Finance news. My opinion.

Local stocks remained steady or declined slightly in Friday trading.

Golden Enterprises Corp. (Nasdaq: GLDC) dropped 9 cents or 2.7 percent to finish at $3.20. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: BCRX) declined 15 cents or 2.6 percent to close at $5.69.

Hibbett Sporting Goods Inc. (Nasdaq: HIBB) dipped 63 cents or 2.3 percent to end the day at $26.91.

Other local stock action included:

Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF) lost 1 percent or 7 cents to finish at $7.40.

Books-A-Million (Nasdaq: BAMM) dropped 9 cents or 1.5 percent to close at $5.99.

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Exploration Place on Friday announced that Sharon Miles has joined the staff as director of development.

Miles, a certified fundraising executive, will oversee all aspects of fundraising and membership and volunteer programs at the museum.

She was most recently Wichita State University’s senior director of development and led philanthropic efforts for the school’s Fairmont College of Liberal Arts and Sciences easy payday loans.

Miles, who holds a degree in finance and economics from WSU, also is the immediate past president of the Greater Wichita Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

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Dr. Roger Evans, a cardiologist in Wichita, Kan., is used to answering patients’ questions about their hearts. But lately, he said, he has spent half his time answering a succession of different questions — about the health care law.

Donald Moore, 75, one of those patients, expressed his uneasiness about the law recently: “The fact is that I don’t understand it, and no one else I talk to understands it. Every day, you read something different in the paper.”

Moore’s latest concern was a “rumor that the new health care procedures are going to be monitored and managed by the IRS.”

“That’s a turnoff right there,” he said. “How much is true, how much is fiction, out here no one knows.”

Most of the health care law, which President Barack Obama signed last month has yet to take effect, but for many doctors it is already having an impact.

“We’ve had to add an hour or two to the day because patients want to talk about it,” said Evans, who travels around the state and said questions often left him scratching his head. “I see 30 to 50 patients in a day, and it is the subject of conversation more than half the time.”

After months of public wrangling and brinksmanship in Washington, the nation’s doctors now find themselves having to answer questions about a 2,400-page law that many do not understand themselves, and which they may have opposed. “Not only is the public confused, but so are our members,” said Dr. Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, which supported the bill. “There’s been a lot of misinformation out in the media. We’ve been trying to get to them simple answers — what does this mean for my practice, what does it mean for my patients, what does it mean for the future?”

Some doctors said their patients were pushing for surgery now, for fear that it will not be covered in the future or that they will end up on a waiting list. “It’s ludicrous to be coerced to perform surgery because of fear of noncoverage in the future,” said Dr. Eustaquio Abay II, a neurosurgeon in Wichita. “I refuse.”

Abay said he had tried to read the law, but gave up because it was all legal jargon to him. “They think we have all the answers, but we don’t,” he said of patients.
While many doctors say they are not besieged, the queries have been particularly robust in states where the plan was unpopular, Heim said.

Joseph Baker III, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a nonprofit organization that operates a hotline for patients with questions, characterized the volume of calls about the bill as moderate. But he said the level of confusion was high, comparable to that created when Medicare added prescription drug coverage in 2004.

Often, Baker said, callers have been getting their information from media commentators or doctors who opposed the legislation. “They’re being told by their providers, ‘Now I won’t be able to take Medicare patients,’” he said.

“People call us confused, panicked, anxious,” he said. “And in most instances, we say there are some benefits in the short term, like closing the doughnut hole,” as the gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage is known, “and that the things that might have a negative impact, like lower reimbursement to providers, will happen over a number of years. Usually that calms people down.”

The questions do not always reflect the actual provisions of the law. The major changes for this year, including coverage on their parents’ policies for adult children under age 26, rarely come up, said Dr. Melissa Gerdes, a family practitioner in Whitehouse, Texas, who said it was not unusual for her patients to discuss politics in the examining room. She said that only one patient had asked about the new law’s provisions on the doughnut hole, and that she could not recall any patient who had inquired about coverage for adult children.

“The big one I get is, ‘Are you going to be able to keep seeing me?’” Gerdes said. (She tells them she will.)

At Dr. Alieta Eck’s free clinic in Somerset, N.J., where all the doctors donate their time, Eck said many of her patients were excited about the new program. “People say, ‘I can’t wait for Obamacare,’” said Eck, who has been outspoken in her opposition to the program. “They’re already getting free care.”

Eck said that her office had not been overrun with questions about the bill, but that during visits at her paid practice, “most patients are fearing that everything’s going to cost them more.”

For many doctors, the big frustration comes when they do not know what to say to their patients.

“Quite honestly, I don’t know how to answer their concerns,” said Dr. Deborah Sutcliffe, a solo practitioner in Red Bluff, Calif. “Sometimes they’re more informed than I am, sometimes they’re not. I haven’t read the damn thing.”

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Mobile ad exchange Mobclix Inc. reports Sunday morning that there were 3,000 iPad apps available and only about 20 percent of them were free.

If being one of the first 600,000 to 700,000 estimated iPad owners after the first day of sales isn't status enough for the dedicated Apple Inc. fanatic, they can have all the apps available as of the time of the Mobclix report for $12,572.78.

The average price of an iPad app, Mobclix reports, is $4.99.

Games make up the biggest segment of apps available, with 942 and only 138 of those are free.

Click here to read more Business Journal stories about the iPad launch.

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Appliance World stores in the Denver area have been closed in the wake of the chain’s parent company filing for bankruptcy protection three months ago.

"Effective immediately, Appliance World stores are permanently closed," a notice on the retailer’s website said Thursday.

The chain has five metro-area stores, in Denver, Arvada, Aurora, Littleton and Highlands Ranch, plus one in Colorado Springs, according to the website.

On Oct. 20, Denver-based GCF Holdings LLC, which owns Appliance World, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Tampa, Fla. The company listed between $1 million and $10 million in both assets and liabilities, and said it had between 100 and 199 creditors.

In addition to Appliance World, the company had subsidiaries in Florida and New Mexico, according to the filing and news reports.

Riverview Ventures Inc. of Bradenton, Fla., did business as DeSears Appliance & Home Entertainment. Four DeSears stores in Florida were closed Dec. 2, the Bradenton Herald newspaper reported.

Another GCF subsidiary, DCE New Mexico LLC, operated a pair of electronics and appliance stores under the Baillio’s name in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The Baillio family, which had sold the stores to the Denver company, resumed ownership after the Chapter 11 filing, the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported.

The Appliance World website notice said that customers who already have been notified their appliance order is in "may pick up on Tuesday February 2 at our Denver warehouse located at 320 S. Lipan."

It said others with existing orders should "please continue to visit our website for ongoing information on receiving your product or a refund."

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About 900 General Motors and Chrysler dealerships that got the ax as the Detroit giants went through bankruptcy have filed notice that they will appeal their shutdown, according to the American Arbitration Association.

The nearly 3,000 dealerships the auto manufacturers scrapped have until Monday to file with the AAA for an independent arbitration of their case. But applications from dealers are still rolling in, so it’s hard to tell what the final count will be, said India Johnson, senior vice president of AAA.

"We are still putting cases in every day. They come in the mail, they come by e-mail, they come by fax," Johnson said. "I think that some may be filing because they want to preserve their right to file, and then next week or the week after that they may not go forward."

Electing arbitration costs dealers and manufactuers each a $1,625 filing fee. But that is just the start: If the arbitration proceeds to a hearing, the costs mount. Dealer and manufactuers are required to split common fees, such as the filing fee, and pay their own attorney expenses.

An estimated 2,000 dealers from General Motors and 789 from Chrysler are eligible to appeal. The General Motors count includes 1,300 dealerships that were put on notice in May for closure as of October 2010. Another 700 dealers were slated for "partial wind-down," meaning that one of a dealer’s multiple franchises is scheduled to be shuttered guaranteed payday loans.

The dealers Chrysler targeted in May have already stopped operating as Chrysler franchises. The company gave them less than 30 days to close.

Dealerships that have already closed or will close due to the death of GM’s Saturn and Pontiac brands are being handled separately. The fate of Hummer franchises will remain in limbo until the brand’s sale to a Chinese company is complete. Saab dealers are also hanging by a thread.

Arbitrators have a list of seven factors to consider in evaluating dealers’ appeals. They will assess the dealer’s profitability over the past four years, the dealership’s current economic viability, the geographic and demographic characteristics of the dealership’s territory, and the length of time the dealership has been in business, among other factors.

The arbitrator must also consider each manufacturer’s overall business plan, and how well the contested dealership fits into it.

The proceedings will be held in the state where the dealership is located and must, by law, be completed by June 14. However, arbitrators will have the option of extending that deadline if they can show cause for the extension. 

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Delta Air Lines Inc. has received government permission to operate its namesake service and its Northwest Airlines subsidiary as a single carrier, a Delta executive said Thursday.

The single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration allows Delta to put its code on Northwest flights and phase out the Northwest name. That process will be complete in the first quarter of this year. For now, travelers won’t notice anything different.

Delta, based in Atlanta, acquired Northwest for $2.8 billion in stock in October 2008 to become the world’s biggest airline.

Delta and Northwest are now one airline, meaning that for the first time pre-merger Northwest operations will be combined into Delta’s operations, Chief Operating Officer Stephen E. Gorman said in an internal memo.

Labor issues remain, however. While pilots and some smaller work groups from both carriers are operating under joint contracts and seniority lists, flight attendants and gate and reservation agents and ramp workers have not resolved representation issues. Pre-merger Northwest was heavily unionized, while pre-merger Delta was not — its pilots were its only major work group to be in a union.

Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of pre-merger Northwest aircraft have already been painted over with the Delta livery. Employees of both carriers are wearing the same uniforms, and the two carriers frequent-flier programs have already been combined under the Delta SkyMiles brand.

But operationally, the two carriers have been kept separate while Delta sought the FAA certificate.

Delta plans to operate Northwest-coded flights until all seats and fares are consolidated in Delta’s reservations system. Once that occurs, it will remove the distinction for passengers of purchasing on Delta or Northwest, and the Northwest website will be folded into Delta’s.

Still unresolved for Delta is its effort to lure Japan Airlines Corp. away from its alliance with American Airlines and into Delta’s SkyTeam alliance. There’s been no word on a decision by JAL, which is said to be teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.

Delta also is dealing with the aftermath of a failed terrorist attack on a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas.

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NEW YORK–General Motors Co. said Friday it will shut down Saab after talks to sell the brand to a Dutch carmaker collapsed, marking the third time this year that a deal by GM to sell an unwanted brand has fallen through.

GM said it had a small window of time to complete the deal and issues arose during the sale talks with Spyker Cars that could not be resolved. GM vice-president John Smith said: "Like everybody, we would have preferred a different outcome, and we all worked very hard for that different outcome and we’ve come up short."

Saab employs about 3,400 people worldwide, most of whom work at its main plant in Trollhatten, Sweden. The brand has 1,100 dealers, that General Motors said will continue to honour warranties as the brand winds down.

Chris Budd, owner of Budds’ Saturn Saab in Oakville – one of three Saab dealers in the GTA – said he feels as if he’s "lost a friend."

"I’ve had the Saab franchise longer than I’ve been married," he said, having carried the brand since 1977.

He blames the recession – not GM – for its demise.

Martin Olivera, service adviser at Saturn Saab Hummer on the Queensway, however, puts the blame squarely at GM’s feet.

"Truthfully, GM destroyed Saab," he said. "They made it into an American car, not a European car."

To enthusiasts, Saab became appreciated for quirks like placing the ignition lock between the front seats. It was the first to offer heated seating in 1971 easy to get unsecured personal loans.

GM bought a 50 per cent stake and management control of Saab for $600 million (U.S.) after it split from Swedish truck maker Scania in 1989. It bought full ownership in 2000 for $125 million. But even after the GM takeover, Saab remained closely associated with Sweden and its history of making safe, reliable cars.

GM never made money on the acquisition and industry analysts complained that under GM, Saab lost its uniqueness in the crowded luxury segment.

GM first sought a buyer for Saab in January as part of its restructuring, which included plans to cut the number of its brands to four from eight. It was previously in talks to sell Saab to a consortium led by the Swedish sports carmaker Koenigsegg Group AB, but it turned to Spyker after Koenigsegg withdrew from the talks in November.

GM’s failure to sell Saab is the third deal to sell an unwanted brand that has failed this year.

In September, dealership chain owner Roger Penske scrapped plans to buy Saturn after an agreement to get cars from France’s Renault fell through. GM is now phasing out Saturn.

GM’s board last month ended a deal to sell the European Opel brand to a group led by Canadian auto parts maker Magna International Inc., fearing that Opel was too heavily integrated into GM’s global operations and that GM technology would fall into the hands of competitors.

With files from Brendan Kennedy

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All three working-age generations – Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y – agree that the youngest ones are more difficult to manage than other generations, a Conference Board of Canada analysis has revealed.

The two older generations, the board’s November study found, believed Gen Y workers "require more close supervision, are less likely to follow procedures and are less results-driven than other generations."

On the other hand, Gen-Y – people aged 18 to 29 – "may not understand why their Boomer or Gen-X colleagues fail to recognize how busy their lives can be," the report found.

The board did their own national workplace survey and analyzed other data about the consequences of a new wave of multigenerational angst sweeping Canadian workplaces.

Two factors were exacerbating the angst, the board said: an ever-aging workforce and a wrenching shift "away from hierarchical structures" that Boomers are comfortable with to "a more team-based approach" in workplaces that suits Gen-X and Gen-Y more.

"No longer are younger workers largely dependent on the older generations for information and knowledge," the board said. "Younger workers can now access information online and many are often the most expert person at a given skill or task."

Hence, the conflict is "arguably now even greater than before."

Statistics Canada data show that while 14.1 per cent of the Canadian workforce in 2001 was nearing retirement age, 16.9 per cent was by 2006 and more than 20 per cent will be by 2016.

Bosses have the delicate task of getting these three generations to cooperate at work and adapting the environment to get the best work out of each, the board said.

Standing in the way are ingrained myths and perceptions on all sides, which its study attempted to explode. The Conference Board warned against "managing by stereotype."

Boomers were defined as people age 45 to 64 and Gen-X as 30 to 44. For both, the world they grew up in shaped them, be it Sixties idealism or skepticism wrought by corporate downsizing and the political upheaval of 1989, the board said.

All three generations agreed Boomers are "less comfortable with technology, less open to change and less accepting of diversity." The difference was in the degree.

Among the Gen-Y myths the study exploded was their over-confidence. The results showed the youngest workers were more cautious than their older co-workers gave them credit for.

Gen-Y employees told the survey they "strive to have a life that will make them happy." They agreed they are "less willing to work hard and feel they are owed more." They admitted they "seem to have a negative effect on productivity but a positive effect on morale because they are younger, full of energy and complain less than other generations."

They know they’re "often unreliable, tend to do things their own way and do not always follow the rules," the study found. But there’s a good reason for that, Gen-Yers told the board: "One group strictly wants to follow processes while the other wants to get stuff done."

Another challenge for bosses, the study said, is to temper the perceptions each generation has of the other. Among them:

Gen-Y found Gen-X "annoying and aggressive."

Gen-X said Boomers are "have difficulty giving up control," while Gen-Y said Boomers "live to work rather than work to live."

Boomers described Gen-X as "loners" who "lack patience."

And Gen-X contended Gen-Y "think they know everything."

In particular, the study found, Gen-Y workers said they like someone to review their tasks, while Boomers absolutely don’t.

And while Boomers were uncomfortable with the other two generations’ reliance on emails to communicate, the study found the perception of younger generations as careless with spelling and grammar wasn’t true. While 88 per cent of boomers felt it was important to be careful with grammar and spelling, 83 per cent of Gen-Xers and 85 per cent of Gen-Yers agreed.

Similarly, 87 per cent of Boomers said they were careful with details, as did 81 per cent of Gen-X and 79 per cent of Gen-Y.

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The European Central Bank will lend banks less money than economists forecast in its second 12-month auction of unlimited funds, indicating banks’ need for cash has eased for now.

Banks bid for 75.2 billion euros ($110 billion) at the current benchmark interest rate of 1 percent, the Frankfurt- based ECB said today. It loaned a record 442 billion euros at the first auction in June and economists had forecast demand for 137.5 billion euros this month, according to the median of 16 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.

“That it came that low is a bit of a surprise,” said Jan Misch, a money-market trader at Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart. “However, even expectations for anything beyond 100 billion were exaggerated in the first place. There isn’t just any major need for liquidity.”

The ECB, which will offer banks 12-month loans for a third time on Dec. 15, is flooding the system with money in the hope it will be lent on to companies and households. Money-market rates have dropped as the economy shows signs of emerging from recession and banks become less wary of lending to each other.

ECB Governing Council member Marko Kranjec said the demand “shows the system is liquid enough and that banks don’t need funds so much.”

The euro extended its advance against the dollar after the announcement and was up 0.6 percent to 1.4668 as of 12:27 p.m. in London.

‘Encouraging’

The ECB filled all bids in the auction. It said the 589 banks that participated, which compares with 1,121 in June, will receive the funds tomorrow.

“Weaker demand for ECB loans probably reflects the fact that banks feel more able to borrow from each other, which is encouraging,” said Jennifer McKeown, an economist at Capital Economists Ltd. in London. Still with banks “still concerned about further losses to come, there is a good chance that they will hoard the funds rather than lending them to firms and consumers.”

The Eonia overnight rate, the rate European banks charge each other for overnight loans, has declined to 0.35 percent from 2.2 percent at the start of the year. The euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor, for three-month loans this week fell to a record low of 0.74 percent from 5.24 percent a year ago.

‘Underpin Recovery’

In October last year, the ECB began lending banks as much money as they wanted for up to six months, effectively assuming the role of the money market. In May this year, it announced it would extend the maximum maturity on its loans to 12 months.

While the ECB has retained the option of raising the rate it charges banks for the loans, President Jean-Claude Trichet said the September 12-month tender would be held at the benchmark rate. That should “promote the extension of credit to the euro-area economy and, therefore, further underpin its recovery,” he said on Sept. 3.

“The ECB’s commitment to keep the liquidity support in place is crucial for all players, because it reassures banks that long-term liquidity will remain readily available even in case of further unforeseen shocks,” said Marco Annunziata, Unicredit Group’s London-based chief economist.

The ECB expects the euro-area economy to grow 0.2 percent in 2010 after contracting 4.1 percent this year. The region probably emerged from recession this quarter, according to the European Commission.

ECB policy makers remain cautious.

“There is no need to rush to exit from monetary stimulus” and “no reason to change the monetary policy stance” at the moment, ECB council member Erkki Liikanen said yesterday.

European consumer prices fell more than economists forecast in September, declining 0.3 percent from a year earlier, a report today showed. Bank lending to euro-area households grew at the slowest annual rate on record in August, the ECB said Sept. 25.

On Sept. 28, Trichet urged banks to step up lending to the real economy. “Our message to banks is clear: do your job,” he said.

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