Work to be completed next week: The $85 million renovation of the Louisiana Superdome is set for completion next week. Crews are putting the final touches on the work before it is unveiled during the Essence Music Festival, which will be held the first weekend in July. “The place is going to be ready for the Essence Festival, and it’s going to be ready for the NFL teams to come and play here,” Ron Foreman, chairman of the LSED, which oversees the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena, told The Times-Picayune. “It’s going to be a stadium that everyone in the state is going to be proud of.” Workers have changed the configuration of the lower bowl, increasing football seating by 3,400, while widening the plaza concourse, building two bunker club lounges and adding additional concession stands. The Superdome is set to host the BCS Championship game Jan. 9, the NCAA Men’s Final Four March 31 to April 2, and the 2013 Super Bowl. See the Times-Picayune story about the work here.
Charged with misleading buyers: JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex mortgage investments just as the housing market was collapsing. J.P. Morgan Securities, a division of the powerful Wall Street bank, failed to inform investors that a hedge fund helped select the investment portfolio and then bet that it would fail, the Securities and Exchange Commission says. Among the investors who lost money on the deal were autoworkers for General Motors, a Lutheran financial organization in Minneapolis, and a retirement services company in Topeka, Kan. The settlement announced today is one of the most significant legal actions targeting Wall Street’s role in the 2008 financial crisis. It comes a year after Goldman Sachs & Co. paid $550 million to settle similar charges. Still, the settlement amounts to less than 1% of the bank’s 2010 net income of $17.4 billion, which is less than what JP Morgan earns in one week.
