Finance & Business World

Banana Republic has signed on as a new tenant at Watters Creek at Montgomery Farm in Allen.

The clothing retailer is set to begin construction in June on the 3,920-square-foot space with an opening scheduled for this September. The store is one of the company’s 20 new locations slated for 2008.

In addition, The Cheesecake Factory plans to open at Watters Creek in June.

"The caliber of tenants, such as Banana Republic and The Cheesecake Factory, is affirmation that Watters Creek is an incredibly unique and desirable development for tenants, even in a tighter economy," said Terry Montesi, chief executive of property owner Trademark Property Co.

In all, 42 tenants are signed and nearly 300,000 square feet of shops and restaurants are gearing up for the May 23 opening of the first phase of the development.

Three Watters Creek merchants have already begun operation: P.F. Chang’s, which opened July 2007; the new 73,400-square-foot Market Street specialty grocer, which opened on Feb. 29; and Brio Tuscan Grille which opened on April 2.

Phase 1 also will include an additional 80,000 square feet of office space.

The first residents moving into The Lofts at Watters Creek will begin this fall.

"Even in Texas where the economy has been stronger than the national average, we hear about developers struggling to fill space," said Montesi pay day loan. "We have not had those issues with Watters Creek and I believe our strategic planning has been the key."

Once completed, the 1.15-million-square-foot development will include a mix of retail and restaurants, office and living space. At its location at the southwest corner of U.S. 75 and Bethany Drive in Allen, the 52-acre Watters Creek will serve as the commercial heart of the larger 500-acre Montgomery Farm development and surrounding areas of North Texas.

Other tenants scheduled to open later this year are Borders, Sephora, Cho Tailor, DSW, Le Creuset, Modia, SampleHouse & CandleShop, Signature Nails, Strasburg Children’s, Sweet & Sassy and Swoozie’s. Restaurants will include The Cheesecake Factory, Celebrity Bakery and Café, Woodlands Grill and Gathering Place, Potbelly Sandwich Works and Starbucks.

Fort Worth-based Trademark Property’s other Texas projects include the 500,000-square-foot Market Street-The Woodlands near Houston and Alliance Town Center in Fort Worth, a master-planned 300-acre district with 1.8 million square feet of retail, office and hotel space, along with residential development.

Web sites: www.watterscreek.com, www.trademarkproperty.com

Source

Sentiment among Japanese merchants fell for the first time in three months in April as higher prices of daily necessities sapped consumers' spending power.

The Economy Watchers index, a survey of barbers, taxi drivers and others who deal with consumers, dropped to 35.5 from 36.9 in March, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo. The outlook index of conditions in two to three months fell to 36.1.

The cost of everyday goods rose at twice the pace of wages in March, discouraging spending by consumers, whose outlays account for more than half of the economy. Sluggish demand at home, along with slowing exports and factory output, are threatening Japan's longest postwar expansion, economists say.

“Rising prices of daily necessities are reducing consumers' appetite to spend,'' said Satoshi Shinohara, a senior economist at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo. “The chance of Japan falling into a recession will rise if consumer spending declines at a time when exports are slowing.''

Households pared spending at the fastest pace in 15 months in March as prices of frequently purchased goods from milk to eggs rose 3.2 percent, the most in more than three years payday advance lenders. Wages rose 1.2 percent in the month.

Crude oil set records on five straight days last week, indicating that consumers and companies have to keep bearing the burden of higher energy prices. Japan's regular gasoline prices reached a record last week, according to the Oil Information Center.

“Real income is decreasing as consumers are forced to spend more on daily goods even as wage growth remains sluggish,'' said Junko Nishioka, a senior economist at ABN Amro Securities Japan Ltd. in Tokyo.

Japanese companies are likely to increase summer bonuses by the smallest amount since 2002 on concern a stronger yen and the U.S. economic slowdown will cut earnings growth, the Nikkei newspaper reported today.

Source

The Walking Co., a specialty shoe retailer, is opening a new store at Kahala Mall.

The store will move into part of the space vacated by Banana Republic, which moved to another spot in the mall last year.

The North Carolina-based shoe company has two other locations on Oahu, at Ala Moana Center and the Royal Hawaiian Center. It also has three Maui stores and another on the Big Island.

The Walking Co. says its stores carry more than 40 "premium comfort" footwear brands, and feature a digital foot-scanning technology to help customers identify their foot type and pressure points bad credit payday loans.

The Walking Co. is owned by Big Dog Holdings (Nasdaq: BDOG), and has more than 150 stores nationwide.

Source

China's producer-price inflation accelerated at the fastest pace in more than three years on rising energy, commodity and labor costs.

Factory-gate prices rose 8.1 percent in April from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today, after gaining 8 percent in March. That compared with the 8.4 percent median estimate of 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and was the quickest since November 2004.

China is trying to cool inflation while avoiding a slump in the world's fastest-growing major economy as global demand fades. Surging raw material prices and a new labor law have added to company costs that may be passed on to consumers.

“Inflation is the first priority as economic growth is still pretty strong,'' said Eric Fishwick, head of economic research at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Singapore.

For the first four months, China's producer prices rose 7.2 percent from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said. Purchasing prices jumped 11.8 percent in April from a year earlier and gained 10.3 percent in the first four months.

Producer prices of ferrous metals jumped 24.8 percent in April from a year earlier, after rising 21.2 percent in March, the statistics bureau said. Gasoline prices climbed 10.8 percent after gaining 9.9 percent and clothing costs increased 2.3 percent after climbing 2 percent.

Higher wages and energy and commodity costs led a third of manufacturers to raise prices in April, according to a survey by CLSA of more than 400 purchasing managers. Bright Dairy & Food Co., China's second-largest listed dairy company, said in April it would raise prices.

Wage Increases

The Labor Contract Law, imposed on Jan no teletrak payday loans. 1, mandates minimum wages and limits overtime work. The average wage in Chinese urban areas climbed 18 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier to 6,524 yuan ($932).

China's economy, the world's fourth largest, expanded 10.6 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, down from 11.9 percent for all of 2007, as exports cooled.

China has allowed the yuan to gain almost 10 percent versus the U.S. dollar in the past year to cool inflation. A higher currency reduces import costs and the trade surplus by making exports more expensive.

The central bank may raise interest rates this year, according to 11 of 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News last month.

Borrowing Costs

China increased borrowing costs six times in 2007 and then paused as the U.S. Federal Reserve cut them. A widening of the rates gap between the two countries may attract capital inflows into China's economy, already flooded with money from the trade surplus and foreign investment.

The People's Bank of China has ordered lenders to set side more deposits as reserves three times this year, pushing the requirement to a record 16 percent.

Consumer prices probably rose 8.2 percent in April from a year earlier, compared with 8.3 percent in March and the 11-year record high of 8.7 percent in February, the Bloomberg News survey showed. The statistics bureau will release the figure on May 12.

Bloomberg data on China's producer prices starts in 1999.

Source

Security officers walked off the job at 16 Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern California Tuesday — including Kaiser’s South Sacramento Medical Center on Bruceville Road — in a three-day strike to raise support for their longtime efforts to unionize.

Replacements were on duty at the local hospital and patient care was not affected, said Kaiser spokesman Jeff Hausman.

While guards went on strike at 16 Kaiser facilities, picketers congregated at only five: South Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Fremont, Hayward and Oakland.

The strike was called by Service Employees International Union Local 24/7, which has tried since November 2005 to organize 1,500 security guards stationed at Kaiser facilities but employed by Pasadena-based Inter-con Security Systems Inc americashadvance. Workers in Southern California are scheduled to walk off the job Thursday, for one day only.

The union claims Inter-Con officers work for poverty wages, many making as little as $9 an hour. Many cannot afford to buy family health care coverage and do not get paid sick days, the union claims.

Efforts to reach the company were unsuccessful.

About 50 Inter-Con employees work at Kaiser South Sacramento, according to union spokeswoman Jennifer Kelly. Workers were joined on the picket line by strikers from Modesto, swelling the numbers to more than 100, she said.

Hausman put the number at no more than 26.

Source

Delta Airlines on Monday added a $110 roundtrip fuel surcharge to its Los Angeles-Honolulu flights.

The notice was posted Friday on the Web site of California-based travel company Pleasant Holidays.

As of Monday, online fares for travel in mid-July between L.A. and Honolulu ranged from $726 on Northwest Airlines to $1,441 on Delta Air Lines.

Airline capacity from the West Coast to Hawaii was reduced by 94,000 a seats a month with the shutdown of Aloha Airlines on March 31 and ATA Airlines on April 2 fast cash advance loan.

With the exception of a new Hawaiian Airlines route between Honolulu and Oakland, launched May 1, U.S. carriers have not added capacity.

Hawaiian is owned by Hawaiian Holdings (Amex: HA).

United Airlines, American Airlines, US Airways, Mesa Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Continental Airlines currently fly regularly scheduled routes between Hawaii and the Mainland.

Source

David Steele, former president of Chevron Latin America and dean of the Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University, was named dean of the College of Business at San Jose State University.

"Dr. Steele's global perspective, engineering and business expertise, proven track record as a corporate and academic leader, and unquestionable integrity make him ideally suited to succeed within our college, campus and community," said Carmen Sigler, vice president for academic affairs. "I am confident he will take San Jose State's College of Business to a new level of excellence in providing our students with the academic and professional training they need to prosper in Silicon Valley and beyond."

A resident of Melbourne, Fla., Steele will begin at San Jose State in July 2008. He will succeed former Dean Bruce Magid, who left San Jose State in June 2007 to head the International Business School at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

"I have a driving desire to culminate my career at an academic institution that has a vision of excellence, an international focus, a vibrant business community and where I can pass on to others the knowledge and cultural sensitivity I acquired as a global business executive," Steele said. "I believe that San Jose State University will provide that dynamic environment."

Steele was dean of the Silberman College of Business at Fairleigh Dickinson University from 2002 to 2005 payday loan. The largest private university in New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson has a total enrollment of more than 11,000 students and a large international student body on two campuses and four off-site corporate locations. Steele was also professor and dean of the College of Business at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Fla. Founded in 1958 to train professionals working at what is now the Kennedy Space Center, the institute has a total enrollment of more than 5,100 students.

Steele also has more than 25 years of executive experience in global business development, finance and engineering in the petroleum and IT industries. He rose through the ranks of Chevron Corp. to become president of Chevron Latin America. Based in Venezuela, he managed projects with huge capital investments in countries with difficult social, economic and political environments, and chaired the operating committee of an international petroleum consortium.

San Jose State's College of Business has about 6,000 students enrolled in its undergraduate and graduate programs.

Source

Construction has begun on Grace Restaurant, which will serve modern American fare in downtown Fort Worth beginning this fall.

Grace will offer chicken, veal, pork and international wines, with entrees ranging from the low $20s to the mid-$30s, said Adam Jones, part owner and operator of Fort Worth-based DAJ Restaurant Management Inc. and Grace. Jones declined to say what the cost to open would be and how it's being financed, but building permit records show the cost will be $2.5 million payday loan.

Grace will take 10,000 square feet on the ground floor of 777 Main St.

ldavolio@bizjournals.com | 214-706-7113

Source