My finance view

Anheuser-Busch President David Peacock, who has led the brewery’s U.S. operations since 2008, has resigned from the company.  

Employees were notified today of Peacock’s resignation, which is effective today. He’s leaving to spend more time with his family and pursue other business interests, according to the company.

Peacock will continue to serve in an advisory role, according to an email sent by Luiz Edmond, who is assuming leadership of the brewery’s U payday loans.S. operations based in St. Louis.

 Peacock was formerly vice president of marketing at the brewery.

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In the land of big-time deficits and trillion dollar budgets, Congress is spending less money on at least one thing.

Itself.

After voting last year to cut its own operating budget by 5%, House members have reduced the number of paid positions on their staffs, and are spending less on office supplies and computers.

The cuts have translated to 948 fewer salaried staff positions, a 62.5% drop in spending on computers and 30.7% less spending on office supplies, according to an analysis conducted by the Sunlight Foundation.

Staff assistant positions were the hardest hit, registering a 16.6% decline, while the number of part-time employees dropped 15.6%. Meanwhile, the number of slots for communication directors actually increased.

The House has around 12,000 staffers, and the job cuts amounted to a 7.4% overall decline in positions, according to Sunlight.

When compared to current deficits, the House spending reductions don’t add up to much in the way of savings. But for a Republican-controlled chamber, they are an important reflection of legislative priorities.

"The cuts are such a tiny fraction of the overall budget," said Lee Drutman, a data fellow at Sunlight. "And the reality is it makes it harder for them to do a decent job."

And more cuts are on the way, as funding will decrease another 6.4% for the legislative year that kicks off Tuesday.

Commentary: Debt crisis must be solved in the open

With many of the easy cuts already made, and staff salaries accounting for about half of congressional budgets, things might get tricky for lawmakers trying to keep a full roster of employees saving account pay day loan.

A report from the Congressional Management Foundation, a non-profit that helps congress improve its operations, backs that up.

"The 2011 cuts were manageable," the report said. "However, the consensus is that the cumulative two-year cut of 11.4% will require the large majority of offices to make painful cuts that will be felt by virtually all staff."

Drutman warns that any further reduction in staff levels will hurt the ability of congressional offices to independently produce sound policy recommendations and legislation.

"Capitol Hill staffers are already stretched incredibly thin," Drutman said. "And that means if you’re a staffer, you’re more dependent on outside sources."

And who are those outside sources?

For the most part, said Drutman, they’re lobbyists. And dependence on lobbyists for policy expertise is a dicey proposition.

Lobbyists can help fill policy knowledge gaps on congressional staffs, but at the same time come with deep-pocketed backers seeking a specific legislative outcome. 

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A group supporting Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says it will remove errors from a film it made about Mitt Romney’s business experience _ if Romney helps them figure out what is inaccurate.

The political action committee Winning Our Future sent Romney a letter asking him to respond to several questions about his tenure at Bain Capital, a private equity firm.

The PAC, run by Gingrich allies, says the questions will help clarify any errors in a film the group released this week assailing Romney’s experience at Bain. The accuracy of some of the film’s assertions have been called into question.

On Friday, Gingrich asked the group to either edit out any inaccuracies or take down the ad entirely.

Campaigns and PACs are prohibited from directly coordinating.

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A judge has appointed a receiver for the Ridge Point Crossing apartments in St. Louis County, a two-property complex that’s owned by an affiliate of Gannon International.

The appointment is the latest of a string of apartment properties owned by Creve-Coeur based Gannon that have been put in receivership following loan defaults in the past year.

Ridge Point Crossing includes 292 units at 11251 Graben Drive in St. Ann and 96 apartments at 11302 Bonanza Drive in Maryland Heights.

Wells Fargo sought a receiver for Ridge Point Crossing last month after an affiliate of Gannon defaulted on a $9.9 million loan secured by the property, according to court filings.

The Gannon affiliate “has failed to make debt service payments, make critical vendor payments and keep up with payroll obligations,”  St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Robert Cohen wrote in his order appointing Nolan Real Estate Services receiver of Ridge Point Crossing on Dec. 13.

As receiver, Nolan Real Estate will collect rent at the property, make repairs and pay utilities.

Bill Schierholz, president of Gannon’s real estate group, could not be reached for comment payday loan. Daniel Spirn, an attorney representing Wells Fargo, declined to comment.

The appointment of a receiver at Ridge Point Crossing follows similar appointments at Gannon-owned apartment complexes in the past year.

In April, a receiver was appointed for the 272-unit Springwood Apartments in Bel-Ridge after PNC Bank alleged Gannon defaulted on a $5.7 million loan secured by Springwood and failed to properly maintain the apartments. Springwood has since been sold.

In June, a receiver was appointed for the 336-unit Suson Pines Apartments at 5625 Suson Hills Drive in south St. Louis County after PNC alleged Gannon defaulted on a promissory note and owes the bank more than $13 million.

The real estate arm of Gannon International, which is owned by Chief Executive William Franke, owns nine apartment properties in the St. Louis area.

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Shares in UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank, slid Wednesday after the company priced its euro7.5 billion ($9.8 billion) cash call from shareholders at the bottom end of market expectations.

UniCredit shares dropped 14.5 percent lower at euro5.42, as investors were spooked by the scale of the discount in the company’s rights issue. Other European banks, many of which are looking to raise money to plug financial holes, also saw their share prices take a hit amid concerns that they too would be forced to price their cash calls at low levels too.

The aim of UniCredit’s rights issue _ shareholders have been asked to buy two new shares for every one they hold _ is to help the bank shore up its capital reserves, in line with European regulatory demands. Last month, industry regulator, the European Banking Authority, said the bank needed to raise around euro8 billion.

Earlier in the day, UniCredit shares were briefly suspended after the cash call was priced at a 69 percent discount to Tuesday’s close, much lower than most predictions. So far, only 24 percent of the shares on offer have been taken.

The discount was bigger than those that have been offered by UniCredit’s peers recently and knocked sentiment in Europe’s banking sector as a whole, notably of Germany’s Commerzbank AG, which has been asked to raise euro5.3 billion ($6.9 billion) by the European Banking Authority. Its share price fell 4 percent.

Last month, the EBA said European banks have to raise about euro115 billion ($150 billion) to meet a new standard meant to inoculate the lenders against market turmoil, including bad government debt.

European banks have billions of euros of risky government bonds on their books, and, as the continent’s crisis has deepened, investors have become increasingly concerned the lenders won’t be able weather all of the expected losses on those loans.

That, in turn, has made banks wary of lending to one another _ since they worry that one of their number could go under at any moment. When banks stop lending to one another and businesses, the entire economy seizes up.

Much of the current focus in Europe’s debt crisis has centered on Italy, the third-largest economy in the eurozone.

International markets have punished Italy in recent months for failing to come up with a coherent strategy to deal with its euro1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion) debt mountain. That drove up the borrowing rates for the eurozone’s third-largest economy and effectively forced Silvio Berlusconi from office.

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Reflecting on a challenging year, President Barack Obama says he’s hoping for more economic progress following action by Congress to prevent tax increases at the start of 2012.

“It was good to see members of Congress do the right thing for millions of working Americans,” said Obama, using his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to deliver a New Year’s message.

He said the public made itself heard on a Social Security payroll tax cut and that was one big reason that lawmakers agreed to extend it for two more months.

The American people, Obama said, “had the courage to believe your voices could make a difference.”

The president said he expects Congress to finish the job when lawmakers return to Washington in January and extend the tax cut through the end of the year.

Reflecting on 2011, Obama said it was a time of great challenge and progress, including the end of the war in Iraq, the death of Osama bin Laden and signs of an economic recovery.

“There’s no doubt that 2012 will bring even more change,” Obama said. “And as we head into the new year, I’m hopeful that we have what it takes to face that change and come out even stronger _ to grow our economy, create more jobs and strengthen the middle class.”

On the eve of an election year, Obama said the months ahead will help determine “what kind of country we want to be and what kind of world we want our children and grandchildren to grow up in.”

Sen. Johnny Isakson, delivering the GOP address, outlined his party’s commitments to the American people for 2012.

The Georgia lawmaker said his party’s No. 1 goal is to make it easier for small businesses to create jobs.

“We’ll accomplish this by focusing on three things: fundamental tax reform, regulatory reform and energy security,” he said.

Isakson said that while some people may think Congress will be too consumed with the 2012 elections to accomplish anything significant, the public deserves better.

“Americans cannot wait until after the November election,” he said. “They need us to do our job and do it right now to create an economic climate that makes it easier to put people back to work.”

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Turkey and Azerbaijan will sign a memorandum of understanding tomorrow, establishing a consortium that will build a pipeline to ship natural gas from the BP Plc- operated Shah Deniz field to Europe via Anatolia.

State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan, or Socar, Turkey

Stephen Wancha was promoted to food and beverage director at Four Seasons St. Louis Hotel.

Wancha is responsible for overseeing Cielo restaurant and bar at the hotel as well as the food/beverage service for banquets and catering. He manages a staff of about 110 people.

Wancha previously worked at the Four Seasons Hotel here before briefly taking a job in food service at Four Seasons San Francisco Hotel cash till payday. He visited 91 regional wineries during his 18 months in San Francisco and says the contacts he made there will help Cielo bring new wines to St. Louis that aren’t usually available in the area.

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European Central Bank president Mario Draghi says there’s “no external savior” for heavily indebted governments in the eurozone debt crisis and gave no sign the bank is ready to step in and support their finances.

Draghi said governments must take the tough steps to balance budgets and reform economies to promote growth.

“I will never tire of saying that the first response should be from government,” Draghi said Thursday at a speech in Berlin. “There is no external savior for a country that doesn’t want to save itself.”

As a “firewall” to calm markets in the meantime, Draghi said, the EU has its newly strengthened bailout fund.

Some economists have urged the ECB to support governments with bigger purchases of government bonds. So far the bank has made some purchases but kept them limited and said the program is temporary, stressing that governments must not rely on such help from the ECB.

Draghi said that the purchases were “neither eternal nor infinite.”

In his speech, Draghi focussed instead on the European Financial Stability Facility, the current EU bailout fund, as the “firewall” against the crisis. He urged EU officials to quickly implement decisions to strengthen it to assure markets governments will pay their debts on time.

Governments have agreed on ways to increase the fund’s lending power and are seeking outside investors such as countries in emerging markets to contribute to its lending power, so far without much progress.

Economists say the EFSF is too small to bail out Italy, the most recent focus of the debt crisis that has seen Greece, Ireland and Portugal seek bailouts from other eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund.

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Britain’s Treasury chief defended Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to veto changes to the European Union treaty, saying Saturday the move protected U.K. economic interests.

Cameron rejected an invitation to join 26 European partners in a tighter financial alliance to save the euro which he said didn’t adequately protect Britain’s national interest and meant giving up too much control over regulation of Britain’s dominant financial sector.

The move isolated Cameron from the European Union and raised doubts about whether Britain realistically can remain a member of the 27-nation bloc _ prompting cheers from the prime minister’s typically anti-EU party and jeers from the opposition.

Britain’s typically brash media reflected the divide Saturday, with The Guardian headline “Cameron Cuts UK Adrift” batting against the Daily Mail’s “The Day He Put Britain First.”

Treasury chief George Osborne defended Cameron on BBC radio, saying he thinks Britons are pleased the prime minister “stood up for the British national interest.

“We have protected Britain’s financial services and manufacturing companies that need to be able to trade their products into Europe from the development of eurozone integration spilling over and affecting non-euro members of the EU,” he said.

Osborne added that if the prime minister had “caved in” to signing the treaty, the “full force” of the EU could have undermined British interests.

“We were not prepared to let that happen,” he said.

Osborne’s vote of confidence echoed support from other Conservative lawmakers over the prime minister’s move to set Britain apart.

But Cameron also is facing a chorus of criticism from the opposition Labour Party and growing tensions with his Conservative Party’s junior coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has rejected talk of a rift between his Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives and backed Cameron’s move, but dissent bubbled up from elsewhere in the party.

One Liberal Democrat lawmaker accused Cameron of “betraying Britain,” while another called the fallout “a black day for Britain and Europe.”

Emboldened by Cameron’s move, Conservatives stepped up calls for a full re-negotiation of Britain’s position in the EU, but Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes shot down that idea in an interview with Sky News, insisting the issue was “not on the table” and telling the Tories to “calm down.”

In Italy, Premier Mario Monti has summoned union leaders to discuss his new austerity plan as lawmakers tinker with his tough proposals to try to rescue the country from its debt load and get the economy growing again.

Unions have bitterly contested Monti’s proposal to reform Italy’s generous pension system and have called a strike for Monday. Monti’s office said Saturday the premier, fresh from the EU summit in Brussels, would meet with union leaders on Sunday to discuss the proposals.

Monti has also proposed restoring a property tax suspended during Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s government. The proposal has renewed criticism of the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church in Italy, even though the church merely enjoys the same tax-exempt status as any non-profit.

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