This week former U.S. Secretary of State General Colin L. Powell (Ret.) told a ballroom-sized crowd assembled for the annual Turnaround Management Association’s (TMA) conference in a post- Katrina New Orleans his axiom, “If you have 40 to 70 percent of the information, you probably have what you need. Take a chance, do something. Go [...]

While fear and panic have gripped Wall Street and Main Street alike the past few weeks, others have prospered.
For example, on January 22, 2008, after the Dow Jones Industrial Average had tumbled from its high above 14,000 in October 2007 to below 12,000, Bill Bolden, a handy man, came to Natalie Pace to find out [...]

Host Hotels & Resorts Inc is reported to cut its guidance for the rest of the year to reflect increasing weakness in its transient and group business. however it has improved second-quarter results on Wednesday.
Funds from operations rose to 56 cents per share for the three months ended June 13. In the year-ago period, [...]

The national and the local apartment vacancy rates, far apart in recent years, are much closer now.
Reis, Inc. (AMEX: WRP) a New York-based research firm, said the nation’s average apartment vacancy was 5.8 percent as of the end of the second quarter, down from 6 percent during the first three months of 2007 –reportedly the [...]

PARIS - Carrefour, the European answer to Wal-Mart and the world’s second-largest retailer, is in play.
It is a classic story, involving generational tensions, a senior executive summarily dismissed and pressure from powerful investors hunting for profit. But it is also a very French story because the value of the treasure at the tale’s core — [...]

Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited announced that two of its shareholders, The Blackstone Group and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, have agreed to sell 5,707,623 ordinary shares of Aspen and 2,219,665 ordinary shares of Aspen, respectively, in an underwritten public offering at a price to the public of $26.70 per share. Following the completion of the [...]

HFF, Inc. announced that the underwriters of its recent initial public offering have exercised their option to purchase additional shares in full to purchase an additional 2.145 million shares of its Class A common stock at the initial offering price.
The joint book-running managers for the initial public offering were Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Morgan [...]

Wall Street will get its first taste of a publicly traded hedge fund Friday when Fortress Investment Group LLC sells shares in an initial public offering valuing the alternative asset manager at $7.38 billion.
The New York-based funds of funds, which manages $29.9 billion in assets, is the first of its kind to go public in [...]

A spate of analysts raised their profit forecasts for Federated Department Stores Inc., a day after the owner of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s said January same-store sales beat Wall Street expectations and raised its fourth-quarter forecast, but some remain skeptical about whether the strong results will continue.
Federated said same-store sales rose 6.1 percent in January, topping [...]

Freddie Mac announced that it plans to issue a new $4 billion three-year USD Reference Notes® security due on February 9, 2010. The issue, CUSIP number 3137EAAP4, will be priced on February 8, 2007, and will settle on February 9, 2007.
The new three-year Reference Notes security will be offered via a syndicate of dealers headed [...]

The Senate Banking Committee will conduct a hearing Wednesday on lender practices within the subprime mortgage space.
Representatives have been invited to testify from Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Mortgage Brokers, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, American Association of Retired Persons, and the Center for Responsible Lending.
Lehman Brothers analyst Charles Marr [...]

RBC Capital Markets today announced that Doug McGregor and Mark Standish were named co-presidents of RBC Capital Markets. Both Mr. Standish and Mr. McGregor will report to Chuck Winograd, who will continue as chief executive officer of RBC Capital Markets.
“This announcement reflects RBC Capital Markets’ long-term succession planning and recognizes the tremendous accomplishments of Mark [...]