IN BRIEF

WARREN, Mich.

Small GM bondholders rally for better deal

Individuals who hold General Motors Corp. bonds said Wednesday they want a better deal than the debt-for-equity swap the company is offering.

At a news conference in the Detroit suburb of Warren, several bondholders from as far away as Colorado said holding stock in a newly restructured GM doesn't compare to the bond interest payments they rely on to supplement their retirement or pay property taxes or medical bills. They also said they can't afford to lose the principal they lent to the company.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

BofA strips Lewis of chairman's title

Ken Lewis was ousted as chairman of Bank of America Corp. on Wednesday after shareholders angry about the company's acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. voted to separate the job from that of chief executive.

Lewis will remain the CEO of the bank, but board member Walter Massey, president emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, will become BofA's chairman.

Shareholders narrowly voted at the bank's annual meeting Wednesday to split the jobs following months of rancor over the Merrill Lynch acquisition.

After the deal was sealed on Jan. 1, Merrill Lynch reported $15 billion in fourth-quarter losses and it was learned that Bank of America had approved the early payout of billions of dollars in bonuses to Merrill Lynch employees.

NEW YORK

Starbucks sees profits fall in second quarter

Consumers continued buying fewer lattés and coffees at Starbucks in its second quarter and restructuring charges led to a 77 percent in net income, but the drop in sales was something of an improvement.

Starbucks Corp. -- hurt sharply in recent quarters by the perception that its drinks are too pricey -- said Wednesday that sales at established locations fell 8 percent both worldwide and in the U.S. the first three months of 2009 from a year earlier.

In the last three months of last year, Starbucks' global same-store sales fell 9 percent and U.S. same-store sales declined 10 percent.

For the quarter that ended March 29, Seattle-based Starbucks said its net income fell to $25 million, or 3 cents per share, from $108.7 million, or 15 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding costs related to closing 123 U.S. stores during the quarter, Starbucks earned 16 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected it to earn 15 cents per share.

The gourmet coffee retailer says quarterly revenue fell 8 percent to $2.33 billion. Analysts predicted revenue of $2.36 billion.

Mountain's Edge top-selling community

Nevada had one of the nation's worst-performing housing markets in 2008, with skyrocketing foreclosure rates and plummeting median prices.

But the real estate slump didn't hold back Southern Nevada's showing on a list of the country's best-selling master plans.

The Robert Charles Lesser Co. of Maryland placed Mountain's Edge, in southwest Las Vegas, squarely at No. 1 on its roster of the top-selling master plans in 2008. The property, which Focus Property Group is developing, sold nearly 900 homes.

Focus had a second master plan on the list: Providence, in northwest Las Vegas.

Summerlin, the Las Vegas Valley's biggest master plan and a top-seller mainstay for the better part of a decade in the 1990s and early 2000s, didn't make the list. But Summerlin's developer, The Howard Hughes Corp., is a partner in The Woodlands, a Houston community that did.

Robert Charles Lesser also said master plans in Nevada improved their sales a little in the first quarter of 2009.

SAN ANTONIO

Clear Channel cuts nearly 600 jobs

Clear Channel Communications Inc., the largest owner of U.S. radio stations, said Tuesday it is cutting 590 jobs in its second round of mass layoffs this year amid pressure from the recession and evaporating advertising budgets.

Clear Channel didn't break out the latest cuts by geography or job function, but said they do include some on-air personalities, whose identities weren't disclosed. Employees were notified of the cuts Tuesday.

Clear Channel's parent company, CC Media Holdings Inc., also said it will suspend its 401(k) match for all employees for the rest of the year, starting Friday.

However, if the company hits 90 percent of its budget goals at the end of the 2009 year, the matches will be retroactively restored, a company spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The latest cuts represent 2.7 percent of the company's total work force of 22,100. They affect operational jobs like engineering, accounting and customer service, all in the radio division. The company also has an outdoor advertising division, which sells items like billboard space and wasn't affected by the job cuts.

The previous cuts of 1,850 jobs came in January and were also in the radio division, mostly in sales.

NEW YORK

Crude surges despite large inventory rise

Oil prices rose Wednesday even though the government reported that the nation is consuming less than it has in years and inventories are bloated with the most surplus crude in nearly two decades.

Benchmark crude for June delivery gained $1.05 to settle at $50.97 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent prices increased 79 cents to settle at $50.78 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

NV Energy meets renewable mandate

The Nevada Public Utilities Commission made it official Wednesday: Local power utility NV Energy met all requirements in the state's renewable-energy portfolio standard for the first time ever in 2008.

Commission officials told the Review-Journal informally on April 17 that NV Energy reported meeting the standard, but the commission needed to verify the claim.

In 2008, NV Energy got 9 percent of the electricity it sold from renewable-energy sources.

NV Energy has had trouble meeting every component of the portfolio standard in past years because it couldn't purchase enough power or build its own alternative sources quickly enough to comply with the law.

The portfolio standard calls for Nevada to obtain 20 percent of its power from renewables in 2015.

NEW YORK

Treasurys slump on signs of recovery

Treasurys slumped Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said the economy is showing some signs of stabilizing.

The 10-year note fell 0.72 points to 96.97 points. Its yield jumped to 3.09 percent from 3.01 percent late Tuesday.

The 30-year bond fell 1.16 points to 90.78 and its yield rose to 4.03 percent from 3.96 percent, according to BGCantor Market Data.