LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
"What Dubai thought they'd done was create this everlasting growth market. ...The world was
booming.Whatever crazy idea you came up with, people said 'Yeah, I'll buy it.'"
David Camp,
director at ERA Aecom, a consulting firm Article, 1D
Rates drop at weekly Treasury auction
WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills fell in Monday's auction with rates on six-month bills dropping to the lowest level this year.
The Treasury Department auctioned $31 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.16 percent, down from 0.18 percent last week. Another $30 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.255 percent, down from 0.27 percent last week.
The three-month rate was the lowest since these bills averaged 0.15 percent on June 1. The six-month rate was the lowest since these bills averaged 0.25 percent on Dec. 29.
The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,995.51 while a six-month bill sold for $9,987.10. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.162 percent for the three-month bills and 0.259 percent for the six-month bills.
Separately, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, fell to 0.44 percent last week from 0.47 percent the previous week.
Stanford to be jailed until trial, court says
R. Allen Stanford, accused of swindling investors in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, must remain in jail until trial, which could be a year away, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans denied an appeal by the Texas financier to be released on bail so he can assist in defending investment fraud charges that could keep him in prison for the rest of his life.
Stanford, 59, is accused of leading a fraud scheme involving the sale of certificates of deposit through Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd.
He pleaded innocent and has been in custody without bail since June 18.
Stanford's Little Rock office sold certificates of deposit worth more than $50 million. In all, clients of Stanford's Little Rock office had $285 million invested in more than 1,200 accounts with Stanford. The $235 million not invested in certificates of deposit was in accounts involving stocks and bonds.
The criminal case is U.S. v. Stanford, 09-cr-342, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).
St. Joseph's to adopt Nashville hospital
Hot Springs-based St. Joseph's Mercy Health System is scheduled on Oct. 1 to enter an agreement to manage Howard Memorial Hospital in Nashville for three years.
Howard Memorial's board of directors has voted to turn management over to St. Joseph's after a competitive bid process, according to a release issued Monday.
In the past, the nonprofit, 25-bed hospital was managed by Quorum Health Resources of Brentwood, Tenn.
St. Joseph's will hire Howard Memorial's chief executive officer and chief financial officer, pending approval by the Howard Memorial Board of Directors.
Howard Memorial has about 23 physicians on its medical staff, the release said, compared with more than 200 physicians at St.
Joseph's.
St. Joseph's is part of the nonprofit Sisters of Mercy Health System. St. Joseph's includes a 309-bed hospital and an integrated physician partnership of 14 clinics in the Hot Springs area.
Pepsi bottlers to build factory in Romania
BUCHAREST, Romania - PepsiCo's bottling company PepsiAmericas is investing $150 million to build Europe's largest bottling factory in Romania, officials said Monday.
The factory will be located west of Bucharest, the capital, and will cover about 332,000 square feet. It will open Sept. 1, a news release said.
PepsiAmericas in 2007 took over the group Quadrant-Amroq Bottling QAB, a Pepsi producer and distributor in Romania.
QAB Romania owns two production units in Bucharest and one in Covasna, in central Romania.
Under Soviet communist rule, Pepsi was the only western soft drink that could be bought in Romania. Rival Coca-Cola only appeared on the market in Romania after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1989.
PepsiCo signed an agreement in August to take over the two large Pepsi bottlers, Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas, in a $7.8 million deal.
PepsiAmericas sales were down 6 percent in the second quarter to $1.26 billion compared with $1.34 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Gulf Air re-evaluates plane orders, strategy
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Gulf Air's new CEO said Monday the Bahraini state carrier is re-evaluating its entire business and may need to adjust orders for nearly 60 Boeing and Airbus aircraft as it struggles to turn itself around.
Chief Executive Samer Majali said the money-losing airline may look to partner with other carriers to stay competitive in what he described as the toughest operating climate ever for the aviation industry.
A comprehensive review now under way aims to look at "every aspect of the business," he said.
"We do not yet know what size or shape Gulf Air will take following this review," Majali said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. "It may be necessary for us to look at our fleet orders with our suppliers and to adjust them according to the airline's newly defined requirements."
Gulf Air last year sealed a deal worth up to $3.9 billion at list prices to buy as many as 24 Boeing 787 aircraft, making it one of several carriers in the oil-rich area to back the Chicago-based company's newest model.
The airline also has agreed to purchase 35 Airbus A320s and A330-300s. That deal is worth about $5 billion, according to Airbus' 2008 price list.
Entergy spinoff won't be decided in '09
NEW ORLEANS - New York utility regulators likely will not decide the fate of power provider Entergy Corp.'s plan to spin off its wholesale nuclear power generators into a separate company until at least early next year.
New Orleans-based Entergy had hoped for a decision in November on whether it may place six nuclear reactors under a separate publicly traded company known as Enexus Energy Corp.
Entergy first announced the plan in late 2007.
But two administrative law judges for the New York Public Service Commission, in a ruling issued late Friday, said a decision still must be made on whether the new company will have the financial capability to run three of the units in that state - two at the Indian Point Energy Center in Westchester County and a reactor at the James A. Fitzpatrick station in Oswego County.
The commission's staff has expressed concerns that long-term unsecured bonds issued for the spinoff might result in a low Enexus bond rating, thus limiting the new company's financial capacity.
Business, Pages 22 on 08/25/2009