Business and Finance

Alberici Corp. said today it has bought a Topeka, Kan.-based company that specializes in building water treatment facilities using the design-build method.

Terms of Alberici’s deal to buy CAS Construction LLC were not released. Mike Burke, executive vice president of Alberici, said in a statement the acquisition provides Alberici with additional design-build capabilities and the ability to reach new customers and markets.

Alberici and CAS began working together three years ago, when they teamed with engineering firm Burns & McDonnell on the $73 million aquifer recharge system for the city of Wichita, Kan.

Mike Hafling, president of CAS, and other senior managers will remain with the company, which has been renamed CAS Constructors. LLC. Charles A. Stryker founded the company in 1985 and managed the business until his death in 2006.

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European financial chiefs are trying to soothe global CEOs and political leaders, insisting they have a handle on the eurozone’s troubles.

Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says he’s “quite optimistic” about a Greek debt restructuring deal, despite recent strains in the complex talks. He says he doesn’t expect Greece to default.

He stressed that recent developments in markets have been “positive” for Italy and Spain.

France’s Finance Minister Francois Baroin welcomed actions by the European Central Bank that he says have helped “reduce tensions in the European banking system payday loans.”

Both spoke Friday at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, where many business and political VIPs fear that Europe’s debt crisis will drag the global economy into a new recession.

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OPEC’s acting president said the producer group should stay out of political battles, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported Sunday, an apparent bid by the bloc to steer clear of a potential showdown between Tehran and the U.S. over threats to close the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul-Karim Elaibi said that while Iran’s “enemies” have imposed various sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the 12-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ main focus should be protecting its members’ interest and not being dragged into a political struggle over oil.

Elaibi, who is also OPEC’s current president, last week said he was going to Tehran to warn against closing the strait, through which about a sixth of the world’s crude flows daily. IRNA did not say whether the tension over the waterway was raised during the oil minister’s meetings with officials.

Instead, the language reflected the warmer relations between Iran and Iraq since a U.S.-led coalition had ousted former strongman Saddam Hussein in 2003. The Shiite government in Baghdad is seen as increasingly close to Tehran, and Iran is investing heavily in Iraq.

Iran has warned repeatedly it would choke off the strait if sanctions affect its oil sales. The U.S. has enacted, but not yet put into force, sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank and, by extension, the country’s ability to be paid for its oil. The European Union, a major buyer of Iranian oil, is considering sanctions on Iranian crude.

The tension over the strait and the potential impact it would have not only on global oil supplies, but also the price of crude and the economies of the countries that buy Iranian oil, have weighed heavily on consumers and traders credit reports free.

Gulf nations have offered assurances that they would step in and provide any additional crude needed by the global market. Iran interpreted the offer as an attempt to undercut it and issued a quick warning to the Gulf Arab producers to not try to offset its exports with their own.

Elaibi’s remarks appear to be an attempt to pull the producer bloc out of the political fray, but they also reflect the uneasy balance Iraq faces.

Iraq exports most of its crude through the strait, and any attempt to shut the waterway could be a severe blow to its economy. At the same time, it appears reluctant to come across as being too harsh on its neighbor, in part because of the investments Iran provides and its ideological weight as the region’s strongest Shiite government.

His visit to Tehran came just days before Iraq inaugurates a new oil export outlet in the Gulf with a capacity of up to 900,000 barrels a day. It would be the first of five floating facilities that would eventually handle about 5 million barrels a day.

The new outlet will help Iraq, limited now by infrastructure bottlenecks, to export more oil.

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Wall Street opened higher Wednesday following reports that the International Monetary Fund could get more cash to help countries struggling to manage their debt.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 43 points at 12,483 after the first half-hour of trading. That’s an increase of 0.4 percent. Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are the Dow’s leading stocks. BofA rose 2.6 percent, JPMorgan 2 percent.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. jumped 3.5 percent after the investment bank reported earnings that trumped analysts’ expectations. Profit still sank 58 percent in the last three months of 2011, a result of sinking interest rates and volatile financial markets.

Other financial stocks were sharply lower. State Street Corp. dropped 6.5 percent.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, said Tuesday that the fund was looking at ways to increase the amount it can lend to countries, partly to deal with Europe’s debt crisis.

The S&P 500 index is up 5 points to 1,298. The Nasdaq is up 16 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,744.

Yahoo Inc. rose 2 no credit check payday loans.5 percent on news that co-founder Jerry Yang is leaving the struggling Internet company. The departure clears the way for newly hired CEO Scott Thompson to take more radical action to shake up the company.

The Federal Reserve said manufacturing rose 0.9 percent in December, the biggest increase since December 2010. Output surged as companies bought more machines and materials.

Among other stocks making large moves Wednesday:

_ Amphenol Corp. soared 10 percent, the largest gain in the S&P 500. The manufacturer of fiber optic cables reported earnings that beat analysts’ expectations.

_ Linear Technology Corp. jumped 8.3 percent. The Milpitas, Calif.-based circuit maker said it expects revenue to rise between 4 and 8 percent in its third quarter following strong order increases in December and January. It also raised its dividend by a penny to 25 cents per share.

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Members of the European Parliament involved in drawing up a new treaty designed to stop countries that use the euro from overspending on Wednesday slammed the latest draft.

The three MEPs, all from different parties, warned that that the latest version of the accord “is not compatible with existing EU Treaties.”

Eurozone leaders decided to draw up a new accord, which sets up tighter limits on budget deficits and is supposed to pull the 17 countries that use the euro closer together, at a summit in December in the hope that it would help the currency union pull out of its worsening debt crisis.

They were forced to resort to a separate accord after the U.K. blocked changes to existing EU treaties. All nine other EU countries that do not use the euro have supported the new accord in principle.

But the European Parliament in particular is concerned that the separate treaty sets up parallel structures within the EU, disempowering elected lawmakers and the European Commission.

“The draft does not guarantee that any decision to implement the new agreement would be taken via the normal procedures laid down in the EU treaties to ensure proper democratic scrutiny and accountability,” Elmar Brok, a member of the center-right European People’s Party; Roberto Gualtieri from the Socialist party, and Guy Verhofstadt, a liberal, said in a joint statement.

Their warning underlines a trend that has become more and more pronounced as the eurozone’s debt crisis has intensified over the past two years: important decisions are made by heads of state and government at EU summits _ often dominated by the leaders of France and Germany _ and then presented as a take-it-or-leave-it deal to national parliaments fast cash advance loan.

The parliamentarians are concerned that most of the amendments they made to the previous draft _ stressing the role of the Parliament and the Commission _ were not taken up in the latest version. A roadmap toward eurobonds, debt instruments backed by the eurozone as a whole, also did not make it into the draft.

There were few major changes to the new rules established in the accord. One point of contention is the number of countries that have to ratify the new treaty before it comes into force.

The first draft, circulated before Christmas, stipulated that only eight countries had to ratify the treaty to bring it into existence. A second draft increased that number to 15, while the latest version takes it back down to 12.

Even though the treaty would only apply to the countries that have ratified it, a lower threshold for bringing it into force makes it easier for countries to set up new structures.

However, a spokesman for Verhofstadt stressed that this section was not a “make-or-break” issue.

The next round of negotiations will take place on Thursday morning and the Parliament will adopt its official position on the new accord next week.

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Companies with 401(k) plans and their employees may have to wait a little longer to find out what they are paying for their plans.

The Labor Department may push back the April 1 deadline that 401(k) plan providers were given to comply with new rules about fee disclosures, according to several people who had spoken to officials at the department.

One reason for the delay is that the release of the final rule, on how providers will be required to disclose their fees to employers, has been delayed for months, and isn’t expected to be published until the end of January. The rule will apply to all service providers, including recordkeepers, financial advisers and fund companies that work with 401(k) plans.

The Labor Department has a “high degree of confidence” that it can issue the rule by the end of January, according to a person familiar with the matter, adding that the department was sympathetic to the industry’s concerns about the short deadline for complying with the rule and wanted to avoid “a chaotic adjustment period.”

For 401(k) plan sponsors and participants, the delay means waiting three more months to find out what they are paying for their plans. The point of the disclosures is so that employers and ultimately employees know exactly what it is they are paying for when they sign up for their 401(k) plans.

Critics argue that it isn’t transparent what fees employers and plan participants are paying because much of it is buried in prospectuses and similar documents. As it stands, companies that offer 401(k) plans as retirement savings vehicles for employees are supposed to have access to fee information by April 1. Participants would get fee disclosures by June 1.

But for 401(k) plan providers, a delay of a few months would provide time to clarify exactly what they need to do to comply with the regulation, officials at industry lobbying groups said.

“We are very happy to work with the Department of Labor on expanded fee disclosure, but we need to know what it is we are complying with,” said Lisa Bleier, managing director of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, which represents hundreds of broker-dealers, banks and asset managers.

SIFMA wrote a letter to the Department of Labor on December 2 requesting a 12-to-18-month extension on the deadline from when the rule is finalized.

The Labor Department came out with the current version of the rule in July 2010 and gave providers 12 months to comply. After industry opposition, the agency extended the deadline to April 2012. With the final version of the rule still awaiting release, plan providers say they won’t have enough time to comply.

“The DOL needs to give us some breathing room,” said David Tittsworth, executive director of the Investment Adviser Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group. “Every day that goes by that you don’t have the new rule, it becomes more compelling to extend that time frame.”

Of particular concern for providers is whether the final rule will require them to provide a summary disclosure of all fees associated with the plan, on top of the actual fee disclosures. If so, providers also want guidance on the format that disclosure needs to take, said Craig Hoffman, general counsel for the Association of Pension Professionals and Actuaries.

“We are not opposed to the idea…, but we need sufficient time to implement it,” he said. ASPPA, in conjunction with the Council of Independent 401(k) Recordkeepers wrote a letter to the Department of Labor on December 19 asking for at least 12 months after the rule is finalized to comply with it.

” I would not be surprised if they came forward with an extension,” Hoffman said.

A Labor Department spokesman declined to comment.

A delay would also give plan providers more time before they face pressure to cut fees in the face of heightened competition as costs are put in the spotlight.

But sources familiar with the discussions at the Labor Department said providers should not expect a long delay on the deadline to comply with fee disclosures.

“The (department) is definitely flexible, but they do want it to happen this year,” said one person who had spoken to Labor Department officials.

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In a Dec. 30 story about iceberg lettuce being removed from grocery stores after salmonella was found in an Arizona field adjacent to the grower’s property, The Associated Press, relying on information from Kroger and its affiliated Smith’s Food and Drug, erroneously reported the lettuce had been removed from stores in North Carolina, among at least six other states. Kroger said Saturday the product never made it to its North Carolina stores.

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Regulators on Friday closed small banks in Florida and Arizona, boosting to 92 the number of bank failures in the U.S. this year.

The number of closures has fallen sharply this year as banks have worked their way through the bad debt accumulated in the recession. By this time last year, regulators had shuttered 157 banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Premier Community Bank of the Emerald Coast, based in Crestview, Fla., with $126 million in assets and $112 million in deposits, and Phoenix-based Western National Bank, with $162.9 million in assets and $144.5 million in deposits.

Summit Bank, based in Panama City, Fla., agreed to assume the loans and other assets as well as the deposits of Premier Community Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Summit Bank agreed to share losses on $98 million of Premier Community Bank’s assets.

Washington Federal, based in Seattle, is acquiring the assets and deposits of Western National Bank.

The failure of Premier Community Bank of the Emerald Coast is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $31.2 million; that of Western National Bank is expected to cost $37.6 million.

Florida has been one of the hardest-hit states for bank failures. Regulators closed 29 banks in Florida last year. The failure of Premier Community Bank brought to 13 the number of Florida lenders shut down this year

California, Georgia and Illinois also have seen large numbers of bank failures.

In all of 2010, regulators seized 157 banks, the most in any year since the savings and loan crisis two decades ago. Those failures cost around $23 billion. The FDIC has said 2010 likely was the high-water mark for bank failures from the Great Recession.

In 2009, there were 140 bank failures that cost the insurance fund about $36 billion, a higher price tag than in 2010 because the banks involved were bigger on average. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three were closed in 2007.

From 2008 through 2010, bank failures cost the fund $76.8 billion. The FDIC expects failures from 2011 through 2015 to cost $19 billion.

The deposit insurance fund fell into the red in 2009. With failures slowing, the FDIC’s fund balance turned positive in the second quarter of this year; it stood at $7.8 billion as of Sept. 30.

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