Finance & Business World

Commercial air traffic at Portland International Airport dipped .4 percent in June to 1.2 million over the same period a year earlier. For the year, traffic is off 2.7 percent.

International traffic is posting the biggest declines. The number of international passengers moving through PDX was down 5.7 percent in June and is off 19.1 percent for the year. Much of that can be attributed to Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s decision to ground its six-year-old Portland-to-Frankfurt nonstop service last September. Domestic traffic was down just .4 percent for June and is off 2.1 percent year-to-date.

Of PDX’s big three, only Alaska Airlines saw increased traffic from a year ago, with 179,280 passengers in June compared to 151,175 last year no faxing payday loan. Seattle-based Horizon Air, PDX’s busiest carrier, reported a 6.6 percent decline in year-over-year monthly traffic, while traffic on Southwest Airlines of Dallas dropped 4.1 percent.

Freight moved by PDX carriers was up 5 percent from a year ago to 16,204 in June, though for the year to date the number dropped 6.1 percent to 204,485.

Nationally, U.S. carriers are faring well. The Air Transport Association of America reports that passenger revenue was up 25 percent in June over a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month of revenue growth.

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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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International banking veteran Peter J. Phillips has joined the board of directors at Miami-based Pacific National Bank.

The United Kingdom native has worked for Lloyds Bank in New York and Miami for nearly 35 years, including as executive VP and regional director for the bank’s Miami division. He holds a B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University’s New College.

Owned by the government of Ecuador, Pacific National Bank has been under the scrutiny of U.S. regulators for its loan problems and compliance with anti-money laundering laws. Several board members resigned in 2009.

Phillips will chair the bank’s audit committee cash advance flexible payments.

“Peter Phillips’ managerial success over 30 years, broad experience with regulators and deep knowledge of the auditing process and risk-based management will make him a valuable contributor to our board,” stated Carlos Fernandez-Guzman, who joined Pacific National Bank as CEO in April. “His long experience in international wealth management provides invaluable insight into better serving existing and potential customers.”

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Tesla Motors Inc. said Tuesday it expects its stock will sell in the $14 to $16 a share price range.

The Palo Alto-based electric car company said that it expects to raise up to $230 million between the 10 million shares it will sell in its initial public offering, the 3.3 million shares that Toyota Motor Corp. has agreed to buy and 1.1 million in additional shares its underwriters have the option to buy payday advance.

The company's market cap at the high end of the price range would be about $1.5 billion.

It has applied for the ticker symbol "TSLA" to trade on the Nasdaq exchange.

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The Epilepsy Foundation of the St. Louis Region is merging with the Epilepsy Foundation of Kansas and Western Missouri, which is based in Kansas City, Mo.

Both are affiliates of the national Epilepsy Foundation, which approved the merger.

The newly merged entity, named the Epilepsy Foundation of Missouri and Kansas, will have an administrative office in St. Louis and an office in Kansas City, with intention to expand into Kansas within the next two years, according to Darla Templeton.

Templeton, who was president and CEO of the St. Louis chapter, will take those roles in the new merged group.

Because of the economy, donations and funding are down, she said. “We thought if we merged, we could streamline and be more efficient and effective with just one executive director or CEO for both,” Templeton said.

She said the board of the Kansas City-based group had gone through a series of executive directors, and “from their perspective, without a very positive results.”

The Kansas City group has been without an executive director since April 2009.

In April, the Epilepsy Foundation of Kansas and Western Missouri sued its former executive director, Sean Taylor, claiming he diverted about $80,000 of foundation funds for his own use, according to the suit. Seema Chawla, an associate with Bryan Cave in Kansas City representing the foundation, confirmed Friday that the suit is pending.

David Gitt, formerly on the board of the St. Louis chapter, will chair the new, merged board, which will number 16.

The operating budget for the combined chapters is about $700,000, Templeton said.

The St. Louis affiliate is accredited by Commission for Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities and holds the seal of the Better Business Bureau, the group said. Both organizations are members of United Way.

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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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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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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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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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