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New Zealand’s budget cash deficit was wider than the government forecast after departments made payments for services earlier than they expected.

The cash deficit was NZ$8.85 billion ($6.2 billion) in the six months ended Dec. 31, or NZ$934 million wider than forecast in December’s fiscal update, the Treasury Department said in a statement released in Wellington today.

New Zealand’s budget showed a cash deficit for the first time in nine years in the 12 months ended June 30, and Finance Minister Bill English has projected six years of deficits as debt increases. Tax receipts fell and government welfare spending increased last year as New Zealand faced its worst recession in three decades.

Payments of NZ$1.3 billion occurred in late December which had been forecast in January, the Treasury said. The variance from forecast is expected to reverse in January, it said.

Tax receipts broadly matched forecast in the six months to December, the Treasury said. Company tax exceeded estimates after inclusion of the government’s settlement with banks over tax on structured finance transactions.

Excluding these transactions, company tax receipts were lower than forecast as firms lowered their tax assessments, suggesting “current-year profitability was weaker than expected in the December forecast and it is possible this will persist until the end of the year,” the department said.

The government’s budget operating deficit was NZ$1.04 billion, which was NZ$1.45 billion narrower than forecast.

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John Zumwalt said he plans to give up the chief executive officer’s role at The PBSJ Corp.

Zumwalt, who also is chairman of the engineering and consulting firm, said in a Jan. 25 letter to shareholders that the company expects a new CEO to be in place by the end of September. Zumwalt said he would continue to serve as CEO until his replacement is found.

Korn/Ferry, an executive search firm, will perform both an internal and external search for candidates under the oversight of the nominating committee of the company’s board, Zumwalt said in his letter, which was first reported by the nonprofit news organization, Broward Bulldog.

PBSJ, an employee-owned firm headquartered in Tampa, has been under scrutiny following a series of what Zumwalt described in his letter as “management crisis,” including a $36 million embezzlement scheme and accusations of violating federal campaign finance laws. Most recently, the company said early results of an internal probe suggested that violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act might have occurred in connection with certain projects undertaken by its PBS&J International Inc. subsidiary.

Zumwalt, who served as president of the international subsidiary until July, said he would focus his attention in the coming months on the strategy growth of the corporation and the strengthening and expansion of its core North American businesses.

Bob Paulsen, vice chairman, will provide day-to-day oversight of the current businesses at the corporate level, as it moves ahead with a streamlined business organization, the letter said.

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Antitrust enforcers have intensified their probe of Monsanto Co.’s dominance in genetically modified seeds, ordering the company to turn over information related to its Roundup Ready genetic trait in soybeans.

Monsanto disclosed Thursday that the Department of Justice issued a civil investigative demand, a formal request for information, which follows an informal probe begun by government lawyers last year. Company spokeswoman Kelli Powers declined to specify what information is being sought.

Creve Coeur-based Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, said it has provided access to millions of pages of documents and will continue to cooperate with the government.

"We believe our business practices are fair, pro-competitive and in compliance with the law," Monsanto Chief Deputy Counsel Scott Partridge said in a statement.

The Justice Department’s probe of Monsanto coincides with claims by the company’s chief rival, Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., and other critics who say Monsanto’s leading position in the multibillion-dollar biotech seed market and business practices are stifling innovation that could benefit farmers.

The Justice Department has shown an increasing interest in the genetically modified seed business, leading to this week’s demand to Monsanto for additional information.

Thomas L. Greaney, a law professor at St. Louis University, said civil investigative demands like those received by Monsanto represent the second step in an antitrust investigation and are used by government lawyers to obtain specific documents, depositions and internal memoranda that the company wouldn’t voluntarily hand over and that could be useful in preparing an antitrust case.

"They don’t do it lightly," said Greaney, who spent 10 years at the Justice Department, including a stint as assistant chief in charge of antitrust matters in health care.

It does not suggest, however, that such a lawsuit is imminent, he said.

Thursday marked the first time the Justice Department has confirmed an investigation of possible anti-competitive practices in the seed industry. Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona declined to be more specific about the scope of the investigation or to name the companies involved.

However, Pioneer’s parent, DuPont, acknowledged that it received a civil investigative demand from the Justice Department, spokesman Dan Turner said.

And two other big seed companies, Dow AgroSciences and Syngenta, have also spoken with the department regarding the probe, spokesmen said.

Peter Carstensen, a University of Wisconsin law professor who previously worked as a staff attorney at the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said the government’s demand for information is a sign that it has "ratcheted up its investigation" of Monsanto.

Carstensen is an expert witness for a farmer being sued by Monsanto and believes there’s a valid antitrust argument to be made against the seed giant need a personal loan with bad credit.

Still, the intersection of intellectual property rights and antitrust law makes any case a complex one that could be difficult for the government to prove in court.

"There are going to be some very hard legal questions with respect to how much right does Monsanto have to use its patent rights in a way that is exempt from antitrust review," he said.

Allegations by Monsanto’s critics focus mainly on the company’s biotech soybeans, which are genetically modified to resist Roundup and other glyphosate-based weed killers. The technology allows farmers to spray entire fields with herbicide without killing crops.

Today, the Roundup Ready genetic trait is found in more than 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop, including seeds sold by DuPont’s Pioneer unit and other competitors. Monsanto collects a technology fee for licensing the trait.

DuPont has complained to the government that its agricultural subsidiary Pioneer is not being allowed to develop seeds that combine Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready genetic trait with a separate Pioneer-developed trait for herbicide resistance.

"The ag biotech trait market is firmly in the grip of a single supplier, acting as a bottleneck to competition and choice," DuPont said in formal comments submitted Friday to the Justice Department.

The companies have waged a legal battle since last spring when Monsanto sued DuPont for patent infringement related to their licensing agreement. DuPont countersued weeks later, claiming that Monsanto is using anti-competitive tactics to preserve its market share. The case is pending in U.S. District Court in St. Louis.

Monsanto is currently trying to persuade seed companies to switch to its new, higher priced biotech soybean called Roundup Ready 2 Yield.

DuPont has alleged that Monsanto is trying to force independent seed companies and farmers to make the switch to eliminate the potential for competition from a generic alternative.

To diffuse criticism, Monsanto sent farm groups and seed companies a letter on Dec. 15 stating that farmers would be allowed to continue growing first-generation Roundup Ready soybeans after the herbicide resistance trait patent expires in 2014.

Monsanto said the Justice Department’s demand for information seeks confirmation that it will follow through on that promise.

The Monsanto investigation is part of a broad look at the state of competition in agriculture by President Barack Obama’s administration.

The Justice Department and Department of Agriculture last year announced a nationwide series of workshops in 2010 to hear farmers concerns.

The first session will be held in Iowa on March 12 and focus on issues related to row crops, including biotech seed.

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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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Target Corp. and U.S. retailers may lose almost $9 billion in holiday sales as banks rein in lending to cash-strapped consumers before a new credit-card law takes effect.

Sales in November and December may fall 1.2 percent to $436.7 billion from the same period in 2008, said Britt Beemer, chairman of consumer polling firm America’s Research Group. If lenders weren’t cutting customer spending limits and rejecting more credit-card applicants, sales would gain about 0.8 percent to $445.5 billion, he said in a Dec. 21 interview.

Target Chief Financial Officer Douglas Scovanner says the credit-card legislation is exacerbating a spending slump just as consumers begin to consider more discretionary purchases they would usually buy with credit. Items such as clothing, jewelry and home goods suffered steeper declines during the recession and are among the most profitable sales for retailers.

“It will mute the impact of the rebound that would have otherwise occurred,” Scovanner said. “Diminished availability of credit equals diminished spending.”

Reduced lending may shave at least half a percentage point off sales at stores open at least a year once more of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act goes into effect in February, Scovanner said in a Nov. 17 interview in Minneapolis, where the chain is based. In November, Target’s comparable-store sales declined 1.5 percent.

‘Tighten Up’

The act bans so-called universal default, the practice of raising interest rates based on a missed payment with another lender. The rules are already causing lenders to “tighten up,” said Brad Jolson, senior director for risk management solutions at Fair Isaac Corp. FICO, as the company is known, is the Minneapolis-based provider of the credit-scoring formula most widely used by lenders.

Available credit to U.S. consumers through cards fell to $3.6 trillion this year from a peak of $4.7 trillion last year, according to a study released in July by TowerGroup, a Needham, Massachusetts-based financial research and advising firm.

“We’re scared to death of what this law is going to do,” said Edward Record, CFO at Stage Stores Inc., the Houston-based operator of 759 stores including the Bealls and Peebles chains. “It’s definitely going to hurt consumer spending.”

Store-Brand Cards

About a third of Stage Stores’ sales comes from store-brand credit cards, and as much as a quarter from other issuers, Record said in a Dec. 17 telephone interview. He said he expects the general-purpose cards will be more affected because Stage Stores was “pretty conservative” with its own cards.

Stage Stores added 8 cents to $12.42 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday and has advanced 51 percent this year. Target fell 54 cents to $48.79 in trading yesterday. The shares have gained 41 percent this year.

Target also offers its own branded credit cards through a portfolio it funds mainly with JPMorgan Chase & Co. Writeoffs for loans deemed uncollectible rose to 14.99 percent in November on an annualized basis, up from 13.49 percent in October and 11 percent a year earlier, Target said in filings.

Proponents of the credit-card law say the rules protect consumers and put more cash at their disposal, benefiting shoppers and retailers. Some issuers may have hurt sales between the law’s passage and enactment by raising rates in anticipation of the coming restrictions, said U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat and a sponsor of the law.

“Much of the damage was and is self-inflicted,” she said in a Dec. 16 telephone interview. “Virtually all of the consumers I’ve talked to like my card reforms.”

Managing Risk

The law will reduce lenders’ flexibility to manage risk, said Peter Garuccio, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association, a Washington trade group representing about 95 percent of U.S. banking assets. That leaves them the options of “not making cards available or doing so at higher prices,” he said in a telephone interview on Dec. 21.

JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America Corp., the two largest issuers, referred questions on the law to the American Bankers Association. Bank of America decided not to raise card interest rates before the law goes into effect except in instances where customers miss at least two payments within 12 months, Betty Riess, a spokeswoman, said yesterday by telephone.

Less credit hurts larger sales disproportionately, according to Beemer, the consumer researcher.

“Credit drives purchases over $50,” he said. He estimates that half those transactions were made with credit cards before access diminished this year.

Applications Rejected

This year, 22 percent of the consumers that Beemer’s Charleston, South Carolina-based firm surveyed said they had credit-card applications rejected, compared with 12 percent last year. More than 37 percent said their credit limits had been reduced in the past year. That means fewer sales of items such as appliances, Beemer said.

The National Retail Federation, which hasn’t taken a stance on the credit-card law as a whole, has said proposed rules under the law threaten stores’ ability to grant so-called instant credit at checkout.

The Federal Reserve’s proposed guidelines would require retailers to ask customers for information on income and other assets, according to the industry group. That may all but eliminate merchants’ ability to issue store cards or raise borrowing limits at the register, Mallory Duncan, general counsel of the Washington-based federation, said in a telephone interview. The current practice is to use credit scores, purchasing history and other credit-bureau information, he said.

“It’s going to have quite a chilling effect on our ability to initiate new accounts,” Duncan said.

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Sweden’s central bank kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged and said it will stick to plans to leave the rate at a record low until autumn next year to support the economic recovery and reach its inflation target.

The seven-day repo rate was left at 0.25 percent, the Stockholm-based Riksbank, the world’s oldest central bank, said on its Web site today. The decision was expected by all 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

“The recovery in the economy is continuing and inflationary pressure will be low in the coming period,” the Riksbank said in its statement. Today’s decision was necessary “to attain the inflation target of 2 percent and to support the economic recovery. The recovery is from a low level and there will be ample spare capacity over the coming years.”

The largest Nordic economy’s contraction this year will be the severest since World War II, Finance Minister Anders Borg said last month. The export-reliant nation’s slump has been deeper than in neighboring Denmark and Norway after Swedish manufacturers, including the world’s biggest maker of ball bearings SKF AB and truck maker Volvo AB, cut thousands of jobs to adjust to smaller markets. Exports make up half of Sweden’s $480 billion economy.

‘Earlier’

“We still believe that the Riksbank will hike earlier than they forecast since the labor market will stabilize earlier and develop better than they predict,” said Annika Winsth, chief economist at Nordea Bank AB in Stockholm. Nordea forecasts a rate increase to 0.75 percent in April.

The krona was up 0.3 percent against the euro, after earlier having appreciated 0.5 percent, at 10.4310 at 10:19 a.m. in Stockholm. Against the dollar, the krona was up 0.4 percent at 7.1989.

The economy will shrink 4.5 percent this year and grow 2.7 percent next year, the bank forecast today. That compares with an earlier forecast of a 4.6 percent contraction in 2009 and 2.5 percent growth next year.

The central bank also revised its unemployment forecast, saying the rate will peak at 10.1 percent next year, compared with a previous estimate of 10.3 percent, and fall to 10 percent in 2011.

Unemployment

Sales abroad slumped for a 12th consecutive month in October, forcing companies to cut more jobs and threatening to send unemployment higher than the 8.1 percent rate recorded in October, not adjusting for seasonal swings. Ericsson AB, the world’s largest maker of mobile-phone networks, last week said it must continue cutting jobs and costs, affecting 946 people.

“We’re facing rising unemployment,” Borg said on Dec instant payday loans. 4. His ministry predicts the jobless rate will peak at 10.7 percent in 2010 and the economy will shrink 4.9 percent this year.

Industrial production fell for a third month in October, with the decline deepening to 2.7 percent from a 0.5 percent fall in September, Statistics Sweden data show. Industrial output sank an annual 16.1 percent in October and hasn’t grown for 15 months, according to the office.

“The Swedish economy is split in two, where industry is performing very poorly while other parts are doing better,” Winsth said. “The Riksbank focuses a lot on industry and the problems we’re experiencing there.”

Inflation Outlook

The Riksbank today said prices will fall 0.3 percent this year compared with an earlier estimate of a 0.4 percent drop. It cut its inflation expectations to 0.8 percent from 0.9 percent next year and said prices will rise 3 percent in 2011.

The recession has undermined price pressure, with Sweden posting eight months of deflation through November, the longest period of price declines since 1980, when records start. Consumer prices fell an annual 0.7 percent last month, compared with the Riksbank’s 2 percent price growth target.

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s government, which is preparing for an election in September, will spend 32 billion kronor ($4.5 billion) in 2010, or about 1 percent of gross domestic product, on tax cuts and welfare to support demand. His administration came to power in 2006 promising to create jobs by reducing taxes and unemployment benefits. The government trails the opposition by 7.5 percentage points, according to an opinion poll published this month by Statistics Sweden.

Some indicators have pointed to economic improvement. Sweden emerged from recession in the second quarter and expanded 0.2 percent in the three months ended September. Stimulus measures have helped send consumer confidence higher, with the index rising to 11.4 in November from 7.5 in October, marking a fourth consecutive month of positive readings.

“The economic ground should be sufficiently solid for the Riksbank to start hiking the repo rate by the end of summer next year,” Danske Bank said in a report yesterday.

Other central banks are also exercising caution. Oslo-based Norges Bank will probably leave its benchmark rate on hold today after raising the rate a quarter point on Oct. 28 to 1.5 percent as policy makers adjust their stance to lower oil investment and the impact of a strong krone on exports.

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Otterbein Homes has acquired Pioneer Home Health Care, a Medicare-certified home health agency with operations in the Wilmington area.

Pioneer Home Health Care was established in 2005 by licensed physical therapists Tim McCormick and Kimberly Neikirk. Neikirk has been named executive director for the new venture for Otterbein, and McCormick will assume the position of therapy supervisor.

All of the other current employees will remain with the company, according to a press release.

Otterbein’s five full-service retirement communities in western and northern Ohio are located in Lebanon, St. Marys, Cridersville, Pemberville and on the Marblehead Peninsula on Lake Erie. Avalon by Otterbein neighborhoods, which offer skilled nursing and rehabilitation, are located in Perrysburg and Monclova in northern Ohio and Springboro and Middletown in southern Ohio Same day payday loans.

Avalon in Hamilton Township is under construction.

Jill Hreben, CEO of Otterbein Homes, said: “Extending the Otterbein brand to include home health services was critical to our continuing strategic goals, and we recognized an outstanding alignment with the level of care and the values displayed by Kimberly and Tim and the other partners at Pioneer.”

Otterbein Homes serves nearly 1,700 people and is related to the East Ohio and West Ohio Conferences of the United Methodist Church.

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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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World Bank chief economist Justin Lin said the global recovery is still “fragile” and governments should maintain fiscal stimulus measures.

“It’s important to discuss the quality of the fiscal stimulus instead of an exit,” Lin told reporters in Seoul. Measures should be withdrawn when “we see private sector investment resume as well as unemployment decline to an acceptable level. So far I think we’re still in a fragile state of the economy and maintaining fiscal stimulus is important.”

Leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, including U guaranteed online payday loans.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, pledged in Singapore two days ago to maintain stimulus policies until a “durable” economic recovery is secure.

Lin said China’s economy may grow at an annual pace of between 8 percent and 10 percent in coming years. He declined to comment on China’s currency policy.

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U.S. companies hurt by the global credit crisis are continuing to hold more cash, even as the economy begins to show signs of improvement, the Wall Street Journal said, citing its analysis of company filings.

In the second quarter, the 500 largest non-financial U.S. companies by total assets held about $994 billion in cash and short-term investments, or 9.8 percent of their assets, according to the paper’s analysis of corporate filings.

In contrast, the companies held $846 billion, or 7.9 percent of assets, a year ago, the paper said.

The trend seems to have continued in the third quarter, despite an improving economy, the paper said companies making payday loans.

The 248 companies that have reported third-quarter results so far saw their cash holdings go up by a percentage point sequentially to 11.1 percent of assets, the paper said.

Companies such as Alcoa Inc, Google Inc, PepsiCo Inc and Texas Instruments Inc reported big third-quarter increases in cash holdings, the paper said.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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