New York Gov. David A. Paterson Wednesday welcomed consuls general and other trade-focused 
public officials from 37 different nations to Buffalo. Billed as the largest trade mission in state history, it was organized by the Empire State Development Corp. to introduce the Buffalo-Niagara area as a good place for foreign investment.
It probably didn't help his case that the governor and his guests were greeted at the Hyatt Regency by a crowd of state employees
protesting the possible loss of their jobs.
It was also, perhaps, a curious day for Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown [standing behind the governor above] to release his long-awaited plan to attack the city's status as the third-poorest major city in the United States.
Elsewhere, the big news involves automobiles.
- Obama ‘hopeful’ for deal as Chrysler talks go on: President Obama said he is “very hopeful” that deals can be worked out to keep Chrysler a viable automaker, as negotiations with debtholders continued late Wednesday and Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA [OK, here it is in English] was poised to sign on as a Chrysler partner. [AP video.]
Updates: AP reports that Chrysler will, indeed, file bankruptcy. That doesn't change the scoop from this morning's Detroit Free Press about how the Fiat deal is done. Obama is to speak on Chrysler's status at noon today.[AP video.]
- Who will take wheel at General Motors?: Under a restructuring plan put forth this week by GM, the ailing automaker would give majority ownership to the federal government to stave off bankruptcy. ... The Obama administration has said it isn’t interested in running an auto company, but with that big of a stake, some analysts say the government would probably be tempted to push its own policies on such issues as alternative fuel vehicles and unions. [AP video - which, when I screened it, was preceded by a GM commercial.]
Update: Bloomberg reports that GM bondholders are pitching an idea that would give them, rather than the government, a majority stake in the company.
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
In today's Buffalo News Business Today section, a little optimism:
- First Niagara is upbeat in turmoil: The economic recession is likely to last into next year, and may get 
worse before it gets better, but First Niagara Financial Group is “cranked up” and “excited about the upside opportunities” it sees in the turmoil, its CEO [John R. Koelmel, right] told shareholders Tuesday.
- Consumer confidence soars past economists’ forecasts: The findings released Tuesday offered hope that families could open their wallets after months of austerity, but experts cautioned that shoppers were unlikely to splurge while layoffs are still looming.
- A push to promote Mom and Pop stores: “We have to take care of our neighborhoods, but we have to 
have a strong regional economy,” said Amy Kedron, executive director of the buy-local organization Buffalo First, explaining the unusual alliance.
Participants include The Allentown Association, The Elmwood Village Association, The Greater South Buffalo Chamber of Commerce, The Grant-Amherst Association [can anybody throw us a link here?], The Grant-Ferry Association, The Hertel North Buffalo Business Association and The Williamsville Business Association.
- Northwest Bancorp not taking government bailout money: Northwest Bancorp, parent of Northwest Savings Bank, said Tuesday that its board of directors had decided not to participate in the federal government’s bank investment program, citing the program’s constraints and the strength of the bank.
Also:
- Computer Task Group sees net profits and revenues fall: Computer Task Group said net profits fell 7.3 
percent in the first quarter, as revenues fell 14 percent despite a higher operating profit margin.
- Food workers union is seeking better pay, benefits at PriceRite: Members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local One, which represents supermarket workers, and union supporters gathered outside PriceRite's first area store, on Elmwood Avenue. They want PriceRite’s owner, Wakefern Food Corp., to give PriceRite’s nonunion workers the same wages and benefits that it does at ShopRite, a chain with unionized stores Wakefern also owns.
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
April 28, 2009 - 10:27 AM | Comment
Out front today from The Buffalo News Financial Desk:
- GM will cut 21,000 jobs, swap debt, drop Pontiac: The plan also would leave the automaker majority-owned by the federal government, based on an offer to swap much of the company’s roughly $27 billion in bond debt for GM stock.
- Related: Daimler reached deal to drop remaining stake in Chrysler: Germany’s Daimler AG said Monday it has reached a deal to get rid of its remaining 19.9 percent stake in Chrysler LLC, severing the last tie between the two automakers that was formed more than a decade ago.
Other takes on this huge story from: The Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
In the Business Today section:
- CSX cuts back at Frontier Yard : CSX Transportation said that traffic through the Frontier railyard will 
be cut in half. Some 200 to 250 layoffs are also expected. [The Florida-based company has not yet announced how many layoffs are coming. When they do, New York state law requires that it be posted here.]
- 14 shopping plazas are being put up for sale: The portfolio totals 12.5 million square feet, and the plazas have an average occupancy of 88.5 percent. The list of properties includes five in Cheektowaga, three in Clarence, three in Batavia, and one each in Amherst, Lancaster and Williamsville. [Web site of the seller, Developers Diversified Realty Corp., is here.]
- Daily circulation at U.S. newspapers is declining at faster rate: Circulation drops at The Buffalo News were far below the national average for the October- March period. The News had a 2.49 percent drop in weekday circulation, to 173,925, while Sunday circulation dropped 3.15 percent, to 252,240.
[More from trade journal Editor & Publisher, plus a note that The Times-News down the road in Erie, Pa., is among the few newspapers to show a circulation gain. Congrats.]
And at least one article that isn't about decline:
- New face on National Labor Relations Board: President Obama has named Mark Gaston Pearce, a 55-year-old partner with the Buffalo firm Creighton, Pearce, Johnsen & Giroux, to the National Labor Relations Board. The board administers the main law that governs relations between unions, companies and workers.
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
Part of GM's revised restructuring plan calls for the phaseout of its storied Pontiac brand by the end of 2010. Pontiac has proven popular in Western New York over the years, and nationwide, fans who admire its history and its classic vehicles are lamenting the brand's fate. What do you think about GM's decision to drop the Pontiac brand?
-- Matt Glynn
April 27, 2009 - 10:08 AM | Comment
Breaking this morning on The Buffalo News Web site:
GM to cut 21,000 US factory jobs, shed Pontiac: General Motors Corp. said it will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year, phase out its storied Pontiac brand and ask the government to take stock in exchange for half GM's government debt as part of a major restructuring effort that would leave current shareholders holding just 1 percent of the company.
That follows this report published in this morning's News:
Chrysler strikes deal for givebacks from UAW.
Also in today's Buffalo News Business Today and MoneySmart sections:
- Ladies take over the barber shop: Lady Jane’s Haircuts for Men [right] opened its first New York 
location at 1731 Sheridan Drive in the Town of Tonawanda this week. The Detroit-based, privately-owned chain is geared exclusively toward men and strongly emphasizes the fact it is staffed completely by young, attractive female stylists....
Each styling station boasts a high-definition plasma television screen airing either sports coverage or business news. [Even its Web site links to ESPN.]
[Bet you'll never guess where you'll find some barber shops that are even sexier.]
- Til debt do us part: For richer, for poorer, couples need to talk openly about money.
- Northwest Bancorp one of ‘most trustworthy’: Northwest Bancorp has been named as one of America’s 100 most trustworthy companies by Forbes magazine and an independent financial analytics firm — the only regionally-based company to make the listing.
- Community Bank System's quarterly profit off 4 percent: Community Bank System , which operates 33 branches in Western New York, said first quarter profits fell 4 percent, driven by higher operating expenses from acquisitions and FDIC insurance premiums.
- HSBC opens branch in Seattle: The U.S. banking subsidiary of HSBC Holdings PLC, one of the world’s largest banks, already opened a branch in downtown Seattle, giving it what the bank called “a high-profile street-level presence” in the “heart of downtown.”
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
April 24, 2009 - 10:45 AM | Comment
From Friday's Business Today section of The Buffalo News, we learn that:
The company that owns the Statler Towers [right] in downtown Buffalo is in bankruptcy.
The few current tenants, including Park Lane Catering, will continue their operations while a bankruptcy 
court-appointed trustee looks for a new owner for the downtown landmark.
The General Motors plant in the Town of Tonawanda is not shutting down.
But different shifts of workers will be sent home for different periods over the next few months as some of the plants they supply with engines will be on furlough. There may even be a week when all production will cease.
That puts GM somewhere between Ford, which is celebrating a "smaller-than-expected loss," and Chrysler, which is being measured for its bankruptcy shroud. Auto industry retirees, current and future, meanwhile, have cause to worry about the future of their pensions and health care.
A VP of First Niagara Financial Group warned Congress against any kind of mortgage reform legislation that makes it harder to lend to credit-worthy borrowers.
G. Gary Berner told the House Financial Services Committee: Any regulation or legislation should promote a return to universal and conservative underwriting practices like those maintained at most banks. Conservative practices must be codified and promoted for all lenders at the same time.
[Berner's written testimony is here.]
Evans Bancorp is preparing to grow.
CEO David Nasca told the shareholders meeting Thursday that the bank is looking to expand its commercial lending and commercial insurance business and open more branches in northern Erie County.
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
April 23, 2009 - 10:18 AM | Comment
Maybe there will be room at Gov. David Paterson's international trade conference, to be held next week in Buffalo, for some of the 60 white collar workers being laid off by the GM Powertrain plant in the Town of
Tonawanda. Or the great many more employees to be affected by a rumored nine-week closing of many GM facilities this summer.
Says the Guv:
I'm pleased to introduce representatives from at least 39 countries to Western New York so they can discover what we already know. With a highly educated and skilled workforce, transportation links and a high quality of life, the business landscape in the region is fertile ground. This trade mission offers an opportunity for business leaders to present themselves to vast international markets, and the connections that are made can help spur job creation, new business opportunities and investment.
New Era Cap Co. is talking global business today, sponsoring a symposium on labor standards -- in China.
Or maybe the GMers will take advantage of their forced leisure to attend a college fair .
Just don't expect much sympathy from the banks. Evans Bancorp is cutting its losses and getting out of the business equipment leasing business. And the Warsaw-based parent of Five Star Bank reports that its first-quarter profits tumbled 21.5 percent compared to a year ago.
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
April 22, 2009 - 11:30 AM | Comment
A coincidental theme emerges from two of the big stories in today's Buffalo News Business Today section, as a clever accountant and a powerful banker make the same complaint about recent economic woes:
The regulators were asleep at the switch.
In "Wilmers faults risk-takers for crisis", Robert G. Wilmers, [right] head of Buffalo-headquartered M&T Bank
Corp, says that Main Street banks, like his, are not to blame for the financial meltdown. Wilmers said:
There is no doubt in my mind that at the heart of the problem lie the complex, indeed opaque derivative securities created not by Main Street but by Wall Street, and done so— and this is just as important — with the passive complicity of regulators.
In "Madoff whistle-blower speaks at NCCC", Erie, Pa., native Harry Markopolos relates how he sniffed into the fraud behind now-convicted Ponzi scheme master Bernard Madoff's unrealistic wealth production nine years before it collapsed. He tried to warn the federal Securities and Exchange Commission about Madoff and tried to tip off then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Nobody bit. He concludes:
Anywhere you have unregulated space in the financial markets, that’s where the criminals go to play. You want to leave no dark areas uncovered.
More on Markopolos from The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal.
Also on our business pages today:
- "Fire truck maker LaFrance is closing Hamburg plant": American LaFrance, one of the nation’s largest and oldest manufacturers of fire trucks and emergency vehicles, is closing its Camp Road plant in Hamburg, where about 70 people work.
- "Collins rips bill to revise IDAs": “This is the worst bill I’ve ever seen,” Erie County Executive Chris Collins said of legislation in the Assembly and Senate that supporters say is designed to improve the accountability and work of industrial development agencies.
- "Ex-partner sues Delaware North over casino deal at Aqueduct": Delaware North took confidential information and used it against former partners in its bid to develop a major casino at a downstate racetrack, its former partner alleges in a new lawsuit.
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
General Motors last week showcased what it expects will be technology of its future -- vehicles powered by hydrogen. The fuel cell vehicles were described as part of a broader alternative-energy strategy GM is pursuing, along with other types of electric vehicles, hybrids and biofuel autos.
By GM's own estimate, its fuel cell vehicles won't make it into showrooms for another five or six years. It says more hydrogen filling stations have to open, and the cost of the technology needs to be brought down.
Even though production versions by GM and its competitors are considered a few years away, what are your thoughts on fuel cell vehicles? Are you intrigued about the idea of buying one?
-- Matt Glynn
April 10, 2009 - 10:21 AM | Comment
Economic signs that the worst may be over, reported in today's Buffalo News Business Today section, include:
- "Are banks beginning to bounce back?": Money is cheap and mortgage applications are surging, thanks 
in large part to unprecedented efforts in Washington to breathe life back into the financial industry.
- "Cautious shoppers are starting to buy again": March retail sales showed encouraging signs that consumers are no longer cutting their spending, a key to finding a bottom to the recession.
- "Moog restructuring won't cost local jobs": Moog Inc. does not expect any impact on its local job base in light of the Elma-based aerospace company’s 21 percent reduction in its earnings outlook.
- "Manager buys airport Ramada Inn": The manager of the Ramada Inn Buffalo Airport has acquired the property and changed its name, as he plans renovations to upgrade the hotel.
Left out of the good news parade is Coca-Cola: "Delaware North says 'Pepsi, please'":
Pepsi. No Coke. After a 94-year partnership, Delaware North Cos. has ended its contracts with Coca-Cola Co.in favor of a new multi-year deal with PepsiCo .
The Buffalo-headquartered global food service and hospitality giant will now exclusively sell Pepsi products at its many park, hotel, casino, resort and airport venues, it announced Thursday.
And, over at the Opening Day of Coca-Cola Field, the governor got booed and the home team lost. It's a shame.
-- George Pyle/The Buffalo News
