσες συνθήκες που επικράτησαν στην αγορά ακινήτων ιδιαίτερα στο τελευταίο τρίμηνο του 2008. Τα κέρδη προ φόρων ανήλθαν σε 41,6 εκατ. έναντι 39.7 εκατ., αυξημένα κατά 4,8%. Τα κέρδη μετά από φόρους ανήλθαν σε 38,4 εκατ. έναντι 37,3 εκατ. το 2007 (αύξηση 3%).

Τα κεφάλαια που προέκυψαν από τη λειτουργία (FFO) αυξήθηκαν σημαντικά σε 33,5 εκ. από 17 εκατ. (+ 96%) κυρίως λόγω της πορείας των μισθωμάτων. Τα διαθέσιμα στις 31 Δεκεμβρίου 2008 ήταν 204 εκατ. ευρώ. H Εσωτερική Αξία της Εταιρείας (NAV) το ίδιο διάστημα ήταν 723 εκατ. ή 11.85 ανά μετοχή έναντι 11.50 στις 31 Δεκεμβρίου 2007. Σύμφωνα με την τρέχουσα τιμή της μετοχής, η εταιρεία διαπραγματεύεται με discount 53%.

Το συνολικό μέρισμα που θα διανέμει είναι 0,52 ευρώ ανά μετοχή, συμπεριλαμβανομένου και του προμερίσματος 0,15 ευρώ ανά μετοχή που διανεμήθηκε το Δεκέμβριο και είναι αυξημένο κατά 80% έναντι της περυσινής περιόδου.

«Πειραιώς ΑΕΕΑΠ: Τα μετά από φόρους κέρδη το 2008 διαμορφώθηκαν σε 9,971 εκατ. ευρώ. έναντι 9,199 εκατ. κατά τη χρήση 2007, παρουσιάζοντας αύξηση κατά 8,4%.

Τα προ φόρων κέρδη ανήλθαν σε 10,540 εκατ. ευρώ έναντι 9,749 εκατ. της προηγούμενης χρήσης, σημειώνοντας αύξηση κατά 8,1%. Τα έσοδα από μισθώματα διαμορφώθηκαν σε 7,206 εκατ. ευρώ, έναντι 7,974 εκατ. εμφανίζοντας μείωση κατά 9,6% που οφείλεται στις πωλήσεις επενδυτικών ακινήτων που πραγματοποιήθηκαν.

Το σύνολο του Ενεργητικού διαμορφώθηκε σε 116,357 εκατ. ευρώ στο τέλος του 2008 έναντι 113,675 εκατ. την 31.12.2007, εμφανίζοντας αύξηση κατά 2,36%. Το σύνολο των επενδύσεων σε ακίνητα διαμορφώθηκε σε 95,626 εκατ. ευρώ έναντι 99,755 εκατ. παρουσιάζοντας μεταβολή κατά -4,1%.

Η απόδοση των μισθωμάτων επί της αξίας του χαρτοφυλακίου των επενδύσεων της εταιρείας κατά το έτος 2008 ανήλθε σε 7,5% έναντι 8,0% το 2007. Το μέρισμα που θα διανείμει είναι 0,13 ανά μετοχή, στα ίδια επίπεδα με το μέρισμα της χρήσης 2007.

Υπενθυμίζεται ότι το μέρισμα των ΑΕΕΑΠ δεν επιβαρύνεται με τον επιπρόσθετο φόρο 10%.

MIG Real Estate: Η μη εισηγμένη ΑΕΕΑΠ, MIG Real Estate παρουσίασε στην προηγούμενη χρήση καθαρά κέρδη 2,6 εκατ. ευρώ, ενώ η αξία του ενεργητικού της διαμορφώθηκε σε 69,8 εκατ. ευρώ.

NAFTEMPORIKI
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