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.
Solve your money worries and apply for a faxless payday loan today!
The government’s Christmas Eve pledge of unlimited financial aid to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is aimed at making sure the housing market doesn’t take another turn for the worse and cause the economic recovery to unravel.
This insurance policy taken out by the Treasury Department will help keep mortgage rates low, and may wind up being a gift of sorts to struggling homeowners and banks. But there’s a catch: the housing crisis is now likely to cost taxpayers much more.
The Obama administration’s latest lifeline to Fannie and Freddie will cover unlimited losses through 2012, lifting an earlier cap of $400 billion. It also eases restrictions on the size of the companies’ investment portfolios. That’s a reversal of the Bush administration’s September 2008 plan to shrink the size of the companies’ holdings of mortgage-backed securities.
The action, which didn’t need the approval of Congress, could position Fannie and Freddie to get more aggressive in dealing with the housing crisis, perhaps taking troubled mortgage investments off banks’ books.
"They’ve cleared the decks to use Fannie and Freddie as a vessel for whatever they want," says Edward Pinto, a housing consultant who served as Fannie’s chief credit officer in the late 1980s.
The Treasury could also lean harder on Fannie and Freddie to help troubled homeowners avoid foreclosures — and by extension the banks and other investors who own their mortgages.
Many economists and housing experts say an existing $75 billion government program to prevent foreclosures isn’t working fast enough, threatening the emerging signs of home price stability in many cities across the nation.
Boosting the firepower of Fannie and Freddie, which finance three-quarters of all new mortgages, also should help keep rates on home loans low just as the Federal Reserve starts dialing back its separate $1.25 trillion program aimed at doing just that.
That’s good news for the banking industry, which benefited in 2009 from homeowners refinancing their mortgages, says Jason O’Donnell, senior research analyst at Boenning & Scattergood Inc. "This is an initiative that spreads far beyond just Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," he says.
But the trade-off is that the Treasury will have to cover much more than the $111 billion in losses at Fannie and Freddie it already has funded. Barclays Capital predicts the losses will range from $230 billion to $300 billion.
Both companies provide vital funding for home loans, buying mortgages from lenders, pooling them into bonds and selling them to investors with a guarantee against default.
While they traditionally backed loans to relatively safe buyers, they dramatically lowered their standards during the housing boom, and those loans are now defaulting in higher numbers.
If the administration leans on Fannie and Freddie to expand its foreclosure-prevention program, it would be pricey. If Fannie and Freddie were, hypothetically, to start forgiving a quarter of borrowers’ mortgage debt, that would cost another $125 billion to help 2.5 million to 3 million borrowers, estimates Barclays analyst Ajay Rajadhyaksha.
The Treasury Department says its only motivation is to make sure investors remain confident that Fannie and Freddie can keep doing their jobs of buying the bulk of mortgages made in the U.S. and turning them into investments.
Heightened airport security after a botched terrorist attack on Christmas Day means one more cost for an airline industry that’s already experiencing considerable turbulence.
Consumers will likely be the ones to bear the brunt of the additional expenses, said John McKenna, president and chief executive officer of the Air Transport Association of Canada.
"Any time there are new security measures of any type, the travelling public pays for it," McKenna said.
After Friday’s attempted attack aboard a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight, travellers now face a pat-down by security agents as well as tougher restrictions on what they are allowed to take on the plane.
Bags with wheels are no longer being allowed as a carry-on, and only one bag per traveller can be taken on the plane.
The secondary checks can take up to five minutes per person. That could add up to a delay of several hours for each flight if more employees aren’t brought in.
"If you add the people, you add costs. And these costs will have to be paid for by somebody," said McKenna.
"If they are permanent measures, this clearly costs the airlines and the travelling consumer a lot more money."
In Canada, Transport Minister John Baird requested help from the RCMP on Sunday night, and the Mounties helped provide additional screening security at Canada’s largest airports on Monday.
Transport Canada employees were also been called in on overtime for what was supposed to be a federal holiday to deal with the extra security needs.
For WestJet Airlines Ltd. (TSX: WJA), a Calgary-based carrier, tallying the added costs is not a "primary focus" at the moment, said spokesman Robert Palmer.
"We are focused on our guests and their experience," Palmer said.
He recalled that airlines struggled a year ago with an onslaught of snowstorms that snarled air traffic at the height of the holiday rush.
"In some ways, this is not dissimilar to last Christmas, when we went above and beyond to help our guests get home for the holidays," Palmer said.
McGill University professor Karl Moore said he doesn’t believe air travel will be affected significantly during this holiday period because most consumers will already be committed to their travel plans and will adapt.
"It will get back to normal, or the new normal, with a few more restrictions," said Moore, who noted that passengers are already used to taking off their shoes and belts and having liquid bottles checked.
"Travel is not fun in the way it used to be 15 years ago," Moore said.
"What we will see is a little bit of a slowdown but I think the restrictions will ease over time," said Moore, who teaches globalization and management in McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management.
Moore said Air Canada in particular may actually see a bit of an increase in traffic as a result with travellers being able to choose international routes and connecting flights that avoid the United States.
"The more difficult it is to fly through the U.S., Canada gains a little bit from that."
A number of travellers at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport said over the holiday weekend that they were impressed with the way Air Canada handled the new security measures.
Stock in WestJet, Jazz Air Income Fund (TSX: JAZ.UN) and Montreal-based travel company Transat AT Inc. (TRZ.B0 felt a downdraft Tuesday in the first trading since Friday’s attempted bombing.
WestJet dropped 17 cents or 1.4 per cent to $12.29 while Jazz, a former Air Canada subsidiary that’s now a separate airline company, dropped 13 cents or 2.9 per cent to $4.30 and Transat (TSX: TRZ.B) slipped 20cents to $21.
Air Canada (TSX: AC.B) was unchanged at $1.25.
In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, airline travel fell dramatically around the world and led to billions of dollars in losses for the global airline sector.
Earlier this month, The International Air Transport Association revised its financial outlook for 2010 to an expected US$5.6 billion global net loss, larger than the previously forecast loss of $3.8 billion. However, passenger traffic is expected grow by 4.5 per cent in 2010.
For this year, the airline research group maintained its forecast of a $11 billion net loss.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, of Nigeria was charged Saturday with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as the plane approached Detroit on Christmas Day. He’s accused of igniting an explosive substance hidden in his pants. An al-Qaida group claimed responsibility for the attempt on Monday.
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.”
WASHINGTON–Home resales surged last month to the highest level in nearly three years, reflecting an extraordinary level of federal support that has pulled the housing market back from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
Buyers were racing to complete their sales before the original expiration date of a tax credit for first-time buyers that was scheduled to expire Nov. 30. Last month, Congress decided to extend and expand the credit to ensure the housing market could sustain its recovery.
The Realtors estimated that about 2 million homebuyers have taken advantage of the credit so far and forecasts that another 2.4 million will use it by the middle of next year. First-time buyers made up about half of all transactions last month, driving sales up 44 percent above last year's levels, a record jump.
Sales are now up 46 percent from the bottom in January, but down 10 per cent from the peak more than four years ago.
The median sales price was $172,600, down 4.3 per cent from a year earlier, and up 0.2 per cent from October.
"Things are stabilizing," said Pete Flint, chief executive of real estate Web site Trulia.com. "There is a significant amount of buyer interest out there.''
November sales rose 7.4 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.54 million, from a downwardly revised pace of 6.09 million in October.
Sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 6.25 million, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
The inventory of unsold homes on the market fell about 1 percent to 3.5 million. That's a healthy 6.5 month supply at the current sales pace, the lowest level in three years.
Besides the existing tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time buyers, homeowners who have lived in their current properties for at least five years can now claim a tax credit of up to $6,500 if they relocate. To qualify, buyers must sign a purchase agreement by April 30.
Postponing the deadline could mean sales will drop during the winter months and recover in the spring.
"Buyers have no sense of urgency now," said Gary DeRosa, an agent with ZipRealty Inc. in Seattle.
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."
Experts on retail sales are obsessed with Thanksgiving weekend — particularly the Black Friday frenzy.
Most pundits agree that the start of the season was just ho-hum. But if you examine the details, you’ll come across all sorts of disagreement over exactly how things have gone. Why is it so hard to judge how many shoppers turned out, and how much they spent?
Here are some answers.
How important is Thanksgiving weekend as a predictor of the season?
The day after Thanksgiving is the traditional start of the season. In recent years, Black Friday has been the busiest shopping day of the year. But it’s not considered a predictor of the rest of the season, since it accounts for 10 percent of total holiday sales.
Still, pundits study the weekend’s receipts to decipher shoppers’ mind-sets. And if stores have a weak start, chances are slim that they will be able to make up for lost sales.
What makes this season’s kickoff particularly hard to assess?
One major factor is that stores have increasingly been hawking deals and offering expanded hours throughout November. That has likely diluted sales for the holiday weekend.
Parsing the data got even trickier because for the first time, major merchants offered early morning Black Friday specials on their websites at the same time as in their stores, as they aimed to compete with pure online retailers.
That helped boost online sales on Thursday and Friday, which rose 11 percent compared with a year ago, according to comScore Inc same day payday loans., an Internet research company. Also, more stores, like Old Navy, were open on Thanksgiving.
"Black Friday was definitely expanded. It wasn’t as concentrated," said Bill Lewis, executive vice president of Karabus Management, a retail advisory firm. He noted that heavy online buying likely depressed store traffic.
What type of data has been out there in recent days? Any contradictions?
The National Retail Federation released data on spending and traffic late Sunday, based on an online poll of 5,000 shoppers. The group extrapolated that total spending reached $41.2 billion for Thursday through Sunday, up 0.5 percent from a year ago; it reported 195 million people were visiting stores and websites, compared with 172 million a year ago.
Meanwhile, research firm ShopperTrak released data that showed customer counts actually declined 1.1 percent for the Friday-through-Sunday weekend, but showed sales were up a more robust 1.6 percent.
When will we get a full picture of the start of this year’s holiday season?
Major retailers’ individual sales reports should offer some sense, even though most figures exclude online business.
U.S. consumer sentiment fell in early November to the weakest in three months amid grim expectations for job and income prospects, a survey showed on Friday.
The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of sentiment for November fell to 66.0, the lowest since August, from 70.6 in October. This was well below economists’ median expectation of a reading of 71.0, according to a Reuters poll.
The index of consumer expectations fell to 63.7 in early November from 68.6 in October.
“Confidence tumbled in early November due to the grim financial realities faced by consumers as well as weaker economic prospects for the year ahead — importantly, the decline in confidence was already in place before the announced increase in the unemployment rate to 10 fast payday loan.2 percent on November 6,” the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers statement said.
Within the survey, the 12-month economic outlook index fell to 67, the lowest since April, from 81 in October. The 1-year inflation expectation eased to 2.8 percent from 2.9.
(Reporting by Chris Reese; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
American International Group Inc Chief Executive Robert Benmosche said on Wednesday he remains “totally committed” to staying at the company, countering an earlier report that he was considering stepping down.
In a letter to employees obtained by Reuters, Benmosche said he and the company’s board are “frustrated” about restrictions on pay and are in discussions with the U.S. government about them.
AIG, which has received up to $180 billion of federal aid, including more than $80 billion in loans, and is now 80 percent-owned by U.S. taxpayers, posted its second straight quarterly profit last week, helped by a recovery in the value of its investments.
Benmosche said compensation restraints present a “barrier that stands in the way of restoring AIG’s value.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Benmosche was so frustrated that he told the company’s board last week he was considering stepping down payday cash advance loans. The newspaper cited people familiar with the matter.
The giant insurer’s chief executive said in his letter that he is particularly concerned with the pay of the company’s top 100 executives, which are under the purview of Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. government’s pay czar.
Benmosche told AIG directors that he was “done” but agreed to think it over when they reacted with shock, the people told the paper.
(Reporting by Steve Eder in New York and Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; editing by Valerie Lee, Andre Grenon, Leslie Gevirtz)
At the new GM, the buck now stops with the board.
The surprise decision by General Motors Co to drop a plan supported by Chief Executive Fritz Henderson to sell the company’s Opel unit has raised new questions about the standing of the veteran GM insider after just six months on the job.
“It isn’t clear who is running GM,” said Peter Morici, a professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. “They’ve got a problem here.”
Henderson, who joined GM in 1984 and worked his way up as a financial manager, has only been in charge of GM since this spring, when the Obama administration ousted Rick Wagoner and ordered the company to appoint outsiders to its hitherto insider-dominated board.
The reversal on selling Opel to a group led by Canada’s Magna International Inc suggests to some the new directors — including Ed Whitacre, the former AT&T Inc CEO who now serves as GM’s chairman — are not deferring to anyone. Noteven Henderson, who expressed confidence recently the Opel sale would be wrapped up soon.
The sale was controversial from the start.
“My view was always if at the end of this Opel ended up outside GM, that was a strategic mistake,” Mike Jackson, the head of Auto Nation, told the Reuters Auto Summit in Detroit.
John Smith, a GM group vice president and chief negotiator in the Opel restructuring, told reporters on Wednesday that the decision not to sell Opel was debated vigorously within GM advanced payday loan.
“This has been a close call from the very first of the three detailed reviews with our board,” Smith said. “It was a coin toss in August, it was a coin toss in September and a coin toss of a kind in November.”
HENDERSON HAD FAVORED
Henderson, who vowed to shake up the slow-moving culture of the 101-year-old automaker, had argued the Magna deal was the best remaining choice for cash-strapped GM after seven months of painstaking talks with bidders.
He also said in an interview on CNBC in late October that he thought the board supported the move.
So the company’s announcement on Tuesday that the board had decided to abandon the sale left industry watchers wondering whether Henderson was out of the loop — or losing clout.
“What worries me is the indecisiveness,” Ken Lewenza, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers union told the Reuters Auto Summit on Wednesday. “But if at the end of the day it means success for General Motors, it might make sense.”
Henderson was already looking like the odd man out in Detroit, where the other two car companies, Ford and Chrysler, are now run by executives — Alan Mullaly at Ford and Sergio Marchionne at Chrysler — who have spent most of their careers outside the car industry.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0