Defense contractor Technica Corp. expects to double its presence in Columbia by the fall as it expands from Northern Virginia into Greater Baltimore.
As the Baltimore Business Journal reported Friday, the company has leased a 7,600-square-foot facility at the Columbia Gateway business park in Howard County.
Mark O’Donnell, senior vice president of business development for Technica, said his company plans to expand its space at 6750 Alexander Bell Drive to 14,000 square feet by the fall. By then the Dulles, Va.-based company hopes to have hired or shifted as many as 45 workers to the area.
The timing of the company’s move, and others like it, has been a matter of much debate among the region’s real estate and economic development community since 2005.
That’s because Technica is one of dozens of defense contractors to the federal Defense Information Systems Agency, an arm of the U.S. Defense Department focused on communication part of the Pentagon focused on cyber security and other areas of information technology.
DISA is relocating from Arlington, Va., to Fort George G. Meade in Anne Arundel County as part of the Pentagon’s Base Realignment and Closure plan. BRAC, as the plan is known, is expected to bring about 25,000 government and private contracting jobs to Central Maryland. The bulk of those jobs are being shifted to Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County. The BRAC moves are slated to be completed by September 2011.
The shift should create a significant demand for new homes, office space, restaurants and shops supporting the new workers. But few of those moves have taken place yet, leaving many developers to wonder when to expect the demand for those new projects will pick up.
Several projects have been put on hold until that happens, and many developers have been unable to finance their projects until they have signed tenants to take space in them.
Quote and apply online or speak with an agent in your area. Compare health insurance plans for individuals and families.
Hawaii lawmakers are considering renaming the soon-to-open Kapolei Court Complex after Chief Justice Ronald Moon.
Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 38 was introduced by Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and Sen. Brian Taniguchi, chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Government Operations Committee. Both are Democrats.
It proposes renaming the new $124.5 million Kapolei Court Complex the “Ronald T.Y. Moon Judicial Complex.”
Moon spearheaded development of the West Oahu court complex, which will open March 29 after more than 20 years of planning and nearly three years under construction. It will serve as the new home of family court for the 1st Judicial Circuit.
Under state law, Moon must retire as chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court when he turns 70 this September, capping a more than 40-year legal career in Hawaii. He was named to the state’s highest court in 1993.
The resolution is nonbinding but serves as a recommendation, in this case, to the governor, the state comptroller and the administrative director of the state’s courts.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will have a public hearing on the resolution at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday at the State Capitol.
Free online car insurance quotes. Get insurance rate comparisons, and buy your auto insurance policy instantly.
Arizona State University is partnering with Teach For America to transform ASU’s teacher education program.
With a five-year, $18.9 million investment from entrepreneur and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford, ASU will partner with Teach for America to bring changes to the way ASU recruits, selects and prepares K-12 teachers.
The Sanford Education Project will use Teach For America’s tools to recruit teachers to work in low-income communities. Since 1990, Teach for America has recruited, trained and placed more than 24,000 teachers in low-income communities guaranteed payday loans. It has developed strategies to attract people into teaching who otherwise may not have chosen the profession. It also has developed support systems to help those teachers in the classroom and built a pipeline of leaders in the community focused on quality education.
As part of Sanford’s investment, ASU’s College of Teacher Education and Leadership will create a summer institute based on Teach For America’s model.
When General American Life Insurance Co. commissioned acclaimed architect Philip Johnson to design its downtown St. Louis headquarters in the mid-1970s, the firm sought to create something striking to bolster what was then a barren area along the south side of Market Street.
Many architectural aficionados say Johnson delivered.
In essence, he designed a three-story dark-glass box that was just under 130,000 square feet. But here’s the twist: As if slicing a sandwich, Johnson divided the building diagonally, then perched half of it on columns.
"What he did, very creatively, was take a building, cut it on the diagonal and lift one part of the triangle," said H. Edwin Trusheim, General American’s chairman who retired 18 years ago. "You’ve now created a six-story building out of a three-story building."
General American moved to a location in south St. Louis County in 2004. Since then, the building has sat vacant, but a revival of sorts is in the works.
Centaur Properties of New York, which bought the building in 2005 for $6.1 million, says it will spend as much as $10 million in 2010 to spruce up the building to lure potential tenants and restore its historic appeal.
The building’s exterior glass remains in good shape, but the heating and cooling systems will be replaced. The rest of the rehab budget will go toward specific tenants’ needs, said Mike Donovan, a principal at Balke Brown Associates of St. Louis, which is marketing the building for sale or lease. Its $21 per-square-foot rent is at the upper end of the downtown office market.
By itself, a multimillion-dollar refurbishment won’t eliminate the General American building’s competition for tenants downtown, where the overall vacancy rate remains at about 20 percent. Finding the right fit among potential tenants hasn’t been easy, said Kevin Farrell, director of economic and housing development with the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis.
He pointed out that two law firms considered moving into the building since General American moved out.
While the building’s architect is noteworthy, Farrell said prospective tenants will be enticed by the building’s views of Citygarden, the Old Courthouse, Busch Stadium and the Arch.
"It’s a building with a lot of interesting attributes," Farrell said. "You need to find somebody who falls in love with it."
Johnson helped launch the Modernist movement of glass skyscrapers in the 1950s easy online payday loans. In New York, he had a hand in Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram building, the epitome of the sleek corporate headquarters. The Pritzker prize, architecture’s version of the Oscar, was established in 1979. Johnson was the first recipient.
His Modernist towers in the 1980s included the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. building in Pittsburgh and the Transco Tower in Houston. He also helped start a Post-Modernist phase of architecture with his AT&T building in New York.
Above the AT&T’s Modernist facade is an enormous pediment resembling the top of a Chippendale desk. Johnson was 98 when he died in 2005.
Even compared to such high-profile projects, the General American building ranks high in the Johnson portfolio, said John Berendzen, a partner at Fox Architects in St. Louis. "It’s a very clean Modernist building," said Berendzen, who years ago designed some interior remodeling there.
"It’s a very simple, yet very complex structure."
It was General American’s vice president, Stanley Richman, who should be credited for bringing Johnson to St. Louis, Trusheim said. Richman, who died in 1985, was a "Renaissance man" of many interests, including architecture.
"Stan searched out architects and, at that time, Philip Johnson was one of the leading architects in the United States," Trusheim said during a recent phone interview from his home in Minneapolis.
For now, however, the building remains empty.
Though intended for a single tenant, the "tremendous amount of public-type space" could allow for retrofitting the structure for several occupants, Berendzen said.
Law firm Blackwell Sanders nearly relocated to the General American building from the Laclede Gas building in 2006. The deal fell through at the last minute. Blackwell merged last year with Husch & Eppenberger and consolidated this year in Clayton. Bob Tomaso, a Husch Blackwell partner involved in the General American negotiation for Blackwell Sanders, wouldn’t explain why the firm passed. Still, he said he admires the building.
"It’s a shame it has sat empty for so long."
U.S. retailers used extra promotions and extended hours to draw procrastinators and shoppers delayed by the East Coast snowstorm in the final stretch before Christmas.
Target Corp. extended its hours to midnight Dec. 21 through yesterday. Borders Group Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Toys “R” Us Inc. also kept stores open longer. Best Buy Co. offered some DVDs for half off and Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc., a men’s clothing chain, deepened discounts to at least 50 percent.
“We didn’t intend to do everything, and now we’re doing everything,” Jos. A. Bank Chief Executive Officer Neal Black, 54, said Dec. 22 by telephone from the company’s Hampstead, Maryland, headquarters. “We’ll be slugging right down to the last minute.”
Sales will be compressed into the final days before Christmas, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group Inc. The snowstorm disrupted the Saturday before Dec. 25. Last year, that was the second-biggest shopping day after Black Friday, the day after U.S. Thanksgiving. Shoppers already had procrastinated more than in recent seasons.
“Retailers will pull out all the stops this week,” Cohen said in a Dec. 21 Bloomberg Television interview. NPD is a Port Washington, New York-based market research firm.
Maintaining Forecasts
The Washington-based National Retail Federation was holding to its forecast for a 1 percent drop in holiday sales, Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman, said Dec. 20. The International Council of Shopping Centers reiterated on Dec. 22 its forecast for a 2 percent increase in sales at stores open at least a year in December, after reporting that the storm slowed growth to 0.4 percent year over year in the week ended Dec. 19.
Jos. A. Bank cut prices of all clothing Dec. 21 and Dec. 22, after store visits slowed, Black said. The chain had planned to offer some of that merchandise at 40 percent and 30 percent off, he said.
The retailer’s shares fell 17 cents to $42.82 at 1:30 p.m. after a shortened pre-Christmas session on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Target, based in Minneapolis, decreased 20 cents to $48.65 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Borders, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, declined 3 cents to $1.22. Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart climbed 28 cents to $53.60. Best Buy, based in Richfield, Minnesota, dropped 6 cents to $40.70.
Kathryn Greenberg, a 41-year-old Washington resident who works in philanthropy, said she lucked into some “fantastic” late discounts yesterday 500 fast cash payday loan. She bought clothing for her children and other family members mostly at 60 percent off at a Gap store as well as one of Gap Inc.’s Banana Republic stores.
Bigger Savings, More Buying
“I am spending the same as last year, but getting more,” said Greenberg, who was carrying two bags and heading into Sephora, the cosmetics chain owned by Paris-based LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA.
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will keep most of its 803 discount stores and its Sam’s Clubs open until 8 p.m. today, two hours later than last year, said John Simley, a spokesman. Amazon.com Inc. extended by one day, until Dec. 21, its cutoff for standard shipping.
Gap, based in San Francisco, retreated 20 cents to $20.71 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. LVMH gained 44 cents to 77.90 euros in Paris trading. Seattle-based Amazon.com, the largest Internet retailer, dropped 47 cents to $138.47 on the Nasdaq.
East Coast Snow
Stores along the East Coast closed early during the Dec. 19 snowstorm. Twenty-four inches of snow fell on Bethesda, Maryland and 23.2 inches were recorded at Philadelphia International Airport, according to the National Weather Service.
Consumers had completed 72 percent of their holiday shopping through Dec. 20, down from 80 percent a year earlier, the New York-based ICSC said Dec. 22.
Historically, the 10 days before Christmas have made up as much as 40 percent of total holiday sales for November and December, according to Joseph Feldman, a managing director at Telsey Advisory Group in New York.
Sales fell 13 percent to $6.9 billion on the last Saturday before Christmas from the previous year, according to Chicago- based researcher ShopperTrak RCT Corp.
Some of lost sales did translate into online purchases. Sales at Web sites jumped 24 percent on Dec. 18 and Dec. 19 from a year ago, according to Coremetrics, a San Mateo, California- based marketing company.
Some impulse buying and so-called self-purchases, however, were irretrievably lost during the storm, Richard Jaffe, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview on Dec. 22.
“It’s not a delay, it’s lost sales,” Jaffe said. “You just don’t recover that.”
How’s this for a stocking stuffer?
Canadians are generally tightening their purse strings this Christmas shopping season, but some are shelling out a pretty penny for bars of gold.
ScotiaMocatta, the precious metals division of the Bank of Nova Scotia, is enjoying "record sales" of small precious metals products during this holiday season, even though the price of gold continues to trade above $1,100 (U.S.) an ounce.
"By far, the most popular product we are selling is the one-ounce Scotia Gold Bar," said Richard Maskobi, managing director of ScotiaMocatta.
While the retail price for that product fluctuates daily, it is based on the spot price of gold plus a premium to cover other costs such as manufacturing, shipping and storage. On Friday afternoon, the rectangular bar – which has a gold purity of 0.9999 or 24 karats – was selling for about $1,233.90 (Canadian).
ScotiaMocatta does not release specifics about its sales data. Maskobi, however, said sales remain robust during final days before Christmas.
Gold is generally seen as a "safe haven" during financial crises, and demand for the precious metal has been increasing over the past few years.
Earlier this month, gold hit a record above $1,200 (U.S.) an ounce. The price has retreated in recent weeks but consumer demand is not slowing down.
"There isn’t a typical buyer," Maskobi said. "It is varied. Some people are buying a lot of smaller products just as gifts; some people are buying it as (investment) diversification; some people are buying just because they like gold instant personal loans guaranteed."
Scotiabank is one of the world’s largest precious metals dealers. While it is not the only bank selling gold in Canada, it is the only one that does so both through its branches and an online system.
Launched earlier this year, The ScotiaMocatta Precious Metals eStore is currently offering extended holiday hours. Volume is also up at its branches. Said Maskobi: "I know our phone stats are through the roof as well."
Scotiabank is not alone. In November, the U.S. Mint suspended sales of its popular American Eagle one-ounce gold coin after consumers snapped up its entire supply.
While the Royal Canadian Mint has not suspended bullion sales, it has sold out of some gold collector pieces such as two of its "Fine Gold Kilo Coins." One such coin entitled "Toward Confederation (2008)" has a price tag of $49,000 (Canadian). Other gold coins are on back order.
Mint spokesperson Alex Reeves said it is normal for limited edition products to sell out. Still, he notes consumer demand has increased in recent years.
The mint is also recording "much higher" sales but the increase is not necessarily linked to Christmas, Reeves said. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop him from dropping Santa a big hint: "I’d love to find gold bullion coins in my stocking."
China, South Korea and other emerging economies in East Asia may grow at the fastest pace in three years in 2010 as the global recovery spurs demand for the region’s goods, a division of the Asian Development Bank said.
China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and 10 Southeast Asia economies may expand 6.8 percent in 2010 from 4.2 percent this year, according to a report released today by the ADB’s Office for Regional Economic Integration in Manila.
Asia is leading the world’s emergence from its deepest recession since the 1930s after governments boosted spending, cut taxes and slashed interest rates, averting a spiral into another Great Depression. Growth could falter as the effect of stimulus measures fade and governments exit expansionary policies, the ADB division said.
“With the global recovery tentative, monetary policy should remain accommodative where feasible, with a watchful eye on inflation and asset prices,” the division said. “The recovery could falter if policy makers tighten too early, but tightening too late may lead to higher inflation and unsustainable fiscal deficits in the coming years.”
Confidence in the world economy dipped last month as central banks’ actions to withdraw some emergency measures sparked concern about the strength of the recovery, a Bloomberg survey of users on six continents showed.
Policy makers in Asia have started raising borrowing costs to contain accelerating inflation. The Reserve Bank of Australia increased borrowing costs a total of 75 basis points at its last three meetings and Vietnam raised its benchmark rate by one percentage point to 8 percent in November saving account pay day loan.
Subdued Inflation
“Inflationary pressures appear to be well under control for the moment,” the ADB’s regional integration office said. “While recently showing slight increases, inflation is still expected to remain subdued as economies operate with excess capacity.”
Recovery in East Asia also hinges on the revival of growth in Europe and in the U.S., as this will affect the region’s export-dependent economies, the office said.
“The deleveraging cycle is still in its early years, and if households in developed countries, particularly the U.S., save more-than-expected to repair their balance sheets, then weaker consumer demand will delay recovery in these economies,” the ADB division said.
Emerging East Asia groups China, the Southeast Asian nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and the newly industrialized economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.
Developing Asia, which includes economies such as India and Pakistan and excludes Japan, will probably expand 6.6 percent next year after growing 4.5 percent in 2009, the ADB said in a separate note today.
James B. Lockhart III, vice chairman of WL Ross & Co. and the former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said the U.S. housing decline may not be over.
Lockhart said at a conference in New York that he’s concerned there may be “another leg down” because of the pace of foreclosures. Foreclosures will “spike” unless the Obama administration’s programs to spur home loan modifications do more to reduce homeowners’ debts, he said.
“We need to be more aggressive in writing down mortgages and reducing principal to keep people in homes,” he said. “A spike could be pretty big.”
Lockhart also said he expects that “hundreds of banks will be taken over.” The possibility comes from troubles in commercial real estate, which lags behind housing in finding a market bottom, he said payday loans.
“We are overbuilt in many areas,” he said.
Lockhart, 63, joined the distressed-investment unit of Atlanta-based Invesco Ltd. this year after serving as head of the FHFA. WL Ross was among nine asset managers chosen by the Treasury Department to take part in the $40 billion U.S. Public- Private Investment Program, under which taxpayer and private capital will be paired to invest in mortgage bonds.
WL Ross manages funds that own American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. and made “substantial investments” in bond insurer Assured Guaranty Ltd., according to a statement in August announcing Lockhart’s hiring.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates–Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund said Sunday it booked a profit of $1.1 billion (U.S.) by selling the stake it took in Citigroup Inc. less than two years ago when the banking giant was strapped for cash.
The Kuwait Investment Authority said in a statement it sold the preferred shares after converting them to common stock for $4.1 billion. That works out to a gain of nearly 37 per cent on its $3 billion investment.
Calls to the Kuwait fund for further details went unanswered. A Citi spokesman declined to comment.
Gulf Arab countries’ sovereign wealth funds have been heavy investors in U.S. and European companies, using their oil wealth to buy large stakes in companies ranging from Citi to Germany’s Volkswagen AG and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler AG.
The KIA joined other big investors – including the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and long-time shareholder Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia – in pumping some $12.5 billion into New York-based Citi in January 2008. At the time, the bank was reeling from a huge drop in the value of its mortgage holdings.
At the same time it made its Citi investment the fund took a $2 billion stake in Merrill Lynch, which also needed cash as a result of the credit crisis.
Merrill was later bought by Bank of America Corp., which last week surprised investors by paying back $45 billion in federal bailout money. Analysts say that move puts pressure on Citi and other banks that tapped U.S. government aid to follow suit, even though they still could face further losses as consumers struggle to pay their bills.
The Kuwait fund’s move came as a surprise. In September, it said it had no intention of selling its holdings in either Citi or Bank of America in the short term because its investment policies are based "on a long-term vision."
Kuwait took its stake in Citi last year after another Gulf fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, paid $7.5 billion for a 4.9 per cent stake in the company.
ADIA’s holdings, known as "equity units," will begin to convert into ordinary shares starting in March next year.
A spokesman for the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, declined to comment on plans for its Citi stake.
Kuwait’s fund is not the first major Gulf investor to cash in on the sharp rebound of western banks’ shares this year.
Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co. made a $2.5 billion profit in June by selling part of a stake it held in London-based Barclays. Then last moth, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the British bank’s top shareholder, unloaded a stake worth about $2.25 billion.
Barclays turned to investors from Abu Dhabi and Qatar last November for a total injection of up to $12 billion to shore up its balance sheet rather than take on the British government as a major shareholder.
From the Star’s wire services
Lost in all the bickering between Democrats and Republicans when Bank of America officials testified before Congress last week was a seemingly crucial piece of evidence that seems to show the bank’s executives relied on faulty data leading up to the December 5, 2008 shareholder vote on the $50 billion acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
Testimony before (and documents released by) the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week paint a picture of BofA officials and their lawyers at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz basing their decision not to reveal the extent of Merrill Lynch’s growing fourth-quarter 2008 losses on a flawed "forecast." This forecast — dated November 12, 2008 and prepared by Merrill Lynch — omitted projected losses in November and December from Merrill’s portfolio of CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) and other illiquid assets.
The omission of any projected write-downs for those CDOs in the computer model behind the November 12 document resulted in a "zero" being calculated instead of billions of dollars of losses — as would become apparent a few weeks later — making the projected pre-tax fourth-quarter 2008 loss in the computer model — $8.942 billion — far lower than the $18 billion pre-tax loss it would turn out to be less than a month later on December 10, five days after the shareholder vote.
"Bank of America saw the deficiency in the document," Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said at the hearing, "but they have not shown us that they actually did any actual analysis to make up for Merrill’s omissions. On the contrary, the evidence we have suggests that Bank of America pulled a number out of thin air." (For his part, Nelson Chai, Merrill’s chief financial officer at the time, told Kucinich’s staff that the "document was not intended to be a valid forecast, despite its title.").
The November 12 document is especially revealing not only for its omissions but also for the seemingly random tweaks Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) executives made to it as part of their internal deliberations about whether to make an announcement before the shareholder vote on December 5. At the bottom of a page described as "Merrill Lynch & Co. 4Q’08 Forecast," Bank of America’s executives had upped the projected loss of $8.942 billion to $10.942 billion, an increase of $2 billion in projected losses.
Half of that additional $2 billion in losses, or $1 billion, came simply from something described on the document as "neil gut," or the "gut" guess of Neil Crotty, Bank of America’s Chief Accounting Officer "rather than any actual analysis of Merrill holdings," according to notations on the document made by the Committee’s staff prior to its release publicly last week. The Committee staff also noted that "Bank of America’s top management and attorneys used" the seemingly randomly revised $10.942 billion in projected losses number "in making shareholder disclosure decision."
That process of whether to make the disclosure to shareholders began in earnest on November 12 when Bank of America’s general counsel Tim Mayopoulos called Wachtell Lipton attorney Nicholas Demmo to reveal that Merrill had lost "$7B in October," that "Nov, so far, is flat" and wondering "do we have to get the # out?" to shareholders.
At that point, after seven business days in November, Merrill had shown Bank of America a $227 million loss for the month but that number had not been adjusted downward for the write-downs in the CDO portfolio since no number had been included for that in the model. Bank of America executives seem to have based their decision-making on the faulty model and appear to have done no due diligence of their own.
When Rep. Kucinich’s staff asked Crotty about the November 12 document he said, according to Rep. Kucinich, that it was "of questionable validity" and that he did not have "time to delve deeply into the details of the forecast." Asked about whether the words "neil gut" on the document raised concerns to him, Tim Mayopoulos, Bank of America’s general counsel at the time, testified at the hearing: "I understood that this forecast was in part a guess, that it was an estimate."
On November 13, Mayopoulos had a meeting with the Wachtell attorneys, including Demmo and Ed Herlihy and their meeting notes showed that Mayopoulos "assume[d]" November would be "better" than October but was worried "about not disclosing" (Wachtell’s emphasis, suggesting there was some serious concern at the meeting about not disclosing the losses to shareholders.) Another set of notes from the meeting observed that Mayopoulos said that Merrill would "prob[ably] be deep in the red" for the fourth quarter and then revealed that the lawyers discussed whether Bank of America could just make a "trend disclosure" in the public filings about the deal and could discuss that Bank of America "expect[s] it to be no better than" some number and "might be worse." Mayopoulos remarked that it is "not the end of the world."
A week later, on November 20, Joe Price, Bank of America’s CFO, had a meeting with his attorneys about the question of whether to disclose the Merrill losses to Bank of America’s shareholders before the December 5 vote. On his copy of the November 12 "forecast" — the document that omitted any write-downs for November and December in the CDO portfolio — Price wrote that "Concluded [per] Tim [Mayopoulos] and Ed [Herlihy] that no pre meeting disclosures are necessary."
A spokesman for BofA told Fortune that it is important to view the actions of the bank’s executives in context rather than in hindsight. "In mid November 2008, the Merrill projected losses for 4th qtr 2008 were estimated to be in line with Merrill losses of the prior 5 quarters. For that and other factors, inside and outside counsel determined no intra-quarter disclosure was required. Apparently, some people looking at everything a year later with perfect hindsight may think they would have made a different decision, but at the time and without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight business people and counsel made good faith decisions based on the best information and estimates available." (Requests for comment from Wachtell went unanswered.)
The irony is that had BofA’s executives simply been more diligent in understanding the implications of the omissions in the November 12 "forecast," and released the magnitude of the growing Merrill losses to BofA shareholders prior to the December 5 vote, they might have avoided accusations they violated securities laws. Some in Congress, particularly Rep. Kucinich, and some investment bankers on Wall Street believe BofA’s senior executives violated securities laws by not releasing the growing losses to shareholders. In August, Rep. Kucinich sent Mary Schapiro, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a letter urging her to investigate the potential violation.
Indeed, the lack of public disclosure to shareholders about the growing losses at Merrill Lynch deprived them of their right to have all the available, material information at the time they were asked to vote on the merger. That would seem to be a violation of securities laws. The question still hanging in the air is whether Mary Schapiro and the SEC will do anything about it.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0