LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We’re just going to try to right-size our manned capacity and align it with demand.”
Mark Truby,
Ford Motor Co. spokesman, on Ford’s new buyout and retirement incentive packages Article, 1DArkansas banker to meet with Obama
President Barack Obama is set to meet today with chief executive officers and presidents from a dozen community banks - including one from Arkansas - to discuss his proposals to boost small-business lending and his plans for regulatory overhaul.
Larry Bauer, president of Planters & Merchants Bank in Gillett, in southeast Arkansas, is scheduled to be among the executives.
The meeting follows a session the president held last week with executives from a dozen of the nation’s biggest financial institutions to push for more lending to the nation’s small businesses in an effort to boost job growth.
Obama “will reiterate to attendees that we all have a stake in getting the economy back on track from the government to the small and large financial institutions to the private sector,” spokesman Jen Psaki wrote in an e-mail.
Diane Casey-Landry, chief operating officer at the Washington-based American Bankers Association, said the community bankers “want to lend but they need to get a more rational environment out there.”
Court allows Citadel access to cash
LAS VEGAS - Citadel Broadcasting Corp. said Monday that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has granted all of its first-day motions - including allowing the company access to over $36 million in cash it has on hand and cash it brings in from daily operations to pay workers and vendors.
Citadel, the nation’s third-largest radio broadcasting company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday in a move meant to restructure its debt load. In court documents, the Las Vegas-based company listed assets as of Oct. 30 at $1.4 billion and debt at $2.46 billion.
The company has an agreement with more than 60 percent of its senior secured lenders that will eliminate $1.4 billion of its debt.
Citadel said Monday that access to the funds will let it operate as it restructures. The company received court approval to pay wages, salaries, health benefits and other obligations as it restructures.
Citadel owns and operates 224 radio stations and produces radio programing for 4,000 station affiliates and 8,500 program affiliates.
According to Citadel Broadcasting Corp.’s Web site, the company’s stations in Arkansas include Little Rock’s KARN-FM, 102.9; KIPR-FM, 92.3; KURB-FM, 98.5; KLALFM, 107.7; KAAY-AM, 1090; KARN-AM, 920; and KPZKAM, 1250.
Rates rise at week’s T-bill auction
WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in Monday’s auction to the highest levels since late October.
The Treasury Department auctioned $30 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.070 percent, up from 0.040 percent last week. An additional $31 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.170 percent, up from 0.160 percent last week.
The three-month rate was the highest since three month bills averaged 0.075 percent on Oct. 26. The six month rate was the highest since 0.185 percent, also on Oct. 26.
Even with the small increases Monday, three- and six month bills remain near historic lows. They have been there for much of the past year, reflecting the Federal Reserve’s efforts to keep interest rates low to strengthen the struggling economy.
The Fed held its final meeting of the year last week and once again voted to keep its target range for its bank lending rate at zero to 0.25 percent, where it’s stood since last December.
The discount rates reflect that the Treasury bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three month price was $9,998.23 while a six-month bill sold for $9,991.41. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.071 percent for the three-month bills and 0.173 percent for the six-month bills.
2 deny guilt in insider-trading case
NEW YORK - Wealthy hedge fund operator Raj Rajaratnam and a co-defendant entered innocent pleas Monday to charges they were major players in a scheme that used inside information to make stock trades that generated millions of dollars in profits.
Prosecutors, who have described the case as a “wakeup call for Wall Street,” promised to hand over to defense attorneys 100 hours of intercepted phone calls made over eight months that they say implicate the defendants.
Rajaratnam and Danielle Chiesi entered their pleas before U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell in Manhattan to an indictment returned last week in a $52 million inside trading case that has resulted in charges against 21 people.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Klein asked Holwell to set a trial date in June or July, but defense lawyers balked, saying it would take months to review the audiotapes of telephone conversations between the defendants.
Holwell declined to set a trial date but said he may eventually agree with prosecutors and schedule a summer trial. Klein also said evidence against the defendants includes post-arrest statements.
Alcoa unveils Saudi-complex plans
NEW YORK - Alcoa Inc. said Monday that it and the Saudi Arabian mining company, Ma’aden, will invest $10.8 billion in a joint venture to develop an aluminum industrial complex in Saudi Arabia.
The complex, which will range from a bauxite mine to production facilities, will be developed in two phases with initial production expected in 2014.
Ma’aden will own 60 percent of the joint venture. Alcoa will control the other 40 percent through an investment partnership in which it will own 20 percent.
Alcoa and its partners will invest $900 million over a four-year period as well as their share of the project financing.
The refinery, smelter and rolling mill will be established in an industrial zone of Raz Az Zawr on the east coast of Saudi Arabia. A bauxite mine will be developed at Al Ba’itha, near Quiba.
“By changing the operating dynamics and cost base within our industry, the complex will be a model for the growth of aluminum in competition with other metals,” Klaus Kleinfeld, Alcoa president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Alcoa shares rose $1.15, or 7.9 percent, to close at $15.73.
Business, Pages 24 on 12/22/2009