Posted on April - 03 - 2011
The Mersey Partnership’s (TMP) Lorraine Rogers at its South Korea presentation at the London Embassy 300
DEVELOPER Peel Holdings hopes to build on links with prospective investors from South Korea, after a presentation by inward investment agency The Mersey Partnership (TMP) at Liverpool’s London embassy.
The Wednesday event was attended by the Republic of Korea’s Ambassador, His Excellency Mr Kyu Ho Choo, the Korean Trade and Investment Agency (KOTRA) and several world-ranking Korean companies, including car maker Hyundai, electronics giant Samsung and Asiana Airlines.
It followed talks initiated six months ago by TMP.
Peel development director Lindsey Ashworth outlined their £10bn plans for Liverpool and Wirral Waters, and said: “Their interest was such that there will be further meetings over the summer, all to take this to the next stage.”
His Excellency the Ambassador said: “I am confident that today will herald the accord of even greater numbers of new prospects and partnerships for growth in the future.”
TMP will now set up visits to the region, said chief executive Lorraine Rogers.
Posted on April - 02 - 2011
PROVIDENCE – Greenlee, a Rockford, Ill.-based subsidiary of Textron Inc., said it acquired a 51 percent stake in Shanghai Endura Tools Company Ltd. on March 30.
Shanghai-based Endura, established in 2004, is a hand tools provider for home centers, construction, industrial manufacturing and automotive channels, and employs about 140 people.
“The alliance also provides us with an opportunity to expand our presence in the Chinese tool market substantially, where we expect to increase sales significantly by leveraging Endura’s existing network and distribution structure of over 1,100 distributors,” said Scott Hall, president of the Textron Industrial Segment and Greenlee. The company did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement.
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Posted on March - 30 - 2011
TAUNTON, Mass. – The annual Taunton job fair has been canceled for the first time in 30 years due to a lack of interested employers, the Taunton Gazette reported.
The fair was scheduled for April 6 but only 10 of the tables were reserved by the deadline; the Taunton Employment Task Force said it needed 20-25 employers to run a “quality” job fair.
“Unfortunately, we just didn’t get employers out this year,” said Richard Shafer, chairman of the Taunton Employment Task Force, to the newspaper. “This is the first year it’s ever happened to us.”
The task force wouldn’t have been able to generate enough revenue in order to adequately advertise the job fair, he said while noting that the cancellation reflects the state of the economy in some ways.
In January,
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Posted on March - 29 - 2011
The banking industry has been busy fighting to defeat or delay a proposal that would cap the interchange fees they collect from merchants when customers pay with debit cards. As we’ve noted, they’ve lobbied extensively [1], and some banks have warned that they’ll end free checking, end some debit rewards [2], or place limits on the size of debit card purchases [3].
Yesterday, the industry took a different tack, suggesting there’s no need to cap the fees because rates aren’t going up to begin with [4]: The claim comes from a one-page paper [5] [PDF] by the industry’s trade group, the American Bankers Association.
“Merchant fee rates are not going up,” the paper said. “The enti
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Posted on March - 25 - 2011
As the crisis in japan starts to stabilize and announcements of two large US companies buying their competitors, the Dow sees big gains in stocks this week. The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 12,000 for the first time since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant failed following a massive earthquake and tsunami.
In the United States, AT&T said it would buy rival T-Mobile USA for $39 billion, creating the largest U.S. cell phone company. Charles Schwab said it would buy online brokerage services provider OptionsXpress for $1 billion. The deals raised hopes that more corporate buyouts could be on the way as businesses become more confident in the economic recovery.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 178.01 points, or 1.5 percent, to 12,036.53. Full Article…
Posted on March - 25 - 2011
The national economic activity index jumped sharply in January at an annual pace of over 20% driven by the 2% cut in payroll taxes, a huge jump in consumer confidence and nearly 200,000 new jobs. The annual growth pace was about 11% in the last three months. Every region is now recovering over the last three months although four of the weaker states (AL, CO, MT, and NM) experienced a slight dip in their index in January.
The significant changes this month are the quickening of economic growth in the Midwest, Gulf and the Pacific regions and a decline in the growth pace in New England and the South Atlantic regions.
The Great Lakes states, led by Michigan, are now the fastest growing part of the country. This is due to substantial worker recalls in the motor vehicle and other durable goods industries.
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