Finance & Business World

Top officials from National Fuel Gas Co. will be on Wall Street Wednesday, July 21 to ring the closing bell at the new York Stock Exchange.

The Williamsville-based energy company (NYSE: NFG) will celebrate 55 years as a listed company by ringing out the day’s trading at 4 p.m.

“The NYSE has long been a home to many of the world’s leading publicly traded companies and we are pleased to celebrate 55 years along side many of these respected businesses with a history as long as ours,” said a statement from CEO David Smith, who will lead the senior management team.

National Fuel was incorporated in 1902.

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As public outrage over Wall Street bonuses fades a bit in the United States, the European Parliament on Wednesday approved tough new rules that limit bankers’ bonuses and align compensation with long-term financial performance.

The new rules are more rigid than any steps the U.S. has taken to regulate pay practices within the financial industry and highlights a growing divide between U.S. and E.U. policy on this key issue.

Under the new rules, upfront cash bonuses to European bankers will be capped at 30% of the total bonus, and 20% for "particularly large" bonuses. The rules also require that up to 60% of any bonus be deferred for at least three years and allow for part of it to be recovered if investments underperform. At least half must be paid in "contingent capital" and shares.

The rules are subject to a vote by the European Council and would go into effect next year. They would apply to U.S. banks based in Europe as well.

"These tough new rules on bonuses will transform the bonus culture and end incentives for excessive risk taking," said Arlene McCarthy, a British member of the European Parliament who championed the rules. "Since banks have failed to reform we are doing it for them."

By contrast, the financial reform bill passed by the House last month does not contain provisions that would cap bankers’ bonuses. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law this month assuming it also passes in the Senate.

The bill does require industry regulators to draft their own set of rules aimed at eliminating risky pay practice among banks and other financial firms. The Federal Reserve, in conjunction with other regulators, has already issued guidance along those lines.

In addition, the bill would impose new rules for how all publicly-traded companies pay top executives. Shareholders will be given a nonbinding advisory vote on how top executives are paid while in office. Shareholders also get a nonbinding advisory vote on executives’ outsized severance payments, or so-called "golden parachutes."

Critics say more needs to be done to limit the size of Wall Street bonuses, arguing that skewed compensation practices helped bring on the financial crisis pay day advance.

"The problem isn’t only how pay is structured," said Sara Anderson, an executive compensation expert at the Institute for Policy Studies. "It’s the size of pay that is still an issue."

Scott Talbott, head lobbyist for the Financial Services Round Table, supported steps to limit excessive risk taking, but said imposing uniform caps on bonuses across the industry is a mistake.

"Placing a hard cap on compensation is the wrong approach. The problem is that each employee and each company is different," he said. "One size doesn’t fit all. U.S. policymakers are right on this."

He added that many financial services companies in the United States and abroad have already taken steps to ensure that compensation practices are aligned with the interests of customers and shareholders.

Still, the piecemeal approach to regulating Wall Street bonuses in the United States is surprising given the wave of public anger that developed in the wake of the financial crisis.

The issue came to a head in March 2009 after AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) paid employees a total of $165 million in bonuses despite the fact that the giant insurance company had to be bailed out by taxpayers.

But the groundswell of anger and frustration gave way to a sense of "disempowerment" as the debate over Wall Street reform dragged on, Anderson said.

In addition, the health care reform bill and the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has also diverted some public rage from the financial services sector.

That could change, Anderson said, as the economic recovery falters and the gap between rich and poor Americans continues to widen.

"With the increasing disconnect between the people at the bottom and the people at the top, the public outrage factor could increase," she said. 

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As BP Plc’s costs to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico rise to more than $3 billion, the company is asking partner Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to help foot the bill.

The London oil giant has so far billed The Woodlands-based Anadarko (NYSE: APC), which holds a 25 percent stake in the Macando well, for $272 million, according to the Associated Press. It also reportedly is charging Mitsui, which holds a 10 percent interest in the well, for $111 million.

In mid-June, Anadarko Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Hackett declared that the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon and subsequent oil spill was a preventable tragedy and “the direct result of BP’s reckless decisions and actions.”

IHe went on to say that Anadarko should not have to pay for BP’s failure to drill the well in a “good and workmanlike manner.”

Anadarko, according to AP, is evaluating the bill from BP and assessing its contractual remedies payday loan.

Anadarko, along with all the spill-related companies, has seen its stock plummet in the wake of the disaster. Shares closed on July 2 at $38.07, down sharply from $73.79 on April 20, the day of the explosion.

For its part, BP said on July 5 that the cost of the spill response to date now totals about $3.12 billion. A new ‘super skimmer’ is being tested in the Gulf but efforts have been hampered from rain and wind resulting largely from Hurricane Alex. To date, clean-up operations have recovered in total about approximately 673,497 barrels, or 23.5 million gallons, of oily liquid.

The Houston Business Journal is providing continuous coverage of the Gulf oil spill.

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Shoemaker K-Swiss Inc. has struck a two-year sponsorship deal to put its brand in about 100 high schools in the four markets, including Pittsburgh. That's according to a new report in Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, a sibling publication of the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Home Team Marketing, a Cleveland-based agency that has aggregated high school rights across the country, sold the deal to K-Swiss. Specific terms were not released, but K-Swiss’ total spend is expected to approach $1 million over two years. The other markets included in the deal are Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles .

David Nichols, executive vice president at K-Swiss, described 2010 as a test program with about 100 schools. In 2011, the list of high schools will grow to about 1,000 in most every major U.S. market. The four markets were selected for the 2010 program to provide a variety of large and small markets that cover the East and West, he said.

The deal provides California-based K-Swiss with branding and signage in the schools’ athletic facilities and hallways. K-Swiss will make a donation of $600 to each school involved in the program this year. There’s also a fundraising component that allows 10 percent of K-Swiss sales to go back to the schools.

K-Swiss (Nasdaq:KSWS) has been known for its tennis shoes and apparel since its founding in 1966, when it made the first all-leather tennis shoe.

“We’ve remained in high-performance tennis shoes, but we’re not really in basketball or the cleats,” Nichols said. “As we’ve moved in the last few years into high-performance running and fitness shoes, we saw this as an opportunity to have an unfiltered voice straight into the high schools.”

For the full report, visit SportsBusinessJournal.com

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Valley diners can help the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS as part of a statewide and national effort called 2010 Dining Out For Life.

Restaurants from downtown’s Carly’s Bistro and Cartel Coffee Lab to Fez, Over Easy and Trader Vic’s at the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale, will participate in the event.

Dining Out for Life will be held April 29, and will take place across Arizona and nationally as part of the ongoing effort to fight HIV/AIDS.

Participating restaurants will donate a portion of the day’s proceeds to support efforts in fighting the disease.

In the Valley, efforts will benefit the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS and Northland Cares in northern Arizona quick pay day loan.

Founded in 1991, the Dining Out For Life concept was created by an AIDS volunteer in Philadelphia.

Celebrity Ted Allen, host of Food Network’s “Chopped” and “Food Detectives" shows, as well as actress Pam Grier, are lending their support to help publicize the event. Since its inception, the effort has helped raised more than $3 million for HIV programs each year.

For more information, go to www.diningoutforlife.com or www.swhiv.org.

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Suspended Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones was not in circuit court Thursday for her arraignment. Instead, her attorney asked the judge to dismiss criminal charges against her.

Attorney Peter Raben told the court that the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office did not provide enough information in its indictment to allow his client to enter a plea.

Spence-Jones was indicted March 3 on a bribery charge for allegedly soliciting $25,000 from Miami developer Armando Codina. In 2006, Codina asked the city commission to extend Brickell Avenue to downtown Miami’s core. Codina’s company was managing office leasing for a mixed-use project in downtown Miami that would have benefited from the name change.

“The indictment doesn’t say who was solicited,” Raben told the Business Journal Thursday afternoon. “In the media advisory, it says it was [Armando] Codina. But, Codina said, ‘It wasn’t me.’ So give me some help here.”

Raben said Spence-Jones ultimately will plead not guilty

Some former prosecutors and defense attorneys say prosecutors will have a hard time making the bribery charge stick because Codina has denied he bribed Spence-Jones bad credit personal loan lenders. The former commissioner also has denied any wrongdoing.

Another March 3 indictment in a separate case alleges Spence-Jones misappropriated $50,000 in grant money meant for a private business. She also denied any wrongdoing in that case.

The state attorney’s office did not have time to prepare for Spence-Jones’ motion Thursday, so Circuit Court Judge Yvonne Colodny told both parties to come back and make their case on March 30.

Spence-Jones was suspended after winning re-election in November and again after a special election that followed to fill the seat she vacated as a result of the suspension. She is still fighting the suspension in circuit court.

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Aqua America Inc. posted nearly flat income on a revenue increase in the fourth quarter, as earnings per share met analysts’ estimates and revenue did not.

The Bryn Mawr, Pa.-based water and wastewater utility holding company earned $26.7 million, or 20 cents per fully diluted share, in the quarter. The average estimate of eight analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was that it would earn 20 cents per share in the quarter. It earned $25.7 million, or 19 cents per fully diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Aqua America’s revenue in the quarter was $167.9 million, up from $159.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2008. The average revenue estimate of six analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was $176 cash advance america.2 million.

In all 2009, the company earned $104.4 million, or 77 cents per fully diluted share, on revenue of $670.5 million. All the figures were increases from 2008, when Aqua America (NYSE:WTR) earned $97.9 million, or 73 cents per share, on revenue of $627 million.

Nicholas DeBenedictis, the company’s chairman and CEO, said in Aqua America’s earnings press release that he expected its earnings to continue to rebound in 2010, supported by an improving economy, a return to normal weather patterns and the successful completion of rate cases it has pending.

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The Washington Convention and Sports Authority filed its own lawsuit in the dispute over a planned convention center hotel on Thursday, alleging that extortion attempts and abuse of the legal process by a local developer have paralyzed the authority’s attempt to build a convention center hotel.

Filed in D.C. Superior Court, the suit claims that Chevy Chase-based developer The JBG Cos. and two of its principals “unlawfully attempted to extort concessions” from a unit of Marriott International Inc. in negotiations over an unrelated property, the Washington Wardman Park Marriott.

JBG and CIM Group of Hollywood, Calif. are co-owners of Wardman Park and Marriott alleged in its own suit, filed Jan. 14, that JBG Managing Partner Ben Jacobs and Chief Development Officer Kenneth Finkelstein filed the suit only after trying to extract concessions from Marriot to build new housing at Wardman Park. The convention center authority, the claim reads, “has now learned that these suits have not been filed to redress legitimate grievances, but instead have been instituted by the defendants as a way of extracting concessions in unrelated business dealings defendants have with Marriott International Inc.”

The authority, the city and developers Capstone Development LLC and Quadrangle Development Corp fast cash. plan a 1,167-room Marriott Marquis for Ninth Street NW that convention planners believe can make D.C. a player for major shows and tourism dollars.

But JBG’s suit against the city, for what the developer claims was an unfair procurement process, prevents the convention center authority from issuing bonds for the project, part of more a more than $200 million package the city is providing for the project.

Greg O’Dell, president and CEO of the convention center authority, issued a statement saying, “We intend to be aggressive in protecting the authority’s interest to make this shovel-ready headquarters hotel project a reality.”

In its suit, JBG alleged that D.C. unfairly and illegally provided a sweetheart deal to Marriott and its development partners. However, the authority attributed the dispute to JBG having purchased the Wardman Park “at the height of the real estate boom, and having seen values and profits plummet in the years since, sought in July to reduce their losses at Wardman Park by seeking concessions from Marriott in connection with Marriott’s management agreement for the Wardman Park.”

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Norway must remove government stimulus or risk faster interest-rate increases that would strengthen the krone and stifle an export recovery, Finance Minister Sigbjoern Johnsen said.

“My main task is to try to prevent fiscal policy putting an extra burden on the krone,” Johnsen, named to the post last month, said in a Nov. 20 interview in Oslo. “The extraordinary efforts of the fiscal policy should be phased out.”

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s Labor-led government, which was re-elected in September, will breach expenditure guidelines for a second consecutive year after using a record amount of the nation’s $440 billion oil wealth to revive the economy in 2009. The pre-election pledge to spend more came after the world’s sixth-biggest oil exporter, which boasts Europe’s lowest unemployment rate, had already emerged from recession in the second quarter.

Norway’s recovery trajectory has forced interest rates higher. Norges Bank on Oct. 28 became the first rate-setter in Europe to lift borrowing costs since the height of the global slump. Governor Svein Gjedrem increased the deposit rate by a quarter point to 1.5 percent and his bank predicts the rate will average 1.75 percent this year and 2.25 percent in 2010, rising to an average of 4.25 percent by 2012.

“If we spend too much money” it would lead “to a faster increase in interest rates and this could have an impact on the exchange rate and on the competitiveness of our businesses,” Johnsen said.

Krone Best Performer

The prospect of higher rates has helped the krone, making it the best performer of the 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg since the end of June. The krone is up 7.3 percent against the euro and 14 percent against the dollar in the period.

That’s cutting into profits at manufacturers like Norsk Hydro ASA, Europe’s second-largest aluminum producer. For every krone the Norwegian currency strengthens against the dollar, based on an exchange rate of 5 instant payday loan.5 kroner, Norsk Hydro’s earnings before interest and tax would be cut by 1.6 billion kroner ($282 million), according to its third-quarter presentation.

Norway’s mainland economy, which excludes oil, gas and shipping, will grow 2.8 percent next year and 3.2 percent in 2011, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

OECD Warning

The government’s spending plans have attracted criticism from the Paris-based organization, which on Nov. 19 warned of the need for “strong fiscal consolidation” and said that “sizeable” policy tightening is “desirable” after a “tremendous” stimulus.

Johnsen, who served as finance minister under Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland from 1990 to 1996, faces the challenge of reining in public spending while keeping his party’s election pledge to support welfare and employment.

Norway, which is also the world’s second biggest natural gas exporter, puts most of its petroleum revenue in a sovereign wealth fund established during Johnsen’s first term in office.

The Government Pension Fund - Global, which started to invest Norway’s oil wealth in 1996, was created to avoid stoking inflation by preventing oil and gas income from seeping through to consumption. Fiscal spending guidelines limit the use of oil money to plug budget deficits to 4 percent of the fund.

Johnsen isn’t promising a sudden shift in his government’s stance.

The return to the spending rule “must be gradual,” Johnsen said. “I will try what I can in order to get back on the 4 percent path during this period. But it is going to be difficult.”

Editors: Chris Kirkham, Tasneem Brogger.

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French and Italian industrial output surged in August, fueled by government incentives to buy new cars, adding to signs that stimulus spending is helping the euro-region economy emerge from its worst recession in 60 years.

French output rose 1.8 percent, from July, dwarfing the 0.3 percent median forecast by 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Italian production jumped 7 percent in August, the biggest monthly increase in at least 20 years.

The gains in manufacturing in France and Italy, which account for more than a third of the euro-region economy, provide further evidence that the euro region will expand in the three months through September, after five quarters of contraction. European manufacturing also grew more than initially estimated in September, a report showed this week.

“Manufacturing activity will finally stop being a drag on growth in third quarter,” said Annalisa Piazza, an economist at Newedge Group in London. “Today’s data, coupled with the upswing in German industrial production in August, will lead to an upswing in euro-zone output figures in August of around 3 percent month on month, much stronger than previously anticipated.”

The euro-area economy barely contracted in the second quarter as Germany and France, the region’s largest economies, returned to growth. The euro area will expand 0.3 percent in 2010, the International Monetary Fund said on Oct. 1, when it trimmed its estimate for this year’s contraction to 4.2 percent.

Car Incentives

Manufacturing in both France and Italy has been propped up by government stimulus measures, including a payment of 1,000 euros ($1,473) for buyers who trade in older cars for less- polluting models. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government intends to extend the program into next year, though it will be scaled back and Italy is also considering an extension overnight pay day loans.

French car production surged 19 percent in August from the previous month, while in Italy output of motor vehicles, including cars and trucks, gained 12.9 percent, today’s reports said.

Manufacturing “is mainly benefiting from the car-incentive schemes, although output of other manufactured products is also rising,” said Joost Beaumont, an economist at Fortis Bank Nederland. This suggests “that the pickup in world trade and the turn in the inventory cycle are also leaving their mark.”

Even with the gains in production and demand, joblessness is still rising across the EU. With some government-stimulus measures starting to expire and the euro’s 18-percent gain against the dollar since February weighing on exports, policy makers including European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet have warned the economic pickup may be uneven.

Exit Strategies

Trichet has also called on governments to figure out how to withdraw the billions of euros of stimulus measures used to combat the worst recession in 60 years to avoid fueling inflation as growth begins to accelerate. Trichet yesterday demanded that lawmakers execute “ambitious” plans to reverse the region’s largest budget deficit since the euro began trading in 1999 “as soon as possible and at the latest when the recovery takes hold.”

Failure by politicians to devise a plan and then carry it out may fuel debt and inflation, forcing the Frankfurt-based ECB to raise interest rates faster in the recovery, according to economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Capital.

The ECB left its benchmark rate unchanged yesterday at a record low 1 percent.

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