| American Capital Increases Q4 Dividend 14% to $1.00
American Capital's Board of Directors has declared a fourth quarter 2007 regular dividend of $1.00 per share to record holders as of December 7, 2007, payable on January 16, 2008. This is a $0.04 per share increase over its guidance, $0.08 per share increase over the third quarter 2007 and a 14% increase over the fourth quarter 2006 dividend of $0.88 per share. American Capital has paid or declared total 2007 dividends of $3.72 per share, which are expected to be a distribution from ordinary taxable income. This is a 12% growth over the total 2006 dividends of $3.33 per share. American Capital anticipates that its 2007 ordinary taxable income will exceed dividends paid in 2007 and will elect to pay a 4% excise tax and retain excess ordinary taxable income for future dividends. LONG-TERM CAPITAL GAINS DIVIDEND POLICY American Capital also announced a change to its dividend policy for net long-term capital gains.
Rolling Up the Online Newspaper Coverage
Ironically enough, it was in a data-based article about the future of the newspaper business, which has been turning shareholders into sob sisters for years now without more than vague promise for a reversal. If you can find a single hard fact to support the hope that they'll get out of their roiling cauldron, do let me know. But here's the data on the future of newspapers: Nielsen compiled numbers showing that newspapers saw 6% growth in online readers for 2007 vs. 2006. Alone, this is bad news. If newspaper companies like Gannett (GCI - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and New York Times (NYT - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) are going to replace enough of their exponentially more profitable print readers with the fly-by-night, cheap-o Internet ones -- well, they gotta' be growing their readership base by more than this or my name ain't Rupert T.
ACCUSED: Scottish Labour Leader Wendy Alexander. Picture: Gordon ...
It is wrong of opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament to scaremonger over the future of funding for vulnerable groups or special projects. The money is there and Cosla confirmed nearly a month ago that spending on those areas will continue. "The new relationship with local authorities in Scotland is being replicated by Labour in London and applauded by local authorities of all persuasions. "The only people who won't work constructively with local government are Labour's Scottish Parliament leadership. "It seems the isolation of Wendy Alexander is spreading - she is at odds with the UK Government, with Scottish Labour MPs and with Scotland's local authorities. "Let's hope the New Year brings a more constructive approach to Scotland's new politics from Ms Alexander and her parliamentary friends." But Andy Kerr, Labour's Shadow Secretary for Public Services, insisted the previous executive's policy had guaranteed funding for vital projects.
DOUBLE DUTY: Coaching Everett's girls and boys hoops teams ...
Sexton boys coach Carlton Valentine, who played at Michigan State in 1984-88, has known Jones since he enrolled at MSU. This is his third year as a head coach and he is in awe of Jones' ability to coach two varsity teams the same night. "To me, it takes so much concentration, so much effort, so much intensity, when you're preparing one team," Valentine said. "The emotional highs and lows of a game, I couldn't imagine doing two games back to back. But if anybody can do it, it's Johnny Jones." It helps that Jones, 57, retired from teaching almost three years ago after 32 years in the classroom. He does substitute teach a couple of days a week, but no longer has the daily classroom grind. Naturally, people questioned whether one person should coach both varsity teams.
Obituary: Newspaper pressroom superintendent Zoeller, 92, loved to ...
"He was a legend," said San Antonio Express-News Administrative Editor Barry Robinson. "If you worked here in those days, you were like a big family, and he was sort of like a daddy to all of us." He was James "Jimmy" Felton Zoeller, who retired from the San Antonio Express and the Evening News, which were merged into the Express-News, after more than 40 years as pressroom superintendent. Zoeller, 92, died Saturday. Zoeller didn't start working for the papers until the late 1930s, but his service to readers began when he was 14. He spent the early mornings of his teenage years delivering the newspaper to the Boerne/Comfort area, sometimes by car and other times on horseback. After graduating from Boerne High School and marrying his high school sweetheart, Anita, Zoeller started working as an apprentice pressman.
Economic stimulus a big break for home buyers
Although Fannie and Freddie are independent, publicly traded companies, there is universal belief that the U.S. government would ride to their rescue if need be. "If they end up buying up bad loans or getting themselves in trouble so that their own survival is in question, the federal government will bail them out, I don't doubt it," Baker said. Supporters of the cap hike say that the housing market is in such crisis that a quick infusion of capital is the best way to prevent foreclosures from spreading even more. Now that the Bush administration and House leaders from both parties have agreed on the stimulus package, it will go to the full House and then to the Senate. Underscoring how urgently Congress views the economic situation, legislators plan to fast-track the bill so it reaches Bush by mid-February.
Who's that with Jools, then?
Hootenanny may glitter, but Later is the gold. I suppose he's right, though they do look similar to the half-closed eye. Jools has abandoned his sandwich and is leading the band in a shambolic reggae version of 'The Lambeth Walk', which comes to an end when someone decides that his piano needs moving two inches to the left. Spotlights go on and off. A roadie brings tambourines for the backing singers. There's a lot of everything going on. We go upstairs out of the chaos. It's not actual chaos, Mark says, though it would be without director Janet Fraser Cook, who is the strategic genius behind making sure none of the wandering artists gets brained by a swooping camera before they've done their last number. The show was Janet's idea in the first place. She and Mark worked together on The Late Show on BBC2 and Later grew out of that, recorded on the same night, using the same crew and equipment and held together with bits of string and with fingers crossed.
Welcome to the World of Dr. FrankenFinance!
Many of the large institutions that are the bellwethers of industry (certain industries, at least) are the victims of Dr. FrankenFinance. Due to the machinations of Doctorates of Philosophy (PhDs), who are much smarter than I am (academically at least), there has been an explosion of financial activity in the past decade. From off balance sheet structures to insured debt, to the securitization and sale of balance sheet liabilities, these doctors (known in today's parlance as financial engineers) have enabled companies to do what just a decade or two before had been considered impossible and just the stuff of fantasy. But wait, did they truly weave magic? Or was it the result of financial alchemy? Or was it just pure, old fashioned math? Well, whatever it was considered in its creation, it can now be now considered...
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