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Citigroup said Thursday it would pay $73 million to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the bank, as well as two of its executives, misled investors about the company’s exposure to the subprime mortgage market.

Wall Street’s top regulator said Citigroup repeatedly made misleading statements in investor presentations and in public filings about the actual size of assets it controlled that were backed by subprime mortgages.

Between July and mid-October 2007, the company maintained its holdings of what have now been dubbed "toxic assets", stood at $13 billion, when in fact the number was closer to $50 billion, according to the SEC.

"The rules of financial disclosure are simple — if you choose to speak, speak in full and not in half-truths," Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement.

Also charged in the case were two Citigroup executives, including former chief financial officer Gary Crittenden and Arthur Tildesley, Jr., who currently serves as the head of cross marketing at the company.

Crittenden agreed to pay $100,000 to settle the charges while Tildesley, the former head of investor relations, agreed to pay $80,000.

In a statement issued Thursday, Citigroup stood behind the men, calling them both "highly valued" employees.

"We are pleased that we have reached agreement with the SEC to put this matter concerning certain 2007 disclosures behind us, and that the SEC is not charging Citi or any individual with intentional or reckless misconduct," the company said in a statement.

Citigroup neither admitted or denied the SEC’s allegations. But Thursday’s settlement is the federal agency’s latest attempt to crack down on fraud and misbehavior on Wall Street during the crisis.

Earlier this month, the SEC struck an agreement with Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500). The company agreed to pay $550 million to settle charges that the company defrauded investors in the sale of an investment tied to subprime mortgages.

Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) stock edged higher in afternoon trading Thursday. 

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Healthcare Trust of America Inc. bought a medical office building in Stockbridge, Ga., for $8.1 million.

Overlook at Eagle's Landing, in Henry County, is 100 percent occupied. It opened in 2004 and is less than one-half mile from the 215-bed Henry Medical Center.

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Healthcare Trust also owns Southcrest Medical Plaza I and II in Stockbridge, Marietta Health Park in Riverdale, Fayette Medical Office in Fayetteville, and 4000 Shakerag Hill Road in Peachtree City payday loan online.

"This acquisition continues our Atlanta expansion focused in attractive sub-markets, bringing our total Atlanta portfolio to over a half million square feet while generating greater market presence for HTA with the region's health-care providers," said Mark D. Engstrom, executive vice president of acquisitions, in a statement.

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1. ENTERPRISE HOLDINGS

600 Corporate Park Drive

Clayton, Mo. 63105

314-512-5000

www.enterprise.com

Sales $12.1 billion

CEO Andrew C. Taylor

Founded 1957

Main products and services

Jack Taylor started his leasing business out of the basement of a St. Louis car dealership in 1957. The company now owns and operates the largest fleet of passenger vehicles in the world today — more than 1 million cars and trucks, operating more than 8,000 car rental locations including every major airport worldwide.

2. APEX OIL CO.

8235 Forsyth Boulevard, Suite 400

Clayton, Mo. 63105

314-889-9600

www.apexoil.com

Sales $5.5 billion

CEO Paul Novelly

Founded 1932

Main products and services

Apex is engaged in wholesale sales, storage and distribution of petroleum products including asphalt, kerosene, fuel oil, diesel, heavy oil, gasoline and marine bunkers. The company has terminals in the Midwest, East Coast, Gulf Coast and California.

3. GRAYBAR ELECTRIC CO.

34 North Meramec Avenue

Clayton, Mo. 63105

314-573-9200

www.graybar.com

Sales $4.4 billion

CEO Robert A. Reynolds Jr.

Founded 1925

Main products and services

Graybar distributes electrical, communications and networking products. One of the largest employee-owned companies in North America, it has a network of about 6,900 employees and nearly 240 locations across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.

4. EDWARD JONES

12555 Manchester Road

Des Peres, Mo. 63131

314-515-2000

www.edwardjones.com

Sales $3.5 billion

CEO James D. Weddle

Founded 1922

Main products and services

Tracing its roots to its first branch office in Mexico, Mo., investment house Edward Jones now has more than 10,000 offices in the U.S., Canada and Britain. Believing that online trading encourages rash decision-making, the company instead prefers to have one-broker offices and personal contact with investors. Edward Jones, which is the largest U.S. financial services company in terms of number of offices, serves more than 7 million clients.

5. CENTER OIL CO.

600 Mason Ridge Center Drive

Town and Country, Mo. 63141

314-682-3500

www.centeroil.com

Sales $3.3 billion

CEO Gary R. Parker

Founded 1986

Main products and services

Center Oil distributes gasoline and other refined petroleum products throughout the U.S. by pipeline, ship, barge and truck to and from 10 petroleum-product terminals in the Midwest and East Coast.

6. McCarthy Holdings Inc.

1341 North Rock Hill Road

St. Louis, Mo best payday advance. 63124

314-968-3300

www.mccarthy.com

Sales $3.1 billion

CEO Michael D. Bolen

Founded 1864

Main products and services

McCarthy Holdings Inc., comprised of McCarthy Building and MC Industrial, provides construction services from coast to coast with full-service offices in Missouri, Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. An employee-owned company, McCarthy was ranked the 20th largest U.S. construction firm in trade publication Engineering News-Record’s 2010 listing of top 400 contractors.

7. SCHNUCK MARKETS INC.

11420 Lackland Road

Maryland Heights, Mo. 63146

314-994-9900

www.schnucks.com

Sales $2.5 billion

CEO Scott C. Schnuck

Founded 1939

Main products and services

The family-owned grocery chain operates more than 100 supermarkets in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Mississippi and Iowa. Nearly all are operated under the Schnucks brand.

8. WORLD WIDE TECHNOLOGY INC.

60 Weldon Parkway

Maryland Heights, Mo. 63043

314-569-7000

www.wwt.com

Sales $2.2 billion

CEO James P. Kavanaugh

Founded 1990

Main products and services

The St. Louis area’s largest minority-owned business, World Wide Technology provides technology and supply chain solutions to commercial, government and telecommunications customers.

9. ALTER TRADING CORP.

700 Office Parkway

St. Louis, Mo. 63141

314-872-2400

www.altertrading.com

Sales $1.8 billion

CEO Robert Goldstein

Founded 1898

Main products and services

Alter Trading is a fourth-generation family-owned company. Its principals also own 40 percent of Isle of Capri Casinos. Alter is one of the nation’s largest scrap metal recyclers and brokers, with processing plants and office locations throughout the central U.S. Alter has rapidly expanded, offering full product recycling capabilities and trading directly with consumers. It operates 32 scrap recycling facilities with shredders, shears and balers.

10. UNIGROUP INC.

One Premier Drive

Fenton, Mo. 63026

636-305-5000

www.unigroupinc.com

Sales $1.6 billion

CEO H. Daniel McCollister

Founded 1987

Main products and services

UniGroup is parent of moving companies United Van Lines and Mayflower Transit. It also controls a global mobility management service company, and an insurer for trucking companies and movers.

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RESEARCH: Matthew Fernandes | Post-Dispatch

Data on Apex and Alter compiled from Sorkins.com

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The Business Response Team created by Mayor Karl Dean and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce toured flood-damaged businesses Thursday to better understand their needs.

“We’re trying to determine how best we can get businesses helping businesses get back on their feet,” co-chairman Henry Hicks of Gray Line Tours said after a tour of Soundcheck, which provides storage and rehearsal space for musicians and was destroyed by flooding.

The team also met with representatives of Interior Design Services, which is located in the same warehouse facility on Cowan Street near the Cumberland River. Steve Meek, chief financial officer with IDS, said the company could use help figuring out how to insure the company’s space going forward. Soundcheck owner Ben Jumper said he is looking for help from the Mayor’s Office to get occupancy permits fast-tracked.

A separate group of representatives from the Business Response Team toured industrial businesses on Visco Drive. Businesses can visit nashvillebusinessrecovery.org, to inquire about assistance and to find out how to contribute to flood recovery efforts and share resources with businesses in need. See this story for more information.

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Just a few months after putting its Buffalo headquarters up for sale, the Girl Scouts of Buffalo and Erie County have found a buyer for their Jewett Parkway complex.

The Hillside Family of Agencies, a not-for-profit that serves youth and others in Erie and Niagara Counties, has agreed to purchase the Girl Scouts headquarters. A formal announcement is due Friday afternoon.

The Girl Scouts, which is merging with three other regional Girl Scout councils, is relocating from Buffalo to a suburban site.

The Girl Scouts listed its Jewett Parkway headquarters, a 10,900-square-foot building located just a few blocks from the Darwin Martin House complex, for sale this winter with a $675,000 asking price. The building was listed by Paula Blanchard and Ed Woods from RealtyUSA.

The council has used the Jewett Parkway building as its headquarters since it bought the property in 1969, Approximately 40 people work in the building.

The decision to put the building on the real estate market was made as an outgrowth from the merger between the Girl Scouts of Buffalo and Erie County, Girl Scouts of Niagara County, Girl Scouts of Genesee Valley and Girl Scouts of Southwestern New York. The council now covers a jurisdictional area that covers nine counties and 6,700 square miles in a region that extends from Niagara and Erie Counties eastward towards Rochester.

The Girl Scouts of Western New York – the newly merged entity – serves more than 22,000 girls and a network of more than 10,000 volunteers.

Girl Scout officials said they needed a more central location.

Besides the 40 people who work in Buffalo, the council has more than 100 employees in offices it operates in Lockport, Jamestown, Rochester and Batavia.

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This is a weekly roundup of promotions, appointments and employee accomplishments in the Birmingham metro area. For more People on the Move, check out the Birmingham Business Journal’s print edition each week. Send announcements to ccrawford@bizjournals.com.

ACCOUNTING

Anna Kathryn Ellis, director of business development at Payroll & Benefit Solutions, was named Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce Ambassador of the Year.

CONSTRUCTION

Doug Jeffords with Jeffords Associates of Birmingham was awarded a contract to monitor and provide owner’s representative services for the construction and renovation work at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville. Jeffords is former vice president of construction for Colonial Properties Trust.

LEGAL

Charlie Waldrep, founding partner of Waldrep Stewart & Kendrick law firm, will speak at Faulkner University Jones School of Law on April 7 about establishing a law practice. Waldrep started his firm in 1978. Waldrep concentrates in representing public agencies with a primary emphasis in civil litigation.

Amy K. Myers, an attorney with Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker LLC, presented a seminar entitled “Temporary and Permanent Visa Options for Professionals: An Overview of Strategies” on Feb. 27 at Baptist Campus Ministries in Birmingham. The program discussed key immigration strategies for highly educated foreign nationals seeking to work in the United States.

Sirote & Permutt attorneys Harold Apolinsky and Craig Stephens, along with expert financial planner Stewart Welch, recently co-authored and published the third edition of J.K. Lasser's New Rules for Estate and Tax Planning. Apolinsky is an estate planning professional. Stephens is co-chair of the firm's Estates, Wills, and Trusts practice group. His practice focuses on representing individuals in the estate planning process, with a focus on tax minimization strategies.

MEDIA

Luckie & Co. Senior Vice President Mike Murphy has been awarded a 2009 Silver Medal by the Birmingham chapter of the American Advertising Federation. Murphy was nominated for the award by longtime friends and colleagues at Luckie. Murphy joined Luckie & Forney in 1980 as the head of the South Central Bell advertising account. Today, he leads a department of 15 people who work primarily on direct marketing for AT&T. Murphy is also the head of Luckie & Co.’s San Antonio office, which opened in 2007.

UNIVERSITIES

Gary Warner, the director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has been named the country’s “Most Popular Security Blogger” after a vote of information-security peers and blog readers in Secure Computing Magazine. Warner’s blog, CyberCrime & Doing Time, is read by thousands each month. Site visitors range from information-security insiders to media members who report on the technology beat to novice computer users concerned about cyber crime threats. Read the blog at http://garwarner.blogspot.com.

University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing professor Marti Rice has been elected president of the Southern Nursing Research Society. Rice joined UAB School of Nursing in 1997 and teaches research methods, statistics and child-health theories and concepts and emerging child-health issues in the Leadership Education in Child Health Nursing program, a grant funded by the Maternal Child Health Bureau.

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Frustration is turning to anger in the ranks of hourly workers at General Motors Co.’s Lockport plant, formerly Delphi Thermal Systems.

The cause is GM’s attempt to gain contract concessions from the United Auto Workers union and its members.

“Definitely there is frustration on the floor. And some are angry, yes. We took a pretty good pay hit a couple years ago,” said Gordie Fletcher, president of UAW Local 686 Unit No. 1 at Lockport.

According to Fletcher, GM wants members to forego a 3.75 percent cost-of-living raise that was scheduled to go into effect in January but which has not been paid.

Also drawing workers’ ire are bonuses that the union says salaried workers have received.

“We don’t think that’s fair. They’re rewarding one group and taking away from another. There should be shared sacrifice,” Fletcher said.

Increasing the frustration is the absence of any new work being assigned to Lockport.

“We want work brought into the plant and aren’t seeing it. Nothing is being said other than that we could have the opportunity to bid on new work – nothing, though, about when or anything else,” Fletcher said.

“That adds to our immense sense of frustration,” he added.

Simmering situation

Anger reportedly is simmering in the ranks of the UAW at the four former Delphi Corp free credit report online. plants that, like Lockport, reverted to GM in 2009 as part of Delphi’s restructuring out of bankruptcy protection.

Much of the opposition comes from workers at plants in Lockport and Rochester, and Saginaw and Grand Rapids, Mich., where UAW members say they are being pushed to renegotiate a contract that included concessions they signed only last year.

“We haven’t seen anything in writing yet, but we know they’re coming for us again,” a GM worker from Grand Rapids recently told a Detroit-based freelance reporter. “We also know they want a ‘no strike’ clause.”

Negotiations (on the concessions) are continuing at each of the plants “a couple times a week and sometimes daily – but there has been very little headway. Actually, I’d classify it as no headway,” Fletcher said.

Unlike previous years, when plants were covered by an industrywide contract negotiated with the Detroit automakers, each former Delphi plant now is responsible for its own labor agreement. The current contract expires in 2011.

A GM spokesman said discussions between GM and the UAW are ongoing and further details are unavailable.

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Call it the Case of the Missing Commission.

The bipartisan panel that President Obama has promised would tackle the nation’s long-term debt problems is nowhere in sight yet.

The delay in getting the commission up and running is due in great part to partisan jockeying from both sides of the aisle and continued uncertainty about whether current Republican lawmakers will agree to take part.

There’s no guarantee that when it does materialize it will have the respect of many in Congress, which would have the final word on the commission’s recommendations.

And the call for the commission has taken on greater urgency in light of the recent global volatility caused by the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, which threatens all of Europe.

"You need a fiscal commission. You need it now," Simon Johnson, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told lawmakers this week.

The commission will be asked to figure out ways to get annual deficits down to 3% of gross domestic product by 2015 and thereafter put the country on a more sustainable fiscal track.

The panel’s timeline will be tight. The commission is supposed to issue its report soon after the mid-term elections in November so Congress can vote on them before the year is out.

So every day that goes by without a commission is valuable time wasted considering the complicated issues it is expected to address — everything from taxes and health care to all spending in the federal budget, including Medicare and Social Security.

What’s the rush?

The commission isn’t expected to make recommendations that — if passed — would go into effect right away. In fact, even many deficit hawks say that now is not the time for fiscal austerity. The time for that would be when the U.S. economy is on firmer footing.

But the swift establishment of the commission would help signal to international markets that the United States is working to get its deficits under control, said Johnson, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund.

"I think we should take events of the past few weeks in Europe as a wake-up call," Johnson said.

In the past two months, borrowing costs have soared for Greece, where the annual deficit has risen to 12% of the economy. That has forced the country to choose between defaulting on its debt or trying to convince investors of its creditworthiness by imposing stringent austerity measures such as budget cuts, tax hikes and pay freezes business cards.

Of course, there’s a lot that distinguishes the position of the United States from Greece. But the recent events show just how quickly the markets can turn on sovereign borrowers.

What’s the risk?

If the United States takes its time coming up with a deficit reduction plan, all bets are off.

"If you don’t have [a fiscal commission] … the financial markets are going to push you on the lack of medium-term credible fiscal framework," Johnson said.

And if the push for greater fiscal austerity comes during the second half of 2010, when economic growth is expected to slow, that would harm the U.S. economy.

"Raising taxes and cutting spending — you don’t want to do that in the second half of the year. If the markets force you to, that’s a disaster," Johnson said.

Carmen Reinhart, director of the Center for International Economics at the University of Maryland, has studied the patterns that high-debt countries follow after severe financial crises like the kind that almost felled the U.S. economy in 2008 and 2009.

Like Johnson, Reinhart doesn’t believe this year is the time for implementing austerity measures. But it is the year to come up with a plan of action to reduce the country’s debt over time.

"Market discipline can come without warning. Countries that haven’t laid the groundwork for adjustment come to regret it. This time is not different," Reinhart told lawmakers.

There is nothing magic or even necessary about a fiscal commission. But the fact is Congress is showing no signs of taking on sacred cows and addressing the fiscal problem head-on.

Still, having a commission and having it be successful are two very different things.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group of leading budget experts, has warned against anyone pinning all their hopes for fiscal restraint on a commission.

"In a politically charged environment, a commission is a great idea. However, the administration must have a ‘Plan B’ in case the commission does not succeed." 

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DETROIT–The race to build alternative energy vehicles moved up a notch Monday when Toyota Motor Corp. revealed a hybrid compact for the first time that could move into production within three to five years.

In unveiling a lime green FT-CH "dedicated hybrid," at the less splashy than usual North American International Auto Show, Toyota revealed it also plans to boost its gas-electric fleet with eight new models during the next few years – and none of them will be next-generation versions of current vehicles. The company now has seven hybrids in showrooms.

Toyota, which surpassed General Motors as the auto industry’s world leader last year, said it plans to hit one million in annual worldwide hybrid sales early this decade. Most of those sales will come in North America, where consumers, because of climbing gas prices and climate-change concerns, are starting to shift to smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles that are less damaging to the environment.

Toyota officials said the Japanese automaker’s assault on the alternative energy car market will include the development of a family of vehicles around the Prius, the company’s flagship hybrid model. The Prius, the world’s first hybrid, reached sales of more than two million during the past decade.

Ray Tanguay, a managing officer for parent Toyota and chief executive officer of the company’s Canadian manufacturing operations, said the FT-CH is under consideration for production in Japan in the three- to five-year range.

"It’s a fair expectation," he said.

Tanguay said Toyota is targeting young buyers, or what some company officials call the "8-bit generation," after the microprocessor technology that dominated the budding home video game industry during the 1980s. Pricing would be below the Prius, which now has a base manufacturer’s suggested retail price of about $27,000.

Toyota said the vehicle is lighter and more fuel efficient than the Prius. It is 22 inches shorter than the mid-size Prius but can still seat five people comfortably, the company noted in promotional material.

Prius sales improved marginally in Canada last year to 4,610 despite a sharp decline in the overall market.

Toyota, which struggled like other major automakers because of the world recession last year, wants to offer a variety of hybrid choices, including plug-in models by 2012 and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2015.

"We must re-imagine the automobile, a century after its invention, with powertrains that greatly reduce or even eliminate the use of conventional petroleum fuels," said Toyota Canada president Yoichi Tomihara. "The electrification of the automobile is just one of many alternatives and the most successful example of this to date has been the gas-electric hybrid."

However, Toyota and other automakers have acknowledged they face major a challenge to reduce the cost of hybrids and full electric vehicles to make them more affordable and practical to consumers because of battery costs, travel range and charging infrastructure.

Some other automakers promoted their hybrid and electric capabilities at the show. Fiat, Chrysler’s new partner, showed an electric Fiat 500 subcompact, for example, but the company did not disclose any timing for production.

The 22nd annual show’s media preview did not feature the splashy presentations that dominated the event in the past. Instead, companies showed smaller vehicles with an emphasis on fuel economy.

More politicians toured the event since the U.S. and Canadian governments have become shareholders in GM and Chrysler, which got taxpayer loans to stay alive last year.

"It’s not an auto show any more," said veteran industry watcher Dennis DesRosiers. "It’s a political spin show … the industry has to show governments they’re listening."

He said in the U.S., several automakers are working on costly technology to improve fuel economy without downsizing autos because Americans won’t buy enough smaller vehicles.

"The question is will there be enough volume because of the higher prices," he said. "It may take a decade before those prices come down enough."

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The European Central Bank may today announce plans to scale back its emergency lending while keeping interest rates at a record low to foster an economic recovery.

ECB policy makers meeting in Frankfurt will leave the benchmark interest rate at 1 percent, according to all 54 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. President Jean-Claude Trichet will say the ECB’s third offer of 12-month loans to banks on Dec. 15 will be the last and may also signal a reduction in other lending operations, economists said.

The ECB, which has been flooding banks with cheap cash to fight Europe’s worst recession since World War II, said last month it will gradually withdraw the extra liquidity to prevent inflation as the economy gathers strength. At the same time, officials don’t want to give the impression they’re moving closer to rate increases, people familiar with their discussions said. Any indication that the ECB could tighten policy sooner than the Federal Reserve may fuel further gains in the euro.

“This is going to be the big one,” said James Nixon, co- chief European economist at Societe Generale SA in London. “They need to very, very carefully set out a timetable for how liquidity will be drawn down, but they don’t want to plant expectations that the exit implies they’ll raise interest rates.”

The ECB announces its rate decision at 1:45 p.m. and Trichet holds a press conference 45 minutes later.

Global Stimulus

While Australia’s central bank has raised rates three times in as many months, the Fed and the Bank of England have signaled they’re in no rush to increase borrowing costs from record lows as their economies struggle to shake off the effects of the biggest global slump since the Great Depression. The Bank of Japan announced new measures this week, saying it will offer three-month loans to banks at 0.1 percent to combat deflation.

Trichet will today unveil the ECB’s new staff projections, including the first forecasts for 2011. Governing Council members such as Luxembourg’s Yves Mersch and Slovakia’s Ivan Sramko have said they expect the bank to revise up its outlook for the 16-nation economy, which emerged from recession in the third quarter.

In September, the central bank said it expected gross domestic product to grow 0.2 percent in 2010 after shrinking 4.1 this year. It projected inflation of 0.4 percent this year and 1.2 percent next year. The ECB aims to keep inflation just below 2 percent over the medium term.

‘Gradual Recovery’

The December projections will show “a gradual recovery and moderately positive inflation,” said Nick Matthews, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “They’ll be consistent with the view that the policy rate can remain low for a long time.”

The euro has gained 20 percent against the dollar since mid-February, rising above $1.51 yesterday, which is threatening to hurt European exports.

Some policy makers have nevertheless expressed concern that banks are becoming too reliant on ECB cash, and are pushing for the extraordinary lending measures to be withdrawn.

“Not all our liquidity measures will be needed to the same extent as in the past,” Trichet said on Nov. 20. “Eventually, the administration of painkillers must be stopped if patients are to get on their own two feet.”

Trichet signaled on Nov. 5 that the ECB is unlikely to renew its 12-month loans to banks after December’s offering and promised to give details today. He’ll also say whether the ECB has decided to alter the interest rate on the loans. People familiar with the deliberations said last week that policy makers were leaning toward keeping the rate fixed at 1 percent.

‘Balancing Act’

The ECB may announce plans to reduce the frequency of its three-month and six-month loans, which it currently offers every month. The “first steps of a gradual phasing-out of non- standard measures” may include “a lower frequency for three- month and six-month refinancing operations,” Belgian council member Guy Quaden said Nov. 16.

Trichet could also field questions about Dubai’s decision to seek to delay debt repayments, which roiled financial markets this week, and Greece’s ballooning budget deficit. ECB Vice President Lucas Papademos met with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou last weekend to discuss the issue.

With markets still jittery about the sustainability of the economic recovery, the ECB will be wary of upsetting the apple cart, said Colin Ellis, an economist at Daiwa Securities SMBC Europe Ltd. in London.

“The message Trichet wants to convey is that the ECB is well placed to remove its monetary stimulus and has a strategy for doing so, but that it’s not going to do it too quickly,” he said. “It’s a bit of a balancing act.”

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