Finance news. My opinion.

Six centuries after the first one was minted and a decade after they went out of circulation, the last French francs are being exchanged for euros, severing France’s final link to its former national currency.

However, the franc’s end also comes as its replacement, the euro, suffers its worst crisis since its creation.

The Banque de France set a deadline of the close of business Friday for French savers to exchange whatever leftover franc notes they’ve kept socked away in drawers or under mattresses, whether held onto intentionally as souvenirs or simply forgotten about.

The euro replaced the franc in wallets and purses in January 2002, but the central bank has continued to accept francs in exchange for euros _ until late Friday.

A decade might seem to have been enough time to get to the bank, even for the worst procrastinators. But lines of last-minute holdouts still formed all week long outside Banque de France branches, the last place where francs can be swapped for the new currency at the rate of 6.55957 francs for 1 euro _ the exchange rate that was locked in when France joined the euro in 1999.

The French press has been filled with reminders about the looming deadline, after which all those blue 50-franc bills with the cartoon drawing of The Little Prince standing alone on his planet will lose all but their sentimental value.

Some people heard about the deadline just in time.

“They were in a drawer and I found them a few days ago, and when I heard this morning that today was the last day to turn them in, I came this morning to do it,” said Rene Huot, as he waited in line at a Banque de France branch on Paris’ Left Bank.

The central bank estimates that even after Friday’s deadline, around half a billion euros worth of old franc notes will remain in the wild, unexchanged and henceforth worthless.

The existence of the euro, used by more than 330 million people in 17 countries, has come into doubt recently as European governments failed to prevent the financial crisis from widening from Greece to Italy and even France. The French and German leaders’ shock admission in November that Greece might leave the euro only added to those concerns.

France is the second eurozone country to definitively phase out its old currency, after Italy stopped exchanging the lire in December. Finns have until the end of this month to turn in their last markkaa, while the Dutch get to hang onto their old guilders until 2032.

About half the eurozone countries have set no time limit at all.

Greeks have until March 1 to exchange their drachmas _ if the country hasn’t switched back to its historic currency by then.

Eurozone ministers are due to meet Monday to decide on a new euro130 billion bailout Greece needs if it hopes to avoid becoming the first eurozone member to default on its debts and be ejected from Europe’s common currency.

While few Europeans are prepared to scrap the euro _ in part because they fear a chaotic collapse more than the current muddle _ some are nostalgic for the money they counted on before it arrived.

“We are living a lot less well with the euro, especially when we have a modest salary and a small pension and by God we are really obliged to maintan a tight budget,” said Micheline Leblanc, a retiree who was also changing her last francs at the Banque de France.

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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.

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Developer Paul McKee is poised to more than double his real estate holdings in north St. Louis, a move that could represent a big step forward for his controversial plan to remake several battered neighborhoods there.

On Monday, McKee’s NorthSide Regeneration will ask three city development boards for the right to buy 1,233 parcels of city-owned land — roughly 162 acres in all — across the near north side. The price? About $3.2 million.

The move would be the biggest buy yet for McKee, whose vision of thousands of new homes, office buildings and more has been stalled for nearly two years since a judge tossed out a $390 million city subsidy, but who has continued to push his project forward in small steps while he appeals that ruling.

The purchase needs the approval of an alphabet soup of city agencies that own the land, but the request has the blessing of top development officials and St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay.

“It’s a good thing,” said Slay chief of staff Jeff Rainford. “He’s willing to move forward even without the (tax increment financing) issues being settled.”

The purchase has been discussed at City Hall since at least 2009, when McKee first unveiled his NorthSide plans. But it’s not clear why it’s happening now. McKee answered several questions by email Friday but did not directly address his timing. He has, however, been showing the NorthSide to prospective tenants in recent months and says he has ’some deals that are pretty far along.”

“He wants to move forward on some projects,” said Rodney Crim, executive director of the St. Louis Development Corp.

McKee already owns about 800 parcels — totaling perhaps 130 acres — scattered across the 1,500-acre project area. Most of that he bought in secret over five years, using shell buyers to keep the price down. Since stepping out from behind the curtain, he has made a few purchases — like the 17-acre Bottle District site north of downtown, which he closed on in December — but nothing on a large scale.

Now, McKee wrote Friday that he can combine the city land with his current holdings to offer a wide range of sites to businesses or housing developers.

“Opportunities to create large-scale development in the most blighted areas of our cities are rare,” he wrote, saying that the combination can “create a unified development footprint worthy of the City’s hopes for the future.”

McKee has acknowledged that the project’s slow progress has stretched him financially but said Friday he has lined up funds to buy the land. He received $2.1 million in Missouri state tax credits in December, with an application for more still pending, and, according to city records, has continued to borrow in relatively small doses from the Bank of Washington, the only bank that has publicly committed to NorthSide.

He will not be able to claim the state tax credits for this land — purchases of city-owned property are not eligible — and city leaders say he’s paying full price, minus a small break for buying so much.

“We’re not giving him these properties. We’re not selling them at a discount,” Rainford said. “He is buying them for what we think these properties are worth.”

The land — much of which the city acquired after previous owners stopped paying taxes — includes hundreds of small lots and individual buildings scattered all over McKee’s 1,500-acre NorthSide footprint. In some cases, it amounts to nearly whole blocks of vacant urban prairie, with just one or two privately owned homes still occupied and standing.

The deal also comes with a two-year option to buy the site of the old Pruitt-Igoe housing complex for $100,000. The 33-acre site at Jefferson and Cass avenues, which has sat empty since the mid-’70s, is today basically a forest surrounded by chain-link fence, and may have pollutants in the ground. But it’s a key site for McKee, and he has suggested he’ll turn it into a retail complex.

The deal also highlights the city’s long history of “land banking” — assembling unwanted land for future development.

The practice has become more popular in recent years as cities like Detroit and Cleveland wrestle with widespread abandonment, and Missouri lawmakers are considering a bill to create a land bank in Kansas City. But St. Louis has been doing it since 1971, when the Land Reutilization Authority became the nation’s first city-run land bank.

Today, the LRA owns about 10,000 parcels, with other city land banks owning about 1,000 more.

It pays to mow grass and picks up trash and, if there’s a building on the site, is responsible for keeping it safe. It collects no taxes on these properties, and many it has owned for decades. Selling more than one-tenth of that property will generate at least $100,000 in new taxes, even without any development, said Crim.

And selling it to a developer increases the odds that something will get built there, said Rainford.

“Whenever possible, we want land in the hands of the private sector,” he said. “As long as the city’s holding the ground, nothing’s going to happen on it. Our bias is trying to get this land out the door.”

The city’s land-banking program has come under some fire in recent years.

Free market think tank the Show-Me Institute found that the LRA rejected nearly half of all offers to buy its property from 2003 through 2010, often citing possible “future development” as a reason why. Some of those rejections were in the NorthSide footprint, said Audrey Spalding, a Show-Me policy analyst who conducted the study. That McKee is buying them now comes as no surprise, she said, but it also provides no guarantees.

“I’m thrilled that 1,200 parcels are being bought. In terms of tax revenue, it’s a positive. And if Paul McKee’s dreams come to fruition, it’s going to be great for the city,” she said. “But I don’t see it as a validation of holding land vacant in hopes of a big development.”

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Costs related to Ralcorp Holdings’ spin-off of its branded cereal business and an October acquisition drove down first quarter profit by 8 percent.

St. Louis-based Ralcorp posted a net income of $65.3 million, or $1.16 a share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31,  down from $71.3 million, or $1.28 a share, a year ago. Net sales rose 18 percent to $1.38 billion.

Ralcorp, which makes private label cereals, pastas and bakery goods, spun-off its branded cereal business, Post Holdings, as a separate company on Feb. 3.  In its first fiscal quarter of 2012, Ralcorp spent $2.7 million primarily in professional service fees related to the Post spin-off.

Ralcorp also spent $5.6 million in the quarter on acquisition costs, primarily related to its $545 million acquisition  of the North American refrigerated dough business from Sara Lee in October.

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The spending cuts that helped the U.K. preserve its AAA credit rating last year and bolstered the pound are now weighing on the currency as investors lose confidence that Prime Minister David Cameron will revive economic growth.

Sterling had its worst January since 2008, falling 0.6 percent, after a 3.1 percent advance in the second half of 2011, according to Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes that track 10 developed-market currencies against each other. Gilts are lagging behind lower-rated Treasuries, after world-beating gains of almost 17 percent last year.

Investors are beginning to favor policies promoting growth over austerity just as the biggest government-spending squeeze since World War II risks sending the U.K. into its second recession since 2009. U.S. President Barack Obama has used outlays to drive America

WASHINGTON • The economy grew late last year at a pace that in normal times would suggest it’s healthy.

But the 2.8 percent annualized growth rate in the October-December quarter — the fastest pace since the spring of 2010 — isn’t being cheered by most economists or investors. That’s because growth would need to be much stronger to sharply reduce unemployment. And signs in the data point to slower growth ahead.

For all of last year, the economy grew just 1.7 percent. That was barely more than half the growth in 2010. The outlook for all 2012 is slightly better. The Federal Reserve estimates growth of roughly 2.5 percent for the year.

Though the economy has picked up and is far stronger than during the Great Recession, unemployment is still a high 8.5 percent. Many people remain reluctant to spend more or buy homes. Many employers are still hesitant to hire.

For the final three months of 2011, Americans spent more on vehicles, and companies restocked their shelves at a robust pace. But overall growth last quarter — and for all of last year — was held back by the sharpest cuts in annual government spending in four decades, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Several factors are expected to exert more of an economic drag this year: Cuts in military and other federal spending. A slower pace of company restocking. Weak or flat pay increases. Sluggish growth in consumer spending.

“Overall, the pickup in growth doesn’t look half as good when you realize that most of it was due to inventory accumulation,” said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, who expects growth to slow to below 2 percent in the first three months of this year.

In the final three months of last year, consumer spending grew at a 2 percent annual rate. That’s up modestly from the third quarter. Consumer spending is important because it makes up 70 percent of economic activity.

Much of the growth was powered by a 14.8 percent surge in sales of autos and other long-lasting manufactured goods.

Incomes, which have been weak all year because of high unemployment, grew at a modest 0.8 percent annual rate. That followed two straight quarters of declining incomes. But unless pay increases pick up, consumers who have dipped into savings in recent months may pull back.

Business restocking, which can vary widely from quarter to quarter, was the greatest contributor to growth in the October-December period. It added nearly 2 percentage points to the gross domestic product, or GDP.

Government spending at all levels fell at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter and 2.1 percent for the year — the biggest decline since 1971. Sweeping federal defense cuts at the beginning and end of 2011 were a major factor.

The economy is measured by GDP, which covers everything from haircuts to hotel bookings to jet fighters. Friday’s estimate was the first of three for the fourth quarter.

Other data show that in some ways, the economy ended 2011 on a strong note. Companies invested more in equipment and machinery in December. The unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent last month — the lowest level in nearly three years — after the sixth straight month of solid hiring.

People are buying more cars, and consumer confidence is rising. Even the depressed housing market has shown enough improvement to make some economists predict a turnaround has begun.

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The Crowne Plaza hotel near Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is facing foreclosure next month.

An analyst said Thursday the hotel is among about 17 hotels, all owned by Columbia Sussex Corp., pushed toward default by Wachovia. Foreclosure of the Crowne Plaza is scheduled for Feb. 14.

A hotel representative referred questions to Crescent Hotels and Resorts, of Fairfax, Va., the Crowne Plaza’s operator. Crescent’s corporate counsel and a spokesman for Columbia Sussex, based in Crestview Hills, Ky., did not return calls seeking comment.

Owner Gary Andreas of H&H Financial Group Inc., a hotel consultant, said the Crowne Plaza, just west of Lambert on Interstate 70 at Lindbergh Boulevard, has struggled recently in the all-important category of revenue per available room, or REVPAR.

“Suffice it to say the REVPAR had been declining for the last three years,” he said. “This year it had essentially bottomed out quick cash. It was at a level that it would be difficult for a full-service hotel to survive.”

Wachovia, now Wells Fargo, was the lender on the package of Columbia Sussex hotels put on a “default schedule” in 2010, Andreas said. That move indicated that the hotels’ debt exceeded the amount the lender was willing to refinance, he said.

“It’s almost like a preforeclosure,” Andreas added.

Efforts to reach a Wells Fargo representative were unsuccessful.

The 351-room Crowne Plaza, built in 1990, opened as a Radisson hotel. The eight-story hotel is notable for the sharp-angled design similar to others that Andreas said were completed in the early 1990s in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

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Shares in Research In Motion are sharply higher amid a new report that the BlackBerry maker is considering selling all or parts of the company.

The report, from The Boy Genius Report blog, which closely follows RIM, says South Korean electronics giant Samsung is the frontrunner among possible bidders for assets of the Waterloo, Ont.,-based maker of smartphones and other products.

The Boy Genius Report also says RIM is currently in talks to license its software to other vendors.

It says one of RIM’s biggest assets is its BlackBerry Messenger instant texting service, which would allow Samsung to differentiate itself from the Android operating system that it uses in its smartphones.

Shares in RIM, which has been the subject of takeover or sale rumours for months, were up 61 cents at $17.47 in afternoon trading after been up more than 75 cents in earlier trading.

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The cost of living in the U.S. was probably little changed in December as stores discounted merchandise during the holidays, supporting the Federal Reserve

The leaders of Germany and Italy sought to present a united front Wednesday in the fight to resolve the eurozone debt crisis and revive the ailing European economy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the efforts of Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to cut government spending and make his nation’s economy more competitive.

"We have followed with great respect how quickly the measures are being implemented," said Merkel. "The work of the Italian government is being honored."

Monti said Italians support a "very hard series of measures," adding that Europe "doesn’t have to fear any more that Italy is a possible source of contagion."

Italy has been a big worry for global investors in recent months. The nation’s economy has been stagnant for a decade and its borrowing costs have ballooned, raising concerns about the government’s solvency.

Monti acknowledged that high interest rates could have been justified when market participants were uncertain about Italy’s economic policies. "But not anymore," he said, adding, "especially after representatives of those same markets have said they appreciated the efforts [Italy] made."

That assertion will be put to the test this week when the Italian government will offer €8.5 billion in bills Thursday and up to €4.75 billion in bonds Friday.

On Wednesday, yields on 10-year Italian bonds eased, but still held above the key 7% threshold.

Europe’s debt crisis: An end in sight? Not so fast

The meeting in Berlin between Merkel and Monti was the latest in a series of talks this week among top European Union leaders as they piece together a solution to the long-running government debt and banking problems in the eurozone.

Merkel met with International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde late Tuesday and French President Nicolas Sarkozy Monday. Lagarde will meet with Sarkozy later Wednesday in Paris.

Merkel and Sarkozy will travel to Rome for more talks with Monti on Jan 20. Then, the top leaders of all 27 members of the EU will gather in Brussels on Jan. 30 for their first summit of the year.

On Wednesday, Merkel and Monti discussed the situation in Greece, where Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is under pressure to push through reforms needed to secure additional bailout funds.

Merkel said the first step in resolving the debt crisis is to "create the preconditions" for a second bailout for Greece fast payday loan.

EU leaders agreed in October to provide a second €130 billion rescue package for Greece and announced a deal with private sector investors to voluntarily write down the value of Greek government bonds by 50% as part of a debt exchange.

But negotiations with the private sector have stalled and there is still disagreement among some policymakers over whether requiring Greece to enact more austerity as a condition of a second bailout will help or hurt the nation’s fragile economy.

"The talks with banks are being pushed so that the question of Greece can be solved rationally, so that we can then focus on structural reforms in the euro zone as a whole," said Merkel.

Europe: Still a huge pain in the neck for investors

Still, European leaders are optimistic that a proposed fiscal compact, designed to ensure that governments do not spend beyond their means and rack up unsustainable debts, will be signed by the end of the month.

"There is work to be done but there is a good chance that we can expect significant progress or a political conclusion already on Jan. 30," said Merkel.

The terms of the pact include, among other things, a balanced budget requirement with an "automatic correction mechanism," and a provision to make national budget policies subject to EU authority "ex ante," or before the fact.

The political leaders of the 17 eurozone nations, which share the embattled single euro currency, agreed in principle to abide by the pact following a summit on Dec. 9. But the agreement is still subject to parliamentary approval in some member states.

Merkel also suggested that Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, could commit more capital to the European Stability Mechanism, which is expected to come into effect this year.

But Merkel was careful to say that Germany would contribute more capital to the fund only if necessary and other eurozone governments do the same.

The ESM would enhance or replace the eurozone’s current bailout fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility. European leaders have said they will decide in March on a proposal to put more capital into the €500 billion ESM.

– CNN’s Diana Magnay contributed reporting from Berlin. 

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