Stanford receiver moves to auction property

The Stanford Financial Group receiver, Ralph Janvey, who recently filed a request for expenses totaling as much as $20 million, filed a motion with the court to classify the company under Chapter 15. Under the filing, the receivership would be allowed to auction off Stanford property. The sale of properties in Texas, Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina and Mississippi would help to recover funds that could be distributed to victims of the Ponzi scheme alleged by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The auctions would include the Houston office and, if possible, properties in the Caribbean which were also owned by Stanford. The court has neither denied nor approved Janvey's request for Chapter 15. Read the statement from the court here.—Olivia Watkins

Capital One eliminating 180 B.R. sales jobs

Capital One is cutting about 180 jobs in Baton Rouge, as the credit card giant shifts its telephone sales and loan processing operations to offices in Texas and Maryland. The company says it plans to eliminate about 70% of the jobs locally by mid-July, with the remaining workers to go in November. Steven Thorpe, a spokesman for Capital One in New Orleans, says the bank decided to consolidate the jobs as part of a review of business operations. "This is a difficult decision that was not taken lightly," he says. Most of the affected employees work at the bank's Industriplex office, although some work in the main downtown location. The employees, who work in Capital One's small business telephone sales and servicing and its consumer sales, underwriting and loan processing operations, will have a chance to apply for other jobs with the company, and are eligible for retraining assistance. Capital One has about 830 employees in the Capital Region and 28 branches.—Timothy Boone

What will be the next E guarantee?

E Eric Guirard can no longer practice law, but that doesn’t prevent him from taking his business model to another field. Baton Rouge's best-known attorney plans to open E Eric Guirard Medical Centers, a personal injury treatment center, a one-stop shop of sorts (chiropractor, doctor, pain management and orthopedist) for accident victims. Read the Business Report story about Guirard and his disbarment here. Send comments to editors@businessreport.com.

United Way announces agency allocations

The majority of the 49 member agencies of Capital Area United Way will get bigger allocations this year compared to last year, CAUW president Karen Profita said. The most recent United Way campaign actually raised less money than the one before, but more money was available for distribution thanks largely to budget cuts within CAUW, she said. This year’s budget is about $2.8 million, compared to about $3.1 million last year. More than $5.74 million will be dispersed, ranging from $570,000 for Cancer Services of Greater Baton Rouge to $4,819 for Camp Fire, which aims to teach children self-reliance and good citizenship.—David Jacobs

B.R. makes Forbes list of top college towns for jobs

Baton Rouge was ranked eighth on Forbes magazine's list of the top college towns for jobs. The city earned the ranking by seeing a 2.16% increase in job growth since last year. Forbes notes that research universities are fertile grounds for businesses because recent graduates form a deep pool of highly skilled, cheap labor and there's a lot of public and private money for research and development. Provo, Utah, home of Brigham Young University, was ranked first. Officials with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber seized on the Forbes ranking to push for Senate Bill 183 by Sen. Conrad Appel, R-Metairie, a constitutional amendment that would provide greater flexibility in terms of funding to the management boards of the state’s four research universities. In a statement, Adam Knapp, BRAC president and CEO, says Appel's bill will give schools the ability to properly fund their operations, keeping graduates and the spin-off jobs they may produce. See the full Forbes report here.

Fed sees hopeful signs but downgrades '09 forecast

The Federal Reserve expects the economy to improve in coming months, even as policymakers downgraded their outlook for all of 2009 and said the unemployment rate could approach 10%. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues continue to believe that business sales and factory production will begin to recover gradually during the second half of this year as President Barack Obama's stimulus package and the Fed's aggressive efforts to lift the country out of recession take hold. They also pointed to signs that the recession's grip was easing in the current April-June quarter, according to documents released today. But even with the hoped-for improvements, the economy's performance for this year as a whole is expected to be dismal, partly reflecting the 6.1% annualized drop in economic activity in the first quarter. Under the Fed's new projections, the economy will shrink this year between 1.3% and 2%. The old forecast said the economy could contract between 0.5% and 1.3%. The unemployment rate may rise as high as 9.6%, higher than the old forecast of 8.8%. The jobless rate bolted to 8.9% in April, the highest in a quarter-century.

Beer tax on tap possibly for health care

Joe Six-Pack may have to hand over nearly $2 more for a case of beer to help provide health insurance for all. Details of the proposed beer tax are described in a Senate Finance Committee document distributed to lawmakers before a closed-door meeting today. Senators are focusing on how to pay for expanding health insurance for an estimated 50 million uninsured Americans, a cost that could range to some $1.5 trillion over 10 years. No decisions were expected at the meeting, but Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., will use the feedback to shape legislation he intends to introduce in the next few weeks.

While many of the revenue raisers involve obscure provisions of federal law, most consumers can relate to a beer tax. Taxes on wine and hard liquor would also go up. And there might be a new tax on soda and other sugary drinks blamed for contributing to obesity. A tax of 3 cents per 12-ounce drink would raise about $50 billion over 10 years, according to congressional estimates. Diet drinks, however, wouldn't be taxed. The idea behind the proposed increases is to tax lifestyle choices that contribute to rising medical costs. Under the proposal lawmakers are considering, beer taxes would be increased by 48 cents a six-pack, from the current 33 cents. Wine taxes would rise by 49 cents per bottle, from the current 21 cents. And the tax on hard liquor would increase by 40 cents per fifth, from the current $2.14.

Hispanic population is growing fast along the corridor

Hispanics are now the fastest-growing population along the corridor. Newly released Census estimates show seven of the 20 parishes with the highest percentages of Hispanic growth are on the corridor. Livingston Parish led the state with a gain of more than 14%. During the same period, its total population growth was about 3%. Orleans Parish's Hispanic population grew by more than 9%, while its total population grew by 8%. And Calcasieu's Hispanic population gained nearly 8%, while its overall population grew less than 1%. Overall, Louisiana's Hispanic population grew by 4.83%—faster than the national growth rate of 3.2%, according to an analysis by the Louisiana State Census Data Center. In fact, Louisiana's Hispanic population is growing 4.6 times faster than the rest of the state's population. By comparison, the non-Hispanic white population grew by just 0.14%; the non-Hispanic black population, by 1.64%. "This is the high-growth demographic in our region," says Troy Blanchard, an associate professor of sociology at LSU who also worked on the analysis. "It represents a growing diversity in the area, and it's an interesting trend we need to be aware of." Read the rest of the 10/12 Weekly story here.—Penny Font

News roundup: Redevelopment Authority working on plan for seized properties ... Vick leaves prison for home confinement

Draft due May 31: The East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority has given itself a May 31 deadline to finish a draft plan on how to deal with adjudicated properties in the parish, authority vice president Mark Goodson says. That proposal will be presented to the mayor’s office and the Metro Council. The authority was established last year to help move blighted and abandoned properties into productive uses.

Hopes to return to pro sports: Suspended NFL quarterback Michael Vick left a Kansas prison before dawn today to begin home confinement in Virginia, one of his attorneys said, the latest step on a journey that Vick hopes will lead to his reinstatement. Vick, who turns 29 in June, slipped past waiting cameras and reporters undetected to leave a federal penitentiary in Leavenworth after serving 19 months for financing a dog-fighting ring. He was headed to Virginia by car to begin two months of home confinement at his five-bedroom house in Hampton before a scheduled release from federal custody July 20. Vick, once the NFL's highest-paid player, is scheduled to report to a probation officer Friday in Norfolk. He will be allowed to leave home to work a $10-an-hour job as a laborer for a construction company and for other limited purposes approved by his probation officer.