Finance & Business World

Two San Antonio Housing Authority leaders have been named to the boards of two national housing organizations.

Lourdes Castro Ramirez, president and chief executive officer of the housing authority, will serve on the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, an organization which includes the 60 largest public housing authorities in the country.

Meanwhile, Yolanda Hotman, a commissioner in the SAHA, was chosen to serve a two-year term on the board of governors for the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. The organization focuses on creating affordable housing.

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The Big 12 Conference — which includes the University of Colorado at Boulder — and the Pacific-10 Conference have had preliminary talks about a TV alliance and football scheduling partnerships, according to news reports.

The Pac-10 includes several universities in California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona. It does not want to merge with the Big 12, according to the Dallas Morning News, but an alliance of the two conferences could boost their negotiating power regarding broadcast deals.

The Big 12 has football TV contracts with ABC/ESPN through 2016 and with FSN through 2012, according to the Kansas City Star newspaper. The Pac-10 has deals with ABC/ESPN and FSN through 2012.

The Pacific-10, under new Commissioner Larry Scott, seeks to boost the $96 million it raised last year from broadcast rights and other operations. That trails all but one of the major collegiate conferences.

The Big 12 posted almost $130 million last year from its broadcast and other revenue-generating efforts.

Besides CU-Boulder, the Big 12 includes Baylor University, Iowa State University, Kansas State University, the University of Kansas, the University of Missouri, the University of Nebraska, Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Texas Tech University, and the University of Texas pay day loan lenders.

Pac-10 members are the University of Arizona; Arizona State University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Oregon; Oregon State University; the University of Southern California; Stanford University; the University of Washington; and Washington State University.

There have been reports in recent months suggesting the possibility that CU-Boulder and the University of Utah might join the Pac-10, but neither school has publicly indicated any plans to do so.

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Three former football players who made their marks at Triangle universities headline the 2010 class of North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame inductees.

The hall will add a total of seven new members this year, including Jim Donnan, Mike Quick and Don McCauley.

Donnan is a former North Carolina State University quarterback who went on to have a standout coaching career at the University of Georgia. Fellow Wolfpacker Quick starred as a receiver at NCSU before playing for the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL.

McCauley played for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tar Heels. He was an All-America running back there before going on to become a pro bowler with the Baltimore Colts.

The class will be enshrined at an induction ceremony held in the North Raleigh Hilton on May 13. The hall, which was established in 1963, has 266 members. The museum is located on the third floor of the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

The other inductees this year are:

• Karen Shelton, whose UNC-CH field hockey teams have won seven national titles;

•Paul Simson, one of the state’s most accomplished amateur golfers with two British Amateur Senior Open championships among his victories;

• Carla Overbeck, a three-time All America soccer star at UNC-CH who now coaches at Duke University;

• Herb Appenzeller, a Wake Forest Football player in the 1940s and longtime athletic director at Guilford College.

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Morgan Stanley said it swung to a $1.8 billion profit in the first quarter Wednesday, as strong trading revenues boosted the Wall Street firm’s latest results.

The New York City-based investment bank said it earned $1.03 a share during the quarter. Including earnings from discontinued operations, Morgan Stanley posted a profit of $1.4 billion, or 99 cents a share during the quarter. A year ago, Morgan Stanley lost $578 million, or 57 cents a share on that basis.

The results were far better than what analysts were anticipating. Expectations were for the company to report a profit — including discontinued operations — of $938 million, or 57 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, who succeeded current chairman John Mack as CEO at the start of the year, praised the firm’s efforts, particularly that of its growing sales and trading division.

Revenue from the company’s debt and currency trading business in particular, more than doubled from a year ago to $2.7 billion in the quarter.

Profits were higher across all three of the company’s divisions — its securities business, long-suffering asset management unit and wealth management division.

The latter unit grew dramatically after announcing plans last year to merge with Citigroup’s Smith Barney business. Client assets grew, while expenses showed signs of moderating from the previous quarter.

"This may be the beginning of the savings that were first promised when it integrated with Citi’s business," said Brad Hintz, senior analyst at Bernstein Research.

Ruth Porat, Morgan Stanley’s chief financial officer, attributed at least part of the company’s results to improvement in the economy, but echoed comments by Gorman, saying the firm still had "more work to do."

Morgan’s investment advisory business has been sluggish as of late due to weakened dealmaking activity. At the same time, real estate funds operated by the company have endured a series of bruising losses on commercial loans recently.

Morgan Stanley’s results however, may signal the firm’s return to consistent profitability. Last year’s performance was uneven, with the company reporting a net loss of $907 million for fiscal year 2009.

All of the nation’s top banks have come roaring back in the latest quarter, not only turning a profit, but also blowing analysts’ estimates out of the water.

Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), which was among the hardest hit banks during the credit crisis, reported a first-quarter profit of $4.4 billion earlier this week, while California-based lender Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) also scored Wednesday as it reported a first-quarter profit of $2.5 billion. Both banks beat Wall Street’s earnings estimates.

Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) also recorded an impressive $3.5 billion in profits Tuesday, even as its results were overshadowed by the SEC’s fraud case against the investment bank.

Porat disclosed to analysts Wednesday that Morgan Stanley was not facing any potential federal legal action related to mortgage securities it helped create.

Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) shares rose nearly 6% in afternoon trading on the news.  

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Market watchers are keeping an eye on Thursday's expected initial public offering of biofuel maker Codexis Inc. to gauge Wall Street's appetite for other big cleantech IPOs coming this year.

The Redwood City company plans to raise up to $90 million in its second try at going public after its first attempt was withdrawn amidst the market turmoil of the fall of 2008.

Waiting in the wings are Fremont-based solar panel maker Solyndra Inc.'s expected $300 million IPO and Palo Alto electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc.'s $100 million offering. Emeryville biofuels company Amyris Biotechnologies Inc. said Friday that it plans to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering.

Another expected offering this year is from Redwood City-based electric grid company Silver Spring Networks Inc., but that one hasn't been filed yet.

Codexis set the terms of its IPO on March 31 at 6 million shares to sell for between $13 and $15 a share, giving it a market capitalization of up to $509 million.

The company was founded in 2002 as a subsidiary of Redwood City-based Maxygen Inc. (NASDAQ:MAXY).

In addition to biofuels, its biocatalysts can be used by pharmaceutical companies to boost manufacturing and commercialization. Its customers include Merck & Co. (NYSE:MRK), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), Royal Dutch Shell Plc., Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX) and General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE).

It posted a $20 million loss in 2009 despite a 64 percent rise in revenue to $83 million.

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CKE Restaurants Inc. fired its executive vice president of training Tuesday because he violated company policy, the fast-food chain said in a regulatory filing Thursday.

CKE paid $95,000 to Noah Griggs Jr. as part of the separation agreement, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. parent did not specify what the violation was, and a request for comment was not immediately returned.

The company is considering a second takeover offer, reportedly from New York private equity firm Apollo Management, that may be better than the $928 million bid by Boston private equity from Thomas H cheap pay day loans. Lee Partners it agreed to in February.

Hardee’s is based in St. Louis. Andy Puzder, CKE’s chief executive, is a graduate of Washington University’s law school, worked as a lawyer here, and splits his time between St. Louis and a home near Santa Barbara, Calif.

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With the economy stabilizing, things appear to be getting back to normal.

That’s bad news.

I’m talking about the results of the latest Retirement Confidence Survey, a comprehensive, long-running study about Americans’ attitudes toward retirement and preparedness for it.

The study, now on its 20th year, has been conducted from the beginning by the research firm Mathew Greenwald and Associates for the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute, allowing for meaningful year-to-year comparisons.

This year’s survey, based on telephone interviews conducted in January, found that the record-low confidence levels during the past two years appear to have bottomed out.

"Americans’ attitudes toward retirement have clearly tracked the economy the last couple of years, and that seems to be the case for 2010," said Jack VanDerhei, EBRI’s research director and co-author of the study.

For example, the percentage of American workers who say they’re very confident they’ll have enough money for a comfortable retirement has stabilized at 16 percent, up from the 20-year low of 13 percent in 2009. (The numbers are statistically equivalent, however, given the survey’s margin of error of 3 percentage points.) And 29 percent are very confident they’ll have enough for at least basic expenses in retirement, up from 25 percent in 2009.

Altogether, 54 percent of American workers are at least somewhat confident of having a comfortable retirement, same as in 2009, and 75 percent are at least somewhat confident they’ll be able to cover at least their basic expenses, compared to 74 percent in 2009.

The stabilizing numbers are hardly reason to celebrate, however. The way I see it, they merely reflect again the false confidence that had characterized survey findings consistently before the economic downturn.

"It would be encouraging to find that Americans have bolstered their retirement confidence by improving their preparations for retirement, but that may not be the case," said the study, titled "Confidence Stabilizing, But Preparations Continue to Erode." In fact, as the study reports, "the retirement preparations reported by some workers are eroding, leaving them less prepared for retirement."

For example, fewer American workers say they and/or their spouse have saved for retirement at some point (69 percent, down from 75 percent in 2009). Fewer say that they and/or their spouse are currently saving for retirement (60 percent, down from 65 percent in 2009).

A "distressing" number of Americans have little or no savings, VanDerhei said, with 27 percent (up from 20 percent in 2009) saying they have less than $1,000. More than half of American workers (54 percent) say the total value of their household savings and investments, excluding their primary home and any defined benefit plan, is less than $25,000. (In a concession to reality, 24 percent said they had postponed their planned retirement date in the past year, mostly for money-related reasons).

American workers also are "clueless" about savings goals, the study found. Fewer than half (46 percent) say they and/or their spouse have tried to calculate how much money they’ll need for a comfortable retirement.

And yet doing so (for help, see website www.choosetosave.org) can yield enormous benefits. Rather than being discouraged by the results and giving up savings, Americans who do a retirement-needs calculation tend to be more confident and better prepared for retirement — and more likely to take action to improve their situation, the studies have found.

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General Motors reported $3.4 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2009, but is on track to possibly return to profitability in 2010, the company said Wednesday.

Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell, who joined the company earlier this year, stopped short of forecasting a profit this year, but said that results in the recently-completed first quarter, which will be reported in May, and the outlook for sales the rest of the year gives the company hope that it is close to returning to the black for the first time since early 2007.

He points out that much of the fourth-quarter loss was due to one-time items, such as a $2.6 billion settlement loss related to the UAW retiree medical plan. Without those one-time items, the loss would have been closer to $600 million in the quarter.

"The underlying profitability is not as bad as it would seem," he said. "We don’t need to make that much of an improvement to get to profitability."

Still, even without those one-time items, the results at GM were far worse than rivals Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Toyota Motor (TM), which both reported profits in the period due to the improving auto sales.

Mike Boudreau, a director at Michigan-based turnaround firm O’Keefe & Associates, said though the loss might seem disappointing, he chalks it up to closing the books on a very difficult year of transition.

"I’m not too focused on 2009; even if they had posted a profit in the quarter, I don’t know if it would have meant much," he said.

He agreed with Liddell’s assessment that making money at some point in 2010 should be in reach.

"They’re going to get a lift from the improvement in the U.S. economy," he said. "I don’t know if they’ll make money for the entire year, but I think they’ll be able to break through and turn a profit for at least a couple of quarters."

The fourth-quarter loss came despite a 15% jump in the number of vehicles sold in the quarter compared to a year earlier, and a 10% cut in the number of worldwide employees. The improved sales and lower labor costs allowed it to trim its losses, though. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the pre-bankruptcy GM lost $9.6 billion.

Technically, GM’s financial results were not comparable to earlier periods as they were reported under what is known as "fresh start accounting" associated with the company emerging from bankruptcy in July of last year.

The accounting process is seen as an important first step to GM’s plans to put its bankruptcy behind it and once again offer shares to the public. Taxpayers own about a 60% stake in GM and will not be able to get back most of the $50 billion given to the company to see it through bankruptcy until that sale of shares.

Liddell said that a return to profitability will be the key to the timing of GM offering shares to the public. Boudreau estimated GM will probably need at least two or three profitable quarters in a row before its IPO.

"They have a shot at at doing it by the end of the year," he said.

Most of the losses continued to be concentrated in GM’s home North American market, where it rang up $3.4 billion of losses, while GM Europe lost $814 million in the period. But European losses were largely offset by a $738 million profit from GM International, which represents its operations outside of North America and Europe. That led to a wordwide total loss of about $3.4 billion.

Driven by strong sales gains in China, GM International sold almost as many cars as GM North America and Europe combined during the quarter. 

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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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YRC Worldwide Inc. has asked a federal judge to rule that it doesn’t have to repay millions of dollars in bonds that were not retired as part of last year’s debt-for-equity exchange.

In a filing Thursday in the U.S. District Court of Kansas, the Overland Park-based company (Nasdaq: YRCW) asked for summary judgment against Deutsche Bank Trust Co.

Deutsche Bank is acting as trustee for bondholders that did not participate in the exchange, announced Dec. 31, which eliminated about a third of the company’s total debt and gave bondholders a majority share of the company.

In court filings, Deutsche Bank claims obligations for those bonds still are coming due in August, and YRC says the swap relieved it of those requirements.

The company has set aside $20.2 million to pay those debts if the lawsuit fails, part of $70 million the company raised in a private placement in February.

If successful in its lawsuit, YRC said the money will go toward general corporate purposes.

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