Heinz to acquire Australian juice maker

H.J. Heinz Co.'s Heinz Australia unit has made a $288 million offer to acquire Golden Circle Ltd., one of Australia's best-known fruit juice makers.

"This is a win-win for both Golden Circle and Heinz," said Heinz Australia in a statement. "This proposed acquisition brings together two of the best known and most respected food brands in Australia."

Golden Circle was founded in 1947 and has about 1,000 personnel working at two factories. The company is recognized as one of Australia's top 15 brands.

The Golden Circle board already has unanimously recommended the Heinz Australia proposal and is expected to vote its shares in favor of the deal on Nov. 14. The deal is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.

Heinz stops use of Chinese milk in products

Bailout fails to soothe anxiety

Relief on Wall Street over the hard-won passage of a $700 billion bailout package for the financial system apparently hasn't yet trickled down to the pubs, storefronts, car lots and malls of Main Street.

Many Americans spent an uneasy weekend wondering whether the rescue would help in time -- or at all -- and trying to figure out where next to cut back as the economic screws tighten.

Would financing come through for the new washing machine? Could the old car hold out another year? Would a nice dinner out bust the budget?

"People are afraid," said Linda Morrow, who owns a shoe and handbag store in a Dallas mall. "People basically don't know what the future will bring. They're afraid to spend. They want to see what the bailout will do. They're waiting till after the election."

In more than two dozen interviews with The Associated Press across the country over the weekend, Americans described those concerns, from tighter personal credit to worries about small businesses to doubts about simply making ends meet.

Matt Watson, a 41-year-old sales manager at a showroom of motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles in Morgantown, W.Va., said his family has cut back on dinners out and is buying more generic products.

The other day, he grabbed a $5 bill off his dresser and headed to a Walgreen's drugstore for milk and bread.

"I could not buy milk and bread for $5," Watson said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Aimee Robinson needs a $200,000 loan soon for her business, which sells eco-friendly furniture in Seattle, and wonders whether the bailout might ease the way. The interest rate on her store's credit card just jumped to 17 percent from 8 percent.

"Everything came to a standstill" this summer, she said. "It hit me really, really bad."

The bailout plan, quickly signed into law by President Bush after it passed the House by a comfortable margin Friday, will buy bad mortgage debt off the books of staggering banks in hopes of shoring up the American financial system.

It was put together during a harrowing three weeks for the U.S. economy that began with the bankruptcy of investment house Lehman Brothers and a government bailout of insurer American International Group.

The damage has seeped into far-flung corners of the economy. At a company called Tortilla Lady in Flagstaff, Ariz., five women make 1,500 to 1,800 dozen tortillas in an average week, some sold in the shop and others to stores.

For the week of Sept. 15, the week Lehman Brothers collapsed and the crisis took hold, production was only about 1,000 dozen.

"Once this really got into the news and people started understanding what Wall Street meant to them, they've become more conscious of their own budget and the limitation of their budget," said Phebe Faus, an owner of Tortilla Lady.

An AP-GfK poll released last week before the House passed the revised bill found Americans divided on whether they supported the bailout. But a solid majority, eight in 10, said they feared the financial crisis would hit them directly. Many said they were conflicted, lamenting that taxpayers had to step in but believing something had to be done to prop up the economy.

Among that type of adherent is Morgan Cavanaugh, owner of a 75-year-old Irish pub that sits a few blocks from Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland. Standing behind the weathered mahogany bar, he said the bailout stinks.

"I don't believe we should let them off the hook," he said. "Either we pay now or we pay later. To me, it's extortion."

To him it's necessary: The same day, he was talking on his cell phone to a man who has been trying to buy a suburban bar from Cavanaugh but has not been able to secure a loan.

"It passed," Cavanaugh told the man just after the House vote Friday. "Let's work something out." He said the man planned to try for the loan again and said the prospects were "looking up."

As for business at the bar: Cavanaugh has lowered his drink prices for his customers, a crowd heavy with bankers and brokers. He calls the special the Bankers' Booze Bailout Fund.

Tight credit remains at the heart of the crisis. In a financial climate of fear and mistrust, banks are charging one another much higher rates to borrow money, and they are snapping their wallets shut to Americans.

The bailout package may get the gears of lending moving again, but it hasn't happened yet.

Last year, Pennsylvania auto dealer Bill Rosado's customers had no trouble arranging financing for the cars and trucks they bought. Banks were lined up to provide cash even for people with a risky credit history.

Those days are gone. A customer with decent credit who might have been approved for 100 percent financing not long ago is lucky to get a loan at all today, and even then the interest rate is almost guaranteed to be higher.

"The people with horrible credit, I can justify saying, 'No more,'" Rosado said. "But this is affecting people whose credit isn't that bad. People with 650 credit scores are being turned down."

The rescue was aimed in part at restoring confidence in the financial markets. As the crisis worsened, stocks took a huge hit, and Americans seeing their stock funds and retirement savings sapped are more reluctant to spend money.

"A lot of people who come here are wealthy people, and they've lost a lot of money in stocks," said Jaime Galvan, who manages a car wash in Long Beach, Calif. "Most of the people, they're concerned. They don't want to spend."

And a turnaround is no guarantee. President Bush has warned it will take "some time" for the full effects of the bailout bill to take hold in an economy that had a world of trouble even before the banking crisis.

In the meantime, Americans are left to find ways to cut back even further.

In Dallas, sales assistant Yvonna Vaughan downgraded from Newport cigarettes to less expensive Kools and wonders whether she'll be smoking generics before long.

In Denver, secretary Bernice Adolf pays close attention to the sales at her grocery store and makes spaghetti at home with her husband on Friday night instead of their usual dinners out.

"We're trying to save wherever we can," she said. "I don't think the bailout is going to last too long."

At Zeitoun, a Mediterranean restaurant not far from the Miami airport, owner Samira Marino has noticed everyone is ordering water and more people are sharing meals.

Mike Belo of Columbia, S.C., hasn't put off any major purchases -- yet. But he's keeping an eye on his business as a property insurance agent, which has dipped as new home sales have slowed.

"It's hard to get a handle on it," he said of the bailout. "I'm not in favor of bailing out a bank, but I guess if it's the No. 1 bank that offers the money ... we're in a no-win situation, really."

"If I go under," he said, "no one's going to bail me out."

Views on the Bailout, from Harlem to Wall Street

Region’s financial experts clash on need for bailout

Four House members from region vote ‘no’ on bailout

The Bailout: Public Anger, Private Talks

Job losses underscore arrival of recession

The economy is crashing down on Jim Slovick.

The country last month shed jobs at its fastest pace in five years, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday, and Slovick knows the downward slide isn't done yet. His employer, Ryerson Steel, is closing its Carnegie plant. Slovick doesn't know when his last day of work will be, but he knows the remainder of his 39-year career is measured in weeks, not the years he'd once counted on.

At 62, he's too young to collect his full Social Security benefits but too old to start anew.

"We don't want to retire. We want to work. I'm healthy," said Slovick of McDonald. He and co-worker Jay Clayton, 55, of Carnegie shared their plight with 12 other union members during an hourlong discussion with Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, and Jack Shea, head of the Allegheny County Labor Council.

"I'm 55 years old with 33 years of service," Clayton said. "Where do I go?"

Employers cut 159,000 jobs in September. The department changed its unemployment figures for July and August, saying the economy lost 4,000 more jobs than previously thought. That brings the total job losses this year to about 768,000.

"This was a very weak job report. It confirms the U.S. is in a recession," said Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist for PNC Financial Services.

The $700 billion-plus financial bailout passed by Congress yesterday will free up credit, getting some blood flowing in the economy again, but its effects for most people won't be immediate, Hoffman said. Job losses will continue for a while. That likely will dampen the holiday shopping season, which many businesses depend on to survive the year.

"It's going to get worse. These things don't come and go overnight," Hoffman said. The federal government can do little if anything more but ride this out, he said. "I think they've pulled as many rabbits out of their hats as they can."

Trumka, who also spoke to the United Steelworkers to stump for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said the employment situation could be even more grim than it looks. If the unemployment rate were calculated the way it was 20 years ago, it would be close to 15 percent, rather than 6.1 percent, Trumka said.

"This economy is not working for us," Trumka said. "One out of 10 Americans who wants to work full time cannot find a full-time job."

Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed people rose by 2.2 million, mostly in construction, retail and manufacturing sectors. Long-term unemployment -- people without a job for more than half a year -- account for 2 million of the jobless.

Slovick and his 18 co-workers expect to join their ranks soon. A woman who answered the phone at Ryerson's Carnegie plant said the plant would close in three weeks. Executives at the company's corporate headquarters could not be reached for comment.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Obama's economic plan would make matters worse.

"Unlike Sen. Obama, I do not believe we will create one single American job by increasing taxes, going on a massive spending binge, and closing off our markets," McCain said in a statement.

Obama, speaking in the Philadelphia suburb of Abington, blamed the crisis on an "economic philosophy" of deregulation and reliance on market forces that he said McCain and President Bush share.

"We've tried it their way. It hasn't worked. And it won't work now," Obama said.

McCain and Obama on Small Business Issues

Westinghouse overflows with new employees

Westinghouse Electric Co. is adding new employees so fast that it's now weighing options for additional real estate space to house them.

The expanding nuclear company, which isn't scheduled to move into the first buildings at its new office campus in Cranberry until 2009, is considering whether or not it will need about 50,000-square-feet of additional space, Vaughn Gilbert, a company spokesman, said Friday.

"The business is growing, and we are evaluating if we need additional space," Gilbert said. "But at this point, we don't know exactly how much or where it will be."

The company, whose headquarters in Monroeville is cramped, has hired the commercial real estate firm of Jones Lang LaSalle in Pittsburgh to spearhead the search.

Representatives there could not be reached for comment.

As reported, growth in its nuclear plant business has prompted Westinghouse to hire nearly 3,000 people worldwide over the past three years. About 40 percent of the company's 10,000-person workforce is in Western Pennsylvania.

In an interview in June, Aris Candris, Westinghouse's new CEO, said China wants to have 100 of the company's nuclear reactors in operation or under construction by 2020 -- more than double what was anticipated.

He said plans for domestic reactor construction are moving briskly.

About 2,000 Monroeville employees are expected to start relocating to the company's new headquarters in Cranberry in June.

Two months ago, about 350 instrumentation and control employees moved to rented space in Cranberry, adjacent to the new Westinghouse headquarters under construction.

Monroeville ExpoMart converting to offices

Nuclear’s Tangled Economics

National City shares jump 12 percent

National City Corp., Huntington Bancshares Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. led regional bank stocks higher in New York trading after Wells Fargo & Co.'s counterbid for Wachovia Corp.

National City, Ohio's biggest bank, rose 37 cents, or 12 percent, to $3.51 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, after surging as much as 33 percent. Columbus-based Huntington climbed $1.48, or 16 percent, to $10.72. Birmingham, Alabama-based Regions rose 14 percent and Philadelphia-based Sovereign Bancorp Inc. advanced 11 percent. Stocks were also helped by a tax change that may have aided Wells Fargo's bid and made consolidation more attractive.

"Maybe there's a realization that regional banks are not dead and their stocks are worth more than $1," said Chris Marinac, an analyst at FIG Partners LLC in Atlanta. " We use Wachovia as our shining example."

Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, agreed to buy Wachovia for about $15.1 billion, trumping an earlier bid by New York- based Citigroup Inc. and locking the two companies in a battle for the assets of the troubled Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender. The Internal Revenue Service issued a note Tuesday that makes Wachovia's loan losses more valuable as tax deductions. The regional lenders were among the biggest gainers in the 24-company KBW Bank Index, which rose 4.8 percent.

Regional banks were driven higher on speculation about mergers and acquisitions and today's congressional authorization for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to spend $700 billion buying distressed mortgage assets from financial companies. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index had its biggest drop since 1987 on Sept. 29 when the House of Representatives rejected the original bailout package.

"More favorable tax treatment for bank acquisitions has the potential to boost bank consolidation activity significantly," said analysts Jeff Harte and Devin Ryan at Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP in a note today.

The IRS pronouncement, "in effect, allows Wells Fargo to deduct, without limitation, the loan losses and bad debt deductions that Wachovia sustains following the acquisition," said Robert Willens, a certified public accountant who analyzes how accounting and tax rules affect Wall Street. That's a change from more stringent limits, he said.

"It's possible that the cost of the deal to Wells will be entirely offset with tax savings resulting from the relaxation of this rule," he said.

National City and SunTrust Banks Inc., Georgia's largest lender, may be takeover targets for national banks seeking to add to their presence in the Southeast and Midwest, Marinac said.

Regional bank stocks have been crushed by unpaid mortgages and losses tied to stakes in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. National City traded at about 15 cents for every dollar of shareholders equity, up from 9 cents earlier this week, according to Bloomberg data. The shares slumped 78 percent this year in part because the bank expanded into Florida in 2006 just before the housing market collapsed.

Marcial: Regional Banks’ Road to Recovery

Japan’s Banks Are Shopping Around

Universal Stainless employees threaten to walk off job

Steelworkers at Universal Stainless & Alloy Products Inc. in Bridgeville are threatening a strike because they have not been able to reach a new labor contract with the company, a union representative said Friday.

The 240 members of the United Steelworkers Local 9531 gave union leadership authorization to call a strike, said James Watt, a USW staff representative. Workers could walk out after giving sufficient notification for an orderly shutdown of the plant, he said.

The union's bargaining committee met Friday to discuss the status of contract talks before holding two membership meetings, Watt said. He declined to comment on details of the negotiations.

The union has been working under an extension of its former five-year contract, which expired on Aug. 31. But the union notified the company it was canceling the extension and gave Universal Stainless a 24-hour notice on Monday that its members might walk off the job, Watt said.

Paul McGrath, general counsel for Universal Stainless, which makes semi-finished specialty steel products, declined to comment.

Workers at Universal Stainless want a contract similar to one won by the USW at Latrobe Specialty Steel Co., said John Ross, a member of the bargaining committee that negotiated the contract that expired in August. Wages, pension benefits and health care costs remain outstanding issues, Ross said.

The contract at Latrobe Specialty Steel provides for pay scales ranging from $20 an hour to $26 an hour, with annual average salaries of about $56,000. The Latrobe steelworkers won their contract in July after a strike and lockout that lasted 81 days.

"We're the lowest paid steelworkers around," Ross said.

Union at Universal Stainless could strike

Boeing’s CEO Beat the Pentagon, But Lost Some, Too

The Dreamliner’s Cost to Boeing

Collier Town Square set for sheriff sale

Faced with $17 million owed on its mortgage and unable to meet its monthly payments, the five-year-old Collier Town Square shopping center in Collier is facing a sheriff sale in December.

The date for the sale was confirmed by the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office, which conducts the monthly sales.

A default judgement is being sought by the mortgage holder, LBUBS 2007-C2 Washington Pike Limited Partnership, based in New York.

Occupancy at the 64,546-square-foot center on a 7.25-acre site at 1597 Washington Pike, has declined as a number of stores, including several restaurants, have closed during the past year.

About 18 stores are opened, including a Damon's Grille, Starbucks, Moe's Southwest Grille, Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant, a UPS outlet, a National City Bank branch and Taste of Chocolate.

The center was developed by members of Praxis Resources LLC, which lists as its address as 1 Forsythe Road, Presto, Pa. One of the principals of Praxis, Jerome J. Sukernik, is listed in the complaint as the local officer of Collier Town Square LLC, the owner.

Attempts to contact Sukernik and any member of Praxis, were unsuccessful.

One former tenant said she and others closed or moved because the center lacked sufficient parking, with 406 spaces, and because the landlord raised rental costs.

"We moved from the center to our current location at 301 Old Washington Road, because of the parking situation," said Krista Lorenzo, owner of Curves, who moved about a half-mile away. "Every tenant I talked with during my four years at the center -- from January 2004 until June -- complained about the parking," she said.

Lorenzo said some tenants left because of the hike in the rent. Initially it was about $20 per square foot for most tenants, but the owners raised it to $30 per square foot.

Tenants who left included New York Deli, Tambellini's restaurant and the Hottest Dog. At least one restaurant, Scoglio's Italian Restaurant relocated instead of closing, she said.

The center has been up for sale for the about a year by Michael Liquori, associate broker at Langholz Wilson Ellis, a commercial real estate firm.

"We received several offers, but when the economy took a nosedive this summer, the offers were rescinded," he said.

Wall Street’s Big Sell-Off