Business Development Center

DTV Coupon Program Out of Money

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:26:57 +0000

to prepare for next month's switch to digital television, you may have trouble getting one before the Feb. 17 deadline.
, which is running the coupon program, said it is nearing the program's $1.34 billion funding limit. That means people trying to order coupons will be placed on a waiting list until more funds become available.
Each $40 coupon expires after 90 days. Unredeemed coupons are redistributed to other households that need them. But by the time those coupons become available, millions of analog TVs may already be dark. Coupon orders have been at record highs over the past week.
If you have an analog TV that is not hooked up to cable or satellite service, you will need a converter box in order to keep watching TV.
At this point, Congress will have to step in to give the NTIA more money. It's also possible that the NTIA will seek dollars from the stimulus plan to keep it going.
By

Kim Hart

|
January 5, 2009; 3:27 PM ET

Lessons learned: Investing pros talk about 2008

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:55:58 +0000

Our portfolios shrank in 2008, yet we're rich as investors.
Rich, that is, in the wisdom that comes from bitter experience. After confronting what will surely go down as one of the worst financial crises of all time, we should all be much smarter about matters of investing.
Let's review some of the key lessons of 2008. One of the most important is that your risk of losing money rises sharply when you venture away from safe but low-paying investments like government bonds and guaranteed investment certificates.
"The past year has really driven home the fact that the relationship between risk and return is alive and well," said Michael Mezei, president of Mawer Investment Management, a Calgary-based money management company that runs a well-regarded family of mutual funds. "Leading up to 2008, we saw a number of years of perceived easy money in you name it - in investing, in real estate, commodities, stocks. You can go on and on. What we learned, big time, in 2008 is that there's no such thing as easy money."
Long term, stocks still deliver returns that will beat GICs and bonds. Even after the carnage of the September-through-November period, investors who held Canada's most popular exchange-traded fund, the iShares Cdn LargeCap 60 Index Fund, had still made an average annual return of 7.6 per cent for the previous five years.
But as the events of the past fall showed, the stock market can pick your bones clean in the short term. John De Goey, an investment adviser with Burgeonvest Securities, learned that lesson well in the past year.
A client had sold his house and wanted to park the proceeds for a year or so while he waited for a planned move into a condo in 2009. Mr. De Goey considered a GIC or money market fund, but thought he could do better in an exchange-traded fund (an index tracking fund that trades like a stock) targeting blue-chip dividend stocks.
Several hundred thousand dollars went into the ETF in the fall, after the stock markets had fallen by an amount that now seems modest. "I said come on, we've got a year before we need the money, the markets are down 10 or 15 per cent and this ETF's holdings are all solid companies paying dividends," Mr. De Goey recalls thinking.
In mid-December, after steady losses, the client reached the limit of his tolerance and the ETF was sold at a loss of about 25 per cent.
"I don't take a lot of risk in my client portfolios - my assets under management are only down about 17 per cent from the peak in June," Mr. De Goey said. "But I'm chastened. We all learn our lessons from these things."
A basic principle of sound investing is that you can reduce the risk of investing in stocks by diversifying across various economic sectors and countries. But the panic conditions of 2008 proved that that there are limits to what diversification can do for you.
"Diversification works 99 per cent of the time," said David Baskin, president of Baskin Financial Services, a portfolio management firm. "But when there's a panic, it doesn't matter what you own very much. We never thought that could happen, at least to this extent."
The one diversifier that did work in 2008: government bonds or Treasury bills. Remember that if you want something in your portfolio that's crisis-proof.
Then again, demand for three-month U.S. government T-bills was so intense in late 2008 that the yield went to pretty well zero. In Canada, the three-month T-bill yields sank just below 0.8 per cent late in December.
Who's buying these almost safe but virtually return-free securities? Big institutional money managers like pension funds, insurance companies and endowments. Yes, another lesson of 2008 is that it's possible to rattle even the big boys - the investing world's soberest and smartest.
"Everybody has taken huge losses and basically they're gun shy right now, they don't know what the next shoe to drop is," said Mr. Baskin, who serves on the investment committee of a billion-dollar pension fund. "So they've stuck money in the only thing they know that won't go down."
People who did diversify with bonds learned one of the few positive lessons of 2008, which is that dramatically negative financial headlines can give you an unwarranted sense of doom about how your portfolio is doing.
The major North American stock indexes were at one point down close to 50 per cent from their peaks of 2008, but financial planner Warren Baldwin said the actual declines experienced by investors with well-balanced portfolios could be in the area of half that level.
"People tend to grip onto those headlines, and they extrapolate them back to their own personal situation, feeling they've been similarly blasted," said Mr. Baldwin, regional vice-president at T.E. Wealth. "But they need to have things put in the context of their own portfolios and their own financial situation."
And what if you have in fact lost a substantial part of your portfolio? Another lesson of 2008 is that your results can only be properly assessed in terms of whether they're greater than or less than the declines of the broader markets. "It's almost pathetic to say you're only down 25 per cent," Mr. Baldwin said. "But in fact, that could be good news."
Falling stock prices create opportunities for investors to buy low, something they're urged to do by all the notable gurus. But if you did that in 2008, you probably lost money as your cheap stocks got cheaper.
Remember when Prime Minister Stephen Harper heralded a buying opportunity for stocks in early October, during the fall election campaign? The S&P/TSX composite index was off about 14 per cent from that point through late December.
For Myles Zyblock, a market strategist at RBC Dominion Securities, the lesson here is not to expect stocks to snap back quickly just because they have a historically low price-to-earnings ratio or price-to-book-value ratio. The PE measures the price of a stock compared to its earnings per share, while the price-to-book ratio looks at the price in relation to a company's net asset value (assets minus liabilities).
Mr. Zyblock said it can still make sense to buy beaten-down stocks, as long as you understand that recovery could take years, not weeks or months.
"Warren Buffett and other long-term visionaries will buy stocks when they look cheap," he said. "But they don't worry about where investors will take that stock over the next 10 weeks. They say, 'In the next 10 to 15 years I'm going to be happy I bought that stock.' " This is one more lesson taught by the market mess of 2008: You get wealthy in the stock market over the long term. Meantime, think of the wealth of experience you're acquiring.
"Don't let the hype overwhelm you."
Warren Baldwin, regional vice-president at T.E. Wealth, on keeping bad news in perspective.
"Panic really kills value. Pipeline and utilities stocks fell 15 to 20 per cent, even though they didn't cut dividends, and government bond yields fell like a rock."
David Baskin, president of Baskin Financial Services, on panic selling.
"Even if they're diversified and even if they're the best blue chips, do not use conservative dividend-paying stocks for a one-year time horizon."
John De Goey, investment adviser with Burgeonvest Securities, on blue-chip dividend stocks as a place to invest money for the short term.
"Holding plain old boring bonds as part of a balanced portfolio really paid dividends, providing an anchor to a portfolio during turbulent times."
Michael Mezei, president of Mawer Investment Management, on bonds.
"Valuations tell you something about the next 10 years, not the next 10 minutes, 10 weeks or 10 months."
Myles Zyblock, chief institutional strategist at RBC Dominion Securities, on thinking stocks are going to quickly rebound just because they're cheap.

Assisted living sites face legal challenges Sunwest Management CEO …

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:37:22 +0000

In a last-ditch effort to save his company, Sunwest Management CEO Jon Harder placed himself and 14 individual assisted living centers — including Alpine Court in Eugene — into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In legal maneuvering that unfolded in the waning days of 2008, Harder sought an injunction to stop nine big investment banks from seizing the most profitable of the company’s nearly 270 assisted living centers across the country.
Dozens of foreclosures and bankruptcies at Sunwest affiliated centers had created a “rapidly deteriorating situation” that is preventing a turnaround firm hired in November from fixing Sunwest Management, Chief Restructuring Officer Clyde Hamstreet argued in court records.
He implored U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Trish Brown to stop the “grab and run” free-for-all developing as creditors try to recover the $2.6 billion that Sunwest owes to banks, individual investors and other creditors.
“This presents the best chance for the company to survive,” said Portland attorney Stephen English, who represents Harder.
While creditors haggle, 16,800 seniors in Sunwest centers around the country — including about 5,000 in Oregon and 600 in Lane County — wait to see how Sunwest’s collapse will affect their housing.
The financial mess is likely to land in the laps of prominent Eugene jurists.
U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan and retired Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure have agreed — if appointed — to mediate a resolution among the hundreds of parties who stand to lose in the Sunwest collapse, court records show.
Alpine Court Memory Care Community in the Bethel area of north Eugene was one of 14 Sunwest-affiliated senior housing businesses to file this week for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which protects it from creditors.
Harder owns 24 percent of the Alzheimer’s facility, and his father, Fred, owns an additional 21 percent, the court records show.
The facility owes more than $1 million to more than 50 creditors, according to the bankruptcy petition filed at the Portland branch of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Oregon.
The list of the facility’s top 20 creditors include six former residents who are owed refunds ranging from $1,000 to $6,000.
A creditor’s meeting will be Jan. 27 in Portland.
Alpine Court was already part of a foreclosure proceeding launched by the international financial services company Credit Suisse in November after Sunwest defaulted on a $159 million loan.
The 90-plus foreclosures or receivership actions pending against Sunwest affiliates have “put at risk the well-being of residents at Sunwest-related facilities,” according to court records.
Alpine Court, for instance, does not have the authority, now, to pay its 46 employees a total of $43,400 for work done in the last two weeks of December, according to the court records.
“A failure to pay debtor’s obligation for accrued wages, salaries, commissions, expenses and benefits, or even a delay in such payment, could have a significant negative impact on worker morale and some employees may not report to work,” the restructuring chief argues in a motion asking the bankruptcy judge to allow him to use the company’s cash to pay bills.
Without the cash, Alpine Court will need to cease operations immediately, he warned.
“Right now, Sunwest is able to care for its residents in a positive and appropriate way,” said Maren Cohn, spokeswoman for Hamstreet & Associates.
But if the company can’t keep control of the cash, she said, “There’s a potential that care for residents would get more difficult.”
Alpine Court Administrator Shannon Reeves did not return a call seeking comment on the bankruptcy.
Harder’s representatives argue that his decision to file personal bankruptcy this week in an attempt to bring negotiations with creditors under the purview of a judge will make it more likely that unsecured investors — who are standing at the end of the line of creditors — will get some of their money back.
Hamstreet was unable to negotiate “standstill agreements” with all the large-scale secured creditors, such as banks that hold mortgages on Sunwest senior living centers, and there was a risk that the big banks would seize the profitable properties from Sunwest.
“Everybody behind them ends up losing out mostly or completely,” Cohn said.
About 1,200 smaller investors gave $430 million to Harder and the Sunwest affiliates. Interest payments to those investors — whose money was unsecured — stopped last summer.
About a dozen Lane County investors put a minimum of $1.2 million into Sunwest ventures in Oregon and other states.
The average age of Sunwest investors is about 67, said Michael Esler, a Portland attorney who represents hundreds of them.
“You’ve got people, now, who have basically lost their retirement,” Esler said.
Harder, who owns 75 percent of Sunwest Management and large shares of most affiliates, has agreed to be paid last, meaning unsecured investors may have a chance to receive some cash. So have Sunwest Chief Operating Officer Darryl Fisher and Sunwest attorney J. Wallace Gutzler, Cohn said.
“Any proceeds from any sales will come into this restructuring effort. We have access to their economic interests and assets,” she said.
Hamstreet contends that if the court protects affiliates from further foreclosures and Sunwest is allowed to sell some properties and restore its own profitability, the reorganization could preserve as much as $750 million to restore to lenders and investors.
“Sunwest’s financial problems are severe, but they don’t have to be fatal if investors, lenders and the entities Harder and others control can work together,” Hamstreet said in a written statement.
Whom to call?
Sunwest officials, the restructuring officer and attorneys representing major investor groups have agreed, so far, on one thing: The Eugene-based jurists Hogan and Velure would be capable and fair while brokering a global settlement among the hundreds of parties that want a piece of Sunwest and its affiliates.
Velure, who served on the Lane County bench for 13 years, is nationally recognized for his mediation work.
In 1999, he and Hogan teamed up to settle $300 million in claims by 70 parties in 37 lawsuits over cost overruns in the $1.4 billion construction of the Hyundai (later called Hynix) computer chip plant in Eugene.
Then, in 2007, the pair brokered a historic settlement in at least 175 sexual abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Portland. They resolved complex disputes among the archdiocese and 10 insurance companies, and they brought a complete resolution of all the issues through a bankruptcy reorganization plan for the church.
Hogan still sits on the federal bench in Eugene. As a judge in pursuit of a settlement, he’s as hard-nosed and effective as they come, attorneys say.
When a case is assigned to Hogan for settlement, Esler said, “The joke (among attorneys) is to bring your underwear because you may be there for several days.”
Lone Oak Assisted Living, Eugene
Middlefield Oaks Assisted Living & Memory Care, Cottage Grove
Briarwood Assisted Living, Springfield
Woodside Assisted Living, Springfield
Alpine Court Memory Care & Cottages, Eugene
Alpine Meadow Retirement Cottages, Eugene
Alpine Springs Assisted Living, Eugene
Garden Way Retirement Community, Eugene

Patient care not as good at for-profit nursing homes, analysis shows

admin — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:01:35 +0000

For-profit nursing homes are more likely to provide worse care than their nonprofit rivals, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the governments first ranking of nearly 16,000 nursing homes.
The new Zagat-like rating system, released Thursday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, assigns homes one to five stars for their quality, staffing and health inspections, plus an overall score.
The scores reflect tens of thousands of inspection records, complaint investigations and quality measures, such as how many nursing staff hours were provided each day to patients, how many patients developed bedsores and how many were placed in restraints. Much of the survey data were collected in 2008.
Acting Medicare Administrator Kerry Weems says making the data available in an easy-to-understand five-star format should help prompt a national conversation about nursing home quality and will encourage lower performing homes to improve.
of the USAs 10,542 for-profit homes were one-star, compared with 13 percent of the 4,138 nonprofit homes.
of nonprofit facilities got five stars, compared with 9 percent of for-profits. Most nonprofits are owned by corporations, while about one-fifth are run by faith-based groups.
ranked higher than those that were not.
The USA TODAY analysis is consistent with other research, says Charlene Harrington, professor emeritus of nursing at the University of California-San Francisco and a member of Medicares technical advisory committee for the ratings. Studies show a lot of the for-profit homes have low staffing, and it shows up in their quality, she says.
Thomas Hamilton of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, who led development of the rating system, says Medicare researchers worked for years to develop their formula and assembled the advisory panel over the summer to help finalize the ratings. Results will be updated at least quarterly.
Janet Wells, public policy director for the National Citizen Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, made up of consumer advocacy groups, says her group initially opposed ratings, fearing they would be inaccurate. Now her members give the agency high marks for helping to distinguish bad homes from good ones.
Its probably going to be most useful at the extremes, she says.
Nursing home organizations say they welcome increased efforts to spotlight good and bad performers. But the American Health Care Association, a trade group whose members include for-profit homes, asked Congress in November to urge Medicare to delay release for a few months, saying the data were flawed.
The public is accustomed to looking at star ratings for restaurants or hotels, says Lyn Bentley, the associations director of regulatory services. This is way more complex than that.
Bentley declined to discuss the overrepresentation of for-profit facilities among the lower-ranked homes.
I dont think poor quality is acceptable regardless of who provides it, she says.
Larry Minnix, president and CEO of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, which represents nonprofit nursing homes, says the rankings are based on often-subjective information but are still a good idea.
Our goal is that you should not have to worry that your mother is in a good place, he says.

EMS Technologies sees 2009 profit above analysts

admin — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:29:05 +0000

EMS Technologies Inc.
on Monday issued a full-year profit forecast above Wall Street expectations, saying it expects improving results across all its businesses.
The Atlanta-based maker of wireless communications technology expects per-share earnings from continuing operations in the range of $1.55 to $1.65 in 2009, based on accounting standards used in 2008 and prior years.
The bottom end of the company's expected profit range is just above analysts' consensus forecast for a profit of $1.54 per share, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.
) said it "cannot appropriately confirm or modify its guidance" on profit expectations for 2008. On Oct. 31, EMS Technologies said it expected 2008 earnings from continuing operations of $1.30 per share to $1.40 per share. Analysts expect a profit of $1.33 per share.
The company's 2009 outlook is based on expectations of organic revenue growth of 15 percent to 20 percent at its satellite communications and defense segments.
"We also believe that the profitability of all of our businesses will increase in 2009 as compared with 2008, as a result of the expected favorable mix of contracts and the benefit of successful initiatives to reduce costs and improve operating margins," Chief Executive Paul Domorski said in a statement.
Shares of EMS Technologies fell 39 cents to $25.63 in morning trading. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $16.20 to $31.78.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Ira Millstein’s Opinion Helped Steer Yeshiva’s Money to Madoff

admin — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:16:21 +0000

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) -- A legal opinion from
, a corporate-governance specialist for four decades,
helped set the stage for
’s millions of dollars
in losses in the Madoff scandal.
Millstein, a senior partner of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, said
in a letter seen by Bloomberg News that Yeshiva had “followed
procedures adequate to prevent either the appearance or the
reality of a conflict of interest.” The September 2000 opinion
cleared financier
to continue to accept Yeshiva as
an investor as long as Merkin’s role was disclosed, according to
a person familiar with the matter. Merkin was a trustee who
served on the investment committee at the New York school.
Yeshiva invested in Merkin’s Ascot Partners LP, which
channeled money to
, the man now accused of
defrauding multiple investors of $50 billion. Madoff served as a
Yeshiva trustee at the time of Millstein’s letter. It generally
isn’t wise for a school to do business with its own advisers,
said
, founder of Investure LLC, which manages about
$5 billion for 10 schools and foundations.
“It’s preferable never to have a business relationship with
a board member,” said Handy, whose company is based in
Charlottesville, Virginia, in a Dec. 30 interview. “Under any
circumstances, it needs to be fully disclosed. Often you inherit
that position when a person becomes a board member. You should
always have somebody neutral overseeing that investment.”
Universities often prohibit trustees and members of
investment committees from doing business with the schools
because any self-interest in dealings might taint their advice.
Even the appearance of a conflict of interest can be misconstrued
as favoritism or not acting solely with the best interest of the
institution, Handy said.
The collapse of Madoff’s investments wiped out the
university’s holdings in Ascot. Yeshiva’s chief financial officer
said in an e-mail on Dec. 30 that its net investment in the fund
was $14.5 million at the time of Madoff’s arrest on Dec. 11,
though “fictitious” profits had increased the apparent value to
$110 million.
“Mr. Merkin fully complied with Yeshiva’s disclosure and
other policies concerning its investment in the Ascot Fund,”
said
, a lawyer for Merkin, in an e-mail today.
Millstein, 82, turned down requests for an interview.
, a spokesman for Yeshiva, declined to discuss the
Millstein letter. Madoff has declined requests for interviews
since his arrest.
Millstein is “a leading expert on antitrust, government
regulation, and corporate governance matters, having counseled
over 50 corporate boards,” according to the Web site of Yale
University’s School of Management in New Haven, Connecticut. He
is a senior associate dean for corporate governance at the
school, as well as a visiting professor.
One prominent division of the management school was renamed
the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance two
years ago. The lawyer is also a former chairman of the board of
overseers of Yeshiva’s
.
In September 2000, Sheldon Socol, then Yeshiva’s vice
president of business affairs, sought Millstein’s advice about
“investments in funds that are managed by members of the
investment committee.” At least two members, including Merkin,
were already doing business with the school, according to the
individual with knowledge.
At the time of the letter, the investment committee was
considering making an investment in a fund managed by a third
member of the committee, according to the individual.
In his letter, Millstein said that members of the investment
committee could do business with the school, provided they met
criteria.
Under the guidance laid out by Millstein, committee members
with business relationships must disclose them, and the board
must vote to authorize a transaction without counting the person
doing business with the school. The transaction must also be
fair.
“There is no reason why the board or its committees should
institute a blanket rule prohibiting members (or major donors)
from doing business with Yeshiva,” Millstein wrote.
Matthews, the Yeshiva spokesman, said in an e-mail Dec. 18
that the school has conflict policies “consistent with those of
other major educational institutions.”
“While these issues are under review it is both
inappropriate and premature to provide any further information,”
Matthews said in a Dec. 29 e-mail.
, the finance
company once owned by General Motors Corp. He resigned on Dec. 12
from his voluntary roles as Yeshiva’s investment committee
chairman and a member of the board of trustees.
He had long-standing ties to Yeshiva, where he became a
trustee in 2000. He also served on the board of the school’s
, which trains rabbis.
In 2001, Merkin and his wife endowed the Merkin Family Chair in
Jewish History and Literature at Yeshiva’s Bernard Revel Graduate
School of Jewish Studies.
’s late father,
, served for three
decades as a trustee of the university, a 122-year-old private
Jewish school that combines academic and religious education, and
whose divisions include the Einstein medical school and the
School of Law. Almost 7,000 students attend
the university.
Madoff, 70, became a Yeshiva trustee in 1996 and served as
treasurer of Yeshiva’s board before resigning from that post and
as chairman of the university’s
School of Business.
Yeshiva earlier said it has hired the law firm Sullivan &
Cromwell in New York and the financial-advisory company Cambridge
Associates in Boston to review its policies, procedures and
governance structure.
Disclosure to Yeshiva of board members’ business interests
wasn’t enough by itself to ensure sound investing, said
, an executive recruiter who found chief investment
officers for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and
in Washington and the chief executive officer for
Stanford Management Co., a division of Stanford University in
California.
“The travesty is the lack of due diligence, the lack of
doing homework,” Higdon said in an interview on Dec. 29.
“That’s where they fell down and that is inexcusable. You cannot
assume that everything is OK because someone is on your board and
has a good reputation.”
Told of Millstein’s letter to the school, Jonathan Koppell,
director of the Millstein Center, said the advice was consistent
with professional standards.
“The preferred course is to avoid the conflict all
together,” Koppell said in a phone interview on Dec. 30. “But
you don’t want to have an absolute rule because there are times
when you would be hurting the institution by imposing such an
absolute.”
Organizations often decide to hire professional investment
managers when their assets rise above $750,000 to $1 billion,
Higdon said. Yeshiva’s endowment was valued at $1.7 billion at
the beginning of 2008, according to the school.
Moody’s Investors Service, the New York-based debt-rating
company, in affirming the school’s Aa2 rating for $177.2 million
in debt, said in May that Yeshiva had “heavy reliance on board
members for investment management and oversight,” lacked a chief
investment officer, and had “limited full-time Yeshiva staffing
focused on investment oversight.”
The bond rating now is on a watch list, pending a possible
downgrade after Yeshiva’s losses, according to Moody’s. Madoff-
tinged investments were one reason Yeshiva’s endowment declined
about 28 percent this year, to an estimated $1.2 billion, Richard
M. Joel, president of the university, said on Dec. 16.
The UJA-Federation of New York, a charity that gives money
to health, education and community groups, had something in
common with Yeshiva besides roots in the Jewish community: Merkin
also headed the UJA investment committee, which currently
oversees about $1 billion in assets.
UJA invested $9.5 million with a fund managed by Merkin in
1996, before he joined the committee in 1999, said
, UJA’s chief financial officer. He became chairman
shortly after joining.
The organization initially waived a conflict-of-interest
rule and let the investment with Merkin continue, Rosenthal said.
When Merkin was reappointed chairman in 2005, the UJA decided it
should redeem the investment, he said. That happened, at no loss
to the school, he said.
UJA had adopted a conflict-of-interest policy in 1997, said
Ellen Zimmerman, general counsel and chief compliance officer. No
investment committee member is allowed to manage the charity’s
money, according to the code. UJA also won’t make any new
investment without the manager’s meeting with, and responding to
questions from, members of the investment committee. A third
party handles transactions.
Rosenthal said the UJA policies “are really designed to try
to minimize a disaster.”
.
Last Updated: December 31, 2008 14:58 EST

Speak Though Videos and Foster Online Business

admin — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 06:38:41 +0000

(OPENPRESS) December 26, 2008 -- Quick cam Recorder is a portable Webcam recorder that helps to record your videos direct to your website through your browser, and also playback your videos. It is now so easy to both record videos of yourself and publish them to the internet.
One of the biggest challenges faced in business is to effectively communicate ones message to customers. Sharing information through videos is one of the simplest and best ways of communication. It presents a great deal of information in a short amount of time. Videos work much better than brochures or about pages, and provide for a clear cut idea on sales/ overview or any other aspect.
Video is the best marketing tool in online marketing. Video blogging attracts more visitors than ordinary blogs, and marketing using video mails is one more effective online marketing strategy. The best part is, producing a sales video is cheaper than producing a high-quality 4-color brochure.
The sales video can also be used at sales meetings, trade shows, point-of-purchase displays, for customer training, as a video brochure, and in sales presentations, to reach prospects overseas, and in place of costly live product demonstration. This will add value to your products, and more visitors are likely to be converted into customers, provided the sales video explains in detail, features, benefits and usage of products/services, and does so effectively.
You dont need any experts to produce sales videos for you. Just use any webcam recorder available in market, that enables you to capture and record videos streamed to and from your computer. Videos also help your company increase its brand visibility and send out a message to a large audience.
Agriya is a Chennai based software company that offers Quickcam to record videos and audios directly on a site from a webcam, easily, quickly, and at affordable costs. What you are waiting for?
which offers QuickCam recorders at an affordable cost.
Computer Software,
India,
All Regions (Including International),

New York Community Bancorp, Inc. to Issue Fourth Quarter 2008 …

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:07:41 +0000

New York Community Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: NYB) (the "Company) today
announced that it expects to issue its earnings release for the three
and twelve months ended December 31, 2008 at approximately 8:00 a.m.
Eastern Time (ET) on Tuesday, January 27, 2009. The release will be
posted to the Companys web site,
,
upon issuance.
The Company will conduct a post-earnings conference call at 9:30 a.m.
(ET) on January 27th, during which Chairman, President, and Chief
Executive Officer Joseph R. Ficalora will discuss highlights of the
Companys fourth quarter 2008 performance and its business strategies.
The conference call will be simultaneously webcast at
and archived through 5:00 p.m. on February 27, 2009.
With assets of $32.1 billion at September 30, 2008, New York Community
Bancorp, Inc. is the 29th largest bank holding company in the nation and
a leading producer of multi-family loans in New York City, with an
emphasis on rent-regulated properties. The Company operates two bank
subsidiariesNew York Community Bank, a thrift, with 178 locations in
Metro New York and New Jersey, and New York Commercial Bank, with 38
branches in New York City, Westchester County, and Long Island,
including 19 that operate under the name Atlantic Bank. Reflecting its
growth through a series of acquisitions, the Community Bank currently
operates through six local divisions: Queens County Savings Bank, Roslyn
Savings Bank, Richmond County Savings Bank, Roosevelt Savings Bank,
Synergy Bank, and Garden State Community Bank. For more information
about the Company and its bank subsidiaries, please visit
.
erschienen am 30.12.2008 um 21:00 Uhr

Jess Ranch Marketplace Property Fetches $3.8M

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:57:28 +0000

Jess Ranch Marketplace Property Fetches $3.8M
Fountainhead Development sold the multitenant retail building at 19201 Bear Valley Road, in Apple Valley, CA, to Landmark Equity Management for $3.8 million, or $497 per square foot.
The 7,641-square-foot retail property is part of the Jess Ranch Marketplace shopping center. It was built in 2007 on 1.5 acres.
Kevin Boeve of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller. Kenneth Chasin of Pegasus Investments represented the buyer.
For more information on this transaction, please refer to CoStar COMPS #1621322.

Investing in gold pays off over 2008

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:44:17 +0000

With the global economic turmoil having increased demand for gold bullion over the last 12 months, the yellow metal is set to be the only commodity to improve its position year-on-year.
According to Reuters, gold is set to have increased its value by three percent over the course of 2008, setting it apart from oil - which has fallen in price by 60 percent - and base metals.
"Gold is the only (metal) that has been up this year," confirmed Nick Moore, commodity strategist at RBS Global Banking & Markets, in an interview with the news provider.
"It has been a fantastic performance for gold. It has done what it should have done."
This is despite the fact that, over the course of the year, the dollar has actually strengthened and the oil market has weakened.
Richard Raymar, head of research at a major funds data company Lipper, believes that the status of gold as the best place for money in times of trouble is likely to continue, suggesting that the commodity will remain a favourite among investors into 2009.
"However much gold has been hammered since breaking to new heights, it will always be deep in our psyches as the ultimate safe haven and will continue to crop up in the top tables during times of stress," he told Reuters.
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