Financial thoughts

One of the last vestiges of hope for Jamestown Mall has been its JCPenney outlet store.

While other retailers have deserted the mall in droves, the 124,000 square-foot anchor store’s presence – and success — has been something that the mall’s proponents have hung onto as proof of the area’s potential. (A Macy’s is also still open at the mall.)

In January of last year, J.C. Penney Co. announced it was exiting the outlet business. At the time, it sounded like a possible death knell for Jamestown Mall.

“For ten months we were in limbo,” said Steven Bingham, the outlet store’s manager.

But then SB Capital Group came to the rescue, buying most of those outlet stores in October and converting them to a new name: JC’s Five Star Outlet. Glen Gammons, who ran J.C. Penney’s outlet division for years, came on board to run the rebranded chain under the new owner.

In a recent phone interview, Gammons said the company’s plan for the Jamestown Mall store is the following: to keep it open. J.C. Penney still owns the building, he noted.

And what’s more, he said, the store is still profitable. In fact, its sales performance put it within the middle tier among the other 14 stores in the chain, he said.

Gammons thinks the mall could see better days down the road. The city needs to team up with a developer to bring in a retailer such as a Sam’s Club or Burlington Coat Factory to the site, he said.

“There’s potential for the mall to be revived,” he said. “I’m not naïve that there are challenges. … But it’s a good piece of real estate.”

In the meantime, the outlet store is in the midst of a 21-month transition to separate the systems and name between JCPenney and JC’s Five Star Outlet.

The slow changeover has led to some confusion. The sign outside the store still says “JCPenney outlet store.” So does the store’s glossy advertisements. The store no longer accepts JCPenney gift cards, but you can use that retailer’s credit card in the outlet.

While a lot of the systems behind the scenes are in flux, what hasn’t changed as much is what customers see on the sales floor. The store still gets about 20 to 25 percent of its merchandise from overstock and end-of-season inventory from J quick payday loan.C. Penney – the same level as before, Gammons said. But he said the chain is also expanding its other vendors to bring in different products into the store.

Not surprisingly, many customers haven’t realized the store has changed names. At the same, the store is also facing the opposite problem.

“A lot of our customers think we are closed,” Bingham said, referring to the previous publicity about J.C. Penney exiting its outlet stores.

So the store has seen a dip in traffic, he said. But it’s gradually building back up as word spreads that it’s still open.

Another thing the store has going for it is a loyal following. Some customers have been shopping at the outlet since it first opened in East Alton in 1980. It moved a couple times before ending up at Jamestown Mall in 1999.

“We are definitely a destination,” Bingham said. “We have some customers who are here everyday, scoping out the new merchandise.”

KELLWOOD

Kellwood Co.’s newly-minted chief executive didn’t get too settled in during her pit stop to the apparel company’s Town and Country headquarters. Jill Granoff popped into the local office earlier this week in between visits to the company’s New York and California offices.

A Connecticut resident, she will be working out of the company’s New York office.

It makes sense in some ways since New York is the center of the fashion world. But it also makes you wonder a bit about the future of the local headquarters where about 150 people work.

Her predecessor, Michael Kramer, once told me that he would keep the headquarters in this region as long as he was in charge. Then he took a job as chief operating officer for J.C. Penney.

However, Erin Haggerty, a company spokeswoman, noted in an email that the previous CEO before Kramer lived in New York.

“So it’s not uncommon for Kellwood to base its CEO there,” she wrote.

Still, I asked if there were any plans to move the company headquarters. Haggerty said there wasn’t — at least not “at this time.”

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WASHINGTON • Negotiations aimed at regulating repair of rental vehicles with defects have bogged down, dimming hopes of passing legislation that has become the focus of a nationwide Internet campaign.

Clayton-based Enterprise Holdings Inc., a key player in the talks, is being accused by consumer advocates of seeking loopholes that would let companies rent and sell cars under recall for safety reasons without getting them fixed.

The advocacy group Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety contended in a letter to Enterprise last week that provisions the companies want “would radically weaken consumer protections.”

Enterprise paints a different picture. The company says it has joined with all major rental firms — except Hertz Corp. — in supporting legislation that would, for the first time, give the government authority over rental company policies for recalled autos.

Hertz has embraced a compromise with consumer advocates that is stricter than what corporate rivals, such as Enterprise, will accept.

Enterprise contends that the legislation it wants is “pretty similar” to a version drafted by consumer groups and — with limited exceptions — would prohibit renting or selling recalled vehicles.

In a statement, the company said it is seeking “a responsible and practical approach that reinforces the policies and practices that rental car companies already use to ensure that our customers rent cars that are safe to drive.”

Until earlier this year, privately held Enterprise, which owns the National and Alamo rental companies, had insisted that any legislation was unnecessary.

But in February, Enterprise relented after becoming the target of an Internet protest pressing the company to support a regulatory bill in Congress. As of this week, more than 160,000 people had signed the Enterprise Rent-a-Car petition at Change.org.

The online protest was organized by Carol Houck, the mother of two California sisters who died in a fiery crash eight years ago while driving a vehicle rented from Enterprise. A jury awarded the Houck family $15 million two years ago after testimony that the vehicle, a PT Cruiser, had a power steering fluid leak that had gone unrepaired.

Last year, manufacturers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration together recalled 15.5 million vehicles for various reasons.

Typically, manufacturers cover the cost of repairs to recalled cars. The measures currently under consideration wouldn’t change that. But while the government has authority over how auto manufacturers and dealers handle recalls, the safety agency lacks power to dictate what rental companies must do with recalled vehicles.

Often, recalled vehicles can be found in rental fleets. Hertz, for instance, has grounded more than 100,000 of its vehicles over the past three years after recalls that ranged from serious safety concerns to minor problems.

Richard Broome, the company’s senior vice president for corporate affairs, said Hertz was reluctant at first to endorse national legislation but decided that it would be in the best interest of his company and the industry in general to join consumer advocates in a compromise.

“We were very happy to be on board,” he said. “We think consumers should know they aren’t driving a car that has been recalled or, if it has, that it has been repaired.”

Pamela Gilbert, chief negotiator for the consumer groups, said that the likely next step is fighting out the issue in Congress. She expects a Senate hearing to be held soon. But given limited successes this election year in the polarized Congress, the lack of compromise diminishes the prospect of rental companies getting regulated any time soon.

Gilbert, a former executive director of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, said she is most disturbed at a proposal from Enterprise and its allies that would allow unrepaired, recalled vehicles to be rented if consumers were notified of the defect. She described that provision as a significant change from recall systems for any products.

“The point is to get a remedy, a replacement or a repair,” she said.

Gilbert said consumer groups also object to a rental companies’ proposal that would allow unrepaired vehicles to be sold by rental companies on a wholesale basis. “If recalled cars don’t get fixed by the rental companies, they probably don’t get fixed,” she said.

Enterprise defends those provisions. The company says that it would rent a recalled vehicle “to avoid turning away customers who show up at their locations when their desired vehicle is subject to a recall which the manufacturer deems appropriate for disclosure rather than grounding.” A company spokeswoman used the example of a defective seat belt chime, in which the seat belts themselves and warning lights still worked. In such cases, she wrote, “a disclosure served the same purpose as the chime itself.”

With regard to automobile sales, Enterprise says that unlike all other dealers in used cars, rental companies would be unfairly singled out if forced to repair recalled vehicles sold on a wholesale basis.

Meanwhile, Houck said she had hoped to see the legislation named after her daughters, Raechel, 24, and Jacqueline, 20, who died in the 2004 accident, but thinks that is unlikely given the flagging negotiations. She said she has not heard from Enterprise even though the company said in its February statement that “we hope for the opportunity to work with” her.

“All we want is for them to fix recalled cars and not rent them. It’s so simple,” she said.

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I have planned my daughters’ weddings for them. As the father of the bride, I claim that prerogative. I get stuck with the bill.

Here’s how we’ll do it, girls. We’ll drop the bride and groom by the church for a quick “I do.” No flowers, crooners or organist. Just get hitched and get out.

The reception will be in our back yard. You’ll recognize the daughter who’s not getting married. She’ll be grilling the hot dogs. My wife will be the DJ (I hope they like the Beatles). I’ll tend bar.

There will be an open bar at my daughters’ weddings – I’m no cheapskate! – all the Pabst you can drink until the mini-keg runs dry.

When the crowd drifts away,  I’ll sit down and, with a tear in my eye, write the happy couple a check for $25,000.  I’ll be getting off cheap.

The average cost of a wedding today is actually $27,800, according to a survey by the wedding website Theknot.com.

Think of that. $27,800 is the down payment on a nice house. It’s a fancy new car. It’s a year at Mizzou for a grand kid.

Are we going to blow that on a one-day shindig, shiny rocks on a ring and a dress the bride will wear once? Daughter dear, wouldn’t you rather have cash than a bash?

That will be my pitch, anyway. I suspect I’ll get some push back. Girls start dreaming of their weddings when still in middle school, and they keep dreaming until the big day. If my daughters push hard enough, we’ll go to plan B: a nice wedding on a sane budget.

Since I know diddly about this, I asked help from a wedding planner, Ellen Gutierrez, and a very thrifty person, Barbara Ann Hughes.

Hughes is the queen of used. She teaches a course at St. Louis Community College titled “You can’t have enough stuff; the art of going to garage sales, estate sales and flea markets.” She furnished her whole house in Town and Country second hand.

Her advice to parents; Give the young lovers a set amount for the wedding and say, “Anything you don’t spend you can keep.” That encourages thrift.

That gets us to cheap dresses. Back in 1975, my wife bought her wedding dress used, then sold it for a profit. These days, eBay lists used wedding dresses as cheap as $49. What could possibly go wrong?

If you want to actually try on the dress before you buy it, go to the Scholar Shops in Clayton and Webster Groves. Profits go to loans to needy college students. Goodwill thrift stores, another good charity, often have used wedding dresses in stock.

Scholar Shop sells used wedding dresses for $75 to $250, says Kim Abel, director of the Scholarship Foundation, which runs the shops. Some donated dresses still have tags on them; evidence that love can go awry.

Think barter. Abel knows a parent in video production who bartered with a friend in the travel business. One couple got a free wedding video, and the other a cut-rate honeymoon.

Think do-it-yourself. When Hughes was married, she did all the decorating. She put two fish bowls stuffed with silk flowers on the altar. “The pastor said, ‘Those look really pretty. Can we leave them up for tomorrow’s service.’ I said sure,” said Hughes.

Wedding planner Gutierrez, of Brides Vision in Kirkwood, disagrees with the DIY solution.

“I try to keep my brides and moms as calm as possible,” she says. Running around with flowers in fishbowls doesn’t create serenity. “I try to allow them to be a guest at their own wedding,” she says.

Gutierrez’ top recommendation for saving money: Limit the crowd you wine and dine. “Ask yourself, ‘Does this person have meaning in your life in the long run?’”

Consider a lunch instead of a dinner, she says. It’s cheaper.

If you’re planning to celebrate somewhere other than your back yard, prepare to pay through the wazoo. But there are tactics for keeping the cost down.

Consider odd locations. At the St. Louis Zoo, for instance, one couple is planning a wedding witnessed by hippopotami in front of the hippo enclosure. “They love hippos,” says Kathy Lunders, director of group sales, who also planned dizzy weddings on the zoo merry-go-round. (Disclosure: My wife works at the zoo.)

“You can get married at the Four Seasons or at the VFW hall and every place in between,” says Gutierrez. Wedding in the off-season, say January instead of June, might save you a little on a hall rental but not much, she says.

You can cheap out by using a fake wedding cake rented from a bakery, Hughes says. Only the top tier is real, so the bride and groom can cut it. Then it’s wheeled back into the kitchen. The guests eat sheet cake.

Nancy Slade, editor of St. Louis Bride magazine, says brides should set their top priorities up front. “For one bride it may be the photography. She wants pictures she can remember for the rest of her life. For another, it may be the flowers,” Slade says.

Spend your money where it will have the most meaning, she says.

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Sales of new homes probably increased in March for the first time in three months, indicating the market is struggling to stabilize, economists said before a report today.

Purchases rose to a 318,000 annual rate, up 1.6 percent from 313,000 in February, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 77 economists. Other reports may show consumer confidence dropped for a second month and home prices decreased at a slower pace.

Residential real estate remains a soft spot in the economy, challenged by stricter lending standards and more foreclosures, which depress property values. At the same time, an improved labor market and mortgage rates near historic lows may help prevent the market from slipping further.

Treasury 10-year yields are poised to fall for the fifth straight week, the longest stretch since June, amid speculation the European sovereign-debt crisis is far from resolved.

The yield on the 10-year note traded below 2 percent for a sixth straight day even as governments committed more than $430 billion in fresh money to the International Monetary Fund to help it protect the world economy against turmoil in Europe. The Federal Reserve sold $8.63 billion in notes as part of its program known as Operation Twist.

Asian stock markets struggled for direction Thursday as investors remained wary following more unsettling news from economically fragile Spain and a record trade deficit in Japan.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 stock average slipped after the country _ which for decades has blanketed the world with its exports _ posted its biggest annual trade deficit ever.

The benchmark index fell 0.6 percent to 9,609.89 after the Finance Ministry said exports for the fiscal year that ended March 31 dropped 3.7 percent from the previous year, while imports climbed 11.6 percent.

The trade deficit for the year was 4.41 trillion yen ($54 billion). With all but one of Japan’s 54 nuclear power reactors offline in the aftermath of last year’s nuclear disaster, the country has been forced to rely on imported oil and gas to generate electricity.

South Korea’s Kospi index opened higher then slipped into negative territory, falling 0.2 percent to 2,002.75.

But Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index held onto its gains, rising 0.4 percent to 20,865.11 while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.4 percent to 4,365.90.

Benchmarks in mainland China, Indonesia, New Zealand and the Philippines fell, while Singapore and Taiwan rose.

The Bank of Spain said the amount of bad loans held by Spanish banks rose to an 18-year high in February. If those banks falter, it would put pressure on Spain’s already troubled government to prop them up.

The next key indicator for Spain will occur Thursday when the country holds a 10-year bond auction.

Spain’s problems have added to ongoing worries about global economic growth because China’s economy also is slowing.

Wall Street fell Wednesday on concerns about Europe’s debt crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.6 percent to 13,032.75. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.4 percent to 1,385.14. The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.4 percent to 3,031.45.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 10 cents to $102.77 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract declined $1.53 to finish at $102.67 per barrel on Wednesday.

In currency trading, the euro fell to $1.3120 from $1.3133 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar rose to 81.46 yen from 81.24 yen.

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Royal Dutch Shell says it is confident a 10-mile oil sheen spotted in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast didn’t originate from its operations in the area.

In a statement Thursday, the company says it found no sign of leaks and ruled out any well-control issues associated with its operations. The sheen was spotted late Wednesday.

A Coast Guard helicopter with a pollution officer on board was heading out Thursday morning to the site, about 130 miles southeast of New Orleans, in an effort to determine the source of the oil.

Shell estimates the sheen at six barrels of oil, or about 252 gallons. The company sent a response ship to skim the area as a precaution.

The company has two production platforms in the area, called Mars and Ursa.

Shares in Royal Dutch Shell PLC fell in European trading early Thursday after the sheen was reported. After New York trading opened, Shell’s U.S. shares were up 32 cents at $68.07.

Early reports could not determine whether oil was continuing to flow at the site near the Shell platforms.

The Mars and Ursa fields are producing oil and natural gas from huge tension-leg production platforms. The Mars platform is in 2,900 feet of water while Ursa is in 4,000 feet of water.

Shell operates six major offshore facilities, 13 crewed platforms and numerous subsea systems in the Gulf.

The sheen was reported in an area about 50 miles from the site of BP’s Macondo well, which blew out in April 2010 and created the nation’s worst offshore oil disaster. The now-plugged Macondo well is in about 5,000 feet of water.

Sheens spread quickly as oil breaks down and a small amount can cover a large area. Earlier this week, a tanker in the Mississippi River south of New Orleans spilled an estimated 50 gallons of oil. The sheen from the discharge extended almost 30 miles downriver.

Other possible sources, aside from oilfield equipment, could include natural seepage from the Gulf bottom and fuel discharged by passing ships headed into or out of the Mississippi River.

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Japan has failed to create a revamped nuclear regulatory agency by the promised date _ April 1 _ amid political infighting, raising questions about its commitment to bolstering oversight after last year’s nuclear crisis.

Authorities have been accused of lax supervision of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors after a massive earthquake and tsunami led to a meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s Cabinet has endorsed a bill to create a more powerful and independent regulatory body that would unify various nuclear safety and regulatory agencies.

But progress has been slowed by disagreements over how much independence it should have and by other disputes.

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A cruise ship with 1,000 people on board that had drifted for 24 hours after being disabled by a fire was headed toward Malaysia following repairs and was expected to reach shore Sunday, the ship’s company said.

The Azamara Quest, which had embarked on a 17-day Southeast Asian cruise, was left drifting in southern Philippine waters after a fire broke out Friday night. The flames engulfed one of the ship’s engine rooms but were quickly extinguished, the ship’s operator said. Five crew members suffered smoke inhalation, including one who was seriously injured and needed hospital care.

The ship informed the Philippine coast guard late Saturday that its power and propulsion had been restored and that it was moving slowly toward Sandakan, Malaysia, its next destination after it left Manila on Thursday, spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Algier Ricafrente said.

Azamara Club Cruises, the ship’s operator, said in a statement Sunday that the ship was sailing at a top speed of only 6 knots (11 kilometers or 6.9 miles per hour) and was expected to reach Sandakan at 10 p.m. (1400 GMT).

“Unfortunately, the ship has not been able to restore power to the air conditioning compressors. While this is a very difficult undertaking, the onboard team is diligently working to resolve this issue. The guest sentiment onboard continues to be calm and upbeat,” the statement said.

It said company president Larry Pimentel would meet personally with the passengers and crew in Sandakan.

The company said the rest of the cruise would be canceled. It said it would fully refund the passengers and provide each guest with a future cruise certificate for the amount paid for the aborted voyage.

It was the latest in a series of accidents hitting luxury cruise liners since January, when the Costa Concordia capsized off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people.

The Azamara Quest is carrying 590 passengers and 411 crew members. Operator Azamara Club Cruises is part of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

More than one third, or 201, of the passengers on board are American, and nearly a third, or 119, of the crew are Filipinos, according to lists of passenger and crew nationalities provided by the ship captain to the coast guard.

The passengers are from 25 countries and include 98 from Britain, 89 from Australia, 45 from Canada, 39 from Germany, 32 from Austria, 16 from Belgium, 14 from New Zealand and 14 from Switzerland.

The other crew members include 58 Indians and 50 Indonesians cash advance.

The vessel had left Hong Kong on Monday. The ship made a port call in Manila and left for Sandakan on Thursday. It was scheduled to make several stops in Indonesia before arriving in Singapore on April 12.

But instead, the stricken ship drifted Saturday in the Sulu Sea about 130 kilometers (70 nautical miles) south of the Philippines’ Tubbataha Reef, Ricafrente said. The area lies between the Philippines and the island of Borneo, which is divided between Malaysia and Indonesia.

A woman from Kailua-Kuna, Hawaii, who said she is one of the passengers, posted an entry on Azamara’s Facebook page after Internet service was restored on the ship, praising the crew’s handling of the situation.

“No A/C yet but everyone is fine,” she wrote. “Cannot say enough about this Captain and the crew. They have been absolutely wonderful keeping us updated constantly with the good or the bad. … Sorry that we cannot finish our cruise, but we will back ASAP.”

She said the crew worked with very little rest “to keep us all in good spirits, well fed and comfortable.”

There was a jar where passengers could place donations to help the injured crewman who was in serious condition, she said.

Ricafrente said that no distress call was received and that there would be an investigation.

A Philippine coast guard vessel approached the Azamara Quest, but the ship’s captain sent an email to the coast guard saying that it needed no assistance and that everything was “under control.”

Engineers on Saturday morning restored electricity in the ship to re-establish air conditioning, running water, plumbing, refrigeration and food preparation, the company said.

The ship’s senior physician, Oliver Gilles, said the crew member who was in serious condition had suffered “prolonged heat and smoke exposure.”

A month after 32 people died when the Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized off the western coast of Italy, a fire on the Costra Allegra left that ship without power and adrift in waters known to be prowled by pirates in the Indian Ocean for three days.

Both Costa ships are part of Costa Crociere, SpA, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise operator.

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told a U.S. Senate panel that he believes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should reduce principal on some home mortgages.

“We’ve been encouraging Fannie and Freddie to take another look at the map, at the economics of the finance, because we think there is a strong case in some circumstances to add principal reduction as part of their strategies to help maximize return of the taxpayer,” Geithner testified Wednesday to a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

At the end of last year 12.1 percent of mortgages were delinquent or in foreclosure, compared with 12.4 percent a year earlier, according to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance companies under government conservatorship since 2008, haven’t granted principal reductions because it would cost the taxpayer-funded companies almost $100 billion, Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in a Jan. 20 letter to Congress. The agency oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“What Mr. DeMarco has said is that they are taking another look at their numbers, looking at our economic case fast cash. We are in the process of working through that with him and I hope he is going to be in a position to indicate what he plans to do in the next several weeks,” Geithner said.

“This is an important part of a credible national strategy that they have been reluctant to move even though they have done a lot of things that are very very helpful.”

The FHFA will release a study next month about whether it makes sense to allow forgiveness on underwater loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to DeMarco.

“We are offering a rich array of tools to help borrowers with their mortgage payments,” DeMarco said today on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart” program with Trish Regan.

Three out of four borrowers with GSE loans who owe more than their homes are worth are current on their mortgages, DeMarco said.

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