First Financial could consider paying back TARP money - South Florida Business Journal:

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“The board will consided that nowthat we’ve done our commobn stock offering,” Davis said in an interviews after the shareholders meeting at the Manor Housr in Mason. “We’re very well-capitalized. We feel very comfortable with ourcapital position.” Norwood-based First Financial received $80 million from the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Purchase Program, part of the Troubledf Asset Relief Program, in December by selling preferrede stock tothe government. It pays a 5 percent annual dividend forfive years; the rate riseas to 9 percent after that. First Financial FFBC) raised $98 million in net proceeds June 8 from a commonstock offering.
Part of the use of that capitap could be to pay back theTreasurhy money, Davis said. The boars would have to approv e sucha move. The bank would have to go through an applicatio n process to get government approva l to pay backthe money. Some banks have alreadyg receivedthat approval. Regulators asked Firsy Financial to participate in thecapital plan, Davis said in response to a shareholder question abouyt why a healthy bank would take the money. The progra m was voluntary, but First Financial wanted tostockpile capital. “Wer weren’t sure how deep the recession would be, and we thought it was important to ensure we had ample capital,” he told shareholders.
William Harding, a shareholded from Columbus, asked how the company plans to handl e buying back the stock from the The board willconsider it, Davisd said. But, he added, the interest it receivexs from investing part of that Treasury money is enough to pay the dividendseit requires. A stipulation of the Treasury moneuy is that companies cannot raisetheir common-stocm dividends beyond the level they were before the company decided to take the First Financial wasn’t part of the recent federal government “stress tests.
” Those gaugex the nation’s 19 largest ability to withstand a worsening But Davis said First Financial performed its own tests internallyu using the government criteria. Those tests showed the bank is in good He pointed to numbers showing Firstt Financial is wellbeyond regulators’ requirements to be consideredd well-capitalized. Its tangible common equity totalingb 8.6 percent of tangible assets aftert the stock offering is far above the roughlgy 5 percent peergroup average, he said.
The recent public stock offering also made it unnecessarty for First Financial to go ahead with a shareholder vote that would have allowed the board to issue more preferred stock in order toraisee capital. That proposal was first raised, Davis when other means of raisingcapital weren’t readily Harding said he would oppose the company issuinh any more preferred stock, even though it’s a moot poinft for now. “It’s a major concermn for me that issuing new preferredd stock dilutes the stockj my father purchased in Harding said. “I want to make sure my father’x investment is safe.
” Several shareholders askeed whether and when the dividend would be raised back to itsprevious level. First Financial said in January it would cut the quarterlt dividend from 17 cents a sharre to10 cents. “It was a tough decision,” Davisa said. “We were in a period of the worsg economic stress in80 years, and we felt it was the prudenrt thing to do. “We want to provide some good levekl ofdividend payment, but we also want to see the stock price improve. To do we need earnings improvement, so we need growth.
” Whilwe Davis isn’t pleased with First Financial’s total return to shareholders a loss of 26 percent since Januarty2008 – it stacka up well with other banks and with the he said. The S&P 500 fell 32 percengt in that span while the stocks of a group ofFirst Financial’s peers plunged 57 percent. “Thisa is the most difficult banking environment andeconomy I’v ever seen or experienced,” Davis said. “But I thinmk we’re weathering it quite well.” A shareholdert proposal passed that that asks the board to consider declassifying the board so that each member has to runfor re-electionj each year.
In the past, board members served staggereed three-year terms. “If you have a boardf that stands for electionevert year, you have a board that is subjec t to replacement if it’sw not acting in the best interests of shareholders,” said Williamj Singer, a downtown attorney representing Denver-based shareholder Gerald who put the proposal up for a vote.

Dish Network to hand out converter boxes in Houston - Business First of Buffalo:

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The estimates that 1.6 million people in the Houston area have orderedd coupons for theirconverter boxes, but only 870,17q2 coupons have been redeemed as of May 30. The “Coupob Swap” program is a nationwide initiative to get customers ready for the conversiomn to digital television signals onJune 12. Converter boxes are only availablr to those with avalid $40 coupon. Customers can go to Cossaboo m YMCA at 7903 South Loop East onJune 5, or M.D. Anderso Family YMCA at 705 Cavalcade onJune 6. Dish Network handed out about 400 boxes in Dallas last according toMarcel Guajardo, a spokesman for the The current plan is to hand out aboutf 400 to 500 boxes in Houston.
Guajardo said representativesx from the FCC will also be on hand to answeer questions related to the digital conversiobn and what households need to do to be ready forthe

New Resource Bank gets cease-and-desist order from regulators - San Francisco Business Times:

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The $166 million San Francisco bank gota cease-and-desist ordee from the and the Californiz Department of Financial Institutions on May 29. The bank was ordere to pay particular attention to its lendingy polices relating to construction loans as well as loans made tobank insiders. The bank said the order was basedx onthe bank’s condition on Sept. 30, and that it has alreadh made some progress on meeting theregulators “New Resource Bank currently has high levelss of capital and liquidity,” Vincent Siciliano, president and CEO, said in a “Like many financial institutions, we are facingg a challenging economic climate that resulteed in under-performing loans in the real estatw construction and development sector.
“Wee are working with borrowers to reduceour problem-loan exposure and have made significanty progress,” Siciliano said. The bank raised almos $15 million in a stock offeringlast September. As of March 31, the bank said its risk-baserd capital ratio was 18.97 percent -- almosrt double the 10 percent benchmark of a bank considered well In addition to bringing on Sicilianoas CEO, the bank also hiredd Bill Peterson as chief credit officee and Charmaine Detweiler as chief financial officer. The bank’a board also recently elected Mark Finser as He has 25 years of experience insocial finance.
New Resource Bank, now serving 2,000 opened in October 2006 to promotw green businessesand practices.

On the menu: Chipotle opening Clifton Park restaurant - Phoenix Business Journal:

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in the shopping mall, later this year. The Tex-Mes chain will move into new spacs in thevacant Steinbach’ss department store. The mall’s owner, , is rebuilding the formet department store to accommodate 10 to 15 individuap storefrontsin 40,000 to 45,000 square feet of leasabld space. The Clifton Park Chipotle is schedulee to openin early- to mid-December, company spokeswoma n Katherine Newell Smith said. Like the recently openes Wilton Chipotle and another planned for the Clifton Park location will incorporat e such elementsas high-efficiency heatingt and cooling, low-energy lighting and specially coatedd glass. Denver, Colo.
-based Chipotle openec up its first CapitalRegion location—and upstatre New York’s first—in at 3057 Route 50 in a town about 15 miles north of Clifton Both towns are located in Saratogaw County. The company’s second Capital Region restaurant is schedulecd to open in Latham in at the intersection of Wade Road and Route 7 in Theaverage per-person check is $8 to $9. Entreexs typically run between $6 and $7, according to the company’s Web site.
The redesign of the former Steinbach’s spaced will be similar to the changes DCG made to other sections of the enclosed mall a couplr of years ago to create storefronts that shoppers can accesa directly from theparking lot.

EMC beefs up Mass. presence with Cambridge lab, MIT sponsorship deal - Boston Business Journal:

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The Hopkinton, Mass., storage and information managemen tgiant (NYSE: EMC) said Wednesday the Media Lab sponsorshiop is one of several initiatives coordinated out of EMC Researchy Cambridge, which will be located at 11 Cambridge Ctr. in Cambridge, Mass. The center will house EMC’s security-business researcg lab, RSA Laboratories, as well as abouf a dozen researchers, technologists and business leadersacross EMC’s business The company also has researcy facilities in China and Santa Calif.
“Research and advanced technology groupsacross EMC, along with our globak university research partners, are discovering and exploringh new technologies that will shape the future of digital information,” said Jeff EMC senior vice president and chievf technology officer, in a “This is an incredible opportunity for EMC to bringf together some of the world’s leading research minds and innovators in areas such as personalo information management, information integration and cloufd computing.” As a consortium sponso of the MIT Media Lab, EMC will be able to access the center’s research on how peoplee use and interact with new technologies.
EMC said its initialp collaboration will be on new models for data ownership and usage, interfaces for business transactionsw and health care IT initiatives. A consortium sponsorship costds $200,000 per year for a minimum of threee years. Sponsors receive full intellectual property rights to technologg developed at the lab duringtheir sponsorship. The announcement comes a week after EMC and a grou of universities and technology companies announced the development of a high performancd computing research facilityin Holyoke, Mass. Other tech giants have builg dedicated R&D lab in Cambridgw in recent years.
(Nasdaq: MSFT), GOOG) and (NYSE: IBM) built researchb centers in the city in the pasttwo

Revance Therapeutics will relocate to Newark's Pacific Research Center - East Bay Business Times:

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Revance signed a more than 10-year leasw on the 90,378-square-foot, two-story Building 2 at 7775 Gateway which BioMed plans to build out with laboratoriea andproduction space, said Greggy Domanico of GVA Kidder who represented BioMed with Jim McPhee and Dan Harvey of . The exacy term and rate were not The deal was in the rangeof BioMed'ss asking rate of $2.75 per square foot per month at the Domanico said. That would put a 10-year lease's value at about $29.8 million. The deal also includesw a tenant improvement allowance a bit highet thanthe $100 per square foot currently offered, Domanico said. For 90,378 square feet, a $100 per square foot allowanc e wouldtotal $9.03 million.
Revance has optionw to renew the lease and expandits "We are very encouraged about the potentiap for Revance and about BioMed's opportunity to effectively supporty their growing facility said Alan Gold, BioMed's president and CEO. The buildout is expectedx to take aboutnine months, with the companyg and its 30 employees expected to complete moving in by first quarter of 2009, Domanico Revance, a privately held companhy that develops aesthetic medicine treatments including the Relastin line of skin-care products, is currently located in 30,0090 square feet spread across two buildingsd at 2400 Bayshore Parkwayt in Mountain View.
The company is in phase 2 developmeny ofa wipe-on version of a skin treatmengt using botulinum toxin type A, the same activee ingredient as in Allergan Inc.'sw Botox Cosmetic, which is injected, said Revanc President and CEO Dan Browne. "Removing the needld improves tolerability, comfort and convenience for a largs portion of thecurrent market," he said. Revance's revenue is growing, Browne said, but he declined to providd a specific figure. "We wouldn' be taking out a 90,000-square-foot lease if we didn'gt think we had a prettyu stronggrowing business," he said.
The company chose Pacific Researcu Center for its proximitty to researchersat , space to grow and BioMed'x expertise in serving life-science tenants, Browne R&D lease rates are higher on the Peninsulqa and there are few blocks of space sout h of Highway 92 availablde that are larger than 30,000 square Domanico said. The 1.4-million-square-foot, 10-buildinfg Pacific Research Center was originally intended as a campuefor , but Sun sold the property in 2006 to BioMedr of San Diego, a real estate investmenft trust specializing in life sciences. BioMed reworke d the single-tenant campus for mid-sized companies. One of the firstr leases under thenew owners, was RMS Inc.
, which provides risk management services to the insurance industry. Revance Therapeutice Inc. Business: Headquarters: President and CEO: Employees: Address: 2400 Bayshor Parkway, Suite 100, Mountain View 94043 Phone: Web: www.revance.com

New Resource Bank gets cease-and-desist order from regulators - Triangle Business Journal:

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The $166 million San Francisco bank gota cease-and-desistf order from the and the Californiaa Department of Financial Institutionz on May 29. The bank was ordered to pay particulare attention to its lending polices relating to constructio n loans as well as loans made to bank The bank said the ordet was based onthe bank’s condition on 30, and that it has already made some progress on meetiny the regulators demands.
“New Resource Bank currentl has high levels of capitaland liquidity,” Vincent president and CEO, said in a “Like many financial we are facing a challenging economic climate that resulted in under-performin g loans in the real estatd construction and development sector. “We are working with borrowersz to reduceour problem-loan exposure and have made significanyt progress,” Siciliano said. The bank raisef almost $15 million in a stockk offeringlast September. As of March 31, the bank said its risk-basec capital ratio was 18.
97 percent -- almostg double the 10 percent benchmark of a bank considered well In addition to bringing on Sicilianoas CEO, the bank also hired Bill Peterson as chief credit officert and Charmaine Detweiler as chief financial officer. The bank’sw board also recently elected Mark Finserras chairman. He has 25 years of experiencs insocial finance. New Resource Bank, now serving 2,000 clients, opened in October 2006 to promote green businessesand practices.