Global finance blog - news, jokes, life…

Brooke Corp. will delay the filing of its quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission because of a subsidiary’s pending sale to First Life America Corp.

Overland Park-based Brooke Corp. (Nasdaq: BXXX) said in a filing Wednesday with the SEC that its Brooke Capital Corp. (AMEX: BCP) subsidiary’s agreement to sell all its capital stock to First Life, announced Monday, requires the presentation of First Life’s financial results as discontinued operations.

This delayed Brooke Corp.’s completion of its quarterly financial report.

Financial impact?

According to the most recent U.S. Census data, Atlanta has 500,000 workers who telecommute on an occasional basis, 297,000 who telecommute at least one day per week, and 350,000 who say they have jobs that are conducive to telecommuting and they would like to, but their employer doesn't offer it.

Mike Williams, director of programs and employers services for the Clean Air Campaign, is working on the 350,000 employees who say they want to telecommute but can't currently convince their employer. Here are some of the statistics he uses — culled from CAC's own case studies — to convince managers of the bottom-line benefits of teleworking:

• 88 percent of teleworkers report increased morale.
• 80 percent of managers agree.
• 65 percent of teleworkers say they're less likely to look for another job. More than half the managers agree.
• 74 percent of teleworkers report increased productivity.
• 85 percent of managers say productivity increased or stayed the same.
• 20 percent was the average increase in productivity reported.
• 96 percent of teleworkers say working remotely has not decreased their work quality.
• 91 percent of managers agree.

Source: Clean Air Campaign

U.K. house values fell by the most in at least seven years in July and the property slump will continue for months, Hometrack Ltd. said.

The average cost of a residential property in England and Wales slipped 4.4 percent from a year earlier to 168,500 pounds ($336,000), the London-based research company said today in a statement. That's the biggest annual drop since the index started seven years ago. Prices fell 1.2 percent from June.

“With no immediate end in sight to the current uncertainty, activity levels are likely to remain suppressed with prices remaining under pressure into the autumn,'' said Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, in an e-mailed statement. Prices “are now back to levels last seen in October 2006.''

Banks have raised mortgage rates and limited the supply of credit, reversing a decade-long property boom in which prices tripled. The Bank of England kept the benchmark interest rate at 5 percent this month on concerns that inflation is accelerating even as the economy risks slipping into a recession.

The majority of house-price declines were in southern England. Demand for housing has declined 20 percent in the past three months, Hometrack said.

Central bank policy makers said this month that the housing downturn has “gathered momentum,'' minutes of the July 7 meeting showed last week. The Monetary Policy Committee split three ways in its interest-rate vote. Timothy Besley favored an increase to help stem the fastest in inflation in a decade and David Blanchflower supported a reduction to ease an economic slowdown.

Slower Growth

Britain's economy grew 0.2 percent in the second quarter, matching the slowest pace since 2001. Unemployment jumped the most in June since the aftermath of the last recession in 1992 as the economic slowdown forced homebuilders and banks to cut jobs.

Banks are curbing lending following the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market, which so far has cost financial institutions worldwide $469 billion in writedowns and losses. U.K. mortgage approvals slumped in June to the lowest level in at least a decade, according to the British Bankers' Association.

Demand for farmland also declined for the first time since 2005 in the first half of the year, the Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors said in a separate report today.

The deteriorating economic outlook has contributed to the pound's 12 percent decline against a currency basket of Britain's main trading partners, making exports cheaper for overseas buyers.

The weaker pound “won't prevent the credit crunch, a major housing downturn and a sharp retrenchment in corporate spending from sending the economy into recession,'' Roger Bootle, chief economic adviser to Deloitte & Touche LLP in London, wrote in a report published yesterday.

Sourse

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. has received two federal grants worth more than $4.5 million to continue development on two vaccines.

The Rockville-based biotech was awarded the grants by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one being a three-year allotment for its botulinum vaccine program and the other a five-year allotment for its next-generation anthrax treatment vaccine.

The latter, a blend of a compound and Emergent’s federally approved BioThrax anthrax vaccine, has been tested in early human clinical trials. The grant funding will provide for further animal testing, as well as manufacturing capabilities for alternative formulations fo the vaccine.

“These are both important countermeasures that address critical biopreparedness requirements of the U.S. government,” said Daniel Abdun-Nabi, president and chief operating officer of Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE: EBS). “We believe that, with continued government support, we will be able to successfully advance these product candidates towards commercialization.”

Emergent recently announced $16 million in funding from Rockville-based nonprofit Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and the U.K.-based charity Wellcome Trust for a new joint venture the local company formed with the University of Oxford to develop a tuberculosis vaccine.

The Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship is partnering with Baltimore-area nonprofits to help the organizations boost fundraising efforts.

The golf tournament, taking place Oct. 6-12 at the Baltimore Country Club in Timonium, is offering $22 discounted daily tickets to nonprofits. The tickets are discounted from $27 apiece.

Through the program, the nonprofit will keep $10 for each ticket sold. The tournament will keep $10 and the remaining $2 will be paid in taxes.

Organizations interested in participating must submit documents proving their nonprofit status.

This year’s tournament — one of five majors on the PGA’s Senior Champions Tour — comes to Baltimore Country Club’s East Course for the second time after a 17-year stint in Dearborn, Mich., with Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) as its title sponsor.

Baltimore’s Constellation Energy Group Inc (NYSE: CEG) struck a deal two years ago to take over as the lead sponsor to bring the tournament to town.

Following last year’s event, $400,000 in profits were distributed to the Kennedy Krieger Institute, First Tee of Baltimore, Union Memorial Sports Medicine and the BGE Community Assistance Fund.

Proceeds from this year’s event will once support the same four organizations.

Nucor Corp. reports a 68 percent increase in second-quarter earnings to $580.8 million, or $1.94 per diluted share, up from $344.9 million, or $1.14 per diluted share, a year ago.

Sales grew 70 percent to $7.09 billion from $4.17 billion in the second quarter of 2007.

The Charlotte-based steel maker says its average sales price per ton increased 24 percent for the year. Total tons shipped grew 38 percent to 7.73 million.

Nucor (NYSE:NUE) attributes the increase in sales and earnings to acquisitions during the last 18 months, including Harris Steel Group Inc. in March 2007 and The David J. Joseph Company in February.

Nucor incurred a $214 million charge to value inventories using the last-in, first-out method of accounting. In last year’s second quarter, the company incurred a LIFO charge of $66.5 million.

The company expects third-quarter earnings of $1.80 to $1.85 per diluted share. Nucor earned $1.29 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2007.

North Hawaii Community Hospital officials said late Tuesday they are laying off 59 employees in an effort to stem operating losses that could reach $7.4 million this year.

The hospital notified 45 full- and part-time employees Tuesday that they were out of a job. Another 14 employees at the Waimea Women's Center, on the North Hawaii Community campus, also are losing their jobs.

The layoffs take effect immediately and the employees were spread across multiple departments, according to North Hawaii Community Hospital CEO Jeff Comer.

"This is one specific part of it and we need to have a more concerted focus on communicating to the public and getting the message out that the hospital is in a serious situation," Comer told PBN. "There is a cash flow problem and because of that we are forced to take this difficult and painful action…"

The hospital has approximately 460 employees.

The Waimea hospital, which came under new management in late 2007 and hired Comer as its new chief executive in May, has implemented what it calls the "Get Well Plan," which is designed to ensure financial viability.

North Hawaii officials called the layoffs an "unfortunate but necessary action" because the hospital lost $7.5 million last year and stands to lose an estimated $7.4 million this year.

North Hawaii Community Hospital is a 40-bed, privately funded facility. It was established in 1996 and serves some 30,000 Big Island residents.