Healthcare Trust of America Inc. has bought Sugar Land Medical Building II from Houston-based The Mission Cos. for approximately $12.4 million.
The 60,000-square-foot building is located at 15400 Southwest Freeway South, at the northwest corner of U.S. Highway 59 and Sugar Lakes Boulevard.
Sugar Land Medical Building II is located within one mile of several acute-care hospitals including Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital and Sugar Land Medical Center.
The three-story building is 100 percent leased with 83 percent of the space leased by Texas Children’s Hospital through 2019.
The real estate investment trust said it acquired the three-story building because of the quality of the main tenant and the facility’s proximity to three hospitals in Sugar Land.
The building was developed by Mission Equities Inc. with two floors in 1999 cash advances pay day loan. A third floor was added to the structure in 2006.
Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Healthcare Trust is a self-managed, publicly registered, non-traded REIT.
This marks the second area acquisition for the company, which acquired the Cypress Station Medical Office Building in March 2008.
Mark Engstrom, executive vice president of acquisitions for Healthcare Trust of America, said this acquisition expands the company’s Texas healthcare portfolio to approximately 965,000 square feet with a total investment of approximately $275 million.
In 2010, HTA has acquired approximately $88 million in medical office assets nationally. These assets include a total of four acquisitions, representing approximately 454,000 square feet.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday in downtown Phoenix that Arizona will receive $1.7 million this spring to combat mortgage fraud – a prolific problem during the real estate boom that grew following the crash and ensuing recession.
The sum is more than 20 percent of the federal funds allocated by President Barack Obama to investigate and prosecute white collar criminals who continue to rip off uneducated consumers, costing the state millions in losses in the private sector, while fueling the foreclosure crises in one of the hardest hit cities in the country.
“I’m confident that these new investments will allow us to build on the recent success we’ve seen across the country and the progress that’s been made here in Arizona,” said Holder, who was among the many high profile representatives of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which met in Phoenix for the second of a series of Mortgage Fraud Summits.
The task force, established by Obama in November, is comprised of a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement.
Holder, addressing the public and reporters at the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse, said in Phoenix, mortgage fraud crimes have reached crisis proportions.
“But we are fighting back,” Holder said. “Through this broad federal, state, and local coalition, we’re using every tool at our disposal – including advanced technologies, new communication platforms, and the very best talent we have – to prevent, to prosecute, and to punish mortgage fraud crimes. And we’re making meaningful progress in our work to protect families and communities, to combat discrimination in our lending markets, to recover proceeds for fraud victims, and to restore confidence in our housing and financial markets.”
Phoenix has been at the epicenter of the mortgage mess and housing bust, which obliterated entire industries, spurred thousands of job losses, sank home prices and drove banks to collapse under heavy portfolios of soured loans. A study from the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ranked the Phoenix metro area fourth in the nation in Suspicious Activity Reports filed by depository institutions concerning suspected mortgage fraud. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Arizona has the most homes funded by the Federal Housing Administration loans in foreclosure and consistently ranks in the top 10 in loan fraud.
Arizona ended 2009 with the nation’s second-highest home foreclosure rate, according to RealtyTrac faxless cash advances. More than 163,000 Arizona properties received foreclosure notices in 2009, about 6.12 percent of homes.
Nevada, with a 10.2 percent foreclosure rate, was the only state with a higher rate.
Task force members met with community leaders, legal services providers, law enforcement officials and banking, mortgage and real estate experts to discuss the mortgage fraud problem from a national, state and local perspective. In the morning, attendees participated in panels on mortgage fraud trends in Phoenix and the community impact. In the afternoon, task force representatives are meeting privately with law enforcement officials investigating mortgage fraud.
“We will use information gained here in Phoenix – and in other epicenters of mortgage fraud – to focus and strengthen our law enforcement activities,” Holder said. “Mortgage fraud schemes must be stopped in their tracks. And those willing to exploit our national financial crisis for personal gain will be brought to justice.
The FBI is investigating more than 2,800 mortgage fraud cases, up almost 400 percent from five years ago, Holder said. The agency estimated that mortgage fraud schemes inflict approximately $4 to $6 billion dollars in losses every year.
Last week, Attorney General Terry Goddard announced a $120,000 settlement with several defendants for their roles in a real estate scheme in Pima County. Two days earlier, Mario Bernadel, the leader of a massive fraud scheme in Phoenix, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison.
He and his co-conspirators used fraudulent documents to buy nearly 40 properties, resulting in more than $9 million in losses to local banks.
In June 2008, the first 36 defendants were charged following a multi-agency investigation, dubbed Operation Cash Back, of mortgage fraud schemes in Arizona. The defendants included mortgage loan officers, straw buyers, real estate investors, real estate agents, and escrow officers.
The operation utilized the efforts of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI, Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Secret Service, the FDIC-OIG, Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, Arizona Attorney General’s Office, county attorneys and local police departments.
Buyers lusting after one of the most lucrative domain names in the world, sex.com, will have to wait for their chance to bid on the coveted Internet property.
The rights to sex.com were scheduled to be auctioned off Thursday, with bidders required to put up $1 million just to get in the door, after the previous owner, Escom, went into foreclosure for unpaid debts.
But the auction was postponed after Escom was forced into bankruptcy court late Wednesday by a group of creditors, according to Scott Matthews, a lawyer for DOM Partners, one of Escom’s main creditors.
"The auction has been postponed based upon an involuntary bankruptcy filing in California that was filed after 5 p.m. yesterday," Matthews said, adding that a sale will eventually happen, though he could not say when.
Matthews said there had been "significant interest" in the domain name, but he declined to say how many bidders were scheduled to take part in the auction.
Escom reportedly paid $14 million for sex.com when it bought the site in 2006. DOM Partners helped finance the deal and acquired the rights when Escom failed to make payments earlier this year.
DOM announced plans last week to sell the site to the highest bidder in the equivalent of a foreclosure sale. But the auction was scratched after three of Escom’s creditors filed an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against Escom in the U payday loan lenders.S. Bankruptcy Court in California’s Central District.
The creditors — Washington Technology Associates, iEntertainment Inc. and AccountingMatters.com — claim Escom owes them more than $10 million.
The dispute marks the latest twist in the storied history of sex.com, which is potentially one of the most profitable internet properties.
Gary Kremen, founder of Match.com, first registered sex.com in 1994. He spent several years in court battling with Stephen Cohen, an adult entertainment mogul with a checkered past, over the site’s ownership.
In 1995, Kremen accused Cohen of stealing sex.com from him in a scheme that involved forged letters and falsified e-mails. In 2000, a court handed control of the domain name back to Kremen and ordered Cohen to pay $65 million to Kremen. Cohen subsequently appealed and the case was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2003.
Two years later, Cohen was arrested in Tijuana for failing to appear in court. He was released in 2007, according to published reports.
Less than half of voters in the Austin Business Journal's latest online survey said the city lives up to its self-proclaimed "live music capital" name.
Of the 635 that voted in the unscientific poll, 36 percent said the city doesn't live up to its reputation, while 15 percent said they weren't sure. The poll generated many comments, both agreeing and refuting the title. About 49 percent voted "yes" the city is the nation's live music capital.
"In the late 90's it may have been for a minute. Nowadays the new Austin doesn't care about live music bad credit personal loan lenders. They prefer DJ Dance Clubs," one commenter said.
Another responded to one commenter saying the city only has cover bands.
"Obviously written by someone not familiar with the music scene in Austin that ventures only as far out to see cover bands at frat bars. Suggest you go see (and support) some of the real music that is being created in this town," the commenter said.
To view the full results, click here.
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit offered a bold outlook for his troubled firm Thursday, saying he hoped his company would soon be able to deliver profits of approximately $20 billion.
Pandit, speaking at a company-sponsored conference, did not give a time frame for when the bank would generate this profit. He did stress however that the company would be able to earn big returns on the assets within its Citicorp division, which oversees both its investment bank and consumer banking businesses.
"It is time to shift our focus to the future which is Citicorp," he told an audience in New York.
The company split itself into two parts in January 2009 - Citicorp and Citi Holdings - as part of an effort to get the beleaguered bank back on track.
Citi Holdings, which was created as a dumping ground for its so-called "troubled assets", controls roughly $547 billion worth of assets. Losses within that division widened to $2.4 billion during fourth quarter of last year.
Capturing large profits within its Citicorp business though could offset any troubles within its Citi Holdings division.
It would also be a significant turnaround from the severe losses the bank has endured since the start of the crisis. During 2008 alone, Citigroup lost $27.7 billion.
The company already reached one major milestone late last year after paying back the $45 billion it received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
U.S. taxpayers however, still own a 27% stake in the company.
At a hearing in Washington last week, a Treasury Department official said the agency planned to dispose of its remaining stake in the firm "as soon as possible."
Pandit noted Thursday that the government will not be able to sell any of its shares until at least later this month when a lock-up on Citigroup stock expires. Treasury would also have to give notice if it indeed planned to sell at least part of its stake.
"Given where the economy is, given where the stock is, I wouldn’t be surprised if they would think about doing that," said Pandit.
Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) shares gained nearly 5% in afternoon trading Thursday. The stock has gained nearly 20% so far this week.
Bank of Korea Governor Lee Seong Tae kept interest rates unchanged at his final meeting, leaving it to his successor to address political pressure to stoke economic growth.
Lee held the seven-day repurchase rate at a record-low 2 percent in Seoul today after Finance Minister Yoon Jeung Hyun said this week that now “is not the right time” to boost borrowing costs. The decision was forecast by 13 of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. One expected a quarter- point increase.
The government pressed Lee, whose term expires March 31, to hold down rates as the economy shows mixed signs: growth slowed in the fourth quarter, unemployment soared in January, exports have risen for four months and manufacturers’ confidence is at a seven-year high. Since January, Governor Lee has had to accept a vice finance minister sitting in on rate meetings.
Lee appears to have decided to “leave it to his successor to deal with the Finance Ministry pressure resisting a rate hike,” said David Cohen, a Singapore-based economist at Action Economics. “The fact that inflation narrowed a little bit in the latest report gave them a good enough reason to hold off for another month.”
Stocks, Currency
The won weakened 0.2 percent to 1,132.80 per dollar at 12:02 p.m. in Seoul, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The currency earlier rose as much as 0.4 percent to 1,126.23. The benchmark Kospi stock index fell 0.2 percent to 1,659.15 as of 11:57 a.m. in Seoul today.
The Bank of Korea said in a statement it “will maintain the accommodative policy stance for the time being in such a way as to help sustain the trend of recovery in economic activity.”
“The central bank is unlikely to change the benchmark rate in the second quarter as it will be difficult to change the stance of monetary policy as soon as a new governor is appointed and financial-market concerns over the debt in some countries still linger,” said Lim Jiwon, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Seoul.
President Lee Myung Bak is considering five candidates to head the Bank of Korea, DongA Ilbo newspaper reported last month, citing unidentified central bank and government officials.
These include Euh Yoon Dae, head of a presidential council set up to promote South Korea internationally; ex-Finance Minister Kang Man Soo; Kim Jong Chang, head of the Financial Supervisory Service; Park Cheul, a former deputy governor of the central bank; and Kim Choong Soo, envoy to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to the newspaper.
Markets Unconcerned
The failure to announce Governor Lee’s replacement three weeks before his term expires hasn’t spooked the markets instant credit report. The Kospi index has risen 3.8 percent in the past month and the won gained 2.2 percent over the same period.
Finance Minister Yoon told reporters on March 8 that “it is the government’s firm belief that it is not the right time for rate hikes” as business investment is weak and prices are at manageable levels.
Lee Sung Kwon, an economist at Shinhan Investment Corp. in Seoul, said policy makers may have held off on a rate increase as “concerns over tightening measures in China remain.”
China, South Korea’s biggest export market, in February ordered banks to set aside more deposits as reserves for the second time in a month to avert asset bubbles. In the fourth quarter, Chinese gross domestic product increased 10.7 percent from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 2007.
Unemployment Rises
In contrast, South Korea’s economy expanded 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter and unemployment surged to a 10-year high of 4.8 percent in January. President Lee has put unemployment at the top of the political agenda, vowing to cut the average jobless rate to about 3 percent this year.
The government boosted this year’s budget by 3 percent to 292.8 trillion won ($258 billion) and will accelerate distribution of funds as it seeks to maintain the recovery.
The central bank said the slowdown in growth in the fourth quarter was a temporary adjustment. In November, it widened the annual inflation target range to between 2 percent and 4 percent. Consumer prices increased 2.7 percent in February.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy is showing signs of strengthening. Exports climbed 31 percent in February from a year earlier, the fourth monthly increase. Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s second-largest mobile-phone maker, said its handset shipments may expand about a fifth this year, helped by demand for smartphones.
Manufacturers’ confidence for March rose to the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2002, when the Bank of Korea published its confidence survey on a quarterly basis.
The central bank’s failure to raise rates last year confounded analysts, who forecast it to be one of the first in Asia to move after the economy expanded 3.2 percent in the third quarter, the fastest pace in seven years. Since then, Australia, China, India and Vietnam have tightened monetary policy as Asia leads the recovery from the global recession.
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet pressed Greece to halt its flirtation with International Monetary Fund aid and work with European allies to tame its record budget deficit.
As protesters besieged the Greek Finance Ministry to denounce 4.8 billion euros ($6.5 billion) of tax increases and spending cuts, the Athens government said the absence of European support might force it into the hands of the IMF.
Trichet yesterday spoke out against appealing to the Washington-based lender “as a supplier of help,” keeping the pressure on Greece to cut the highest deficit in the euro’s 11- year history — and on European governments to step in if Greece can’t go it alone.
“For Trichet, using the IMF would be an admission that Europe can’t deal with its own business,” said Gilles Moec, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank AG in London and a former Bank of France official. “Trichet’s very keen on saying that Europe has its own system of safeguards. He went almost as far as saying Europe has something in the pipeline.”
The region’s biggest deficit spender collides with Europe’s largest economy when Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou meets tonight in Berlin German Chancellor Angela Merkel, co-author of a Feb. 11 European pledge of “determined and coordinated action, if needed” to aid Greece.
Domestic Pressure
Facing political pressure at home not to squander German taxpayers’ money, Merkel said two days ago that tonight’s Berlin encounter won’t be “about aid commitments.”
Starting five days of financial diplomacy that take him to Berlin, Luxembourg, Paris and Washington, Papandreou pushed for European help in getting credit at rates below the 6.11 percent investors currently demand on Greek 10-year bonds. Papandreou will meet with U.S President Barack Obama and not the IMF in his swing through Washington.
“We’re not asking for money,” Papandreou said in an interview in today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “We don’t want to be the Lehman Brothers of the EU. I’m not demanding loans for Greece at the same favorable conditions that Germany gets, but we need more favorable terms than we’re getting now.”
Greece bought time yesterday by selling 10-year bonds with investors bidding for more than three times the 5 billion euros it sought to raise. The goal was to avoid a repeat of a five- year note sale in January, when the debt tumbled on the first day of trading. Greece faces more than 20 billion euros in debt redemptions in April and May.
Wage Cuts
“Now it’s really playing for time,” said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Group in Brussels who used to work at the European Commission.
Tax increases and pay cuts for government employees outlined on March 3 were designed to guarantee Greece would meet a January pledge to trim the deficit to 8.7 percent of gross domestic product from 12.7 percent, more than four times the euro region’s 3 percent limit.
Concern that Europe will fail to cope with Greece’s fiscal woes has knocked the euro down 5.4 percent against the dollar this year. Trichet’s opposition to the IMF as a safety valve further undercut the currency yesterday. It fell more than 1 cent to $1.3560.
“Europe is being short-sighted,” said Ted Truman, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former adviser to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. “If Europeans get it wrong then this impacts financial markets. It will likely impact European growth and that of the rest of the world.”
Greek Backlash
Yesterday brought mixed messages about Greece’s romance with the IMF. Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou called the IMF a last resort if the European Union fails to “rise to the occasion.”
That shifted the focus back to Greece’s efforts to get out of the fiscal jam on its own, a job made harder by protests against austerity steps by a socialist government that came to power in October on promises of higher wages and pensions.
“Grossly unfair” was the verdict of Dimitris Bratis, president of the Greek teaching federation, on NET TV yesterday. Teachers plan to walk off the job today, along with the main public transport union.
Trichet — involved in drawing up the Feb. 11 declaration of moral support for Greece — didn’t rule out European support yesterday, while keeping vague about what the EU would do.
“I gave publicly my support for the statement,” Trichet said, reading excerpts aloud at his Frankfurt press conference. “I take that commitment as very, very important.”
German lawmakers briefed on the aid discussions have spoken of contingency plans to offer Greece about 25 billion euros, enough to cover the maturing debt. One option may be for state- owned lenders such as Germany’s KfW Group to buy Greek bonds.
“It has been a game of chicken,” said Paul de Grauwe, a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. “The European authorities have not been willing to give clear signals because they are afraid that the Greeks will not go far enough in budgetary tightening. But now I think we can say the Greeks have gone quite far. The euro zone governments should take a step forward now which could create a virtuous circle.”
Japanese businesses cut spending for an 11th quarter even as their earnings rebounded, signaling a revival in exports remains insufficient to prompt investment that would spur the recovery.
Capital spending excluding software fell 18.5 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. Sales declined and profits doubled.
Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. are among companies cutting costs to protect earnings even as demand from abroad picks up. A stronger yen is forcing exporters to invest overseas rather than at home, and deflation is discouraging spending by domestic service companies, said Hiroshi Miyazaki, chief economist at Shinkin Asset Management Co.
“We’re seeing a clear contrast between the rapid recovery in profits and the weakness in capital spending,” Tokyo-based Miyazaki said. “The recovery’s spillover to capital spending has been particularly weak this time, even in comparison to the economic recoveries of the past.”
The yen traded at 88.34 per dollar at 3:12 p.m. in Tokyo after earlier touching 88.31, the highest since Dec. 11. Japan’s currency has gained more than 5 percent this year, eroding the value of exporters’ repatriated profits. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 1.1 percent, extending its losses to 3.8 percent for the year.
Slower Growth
Based on today’s data, the Cabinet Office may revise fourth-quarter economic growth figures lower on March 11. Gross domestic product probably expanded at an annual 3.9 percent pace, slower than the 4.6 percent reported last month, according to the median forecast of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News after today’s figures were released.
The capital spending component likely rose 0.3 percent from the previous quarter, compared with a 1 percent increase in the preliminary report, economists said.
“Capital spending may have hit bottom, but the strength of the rebound is still in question,” said Naoki Tsuchiyama, market economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo, who estimates a GDP downgrade to 3.7 percent. “The economic recovery is largely dependent on government stimulus and companies are still cautious about the outlook for final demand.”
Companies’ sales slid 3.1 percent last quarter after tumbling 15.7 percent the previous three months, the ministry said. Profits surged 102.2 percent, the first increase in 10 quarters and the second biggest advance since the survey began in 1955.
Weak Link
Business spending remains the weak link of a recovery that’s being driven by exports and showing signs of improvement in the labor market. About a third of factory capacity is sitting idle in the wake of the nation’s worst postwar recession, discouraging companies from buying equipment free credit score.
“Capital spending may start growing later this fiscal year, but the pace of the recovery will be very moderate,” said Junko Nishioka, chief economist at RBS Securities Japan Ltd. “Companies still have excess capacity, so they will try to utilize existing facilities rather than building new plants.”
Sony last month narrowed its forecast for a net loss, saying it is approaching its target of trimming 330 billion yen in costs by eliminating jobs and shutting factories. Capital spending for this fiscal year will probably total 220 billion yen, 34 percent less than a year earlier and lower than the 250 billion yen estimated in October, Sony said on Feb. 4.
Raising Forecasts
Panasonic last month raised its operating profit forecast, as cuts in fixed and material costs lead to a recovery in earnings from consumer electronics and appliances. Capital investment for the nine months ended Dec. 31 stood at 275.6 billion yen, 22 percent less than the same period a year earlier, according to a company statement.
Slumping prices also are squeezing profit margins. Consumer prices excluding food and energy dropped 1.2 percent in January, matching December’s record decline, the government said last week.
Finance Minister Naoto Kan renewed calls on the Bank of Japan to help arrest deflation this week, saying he hopes prices will rise this year.
The government has been encouraging spending by providing incentives to buy cars and consumer electronics. Those initiatives are becoming less effective, said Tetsufumi Yamakawa, chief Japan economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
“Not only is capital investment slack but the demand boost from policies to stimulate replacement purchase of energy-saving electrical goods and environment-friendly autos is fading,” Yamakawa said.
Asia Rebound
Still, some companies are benefiting from rebounding demand in Asia, particularly China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy and Japan’s biggest overseas market.
Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Asia’s second-largest excavator maker, may double sales in China this quarter, beating its forecast as the nation’s spending on railroads and mining fuels demand, Chief Executive Officer Michijiro Kikawa said in an interview on March 1.
Japanese manufacturers increased output in January at the fastest pace since May and exports climbed the most in almost 30 years, government reports showed last month.
Design Within Reach will soon require a lot more effort, as the chain closes its midtown store at 16th and J streets.
The company confirmed it would close the 2,700-square-foot store at 1020 16th St. — in the ground-floor of the Loftwork’s o1 Lofts development, which includes Bistro 33 Midtown and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro. Design Within Reach will close March 15, with a 30 percent-off sale until then, a company spokeswoman said paydayloans.
The San Francisco-based company, which has about 60 of the boutique stores featuring cool and trendy furniture nationwide, is the latest to close its local outlet during the recession. Two employees work at the store.
The company has a Berkeley and three San Francisco stores, the soon-to-be closest outlets to Sacramento.
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