FINANCIAL COMPANY COMING: Mayor Rick Baker has announced a news conference at 10:30 a.m. today to discuss a major relocation and expansion of a financial services company that will generate 300 new jobs. Baker would not provide details Thursday, saying only that it is "a good deal for the city" and will enhance economic development. The event will be held at 1800 Ninth Ave. N, the location of a Peoples Gas office.
NEW HOME SALES FALL OFF: Sales of new houses fell 1.7 percent in January, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. But the 1.106-million-unit annual pace still exceeded expectations, as declining interest rates buoyed demand. Sales in December were reported at an annualized rate of 1.125-million. Mortgage rates last month dipped to within half a percentage point of the record set in June, boosting demand for new homes.
BIG-TICKET ORDERS FALL: Factories saw orders for big-ticket goods drop by 1.8 percent in January, but much of that reflected huge declines in bookings for commercial and military airplanes. The overall figure, released by the Commerce Department on Thursday, obscured gains in other areas. The 1.8 percent decrease in orders for "durable" goods - costly manufactured products expected to last at least three years - came after a revised 1.6 percent gain registered in December, which was better than previously estimated.
NEW JOBLESS CLAIMS CLIMB: The Labor Department said new claims for unemployment benefits rose by 6,000 to 350,000 last week, highlighting the uneven recovery taking place in the jobs market. "We've seen a slowdown in firings, but hiring isn't really picking up yet," said Timothy Rogers, chief economist at Briefing.com, a Boston forecasting firm. The four-week average of claims, a less volatile indicator, jumped to 354,750, the highest in almost two months, from 352,000.
TYCO DEFENSE RESTS: Defense lawyers for Tyco International's former CFO Mark Swartz rested Thursday after nine days of testimony from their client, who is accused of joining former CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski in looting the company of $600-million. Kozlowski's defense team rested two weeks ago without calling him to testify. New York Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus seemed annoyed that he had not been told prosecutors might call a rebuttal witness, but over defense objections he okayed the request.
BACANOVIC WITNESS DIES: Jeremiah Gutman, an 80-year-old lawyer who once represented the star witness for the prosecution in the Martha Stewart trial, collapsed Wednesday on a Metro-North train station platform in Hastings in suburban Westchester County and died. Two days earlier, he had given testimony in the trial of Stewart and Peter Bacanovic that appeared to damage the defense. Mr. Gutman was active in the civil rights movement in the South in the 1960s and devoted much of his life to protecting the First Amendment, said Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship.
STEWART JURORS TO BE NAMED: U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum granted a request by the news media Thursday to release the names of the Martha Stewart trial jurors after they deliver their verdict. A federal appeals court had ruled Cedarbaum was wrong to bar reporters and the public from watching jury selection last month. Cedarbaum told media lawyers Thursday that the jurors' names will be read in court on the day of the verdict.
FUND COMPANIES GET WARNING: Top officials of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York attorney general's office told mutual fund representatives Thursday that fund companies that step forward and acknowledge violations of securities laws will fare better than those that do not. At a conference on mutual fund reform, SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins spoke bluntly about the industry's failures to police itself, resulting in charges of illegal trading to inflate fund prices, unethical payments to brokers to promote certain funds and unfair fee structures. "Worse, many CEOs who knew about these abuses showed an appalling lack of personal and business ethics," Atkins said.
COLUMBIA FUNDS OFFICERS SUSPENDED: FleetBoston Financial Corp. has placed on leave eight portfolio managers and executives at its Columbia Funds subsidiary in the wake of civil charges this week alleging the firm tolerated improper trading by big clients at the expense of ordinary shareholders. Spokesman Charles Salmans confirmed that the company suspended eight employees but declined to name them or say how many were executives and how many were portfolio managers. Tuesday, federal and state regulators accused FleetBoston's mutual fund operations of committing fraud by allowing select investors to market time a total of $2.5-billion in out of company funds between 1998 and 2003.
VERIZON MUDDIES LICENSE REQUEST: Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile telephone company, said it would bid for airwave licenses that rival Nextel Communications Inc. seeks as part of a proposal to reduce interference between Nextel phones and police radios. Nextel and police groups, contending with interference that makes public safety radios inoperable in parts of cities, have proposed that the FCC rearrange spectrum held by the company and safety agencies. Nextel would also pay $850-million to reprogram radios if it gets some new higher-frequency airwaves. Verizon Wireless says the new spectrum should instead be auctioned. A consultant hired by the carrier values the licenses at about $5.3-billion.
IBM WINS CANCER LAWSUIT: In a major victory for the electronics industry, a jury decided Thursday that IBM Corp. was not responsible for the cancers that developed in two former employees at a disk drive plant. The jury deliberated for less than two days before clearing the computer giant of claims that the harsh chemicals used in its factory caused the retirees' illnesses. The former workers, who were diagnosed with cancer in the 1990s, were seeking damages that could have totaled millions of dollars. The trial was the first of more than 200 similar lawsuits against IBM.
JAPAN RAIDS MICROSOFT OFFICE: Officials in Japan's Fair Trade Commission raided the Japanese unit of Microsoft Corp. on Thursday on suspicion of antimonopoly law violations. Microsoft confirmed that the watchdog agency had inspected the Tokyo headquarters office but denied any wrongdoing. A commission official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said Microsoft Japan is suspected of attaching improper restrictive conditions - such as requiring that Japanese computer makers reveal proprietary information that would infringe on patents - when signing software deals.
VERISIGN SUES 'NET OVERSEERS: The company that runs the bulk of the addressing system for the Internet sued its key oversight body Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, accusing it of impeding efforts to offer new moneymaking services. VeriSign Inc. sought injunction relief and unspecified damages against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, the group designated by the U.S. government in 1998 to handle domain names and other Internet addressing policies. Though fundamentally a contract dispute, the case could have broad implications over whether ICANN can legally rein in a company that, by virtue of controlling the Internet's core, influences how Internet users worldwide visit Web sites and send e-mail.
BARCLAYS' DEAL FOR HOLLINGER VOIDED: Delaware Chancery Judge Leo Strine blocked Conrad Black's plan to sell control of his publishing empire, Hollinger International Inc., to the Barclay brothers of Britain, saying Black consistently breached his duties to the company. Strine ruled that Black's conduct "threatens grave injury" to Hollinger International and its stockholders and that the Barclays deal would prevent the company from realizing the benefits of the formal sale process that Black had agreed to support.
PSC'S SECRECY CHALLENGED: Information filed by Florida's utilities with the Public Service Commission is too often allowed to be kept secret, Common Cause, a government watchdog group, charged Thursday. The group said that between October and January the agency granted every one of the 390 requests for confidentiality that were made. Common Cause said it might sue to change the process or ask the Legislature to change it. PSC spokesman Kevin Bloom said that while the requests may be frequently granted, by far the majority of documents filed with the commission are open to the public.
ISG TURNS TO PROFIT: International Steel Group Inc., the industry giant built from the remnants of down-and-out companies, reported a profit Thursday of $24.9-million for the fourth quarter, its first as a public company. Last week, ISG announced that bankrupt Weirton Steel Corp. had accepted a $255-million buyout offer. The deal must be approved by a bankruptcy judge. ISG has catapulted to the top of the industry by buying bankrupt steel makers at bargain prices, cutting costs - including retiree pensions - and reinventing the companies so they can produce more steel cheaper than nearly anyone else in the United States.
