| First National Launches Nebraska’s Only Full-Service Investment Bank
Based on initial reactions from clients, Lauritzen said, the full-service investment banking concept fills an important need for many corporations and individuals. We engaged First National Mergers & Acquisitions last year to help us arrange a management buyout, commented Wayne Hansen, CEO of Control Installations of Iowa. They were able to bring together First National Mezzanine Capital and First National Bank of Omaha's senior debt and 401(k) services to deliver a total solution for our needs. We were very pleased with the creativity and responsiveness of the First National team, Hansen said. In 2003, Lauritzen joined First National Bank of Omaha, where his primary responsibilities were in corporate banking. He formed the Mergers and Acquisitions Group for First National of Nebraska in 2005 and was subsequently named to lead the firms expansion into full-service investment banking.
United Way's role evolves
Time was when the United Way didn't give money to people like Christopher McSherry, at least not directly. When he came home injured in December following a National Guard tour in Iraq, McSherry found himself in a desperate financial crisis. He needed several thousand dollars to pay his mortgage, and he simply didn't have the cash. .
The vultures take wing
Some of them look back fondly on the bursting of the dotcom bubble; others feel nostalgic about the 1990s recession. Distressed-debt tra-ders, who buy bonds no one else will touch, and turnaround specialists, who pull companies back from the brink, operate in a topsy-turvy world, where bad times are good and corporate wreckage yields rich rewards. The pickings have been slimmer for vultures over the past three years, however. Corporate profits have proved annoyingly robust and plentiful credit has made refinancing sickeningly easy. Except for the odd scrap of rotting meat (mainly among car-parts makers and airlines) they have had little to sink their talons into. This has led to category creep. Traditional distress funds have drifted reluctantly into risky, but still solvent, junk bonds and high-yield loans to keep business ticking along.
Microlending gets local
If not for a flier stapled to a telephone pole in Central Square, Anastasia Mathis-Belay might have abandoned her dream of owning a document-processing business. That scrap of paper, posted amid announcements for band gigs and cleaning services, eventually led to a boost in her confidence and her credentials by giving her a resource she didn't know she could access: Harvard. The organization behind the flier is CMI, Cambridge Microfinance Initiative, begun in October by a group of Harvard undergraduates who modeled it on a similar Yale University program. The students, all volunteers, work with about 10 low-income entrepreneurs at a time in Cambridge to create business plans, marketing plans, and pricing structures, with the goal of obtaining a small loan. Lenders refer to providing small amounts of money, between $500 and $25,000, to people too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans as microloans.
Some easy ways to make a student income stretch
For most people, distinguishing between wants and needs is the most difficult part of learning to manage their finances properly. A need is something that is important for survival: food, shelter or clothing. A want is something we desire beyond our needs. While our needs can be met, our wants can be limitless.
If you can barely afford to make your rent payment each month and you're ready to spend money on a new PlayStation 3, you may need to reassess your priorities. After all, your new PlayStation 3 won't be so hot if you have no place to play it.
You must determine the distinction between your needs and wants. A necessity to one person may be a luxury to another. You certainly need to eat, but do you need to eat out? If you need to eat out, do you need to eat in expensive restaurants?
Consider investing in groceries.
Backstage Productions has taken an innovative, advertising-driven ...
What began as an idea dreamt up between two old friends has now become a financially sustainable success. Fresh out of college with big dreams and great ideas, Fahd El-Gammal, an accounting graduate from the American University in Cairo, and Ahmed Selim, who studied mass communication at Misr International University, only had Gammals bedroom balcony and their youthful enthusiasm to fulfill their dream of creating an alternative music-publishing company. Kawalis-Masr, or Backstage Productions in English, offers emerging stars in the music business an alternative way to distribute their music and increase their market exposure. The young entrepreneurs knew an opportunity when they saw one. It started four years ago with the new underground bands emerging, like Wust El-Balad, and cultural centers like El-Sawy [Culture Wheel] began to appear, and we started seeing emphasis from the audience on these bands but no one produced their songs, says Gammal, Kawalis-Masrs 22-year old production manager.
Credit fees on the rise
Several credit card companies operating in the UK have raised a number of charges in the past few weeks, according to new information from Moneyfacts, the online financial comparison service. It named several credit card issuers as introducing higher charges, including Lloyds TSB (LSE: LLOY), Northern Rock (LSE: NRK), Nationwide, Marks & Spencer (LSE: MKS), GE Money (NYSE: GE), and Co-operative Bank. Moneyfacts says that the increases in charges are the companies' response to last year's Office of Fair Trading ruling that cut default fees to £12. Changes include increases in interest rates and cutting short interest-free offers. Moneyfacts pointed to a new requirement from Lloyds TSB as particularly unsavory. In order to be able to take advantage of a 0 percent balance transfer offer, Lloyds is now requiring customers to charge a minimum of £100 on their card within the first three months of issuance.
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