Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC, has derided the Federal Reserve for downplaying improvement in the U.S. economy. Yet his 2.6 percent forecast for growth this year is below the midpoint in the central bank
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Former Gannett Co. CEO Craig Dubow’s received a severance package valued at about $32 million after chronic health problems prompted his resignation from the largest U.S. newspaper publisher.
The owner of USA Today and more than 80 other U.S. newspapers disclosed the details of Dubow’s compensation in a regulatory filing late Friday. A contract that Dubow signed in February 2007 guaranteed he would receive his full pension, stock awards, a severance payment and other benefits if he became disabled.
Dubow resigned last October after six years as CEO and 30 years with the company. He stepped down after taking two medical leaves during 2010 and 2011 to deal with hip and back ailments.
Dubow’s final compensation package includes $12.8 million in retirement benefits, $6.2 million in disability benefits and a $5.9 million severance payment, according to the filing. Gannett stock options and restricted stock, which Dubow had accrued during his years of employment with the company, were also part of the package. Those stock awards are valued at nearly $7 million.
Separately, Gannett will pay $25,000 to $50,000 annually for a $6.2 million life insurance policy covering Dubow and another $70,000 annually for benefits such as health insurance, home computer and secretarial assistance and financial counseling. He will receive most of these benefits for three years unless he goes to work for a competitor, according to the filing.
Dubow’s tenure as Gannett’s CEO coincided with deep cutbacks in staff, triggered by a sharp decline in print advertising, the main source of revenue in the company’s publishing division. Gannett’s revenue from print advertising plunged from $5.2 billion in 2005 to $2.5 billion last year no fax pay day loan. Gannett’s stock price plummeted by 86 percent while Dubow was CEO, dropping from $72.69 to $10.45.
The shares have rallied under Dubow’s successor, Gracia Martore, amid hope by investors that a recently introduced program to charge readers for online access to most of Gannett’s newspapers will boost profits. Gannett’s stock ended the week at $15.21, a 46 percent gain since Dubow’s resignation. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up nearly 21 percent during the same stretch.
Martore was Gannett’s chief operating officer before Dubow’s departure. Martore declined a raise when she became CEO last year, according to Gannett’s filing. Instead, she agreed to maintain her salary of $900,000, the same amount that she had been receiving as Gannett’s chief operating officer. Even before she was named CEO, Martore was working under a contract that entitled her to a $950,000 salary, but she voluntarily lowered it to $900,000 beginning in 2010 in recognition of the tough times facing Gannett.
Martore’s compensation, including a bonus and the estimated value of stock options, totaled $4.7 million last year.
Gannett is the second major newspaper publisher in a week to disclose a large severance payment to a former CEO. The New York Times Co. said its former CEO, Janet Robinson, got a package valued at about $23 million after she retired at the end of last year.
Dubow, who was 56 at the time he resigned from Gannett, is a member of The Associated Press’ board of directors. His term ends in April.
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The International Monetary Fund on Thursday approved euro28 billion ($36.56 billion) in funding for crisis-hit Greece over the next four years, while Standard and Poor’s said that the country’s new bonds were still vulnerable to a default.
An IMF’s executive board granted the immediate release of euro1.65 billion ($2.15 billion) of these funds as part of the country’s second bailout, a statement said.
Greece will receive a total euro172.7 billion in rescue loans from its eurozone partners and the IMF to keep it afloat in the next few years, as dizzily high borrowing rates have blocked its ability to raise money on the international bond markets.
IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said “continued reform efforts to improve competitiveness and restore economic growth will be key to overcoming the crisis.”
Without the bailout, Greece would have been forced into a messy default of a euro14.5 billion bond repayment due on March. 20, a move that could have sent shockwaves throughout the global financial system and further destabilized the group of 17 countries that use the euro as their currency.
The new bailout cash was approved after Greece secured a massive debt-reduction deal with banks and other private bond holders, swapping old government bonds for new ones that have better repayment terms.
The ratings agency Standard and Poor’s assigned a CCC score _ or still vulnerable to default _ and said Greece’s sovereign rating would remain in selective default until the exchange was completed next month.
The country has survived since May 2010 on a first rescue loan package worth a total euro110 billion ($143 payday loan.63 billion). In return for both bailouts, Athens has imposed harsh cost-cutting measures, slashing pensions and salaries while repeatedly increasing taxes. The countries main political parties have promised to honor commitments after elections expected in late April or early May.
Also Thursday, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said he would ensure the terms of the bailout deals would be met if he is part of the next government.
Venizelos is the only contender for the leadership of the majority socialist PASOK party in a vote this Sunday. Once he takes over the party helm, he will resign as minister to focus on the election campaign.
“It is hypocritical to say that you can sign commitments and then say you are not bound by them. That’s an insult to our intelligence,” Venizelos said.
PASOK has seen its popularity plunge and opinion polls indicate no party will win an outright majority in the election, amid public anger over austerity measures.
Meanwhile, a European Union inspector has reported rare progress in Greece’s effort to reform its large civil service _ one of the key austerity measures and a condition of receiving the bailout.
Horst Reichenbach, heading an EU task force sent to Greece to assist painful structural reforms, said there had been a “number of very positive developments” including an improvement in clearing tax arrears.
Basketball star LeBron James is the new face of Dunkin’ Donuts — in Asia.
James will serve as "brand ambassador" for Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins ice cream in China, Taiwan, India and South Korea, a company spokeswoman said Monday.
The Miami Heat player has signed a "multi-year marketing partnership," but the company would not reveal how much money is involved.
Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins is a subsidiary of Dunkin’ Brands Group ().
James has played more than 600 games with the National Basketball Association. He is a seven-time All-Star and a two-time MVP.
Wendy’s is still recovering from its split with Arby’s.
The Dublin, Ohio-based company on Thursday said it swung to a fourth-quarter profit of $3.9 million, or 1 cent per share, compared with a net loss of $10.8 million, or 3 cents per share, last year, when it was still a single company with the Arby’s roast beef chain.
Revenue rose 6 percent to $538.5 million.
The figures confirmed preliminary results released in January that showed revenue at restaurants open at least a year climbed 4 percent in North America, the highest in nearly eight years bad credit payday advance.
Wendy’s sold Arby’s to a private equity firm last summer to focus on improving its namesake brand.
Wendy’s says higher prices and new menu items helped drive sales and traffic in the quarter.
A top Boeing Co. executive says that the plane maker is frustrated with the latest 787 Dreamliner production glitch, but that it shouldn’t delay output goals.
Boeing Vice President of Development Mark Jenks said at a news conference Sunday in Singapore that the company has fixed a shimming problem discovered earlier this month on some 787 fuselages.
Jenks said Boeing still plans to boost production from a current two to three 787s a month to 10 of the planes a month by the end of next year low fee pay day loans.
Jenks said the production mistake was “clearly frustrating and we’d rather it not happen.”
Boeing delivered its first Dreamliners last year to All Nippon Airways after several delays pushed back delivery by three years.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi says his strategy for battling Europe
The King of Beers slipped another notch down the list of beer royalty in 2011.
Sales of Budweiser fell 4.6 percent last year, according to estimates by Beer Marketers Insights, to 17.7 million barrels, while Coors Light eked out a 0.8 gain to 18.2 million barrels. That means the Silver Bullet is now the nation’s second best-selling beer, after Bud Light.
It’s the first time in almost two decades that Anheuser-Busch (now Anheuser-Busch InBev) couldn’t claim the country’s two top brews, and it comes amid a long decline for the company’s flagship lager. Bud’s 4.6 percent decline actually marks its best performance in some time – sales fell nearly 10 percent in 2009 – and ABI has said one of its top priorities is to boost sales of the brand, both in the U no fax payday loans.S. and overseas.
Both ABI and Miller Coors saw overall shipments fall last year – 2.9 percent and 3 percent, respectively – amid a tough sales climate for the beer industry. ABI sold less beer in 2010 than it did in 2000, Beer Marketers estimates. But its income on those sales nearly doubled.
The European Commission has criticized Belgium’s 2012 budget as too optimistic, indicating that the country has to adopt more austerity measures or risk sanctions.
The country’s finance minister quickly reacted to the Commission’s intervention, saying Friday that the government was determined to meet its fiscal targets this year.
Belgium has promised to cut its budget deficit to 2.8 percent of economic output this year, from around 3.6 percent in 2011. But the Commission, the European Union’s executive, believes the Belgian government won’t be able meet this target unless tax revenues or spending cuts are increased.
The Commission’s criticism of the budget is a particularly sensitive issue in Belgium, where political parties needed more than one and a half years to set up a government, which was finally sworn in in December.
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo had to balance the demands of the country’s strong Dutch-speaking community, which has been demanding more financial autonomy, and the French-speaking region, which is weaker economically.
But Belgium has one of the highest debt loads in the eurozone and analysts fear that it risks being dragged into the currency union’s debt crisis. Under EU rules, Belgium has to bring its deficit below 3 percent of GDP and spell out how it plans to reduce it debt to below 60 percent of GDP over the long-term, from about 100 percent currently.
“It is normal that the Commission is asking us questions,” Belgian Finance Minister Steven Vanackere told reporters outside the government offices. “The budget was set up at the end of the year at high speed. It was not the normal way to do things.”
He stressed that the government would strive to get its deficit below the 3 percent limit this year. “Belgium has not plans to skirt its responsibilities,” Vanackere said. “We want to _ also for ourselves and not for Europe _ make sure that the deficit gets under the 3 percent payday loans.”
The EU’s Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn last fall threatened to hit Belgium _ along with Malta and Cyprus countries _ with sanctions under the bloc’s new, stricter budget rules. Two non-euro countries _ Hungary and Poland _ were also suspected of overspending, but they would not face financial penalties.
A spokesman for the Commission said Friday that Rehn’s office was seeking clarification from the governments of all five countries to assess whether their estimates for both revenue and expenditure estimates were “credible.” No decision on sanction had been taken yet, he said, but added that it could come very soon.
The EU’s executive has been taking a much more active role in policing member states’ budgets after lackluster enforcement of the bloc’s budget rules allowed countries like Greece or Italy run up high debts.
Under the new sanctions regime, a country that is not doing enough to reduce its deficit and debt will have to pay an interest-bearing deposit of 0.2 percent of GDP, which could eventually be turned into a fine. The new rules also make it harder for countries to block sanctions against their partners.
Julien Manceaux, an economist at ING in Brussels, said the intervention from the Commission did not come as a surprise, adding that the Belgian government is already set to re-examine this year’s budget in February.
“The Belgian deficit is among the lowest in the eurozone anyway so it is certainly not a reason to panic,” he said. “But it is for sure that markets will keep an eye on the decisions that will be taken again in 2012 to stabilize debt trajectory.”
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Raf Casert and Mark D. Carlson contributed to this article.
European stock markets headed higher in early trading Monday, while South Korea’s benchmark Kospi closed flat following the New Year’s holiday weekend.
Britain’s FTSE 100 index rose 0.1 percent at 5,572.28. Germany’s DAX was 1.1 percent higher at 5,960.04. France’s CAC-40 rose 0.5 percent to 3,174.76.
South Korea’s Kospi index, which lost 11 percent of its value last year, closed nearly unchanged at 1,826.37. Most other Asian markets were closed for an extended New Year’s holiday.
South Korea’s tech sector move higher, with Samsung Electronics up 2.1 percent and LG Electronics gaining 2.3 percent. Steel giant POSCO slid 1.1 percent and Korea Electric Power shed 1.8 percent.
Taiwan’s TAIEX, which was also open for business Monday, fell 1.7 percent to 6,952.21. Foxconn Technology, the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer, which makes iPads and iPhones for Apple Inc., fell 0.9 percent. Personal computer maker Acer Inc. shed 2.3 percent.
Benchmarks in the Philippines and India rose while Indonesia fell.
The Asian-Pacific region’s major benchmarks, including Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index and Australia’s S&P ASX 200, were closed. Markets in the U.S. are also closed in observance of New Year’s Day.
Last year was one that traders would prefer to forget: most Asian equity indexes closed out 2011 deeply in the red unsecured personal loans. The Nikkei in Tokyo ended the year at 8,429.45 _ its lowest closing since 1982.
China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, closed Monday, endured a 21 percent loss for the year as the impact of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar stimulus faded and the government tightened curbs on lending and investment to cool blistering economic growth.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index finished at 18,434.39 _ a precipitous slide of 19.7 percent from a year ago. Singapore’s Straits Times Index took a 17.5 percent dive when it closed at 2,646.35 on Friday.
Australia’s benchmark S&P ASX 200 ended the year at 4,140.4 _ 14.5 percent lower for 2011.
India’s benchmark Sensex index fell more than 22 percent in 2011, making it one of the worst performers globally. The rupee also lost about 14 percent this year and recently hit an all-time low, breaching 54 rupees to the dollar.
In hopes of reducing volatility and attracting foreign cash, India announced Sunday that it would allow individual foreign nationals to invest directly in its stock market starting Jan. 15. Currently, foreign investors are limited to indirect investments such as mutual funds.
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