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Health industry executive and attorney Colleen McHugh was chosen Wednesday to succeed five-year University of Texas System Board of Regents Chairman James R. Huffines.

McHugh, who is the first female to fill the top regents post, was elected during the group's regular board meeting. Her predecessor was first elected in June 2004 and stayed on until November 2007. He was elected again in April last year.

Gov. Rick Perry named McHugh Texas Public Safety Commission chairman in 2001. She was the first female elected to that commission in 1998. She was added to the regents board in 2005.

Previously, McHugh served as the regents' vice chairman, health affairs committee chair and academic affairs committee member. She worked as the athletics liaison and on the type 2 diabetes risk assessment program advisory committee free credit scores. She also chaired the task force on UTMB clinical operations.

McHugh served as the State Bar of Texas president from 1996-1997. She is currently vice president of compliance, risk management and privacy officer for the CHRISTUS Spohn Health System. She is board certified in labor and employment law and is a member of the highly regarded American Law Institute.

McHugh received her undergraduate degree from Southern Methodist University and her law degree from St. Mary's University School of Law.

Huffines will continue as a board member. Member Paul Foster and Janiece Longoria were named vice chairmans of the board.

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Government-owned mortgage financing firm Freddie Mac reported a larger loss in the fourth quarter, but the company did not need to draw down any additional tax dollars in the period.

The company, which along with rival Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) was put into a conservatorship under government control in September 2008, lost $6.5 billion in the quarter, up from a loss of $5.4 billion in the third quarter.

Including $1.3 billion in preferred dividend payments to the federal government, the loss came to $7.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. But that’s still much better than the $23.9 billion it lost in the year-earlier period.

The company lost $21.6 billion for the year, an improvement from 2008 losses of $50.1 billion.

Freddie charged off $2.4 billion in bad loans during the quarter, nearly triple the $863 million from a year earlier. That brought full-year charge-offs to $7.6 billion in 2009.

And the worst is clearly not behind it, as Freddie raised its reserves for loan losses to $33.9 billion at the end of the quarter, up from $30.6 billion three months earlier.

About 3.9% of its $1.9 trillion in loans are now delinquent, well below the national average for late payments. But Freddie’s delinquency rate has been rising steadily for the past two years.

Freddie (FRE, Fortune 500) said it ended the quarter with a positive net worth of $4.4 billion, which means that for the third straight quarter it did not need another injection of government cash make quick cash. Net worth compares a company’s assets to the value of its liabilities.

A year ago Freddie needed $30.8 billion in federal cash as mounting foreclosures on the mortgages Freddie owns or guarantees hurt the company’s finances. Since the start of the conservatorship, Freddie has received $50.7 billion in taxpayer dollars, while Fannie has received $60.9 billion.

That injection of tax money to keep the companies afloat gave the Treasury Department an 80% stake in both companies. Fannie and Freddie both pay dividends to Treasury. Freddie has paid $4.2 billion so far.

But despite those dividends, future injections of taxpayer dollars are likely. At the end of the fourth quarter, Treasury lifted a $100 billion limit on the amount of money it could pour into each of the firms.

Fannie and Freddie are the primary source of mortgage funding in the nation. They bundle home loans that conform to certain standards into securities, attach a guarantee that they will be paid, and sell them to investors. The process gets money back to the banks and other lenders that originate the loans.

Freddie, which has about $1.9 trillion in its loan portfolio, purchased or guaranteed approximately one out of every four U.S. home loans originated during 2009. 

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Ben S. Bernanke will keep his job as Federal Reserve chairman, the White House and the Senate’s senior Republican predicted two days after wavering support among some Democrats helped drive stock prices lower.

President Barack Obama “is very confident that the chairman will be confirmed,” David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Bernanke will have “bipartisan support in the Senate” even as a number of his party are opposed.

The assurances followed declarations of support for Bernanke from the top two Democrats in the Senate, Nevada’s Harry Reid and Richard Durbin of Illinois, who earlier said they were undecided. John McCain, the Republican 2008 presidential nominee, and John Cornyn, who runs the party’s senate campaign committee this year, are against him. Online traders yesterday raised the odds of approval to 92 percent from as low as 65 percent on Jan. 22.

“We’ve dodged the bullet on this one,” said Greg Valliere, chief policy strategist at Potomac Research Group in Washington. “People were aghast by what happened in the markets on Friday, and do they really want to get angry letters from constituents who have lost money in the stock market because of the Bernanke vote?”

Stocks React

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 2.2 percent on Jan. 22 to 1,091.76, erasing gains so far in 2010, as Reid and Durbin withheld their support for Bernanke and two Senate Democrats, Barbara Boxer of California and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, said they would join Republicans already against him. Both Boxer and Feingold are up for election this year. The S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent to 1,094.93 at 11:46 a.m. today in New York.

The Democratic Party’s loss of a Senate seat in Massachusetts last week has added to pressure on those senators facing re-election at a time of rising voter anger over the economy. Bernanke’s critics have blamed the Fed for lax regulation of banks before the credit crisis and questioned its involvement in the $182 billion bailout of New York-based insurer American International Group Inc.

“It is difficult for governors or chairmen to discharge responsibility under a cloud of uncertainty regarding the security of tenure,” Philippine central bank Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said in an interview in Manila today when asked about Bernanke’s struggle to get confirmed. “It’s best the appointment of a central bank governor is depoliticized.”

Impact on Regulation

While Bernanke’s chances of winning a second term improved, comments by lawmakers supporting him suggest that the 56-year- old former Princeton University economist will be under greater scrutiny on bank regulation and consumer protection.

Durbin, the Senate majority whip, said in a Jan. 23 statement that he will “continue to demand that the Federal Reserve make a commitment to transparency and accountability in its policies.”

“I will make it clear that if the Federal Reserve refuses to exercise its authority to demand bank reform and protect America’s consumers, I will join with members of Congress to push for new laws that achieve those goals,” he said. Bernanke is set to meet with Durbin at 4:15 p.m. today, said Max Gleischman, a Durbin spokesman.

Reid plans a Senate vote on Bernanke’s confirmation this week, said Jim Manley, a spokesman. His term expires Jan no fax payday loan. 31.

Senate Rules

Bernanke’s supporters need 60 votes to limit debate and clear the way for a final vote. Under Senate rules, a motion to limit debate would set up a procedural vote after two legislative days to curtail additional debate to 30 hours.

McConnell indicated enough Republicans will join Democrats in backing the central banker.

“I would anticipate he will be confirmed,” the Kentucky Republican said on NBC. McConnell declined to say how he would vote.

“We believe he will be confirmed,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on “Fox News Sunday.”

White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said on NBC that Obama received assurances from Reid over the weekend that Bernanke will be confirmed, after support among Democrats ebbed in the wake of an upset victory by Republican Scott Brown in the Jan. 19 Massachusetts special election. Axelrod called Bernanke “a steady hand in the crisis.”

McCain’s Vote

Arizona’s McCain, who lost to Obama in 2008, said he is leaning toward voting against Bernanke, while being “worried” about the impact from rejecting the Fed chief.

“The fact is that Chairman Bernanke was in charge when we hit the iceberg,” McCain said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “His policies were partially responsible for the meltdown that we experienced, and I think he should be held accountable.”

Cornyn, of Texas, said on “Fox News Sunday” he would vote against Bernanke, while Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey told CNN they would support the Fed chief, a Republican first appointed by President George W. Bush four years ago.

Bernanke may get as many as 70 Senate votes, Valliere said. “After Massachusetts, nothing’s certain, but I think it’s very likely that he’ll win,” Valliere said.

While Bernanke’s support among senators is running 2 to 1 in his favor, about half have yet to indicate how they will vote. Of senators who released statements or were contacted by Bloomberg News over the past three days, 32 said they would vote for Bernanke or were leaning in his favor, while 16 were opposed or leaning against him. The rest were undecided or didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii announced their support for Bernanke today.

Dodd, Gregg

Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the banking committee, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Republican on the budget committee, said they are confident that Bernanke will be confirmed.

“I have some misgivings about Fed policy and the economic policy, but this man has guided us through a crisis,” Durbin said yesterday on CBS.

Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, yesterday dismissed Dodd’s assertion on Jan. 22 that rejecting Bernanke risked sending the “worst signal to the markets” and triggering an economic “tailspin.”

Any decline in financial markets wouldn’t “last very long,” Shelby, of Alabama, said on CNN. Bernanke will see “a lot of tough votes against him,” and that would be a “strong message,” said Shelby, who reiterated his opposition to the Fed chief.

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Jeff Andrews tried to remain diplomatic when asked about the McGuinty government’s $7 billion green-energy deal with South Korean titan Samsung Group.

The president of Pro-Power and Energy Ltd. in Port Hope could see, on the surface, the attraction of the deal. Samsung C&T and its consortium partner, Korean Electric Power Corp., have assured four manufacturing facilities will be established between 2013 and 2015. Two will make wind towers and wind blades, the other two will assemble solar modules and inverters.

Samsung has also committed to developing 2,000 megawatts of wind power and 500 megawatts of solar power across parts of Ontario. Together, these manufacturing and power-development initiatives are expected to create 16,000 jobs over six years, welcome news during tough economic times, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Thursday.

But there’s a catch. Samsung will get 4 per cent more for the wind and solar power it produces, and it will get priority access to Ontario transmission capacity that’s in short supply. Many energy developers who have been waiting patiently for access to transmission will now have to wait a little longer.

Why, asked Andrews, is the Ontario government giving a deep-pocketed, foreign conglomerate special treatment that’s not being extended to local ventures struggling to create homegrown manufacturing and green energy?

"It’s great for Samsung, but Samsung doesn’t need it as much as we need it," he said.

Pro-Power, in partnership with CWind Inc. of Owen Sound, has been busy putting together its own consortium that aims to build wind turbine nacelles, blades and towers in Ontario. It signed a 10-year contract with auto-parts manufacturer Linamar Corp. to make the nacelles, and has established two subsidiaries, WindPro and WindBlade, to make turbine towers and blades.

This all-Ontario consortium has been attracting investors and wind developers with thousands of megawatts of projects in the pipeline are placing orders fast cash loans. Linamar is on course to make 350 nacelles a year in 2012, well before Samsung will be up and running.

"We have been working hard, digging deep and trying to get the government’s support," said Andrews. "We’ve had some response, but not as much as we think we should get. We’ve proven beyond doubt that we’re serious about it. The Ontario government needs to step up and give support to the people who have really proven they’re committed."

The Green Energy Act, passed last year, was supposed to create a level playing field, he added. Along with the feed-in-tariff program launched in September, Pro-Power and hundreds of other manufacturers and developers have been working on the assumption all are playing by the same rules.

Andrews is clearly frustrated. "We are the Ontario story. I know that sounds cocky, but we are. Our technology was developed and proven here in Ontario by Ontario residents. The patents were established here in Ontario."

McGuinty justified the deal Thursday as a way to accelerate Ontario’s green economy, by drawing an "anchor tenant" that can stimulate jobs and exports much more quickly. The alternative, he said, is to "hope" our industry of smaller players will grow over time while the province misses out on export opportunities to a U.S. green-energy market ready to explode.

Ian MacLellan, vice-chairman of solar-cell manufacturer Arise Technologies Corp. in Waterloo, said that kind of thinking doesn’t work in the long run. "If you took that approach looking back 30 years to Silicon Valley, they would have funded Xerox and not talked to Steve Jobs."

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Last-minute holiday shoppers brought relief to retailers, handing them modest sales gains for the season and prompting several to raise their fourth-quarter profit outlooks.

The improved picture comes because retailers never had to resort to drastic price-cutting after keeping inventories lean. Still, retailers may be facing chilly months as consumer spending is expected to remain muted amid high unemployment and tight credit.

"The holiday season was decent but nothing you can get excited about. And it was saved by a last-minute surge," said Ken Perkins, president of research firm RetailMetrics. "Santa didn’t deliver coal, but he certainly didn’t deliver caviar."

According to Thomson Reuters’ preliminary findings, eight retailers beat expectations, one met, and four missed. Sales figures are based on sales at stores open at least a year and are considered a key indicator of a retailer’s health.

Retailers’ decent performance in December, helped by a last-minute spending spree in the days before Christmas, comes after a disappointing November fast payday loans.

Retailers managed to avoid another Christmas catastrophe because they had a year to plan for a new consumer mindset. They headed into the season with sharply lower inventories and more practical merchandise that resonated with shoppers who stuck to shopping lists and researched deals online before they bought. Shoppers were in malls buying, but they were choosy. They picked up discounted flat-panel TVs, computers and smart phones, but often stayed away from clothing unless it was practical.

Stores were on edge until near Christmas because consumers delayed buying more than last year, either because they were shut in by winter snowstorms or were holding out for better deals. But many stores kept to planned discounts. That’s different from last year, when stores started liquidating merchandise in November because of the escalating financial crisis.

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Moviegoers have shown a willingness to be entangled by Spider-Man’s web over and over again. Now, as Disney prepares to buy the comic book powerhouse Marvel, it faces the question of whether fans will also get attached to characters as obscure as Ant-Man and Iron Fist.

The Walt Disney Co. is making a $4.2 billion bet that they will as it nears completion of its acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc. this week. The cash-and-stock deal brings those characters and thousands of others to an entertainment empire that already includes Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog and Hannah Montana.

Disney’s biggest challenge will be to get enough people enthused about second-string superheroes to justify the price — about $1.2 billion, or 40 percent more than what Marvel’s stock was worth when the deal was announced Aug. 31.

The high price means Disney will have to find new ways to earn revenue from Marvel — perhaps by bringing Marvel-licensed toys to more store shelves around the world, and by digging deep into its comic vault for potential new blockbusters.

Although Disney is constrained by the fact that big-name Marvel superheroes such as Spider-Man are already locked up in long-term deals with rival movie studios, Disney has had a history of successfully turning unknown talent such as Miley Cyrus, the actress behind "Hannah Montana," into multibillion-dollar enterprises.

"With Marvel, it’s not just about ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Hulk,’" Caris & Co. analyst David Miller said. "It’s all about the other 5,000 characters that you and I don’t even know about yet."

Disney shares are already being helped, having risen more than 20 percent since the deal was announced, partly on the hope for new character development and better use of Marvel heroes in movies, stores and theme parks.

Marvel shareholders are expected to give final approval to the offer on Thursday.

The deal has already spawned a bout of speculation in the comic book world about who will be the Next Big Thing.

Possibilities include classics such as Ant-Man, the alter-ego of mad scientist Dr. Henry Pym, and Dr. Strange, the mystical go-to guy whenever there’s an extradimensional threat. Both are connected to The Avengers line of characters that Marvel had started developing for the big screen long before Disney made the deal; Iron Man and the Hulk are among the Avengers that Marvel already has tapped.

There are about 5,000 more characters, including obscure ones such as martial arts master Iron Fist from the 1970s and up-and-coming ones such as the Runaways, a street-savvy pack of teenagers who have become a recent Marvel comic-book hit.

Whoever is the next star, Marvel has a track record of success: Its "Iron Man" movie took in $572 million at box offices worldwide despite the character once being a B-lister in the pantheon of superheroes.

"They picked the right one and they did it the right way," said Gareb Shamus, whose company Wizard Entertainment Group runs several of the Comic-Con fan conventions around the nation. "When you do that, you’ve got a franchise that could last forever."

Through the deal, Marvel gains the ability to quickly reach more markets worldwide. Disney is by far the world’s top licenser of its character brands, with $30 billion in retail sales in fiscal 2008, compared with fourth-place Marvel at $5.7 billion, according to License! Global magazine.

"It gives Marvel the opportunity to expand internationally and leverage the Disney retail relationships as well as their licensee relationships," said Tony Lisanti, the magazine’s global editorial director.

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Freer trade can help create jobs and support economic growth, and tariff-cutting accords should not be scaled back on account of the global downturn, senior U.S. and other officials said on Monday.

World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy told a WTO ministerial conference that completing the long-running Doha round would strengthen the global trading system that had helped countries come through the crisis.

But trade liberalization had to be backed by other domestic policies to absorb the shocks of increased competition, he told the opening session of the conference.

Launched eight years ago to open markets and help developing countries prosper through more trade, the Doha talks have been extremely tortuous. Political leaders have called for an accord in 2010, but a deal is not yet ready.

“The moment of truth is fast approaching when you will have to decide whether the 2010 target can be met,” Lamy told trade ministers from the WTO’s 153 members.

“Political leaders are practically unanimous that they want to meet it, but reaffirmation is not enough. Now we need action, concrete and practical action, to close the remaining gaps.”

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Reuters that the ministers and senior officials gathered in Geneva needed to make sure trade can power continued growth and job creation.

“It’s an important opportunity for us to reaffirm the valuable role that liberalizing trade around the globe has in sustaining and promoting growth,” he said.

Many countries hold the United States responsible for the lack of progress in the Doha talks, as issues from healthcare to Afghanistan have higher priority in Washington.

But Kirk told the conference the United States was ready to move into the final stages of negotiations — provided agreement led to real new market opportunities in manufacturing and services as well as farming, the main focus of poor countries.

He repeated America’s call for big emerging countries like China and India to open their markets further to secure a deal.

Outgoing EU trade chief Catherine Ashton expressed concern that negotiations were not moving fast enough to reach agreement in 2010 and said the European Union was committed to a comprehensive deal in the months ahead.

LACK OF REGULATION

Criticism of the WTO and its free trade agenda has increased over the past year following global economic turmoil which many have attributed to a lack of oversight and regulation of financial services.

This week’s gathering falls on the 10th anniversary of a Seattle WTO ministerial meeting made famous by violent protests that contributed to the collapse of the conference. 

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European exports to China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, fell 5.3 percent in the first half of the year as the euro’s appreciation made the goods from the region less competitive abroad.

The value of exports from the 27-nation European Union to China declined to 37.4 billion euros ($55.8 billion) from 39.5 billion euros in the year-earlier period, the EU’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. EU imports from China fell 8.4 percent to 102.7 billion euros, narrowing the trade deficit to 65.3 billion euros from 72.7 billion euros.

European officials have called on China to let the yuan strengthen and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will travel to China this weekend to discuss the matter cheap payday loan. The euro has gained 15 percent against the Chinese currency in the past year, fueling complaints that yuan’s peg to the weakening U.S. dollar is creating an unfair advantage for China’s exporters.

China is the EU’s second-largest trading partner, after the U.S., with machinery and vehicles accounting for about 60 percent of European goods shipped to the Asian nation. The value of German exports to China decreased to 16.2 billion euros in the first half from 16.8 billion a year earlier, according to today’s report.

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CHICAGO–When the U.S. holiday shopping season kicks off the day after American Thanksgiving, retailers hope to see millions of less frightened, more bargain-hungry customers cross their thresholds.

Industry analysts expect a strong turnout Black Friday, which falls on Nov. 27 this year, as deep discounts lure shoppers after more than a year of subdued spending. They add that consumers in the U.S. still remain cautious.

"Given what we know about consumer shopping patterns, even this month, I would suspect, it will turn out to be a very strong performance," said Michael Niemira, chief economist of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Special promotion days have been big drivers of sales, he said, pointing to the lift retailers saw on the Nov. 11 Veteran’s Day holiday.

Retailers and websites dedicated to Black Friday deals have leaked sales plans earlier than usual in the hopes of sparking demand for flat-panel televisions, toys and other goods after experiencing 2008, the worst holiday season in decades.

In 2008, holiday shopping started just weeks after the global financial crisis froze lending.

"Certainly, last year was a year of tremendous uncertainty going into Black Friday because we were right in the middle of the storm," said Chris Donnelly, a partner in Accenture’s retail practice.

More than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday last year, up from 147 million in 2007, according to the National Retail Federation. Average amount spent by shoppers over that year-ago weekend rose 7.2 per cent to $372.57 (U.S.) per person.

Even those numbers did not prevent the sales slide of 2.8 per cent for the entire shopping season last year, the first since the federation started tracking data in 1995.

The retail umbrella group has not issued a Black Friday forecast but it expects 2009 holiday sales to rise 1 per cent. The shopping centres council forecasts a 1-2 per cent rise.

With retail sales not stellar, but stabilizing, it’s hoped "as we go into the holiday season, that we are going to see some stability as well," Donnelly said.

Niemira, for one, refers to Black Friday as "Bargain Friday" since it is known for deals.

Sixty-one per cent of chief marketing officers at leading U.S. retailers, polled by BDO Seidman, expect Black Friday sales to be flat, while 33 per cent predicted an increase.

Market research firm IBISWorld expects total retail sales over the coming Black Friday weekend to rise 2.8 percent to $42.9 billion. It expects 76.9 million people to swarm into retail stores on Black Friday alone.

Fewer retailers are vying for that business. Bain & Co. reports 27 retailers went bankrupt in 2008, with 18 more gone this year. Together, those chains used to account for about $25-$30 billion in sales.

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China should keep the yuan stable, in part because that is beneficial for a global economic recovery, a Commerce Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

The yuan’s exchange rate has little to do with its trade imbalance, spokesman Yao Jian told a news conference.

He added that it was unfair to urge just one country to increase the value of its currency, as other currencies fall in value.

Yao was speaking shortly after International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said a stronger yuan is part of the reforms that Beijing needs to implement to increase domestic consumption and help ease global imbalances.

(Reporting by Aileen Wang and Jason Subler; Editing by Ken Wills)

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