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Blue Coat Systems, a provider of Internet networking and security products, says it has agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in a $1.3 billion deal.

Blue Coat Systems Inc. said Friday that its shareholders will receive $25.81 for each of the company’s stock they own. That’s a 48 percent premium over Blue Coat’s closing stock price Thursday.

Blue Coat has been working to turn its business around in a challenging time for the networking equipment industry pay day loans. Based on Thursday’s closing, its stock is down 41.5 percent year-to-date.

The company sells WAN, or “wide area network” optimization technology. This helps boost the performance of applications shared over computer networks.

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Kellwood Co. is planning to drop Adam, the upscale contemporary sportswear line that it acquired last year, according to a news report.

Women’s Wear Daily reported today that the Town and Country-based apparel company has decided to no longer fund Adam and is exploring various options, including selling the business. Adam employees were told of the decision earlier today, according to the report.

Kellwood acquired Adam, the brainchild of designer Adam Lippes, in August 2010. It was one of the company’s first major acquisitions as it embarked upon a brand-buying spree. Lippes stayed on with the brand to oversee it. Terms of the deal were not disclosed at the time.

“Adam is the first one we’ve nailed, ” Michael Kramer, Kellwood’s chief executive at the time, told the Post-Dispatch. “Hopefully this is the first of many to come.”

Kellwood followed that acquisition with others such as Rebecca Taylor and Scotch & Soda. It has also launched some new in-house brands such as Lamb & Flag.

It’s not immediately clear what dropping Adam might mean about Kellwood’s recent focus on buying more luxury, designer brands. But Kramer, who was spearheading that strategy, has recently left Kellwood to become chief operating officer at J.C. Penney.

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By the time the sun rose Friday morning, exhausted shoppers were dozing, slumped over in chairs at area malls, surrounded by shopping bags.

It was one sign that the midnight Black Friday sales were a hit with many deal-hungry consumers who took retailers up on their promotions and literally shopped until they dropped.

By 8 a.m. Friday, marathon shoppers and sisters Tina Hamilton of Bridgeton and Lisa Gray of Overland had already been shopping for about 10 hours. They started at Walmart around 10 p.m., then went to a Target opening at midnight, followed by Kmart at 5 a.m. and then to West County Center.

You have to have a strategy, Hamilton said. And, apparently, a lot of endurance.

“Your body is so broken down after cooking all day and then you stood in line to get a TV that didn’t go on sale until midnight,” Gray said.

There were few signs of consumer backlash to the midnight openings other than some shoppers who showed up later Friday morning because they said they were unhappy that stores made employees work on the holiday.

Black Friday, considered the start of the holiday shopping season, is closely watched by economists because of the important role retail sales play in fueling the economy.

Last year, the Thanksgiving shopping weekend accounted for 12.1 percent of overall holiday sales, according to ShopperTrak, a research firm. Black Friday made up about half of that no fax payday loans.

Greg Maloney, chief executive of retail for commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, said he thinks this will end up being an even better Black Friday than originally anticipated. He saw more customers leaving the stores with bags in hand this year. The relatively good weather around the country helped, too, he said.

“It’s a great start to the holidays,” he said. “If I had to predict, I would say next year you’ll see most if not all retailers opening up (Thanksgiving night) and staying open all night.”

Sean Phillips, regional marketing director for CBL & Associates, which operates many shopping malls in the region, said the midnight openings seemed to be a big success for those mall-based stores with special doorbuster deals such as Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, and Bath & Body Works.

“A lot of the stores I talked to this morning did think the midnight opening was going to help them meet or exceed their sales,” he said Friday afternoon. “They felt it brought in a lot of new sales.”

A record number of shoppers are expected this weekend. For three days starting on Black Friday, 152 million people are expected to shop, either online or in stores, an increase of about 10 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

The midnight sales seemed to draw more of a younger crowd

ST. PETERS

They line up at soup kitchens by the thousands. Individual debt is rising, savings are eroding and many young people have simply given up, staying home without studying or even looking for a job.

They are Italy’s invisible poor, unseen by tourists, ignored by the country’s fat-cat politicians and living in a reality that’s a far cry from former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s description of an affluent country where “the restaurants are full.”

Or in the words of Francesa Zuccari, who runs a soup kitchen in Rome: “There is another city out there where people can’t get to the end of the month.”

This is the Italy facing Mario Monti, the economics professor tapped to form an interim technocratic government after Berlusconi was forced to resign last weekend. International markets and the European Community decided the 75-year-old media mogul lacked the political clout to enact needed reforms to head off a debt crisis and get the economy moving.

On Tuesday, Monti won support from Italy’s two largest parties, but the question remains whether politicians will back his expected painful reform measures at the risk of social peace.

On the one hand, Italy’s elite manufacturers are girding for an increase in luxury exports and some wealthy Italians are looking to move their money into the real-estate markets in New York, Miami and Paris.

On the other, the state statistics institute ISTAT says 8 million Italians, almost 14 percent of the population, are living in “relative poverty.”

While tourists may not see the poor as they visit Tuscany’s rolling hills, Venice’s waterways or the Amalfi coast’s picturesque villages, they are increasingly visible on Italian city streets.

Many Italians have begun taking their money out of banks, fearing reports that measures to help fight the sovereign debt crisis might include deductions from bank accounts, as was done in the 1990s.

“They are putting it under the mattress, or even inside empty wine jugs in the cellars. We are a country of farmers,” said Elio Lannutti, president of consumer protection group Adusbef.

An American service organization in Rome asked its members to spend their Thanksgiving holiday next week making food packages for the poor. Zuccari said demand for food parcels had risen 20 percent in the last few years, with well-dressed Italians now joining immigrants in line.

Caritas, the Roman Catholic church’s charity arm, says growing numbers of families can’t meet a surprise expense of euro700 ($947) without turning to borrowing.

“What is really dramatic is the geographic division,” said Caritas’ Walter Nanni, pointing to figures that Italy’s south remains severely impoverished.

While only 18 percent of families in the Alpine province of Trento could not meet such an unexpected payment for medical expenses or car repairs, the figure rises to 48 percent in Sicily.

“The (south) shows in a particular manner growing signs of economic and social vulnerability,” Monsignor Mariano Crociata, secretary-general of the Italian Bishops Conference, said in an October report on poverty.

To be sure, Italy isn’t as bad off as Greece or Portugal, which are both in recession, struggling with high unemployment as they are being bailed out by international lenders.

But Italy’s prospects aren’t great either, particularly given its brain drain and policies that have pushed Italy’s underutilized youth even further to the margins.

A gerontocracy dominates Italy’s key professional posts, making workers even well into their 40s still considered up-and-coming. In the highest political circles, Monti is 68, Berlusconi is 75 and the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, is 86.

Many younger Italians in fields like medicine, science and technology leave for countries that have more professional opportunities and mobility.

And the prospects for those who have not left are eroding fast. The Bank of Italy this month reported that nearly one in four Italians under 30 _ a total of 2.2 million people _ neither study nor work.

The great majority of the Italian NEET’s _ short for “Not in Education, Employment or Training” _ live at home with at least one parent, and a full 25 percent are living in a family where no one is working, the bank said.

A university degree does little to alleviate their plight: A full 20 percent of college graduates are without a job.

Lawyers in Italy must do a two-year apprenticeship before taking the bar exam, and most firms take advantage of the requirement to get free labor out of the trainees. Among the measures being discussed to confront the debt crisis would be a requirement that internships are paid.

“At least with Monti there is some hope since he is not a politician subject to pressure from the lobbies,” said Francesco Bureca, who graduated from an elite school but can’t land a job.

But hardline leftists expect no improvement for Italy’s poor, even from the new government.

“The Monti government is born from a mandate of Confindustria (a powerful business lobby) and the banks,” said Marco Ferrando, leader of the tiny Communist Workers Party.

He called for new protests. Italy’s last major economic protest this fall ended in a bloody riot on the streets of Rome.

____

Barry reported from Milan.

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Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is expected to resign after parliament’s lower chamber passes European-demanded reforms, amid continued debate among the embattled leader’s allies over who should take his place.

While respected economist Mario Monti is clearly the top choice of Italy’s president and international markets to steer the country out of its debt crisis, members of Berlusconi’s own Peoples of Liberty Party and allied Northern League remain split low fee payday advance.

It isn’t clear if the opposition will be enough to scuttle President Giorgio Napolitano’s apparent plan to ask Monti to try to form a government once Berlusconi resigns, which is expected Saturday afternoon after the Chamber of Deputies approves economic reforms.

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Regions Bank has eliminated a new debit card fee it imposed on some checking accounts this month that was unpopular with customers.

In a statement Monday, the bank said it is eliminating a monthly $4 fee it introduced this month on some checking accounts when a Regions customer used a debit card in a non-ATM transaction.

Now, though, Regions Bank has reversed course, based on customer feedback about the fee. “We have heard from our customers and are responding to their feedback by eliminating the monthly fee for CheckCards,” John Owen, head of Consumer Services for Regions Bank, said in a statement. The bank declined to disclose the number of complaints it received, or whether customers closed their accounts based on the fee.

On Nov. 4, Regions Bank will reimburse customers who were charged the fee.

Birmingham-based Regions is among the largest banks in St. Louis, based on deposits. It has 70 branches in the St. Louis area.

Regions joins other banks in dropping debit card fees. The retail banking arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co., which tested a fee for some checking accounts earlier this year, including a $3 monthly fee for a debit card and $5 for online bill pay, will end that program in November. SunTrust Bank also announced on Monday that it is dropping its monthly $5 debit card fee that was set to take effect this week online pay day loans. Wells Fargo has also cancelled its plans to test a fee structure for debit cards in some states.  

Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, the second largest bank in the U.S. and the second largest bank locally, has come under fire in recent weeks after it announced plans to introduce a $5 monthly fee on some checking accounts when a debit card is used. That fee is set to go into effect in early 2012.

Banks said they were imposing the fees based on new federal legislation that led to a lower cap on what a bank can charge for debit card transactions. As part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, maximum “swipe fees” decreased from 44 cents to 24 cents, beginning in October.

Some local banks and credit unions welcomed the new debit card fee announcements by their competitors as an opportunity to attract new customers. One recent ad by First Community Credit Union, the biggest credit union in St. Louis, reads: “Why pay for your debit card?” The credit union does not impose monthly fees for checking accounts.

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On one side of Bangkok, you’ll find the victims of Thailand’s worst flooding in half a century. They float down trash-strewn waterways, paddling washtubs with wicker brooms over submerged neighborhoods.

Just a few miles (kilometers) away, you’ll find something else entirely: well-heeled shoppers perusing bustling malls decorated with newly hung Halloween decorations, couples sipping espresso in the air-conditioned comfort of ultrachic cafes.

Although catastrophic flooding has devastated a third of this Southeast Asian nation and submerged some of the capital’s northernmost districts, the reality for the majority of this sprawling metropolis of 9 million people is that life goes on.

The desperate images of disaster contrast sharply with scenes of total normality _ from night-owls drinking cocktails in red light districts to tourists enjoying relaxing foot massages in faux-leather chairs downtown.

An exodus of thousands of Bangkok residents to nearby resorts and a government-ordered five-day holiday have left the notoriously congested city unusually easy to maneuver by taxi and three-wheeled tuk-tuk.

“It’s better, in a way,” Nicole Attwater of Sydney said Sunday, adding that she was happy to brave some flooding to see the Grand Palace, the gold-studded former seat of the Thai monarchy, with far lighter crowds than normal on a sunny morning.

“It’s a good time to come, because it’s quiet,” she said.

Most of Bangkok is dry, with little to indicate that anything is wrong _ except for the ominous walls of sandbags stacked around hotels and homes, and the apocalyptic predictions of everyone from expatriate bloggers to some members of the Thai government.

Yet, the threat of floodwaters sweeping through the city is still very real. Nationwide, 381 people have died over the last three months, and 110,000 more have been displaced _ 10,000 of them in Bangkok, according to government figures. The catastrophe has put hundreds of thousands of people out of work and cost billions of dollars in damage _ a bill that grows larger by the day.

Among items struck from tourists’ agendas: shopping for crafts at the popular Chatuchak weekend market and dinner cruises down the city’s Chao Phraya river _ all canceled due to the high waters. The river swelled to a record high level early Sunday, spilling into some neighborhoods and sparking fears it would flood the inner city.

Fears over worse-case scenarios and travel warnings issued by foreign governments have slashed visitors by half at sites like the Grand Palace and the giant gold-plated Reclining Buddha inside Bangkok’s Wat Pho temple complex.

But the biggest problem by far, said tour guide Keerati Atui, is the media, which he said has given the impression that most of Bangkok is under water.

“Look around,” he said, gesturing to lines of tourists streaming into the white-walled palace. “It’s dry. Everything here is normal.”

River water has lapped at the palace gates and even crept inside, but much of it has welled up through drains in the riverside neighborhood. One picture posted this week on Twitter showed a cameraman filming a television news anchor on a street beside the palace in ankle-high water. On both sides of the pair, the street was bone dry.

Heavy monsoon rains have pummeled a large swath of Asia since July. As floodwaters crept across Thailand, they first drowned neighboring provinces, then districts on the northern outskirts of Bangkok. Last week, advancing water forced the city’s Don Muang airport, which is used mainly for domestic flights, to shut down. However, the international Suwarnabhumi airport remains open, and the city’s skytrain and subway lines were functioning normally.

Nobody knows how far the water will go, but so far Bangkok’s defenses have mostly held.

Statements from government leaders have alternated from assurances the capital would be spared to dire warnings that nowhere is safe.

Panicked Bangkokians have stripped supermarkets and convenience stores of bottled water and dried noodle supplies in recent weeks as a result, but there is still plenty to drink. Both those items can be still found in street-side shops along the city’s temple-dotted riverside, where the mineral water is ice cold and the noodle soup is spicy and sprinkled with fish balls.

“A lot of people are overreacting, they’ve been hoarding too much stuff,” said Kwanpimol Pleegluay, a 48-year-old housewife. “They watch the news and see people in other flooded provinces and think that’s going to happen to them here.”

Kwanpimol was taking a casual stroll along the Chao Phraya with her husband over the weekend _ to see how high the river swelled. After peering into the water, she took his photo and chose one word to describe the scene: “Beautiful,” she said.

On the other side of the Chao Phraya, where the 200-year-old pagoda of the city’s famed Temple of the Dawn rises from the banks, 42-year-old monk Phramaha Abhin said he was not worried.

“The Lord Buddha taught us not to be negligent, we must always prepare,” said Phramaha, referring to newly laid protective layer of sandbags outside the temple, where he lives. “But he also taught us not to foolishly fear that which hasn’t happened yet.”

Many people in Bangkok and neighboring provinces see the flooding as something that should be accepted, not something to be angry about.

In Bangkok’s heavily flooded Thonburi district, a navy team evacuated a stranded pregnant woman whose water broke Sunday. Aorasa Wisetkoop looked anxious, but remained calm and held tightly onto her belly, while a rescue team lifted her into a boat.

“We had to get her to hospital,” rescuer Nitipat Mongolpradit said.

But along with every tragic and urgent incident in the inundation, there were images of Thais splashing in the floodwaters for fun.

When the river began flowing like a waterfall over a wall into Chantana Srisuwan’s wooden-shack kitchen, the 58-year-old pulled out a stack of aluminum pans, soaped them up and began washing them. “Why bother being troubled?” she asked.

“If we think we shouldn’t get wet, we’ll never have peace of mind,” she said, as a neighbor complained he could not sleep because his bed was submerged beneath encroaching waves. “If there’s no water, great. But if there is, we have to learn to live with it.”

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