Finance & Business World

Insituform Technologies Inc. said its second-quarter profit more than doubled to $15.78 million compared to $6.55 million in last year’s quarter, thanks in part to the impact of recent acquisitions.

For the quarter ended June 30, the company reported that its revenue rose 26 percent to $230.19 million compared to nearly $183.2 million in last year’s quarter. The increase primarily was driven by 38.8 percent growth in its Energy and Mining segment, the company said.

Joe Burgess, president and CEO, said in a statement that the acquisitions of the Bayou Cos. and Corrpro Cos. were more than 20 percent accretion to Insituform’s earnings per share this quarter, and slightly accretive for the last 12 months. Insituform bought the Bayou Cos. for $125 million in February 2009 and Corrpro Cos. Inc. for $92 million in March 2009 Faxless payday loans.

“Each of our business segments are poised to make even more progress in the second half of 2010, with market conditions continuing to improve on a global basis, coupled with our strong backlog position and order prospects,” Burgess said.

Insituform’s total contract backlog was $475.2 million as of June 30, representing a 2.5 percent increase from Dec. 31, 2009, and a 2.8 percent increase from June 30, 2009.

The Chesterfield, Mo.-based company (Nasdaq: INSU), led by President and Chief Executive Joe Burgess, rehabilitates sewer and water pipes. The company landed $86 million worth of stimulus work last year and expects to tap into another $86 million of stimulus work this year.

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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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The free credit score industry has been booming since the recession as a lot of people hit hard times and want to keep an eye on how the recession has affected their credit standing.

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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Faced with uncertain winds in U.S. defense spending, Boeing’s Hazelwood-based defense unit is venturing into far less traditional markets like the power grid and cybersecurity.

The aerospace company will continue to build fighter jets and other military aircraft. Boeing learned in May that it had secured another multi-year order of locally built F/A-18 fighter jets.

But earlier this year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he would urge President Barack Obama to veto any legislation that continues production of the "unnecessary" C-17 Globemaster transport plane. Last year, the Pentagon scaled back Army modernization and missile-defense programs in which Boeing was a major player.

"We absolutely want to stay in those platform businesses if you want to call it that," said Chris Raymond, Boeing Defense, Space & Security’s vice president of business development. "We want to stay in the rotorcraft, airborne battle management, fighters and strike. Those are obviously core business for us. We are always trying to extend that and refresh the products in that."

But the nation’s second-largest military contractor also wants to "diversify and expand" into other realms that include energy and cybersecurity, he said.

Last fall, Boeing won an $8.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help develop an advanced "smart grid" prototype for optimizing regional power transmission. Boeing also was subrecipient on two other Department of Energy grants with partners Consolidated Edison of New York and Southern California Edison.

In all, the Department of Energy awarded $620 million in federal stimulus to 32 demonstration projects aimed at modernizing and fortifying the nation’s electrical grid.

Boeing Chairman Jim McNerney told shareholders last month that while the company plans to "maintain a large and stable business" providing programs and services to the U.S. military, the defense contractor also is actively pursuing other opportunities for growth.

In January, Boeing formally changed the name of its defense unit from Integrated Defense Systems to Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The move was part of a realignment aimed at capturing business in adjacent markets within the United States and abroad, officials said.

Boeing and other defense contractors are making a push into the emerging homeland security market as well.

Raymond said the line is going to blur between classic defense and homeland security functions.

"I think you’ll see the big defense companies kind of morphing to defense and security, or global security," he said . "And that covers more than just what we’ve thought of as defense."

Last month, for instance, a Lockheed Martin-led team began development of a Next Generation Identification system capability to help law enforcement agencies better search the FBI database of wanted criminals and terror suspects. Lockheed Martin has opened a NexGen Cyber Innovation and Technology Center in Gaithersburg, Md.

In addition to energy and cybersecurity, those markets include intelligence and logistics, company officials said.

Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at Teal Group, said Boeing and Lockheed reflect a trend among defense contractors that are focusing on adjacencies. It makes all the more sense with defense budgets reaching a plateau, he added.

"This fits within an overall drive we have seen in Boeing to really work to broaden itself beyond its defense core," Finnegan said.

James Carafano, a military and homeland security expert at the Heritage Foundation, said Boeing’s moves also reflect a realistic response to the cyclical nature of U.S. defense spending. But it also reflects the expertise the company has developed managing sophisticated manufacturing efforts with far-flung supply chains.

"When you put together a modern airplane, it is an incredibly large, complex system," Carafano said. "I think Boeing thinks it is in the business of systems integration, and systems integration is something that cuts across a lot of sectors."

Raymond agreed.

"We always want to be a large-scale systems integrator," he said. "That is one of our core DNA."

Boeing’s capabilities to handle complex systems engineering jobs and to manage complex supply chains, he said, are largely why the company was awarded such major contracts as the Future Combat Systems, missile defense and the country’s secure border initiative.

Nonetheless, Future Combat Systems — a major Army modernization effort — was another major Boeing contract that was scaled back. Last June, the Pentagon ordered a major restructuring of the $160 billion Future Combat Systems program to a series of acquisition programs extending high-tech battlefield equipment to all combat brigades.

Boeing was the lead contractor for the modernization program along with Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego.

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Toyota brought us the Venza last year, now Honda has the Crosstour. At first blush the two seem like rivals in the spirit of Camry and Accord, the popular sedans that form the basis for the new pair. Both further blur lines already crisscrossed by sedans, coupes, sport utilities etc.

But Venza is more of a wagon than a sport utility, kind of the opposite of most crossovers. Crosstour comes across as more of an oddity, a high-riding midsize hatchback rather than a wagon or SUV.

And that iteration of one of the market's best midsize sedans left me a little disappointed. First, the swoopy hatchback design cuts into rear vision, especially with the big spoiler crossing the rear window. And it didn't draw the compliments like the Venza — shades of Pontiak Aztek. Second, although cargo room may be more versatile than the sedan's trunk, the design limits a major gain.

Beyond those complaints, the Crosstour is another shining example of Honda finesse. The powertrain combines a five-speed automatic transmission with a 3.5-liter, 271-horsepower V-6 engine for a smooth, responsive ride. Gas mileage tops out at 27 miles per gallon on the highway with front-drive models. That's a leap over traditional crossovers such as Honda Pilot, but lags Venza, which gets up to 29, but only when outfitted with its 4-cylincer plant.

Crosstour EX starts at $30,450 and includes more than just the basics, including a power moonroof, remote entry, rear wiper, dual climate control, power seats, cruise control, CD changer, MP3 jack, and compass.

Side airbags and curtains, stability and traction control, fog lamps, antilock brakes with assist feature, and tire-pressure monitor make a nice safety package along with perfect fives in government crash tests.

Leather seats and navigation (which includes needed help in the form of a backup camera) are among extras. It costs at least $34,800 to get into an all-wheel Crosstour, but that also includes an upgrade to the EX-L trim payday advance lender.

That long list of features along with Honda's knack for fit and finish provide for an upscale interior. Front buckets are ultra comfy and rear seats are thick and supportive, but do not recline. Legroom is super front and back. As with Venza, there is no third-row seating option.

Despite its size limitations, the cargo bay offers some thoughtful touches. Rear seats easily flip down, not only from flip-switches in the back seat, but also at the touch of a handle in the cargo bay itself. There also are tie downs and three storage bins under the carpeted floor. The floor also can be flipped over with the plastic side up in case you need to haul a bunch of muddy gear.

Both Honda and Toyota have a full range of choices that make sense for family hauling - from the utilitarian compact Fit and Element to SUVs CR-V and Pilot in Honda's case. Both carmakers are skilled at hitting buyer sweetspots amid a growing and evolving field of competitors. Crosstour is likely to appeal to buyers wanting something a little meatier than the Accord sedan, without going for the full-fledged SUV.

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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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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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A long-awaited renovation of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could start to take shape this year, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Congress Tuesday.

The Obama administration hopes to propose legislation to fix the nation’s housing finance system within months, Geithner told the House Financial Services Committee. The government currently finances almost all home mortgages, thanks to its 2008 takeover of Fannie (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie (FRE, Fortune 500).

Geithner acknowledged that devising a new system to finance U.S. house purchases would be a "complicated, consequential" process. He emphasized that he hasn’t "seen an ideal model" to replace the current arrangement, which is widely viewed as undesirable because of its role in inflating the housing bubble and the conflict between Fannie and Freddie’s profit-seeking and public policy missions.

But with the Senate moving ahead on reform of bank regulation, "we’re at a point to begin" the process of shaping housing-finance legislation, Geithner said. "I don’t see why it should take years."

Republicans in Congress have accused the administration of dragging its feet on reforming the housing finance system. Fannie and Freddie have taken $127 billion in Treasury aid since their collapse in September 2008, and Geithner said Tuesday the government will eventually recognize "substantial losses" from running the companies no fax cash advance.

At the same time, Geithner said it would take time to create a plan that keeps mortgage credit widely available, protects consumers and ensures the financial system remains stable.

Fannie and Freddie have emerged as central to the administration’s support for the nation’s troubled housing markets. The Treasury’s funding for the companies and the Federal Reserve’s purchases of their debt have kept U.S. mortgage rates at historically low levels, making houses more affordable and offering some support to tattered bank balance sheets.

While some Republican plans would eventually remove the government from the mortgage business altogether, Geithner said he believes there is "a quite strong economic and public policy case" for federal mortgage guarantees of some sort. He cited the need for "a stable housing finance market."

Geithner said the administration will solicit comments starting next month from "a wide variety of constituents, market participants, academic experts, and consumer and community organizations." 

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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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Harry Markopolos spent nine years fruitlessly trying to convince the Securities & Exchange Commission that Bernard Madoff’s investment operation was a scam.

Markopolos, a former derivatives fund manager turned fraud investigator, became an instant star after Madoff’s fund imploded, emerging as one of the few sympathetic figures of the financial crisis. A self-described quant, Markopolos contends it took him five minutes to realize that Madoff’s vaunted returns were impossible.

These days, Markopolos hunts fraud at major corporations. He looks for whistleblowers at places like trade shows and bars near corporate offices and convinces them to file lawsuits under the False Claim Act. He gets a piece of any settlement.

Markopolos is still waiting for his big payday, but next week marks the debut of his book, "No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller," the story of his quest to expose Madoff and his Ponzi scheme.

James Bandler caught up with Markopolos in Boston recently to discuss the book, and how he’s doing with his life as an agent for whistleblowers. Edited excerpts are below:

Since Madoff, I would imagine every whistleblower in America would want to talk to you.

I’ve gotten a lot of interesting evidence mailed to me and some of it has been borderline lunacy, like, who killed Kennedy type of thing. Others have been grounded probably in a good set of facts, but they’re not my cases. The negatives are that my undercover days are over. I can’t be anonymous. I don’t want to be recognized with whistleblowers, because it would be harmful to their careers. I have to wear disguises more.

What do you have, wigs?

I don’t want to go into it, because that would be stupid. That’s operational security.

You were a whistleblower and you work with them now. What is the profile of the whistleblower’s personality?

If you don’t have a strong belief system, you’re not going to be a whistleblower. You have to be crazy-brave. The risks are all weighted to the downside.

Crazy-brave?

Yes. You cannot have self-doubt. You just have to go forward and say I believe in this country. I believe in these core values. I know if I get outed and get caught, I’ve committed economic suicide for myself and my family. I’m going to be on the industry blacklist easy payday loans.

You write that you were afraid that Madoff or shady gangster clients would try to kill you if they fingered you as the whistleblower. You took to checking under your car for bombs and you carried a gun everywhere with you.

I didn’t know if I was going to live through it.

You were so afraid of being identified by Madoff that you wore gloves (in 2002) when you handed a packet of information to an aide of Eliot Spitzer so that your fingerprints would not be on the documents. Were you being overly paranoid?

I had twin boys that were going to be born three months later, and I wanted to make sure that they would have a father. I knew that Spitzer came from a very wealthy family and that it was possible that he was a Madoff investor. (In fact, Spitzer’s family real estate company did lose money in the scandal.)

What would’ve you done differently?

I can think of two things that would’ve influenced the action and hopefully brought this to a successful resolution. One is approach Spitzer in the open. Take the risk. Shake his hand, look him in the eye, say, ‘I’m Harry Markopolos, I’m president of the 4,000-member Boston Security Analysts Society. I’m a derivatives expert and this is what I know about Bernie Madoff. He’s a fraud.’

I wish I had confronted Mr. Spitzer to his face. Or I should have gone to (Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth) Bill Galvin. He’d taken on Wall Street titans like Spitzer had. He was a hometown boy like me.

In your book, you write that when Madoff was interviewed by the SEC inspector general and asked about you, he dismissed you as a "joke in the industry." What would you tell Madoff if you met him?

I wouldn’t want to meet him. I think he’s a pathological liar and a predator. I think he’s mentally twisted, and I know a lot more about him than he knows about me. He hunted at funerals and weddings. He’s the lowest form of scum. I don’t want to meet him or his family. I don’t want anything to do with him. I don’t want to be that close to evil.

Read more of James Bandler’s interview with Markopolos 

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