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Wachovia was in advanced merger discussions with Wells Fargo late Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.

Wachovia was also in talks with Citigroup (NYSE: C) in New York over the weekend. But by late Sunday, Wells Fargo was emerging as the preferred bidder. Wells has a better track record of successfully integrating a major bank merger and has escaped the current credit crisis relatively unscathed.

In contrast, it was only last fall that Citi was criss-crossing the globe with tin cup in hand, seeking to raise billions to offset its substantial losses amid the credit crisis.

Both Wells (NYSE: WFC) and Citi see an acquisition of troubled Wachovia's extensive branch network in the Eastern United States and deposits as a rare prize.

Details on the Wells-Wachovia negotiations were not available late Sunday.Even though Wells would have the upper hand in acquiring Wachovia, the combined bank's name, its management team and its headquarters location were still open questions late Sunday.

In March, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf told the San Francisco Business Times that he was not averse to conducting a Fed-assisted deal similar to the help the central bank gave J.P. Morgan Chase to acquire faltering Bears Stearns in March. As of Sunday, the government was reportedly quite reluctant to provide similar aid to a buyer of Wachovia.

This month, Wells Fargo Chairman Dick Kovacevich told those attending a Beverly Hills business conference that the bank "often buys fixer-uppers.

"Given the financial conditions today, I feel like a kid in a candy store," Kovacevich said.

Spain's Banco Santander also was reportedly interested in Wachovia, but long-time industry observers were dubious that the U.S guaranteed approval cash advance loans. government would be interested in working with a foreign bank to rescue Wachovia.

A combination of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo and Charlotte-based Wachovia (NYSE: WB) has long been the subject of speculation among those following the banking industry. Wells brings to the table its dominance in the West, which would fit nicely with Wachovia's strong presence in the East.

Reports late last week indicated that struggling Wachovia was seeking a suitor. The bank fumbled badly on its ill-timed purchase of Oakland-based Golden West Financial, parent of World Savings. Much of the bank's mortgage woes stem from that $25 billion deal completed in 2006. Many analysts said that deal was a huge mistake even before it closed.

The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve were reportedly involved in Sunday's negotiations, presumably to help spur a deal that would put Wachovia in stronger hands. An acquisition of Wachovia by Wells Fargo would represent a departure from the San Francisco bank's long-running strategy of focusing on internal growth and concentrating on selling more products and services to customers within its current branch territory in the western half of the United States.

But last week's government-orchestrated deal in which J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) acquired failed Washington Mutual created the nation's second coast-to-coast bank, after Bank of America. (NYSE: BAC) Large branch networks allow banks to spread their costs over more customers, while providing those customers with greater convenience and access to ubiquitous branches and ATMs throughout much of the country.

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A new bio-park for plant and life sciences research and commercial development at the Danforth Plant Science Center has named its board of directors.

The Bio-Research and Development Growth Park is expected to open in April 2009 with the following board members:

• Jim Berens, president, Wexford Science+Technology LLC;
• Dan Burkhardt, partner, Oakwood Medical Investors;
• Denny Coleman, president and chief executive, St. Louis County Economic Council;
• Jerry Glover, vice president of external affairs, Monsanto Co.;
• Vicki Gonzalez, president and chief executive, Nidus Center;
• Jan Jaworski, vice president for research, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center;
• Linda Martinez, partner, Bryan Cave LLP;
• Richard Roloff, vice chancellor for capital projects, Washington University in St cash advance loan no fax. Louis;
• Richard Sayre, director of the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center;
• Jacqueline Davis-Wellington, executive vice president, real estate and community development division of the St. Louis County Economic Council;
• Sam Fiorello, president of BRDG Park and chief operating officer of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

The park is being created to help life sciences companies bridge research, resources and relationships to achieve commercial success.

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America’s trade deficit with Canada shot above $8 billion in July, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

American businesses exported $22.34 billion of goods to Canada in July, but U.S. consumers purchased $30.68 billion of Canadian imports.

The result was a trade deficit of $8.34 billion for the month, up 15 percent from June’s gap of $7.23 billion.

China was the only country to run up a larger trade imbalance with the United States in July, $24.88 billion.

Right behind the deficit of $8.34 billion with Canada were U.S fast payday loan no faxing. shortfalls of $6.44 billion with Saudi Arabia, $6.33 billion with Japan, $5.46 billion with Mexico and $5.37 billion with Venezuela.

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The Swiss central bank will probably leave its main lending rate at a seven-year high today to ensure inflation will slow below its 2 percent limit.

The Swiss National Bank's Governing Board, led by Jean- Pierre Roth, will keep the three-month Libor target at 2.75 percent for a fifth quarter, all 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg said.

“Monetary policy in Switzerland is at a crossroad,'' said Guillaume Menuet, a senior European economist at Merrill Lynch International in London. “There are obvious downside risks to the economy as we've seen in recent data, but it would be premature to ease monetary policy given the inflation outlook.''

Financial-market fallout from the U.S. housing crisis has hammered banks' profits and is a drag on economic growth. The SNB joined central banks around the globe today to provide extra money to calm markets spooked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. At the same time, the 35 percent drop in the price of oil since mid-July may give the SNB room to lower borrowing costs this year without sparking inflation.

The SNB has left its target interest rate unchanged since September 2007 after record defaults on U.S. home mortgages led to losses at the country's two biggest banks, UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group. The Swiss financial industry accounts for about 15 percent of the economy and contributed about 50 percent to growth in recent years.

The SNB will announce its rate decision at 2 p.m. in Zurich.

Financial Turmoil

Global stocks plummeted and bonds surged this week as traders sought the safest investments after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Merrill Lynch was bought and American International Group Inc. was rescued by the Federal Reserve. UBS, the European bank hardest hit by the U.S. mortgage crisis, has already booked more than $43 billion in writedowns and had to raise almost $28 billion in fresh capital from investors.

The SNB joined with the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and other central banks around the world to pump dollars into the financial system and head off a deepening crisis.

“The action is designed to address the continued elevated pressures in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets,'' the banks said. “The central banks continue to work together closely and will take appropriate steps to address the ongoing pressures.''

Exports Ease

With financial markets rattled and exports slowing, two of Switzerland's main economic engines are stalling easy fast cash. Export growth may slow to about 3 percent this year from about 10 percent in each of the two previous years, the government said in June.

“The SNB shouldn't ignore weak growth,'' said Jan Amrit Poser, chief economist at Bank Sarasin in Zurich. “We need a rate cut as a cushion against this downturn. The SNB will either cut by the end of the year or not at all, because March may be the bottom of the cycle.''

The economy is still “in line'' with the SNB's forecast for expansion between 1.5 percent and 2 percent this year, Roth said on Sept. 5. While the economy will weaken further, Switzerland's won't suffer as much as other countries, he said. The Swiss economy grew 0.4 percent in the second quarter even as the economies of neighboring France and Germany shrank.

`Getting Close'

“Europe is currently closer to recession than Switzerland is,'' Poser said. “But if you look at the pace at which leading indicators are deteriorating, they're getting increasingly close to recession territory.''

Switzerland's leading economic indicators fell to the lowest level in five years in August and a measure of manufacturing growth slid to a three-year low. At the same time, price increases have eroded households' purchasing power and threaten consumption, the largest part of the economy.

Record prices for oil and food have triggered a surge in inflation worldwide, prompting central banks from Asia to North America to shelve plans to cut rates.

Roth said Aug. 26 in an interview with Finanz und Wirtschaft that he “hopes'' inflation peaked this summer and that it would be “absurd'' to use monetary policy to counter rising costs for oil and food. Inflation eased to 2.9 percent in August from 3.1 percent in July, the fastest pace in 15 years.

While the ECB raised its rate in July on concern excessive pay demands may entrench faster inflation, Switzerland faces limited risks of so-called second-round effects as the Swiss economy is “flexible'' and wage negotiations are decentralized, Roth said.

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Sallie Mae is rushing into a market many are deserting by setting a goal of making $10 billion worth of student loans that are not backed by the federal government.

Reston, Va.-based SLM, known as Sallie Mae, plans to make those loans within the next 16 months.

CEO Albert Lord, addressing a Lehman Brothers conference on Wednesday, said that such private loans would let Sallie Mae set the interest rate and provide for more profit. Lord noted that Sallie Mae expects to make $20 billion in government-backed loans next year. Sallie Mae originated a total of $25.5 billion in loans in 2007.

Lord said his management team is pleased that many competitors have stopped making private loans to students for fear that their credit is weakening free credit report.com. Lord said a lack of credit history should not be confused with poor history, and that students offer long-term credit potential. Sallie Mae is also increasing the use of co-borrowers on its private loans. He expects the current 50 percent co-borrower rate to increase to 80 percent. SLM profit fell 72 percent in the second quarter to $266 million. SLM stock (NYSE: SLM) has lost almost two-thirds of its value in the lsat 12 months.

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Photos published on several automotive Web sites Monday show a production version of the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in electric car General Motors plans to produce in 2010.

GM executives, engineers and designers, including vice president for product development Bob Lutz, are shown standing with the car.

The photos were released accidentally, a GM spokesman said.

GM (GM, Fortune 500) had been hoping to keep the images under wraps until the car’s official unveiling, which is expected later this month.

GM regularly uses the Volt concept car in its advertising, noting that it is a "future product."

During the Volt’s development, the carmaker has allowed an unusually high degree of access to the media. Over the past year, GM has even invited journalists into its design and engineering center to see work on the car.

Based on the new photos, the front end of the production version of the Volt looks more rounded than that of the concept car first shown by GM at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show.

The concept car’s angular face wasn’t aerodynamically efficient enough to make it to the final version as GM engineers and designers tried to extract every extra foot of "all electric" range from the car, GM designers have said.

The back end of the car will have a sharp, angular shape payday loan. In the rear, where air flows together as it trails off from the vehicle, sharp angles help smooth air flow.

The Volt will be driven by electricity stored in a large T-shaped lithium-ion battery pack running the length of the car, according to information released earlier this year by GM.

After charging for several hours, the Volt will be able to run for up to about 40 miles without using gasoline.

As the battery begins to run down, a small gasoline engine will turn on, generating enough electricity to drive the car to a full range — expected to be about 300 miles.

The gasoline engine will not drive the car directly but will generate electricity which will be routed through the battery pack to drive the wheels.

The Volt will seat four, not five as some other cars its size can, according to GM. The space required by the battery pack would not allow for a center seating position in the back. 

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Eighteen months after Peninsula Community Foundation and Community Foundation Silicon Valley merged to become one of the largest community foundations in the country, the united organization has settled on its new grantmaking strategies.

Silicon Valley Community Foundation, as the merged entity is called, has settled on five key areas that will be the focus of its discretionary grantmaking, which will total between $8 million and $10 million this fiscal year.

“Quality takes time, and I feel good about where we landed,” said Emmett Carson, CEO and president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Determining these funding areas has been a major undertaking of Carson’s and the organization since the merger became official in January 2007.

The funding areas are:

• Economic security, specifically toward foreclosure prevention counseling, asset building and financial education.
• Immigrant integration, to help immigrants fully participate in their communities and thus improve their economic status.
• Community opportunity fund, which will help meet basic service needs in these times of increased demand and shrinking government funding. A $1 million fund will be paid out by the end of 2008 to support such basic services as food and shelter.
• Education, and in particular closing the middle school achievement gap in math between low-income or students of color from middle class and white students so that all are prepared for college.
• Regional planning, particularly in the areas of affordable housing, transit-oriented development and access to green space.

The first requests for proposals are being issued today. Until settling on these new funding areas, SVCF stuck to the grant guidelines of each parent organization, awarding $12.3 million form its endowment fund between January 2007 and July 2008 faxless payday advances. The endowment currently stands at $162 million.

These five areas are the result of numerous community meetings of various sizes and input from hundreds of community leaders on nine issue areas that the community foundation considered.

As for areas that the community foundation considered funding, but discarded, “We either felt like we didn’t the resources or expertise on the issue, or it was bigger than we as a region could figure out,” Carson said. “For example, accessible health care. It’s big and it ought to be addressed, but we can’t solve it as just San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.”

For the issues it couldn’t make a priority focus, the foundation hopes to leverage partnerships and to form special initiatives.

As a rule, the foundation will focus on programs rather than infrastructure grants. It also will fund a quarterly “best new idea” program.

Carson hopes that the defined focus of the community foundation will excite the existing 1,500 donors and will inspire new ones to partner with Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

“With the release of these guidelines, we’re devoting a lot more attention now to the external work of making the community a better place and moving away from the internal work of the mechanics of the merger, and that’s a good place to be,” Carson said.

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Ford Motor Co. will keep investing in new fuel-saving technology even if it doesn’t get any government loan guarantees, but the loans will help the automaker get the technology to market more quickly, Executive Chairman Bill Ford said Friday.

Congress reconvenes next week, and the auto industry plans an aggressive campaign to get lawmakers to guarantee up to $50 billion in low-interest loans. Auto executives say the money would help modernize assembly plants and develop next-generation vehicles.

Ford, in an interview at an event marking the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Model T, said the loans are important to help the industry deal with higher fuel economy standards, carbon dioxide emissions limits and a marketplace that has shifted from trucks to more fuel-efficient cars.

"I think it’s important to our whole industry, all the retooling we’re doing as an industry, to really meet the future demands of fuel economy and CO2 and all the new technology that’s really going to be needed to achieve that," Ford said.

The company that bears his family’s name, he said, will go on without the loan guarantees, but its work will be tougher.

"We’re fine, but this certainly would help," he said after signing hats, books and business cards for many of the more than 100 Model T owners who had gathered outside the company’s world headquarters. "It would just make everything more difficult, and we may have to go slower, and that’s clearly not what society wants."

Ford said the company doesn’t have a number in mind for how much it would borrow. But he said the government-backed loans, which Ford (F, Fortune 500) intends to repay, would mean the difference between single-digit interest rates and the double-digit rates now available in a tight credit market. That potentially could save the troubled automaker millions of dollars.

Ford has lost $23.9 billion in the past 2 1/2 years and has had to mortgage its assets to stay in business as the U.S bad credit payday loans. auto market has shifted away from profitable trucks and sport utility vehicles to more fuel-efficient models.

Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas, said the loan guarantees are good for the country because they would help preserve an industry that is responsible for one in 12 U.S. jobs. They’re not a bailout, he said.

"This is not about benefiting Wall Street, like maybe some of the other actions that have been taken," Fields said. "This is benefiting Main Street, the working men and women. The auto industry is part of the backbone of the U.S. economy."

The federal government estimates that fuel efficiency and other requirements in the energy bill passed earlier this year will cost the auto industry around $100 billion, but Ford’s estimate is higher, Fields said.

He said the loan guarantees should be open to all manufacturers, whether foreign-based or domestic.

Bill Ford said the loans are important if the U.S. wants to have a strong industrial base, as other governments have financially backed their manufacturers. He also said the government should help decide what fuel-efficient technology U.S. automakers should embrace, so they can focus their capital investments.

Ford wouldn’t predict the chance of the loan guarantees getting through Congress.

"I’m very happy that both presidential candidates have endorsed this," he said. "The leaders of both parties are embracing this as something that they believe in, so that’s got to help us." 

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Prosecutors will argue to an appeals court that jurors would have convicted ex-Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio on 19 felony counts even if a procedural error that excluded defense testimony had not been made in the executive's 2007 insider-trading trial.

The Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals holds a rare second oral arguments session Sept. 25 on Nacchio's appeal, which succeeded in reversing his conviction earlier this year.

The U.S. Attorney's Office submitted its brief for the hearing Friday, detailing in 72 pages why the Denver-based federal appeals court's March order for a new trial was in error.

A panel of three 10th Circuit judges overturned Nacchio's conviction March 17 in a 2-1 vote and ordered a second lower-court trial on the grounds that one defense witness, Daniel Fischel, an expert on stock market trends, had been improperly excluded from testifying before the jurors.

That jury convicted the former head of Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE: Q) of fraudulently making $52 million from selling Qwest stock in 2001 while keeping shareholders in the dark about increasingly dire internal forecasts about the telecom's prospects.

The appeals court panel ruled that U.S fast cash online. District Court Judge Edward Nottingham didn't follow proper procedure when he decided that Fischel's testimony would confuse jurors and was unnecessary.

At the prosecution's request, the 10th Circuit agreed to reconsider the ruling, and next month judges on the court will review the decision instead of the typical three.

The government's filing for that hearing argues jurors would have convicted Nacchio even if Fischel had testified in 2007 and that, even if the appeals court thought Fischel could have swayed the jury, the appellate court should have simply ordered a new lower court hearing on the suitability of Fischel's testimony without demanding a whole new trial.

The hearing brief for Nacchio's defense is expected to be filed before midnight Friday.

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Post Properties Inc. reported Tuesday evening it sold the Post Oglethorpe apartment community in the Brookhaven neighborhood of Atlanta for about $38.5 million.

Atlanta-based Post Properties (NYSE: PPS) did not disclose the buyer. However, according to letters sent to Post Oglethorpe residents, the buyer is Memphis, Tenn.-based Mid-America Apartments LP, a unit of Mid-America Apartment Communities. The community has been renamed Sanctuary at Oglethorpe.

Post said it expects to gain $23 million from the sale of the property, which has 250 units and was built in 1994.

Post also reported it closed two five-year mortgage loans with Fannie Mae to refinance existing debt secured by mortgages on its Post Biltmore community in Atlanta and its Post Massachusetts Avenue community in Washington, D.C. Each community is held in an unconsolidated joint venture, in which Post holds a 35 percent interest.

The Post Biltmore mortgage loan has a principal amount of about $29.3 million, requires fixed interest-only payments at 5.83 percent and matures on Sept http://easy-quick-payday-loans.com. 1, 2013.

The Post Massachusetts Avenue mortgage loan has a principal amount of about $50.5 million, requires fixed interest-only payments at 5.82 percent and matures on Sept. 1, 2013.