IN BRIEF
Black Gaming CFO leaves for M Resort
Jason Goudie, chief financial officer of Black Gaming, is resigning his position Jan. 6 to become CFO of the $1 billion M Resort, he confirmed Friday.
Goudie, who joined the company in May, will be replaced Sean McKay who will serve as chief accounting officer beginning Jan. 7. The 30-year-old McKay has been the company's corporate controller since July 2005.
Goudie joined the company after five years at Harrah's Entertainment, where he was internal audit director for the Western division.
Goudie is the fourth executive to leave Black Gaming, which owns three casinos in Mesquite, this year.
His predecessor at Black Gaming, Curt Mayer, announced in April he was leaving to take a position with Station Casinos.
NEW YORK
GM provides peek at electric hybrid
General Motors Corp. provided a sneak peak this week of the new design for its hotly anticipated Chevy Volt gasoline-electric hybrid.
The automaker released a photo purporting to show the Volt's aerodynamic new lines, which looked mostly like a blur with a Chevy badge.
What's also not perfectly clear is whether GM will be ready to unveil the redesigned Volt at the Detroit auto show in January.
But based on the photo, it's certain to look considerably different than the eye-catching concept car that GM unveiled last January. That car had rakish sharp edges that looked fittingly futuristic but weren't particularly good at reducing drag.
NEW YORK
Concerns over rates send stocks tumbling
Stocks finished a bruising week on the downside Friday after a jump in consumer inflation raised concerns about how much freedom the Federal Reserve has to continue cutting interest rates.
Policymakers this week lowered interest rates and announced a plan to align with other key central banks and offer loans to pressed lenders around the world. But while it wants to stimulate the U.S. economy and make lending easier among banks wary of faltering debt, the Fed also has to keep a watchful eye on inflation.
The uncertainty weighed on the markets Friday, a day after stocks finished mixed. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 178.11, or 1.32 percent, to 13,339.85.
Broader stock indicators also fell. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 20.46, or 1.37 percent, to 1,467.95, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 32.75, or 1.23 percent, to 2,635.74.
Temperature dip stokes gas demand
Las Vegans who thought winter finally arrived early were right at least in one respect.
Southwest Gas Corp. distributed 270 million cubic feet of gas on Thursday, the highest so far this calendar year in Southern Nevada. That compares with 230 million cubic feet on a typical winter day, spokeswoman Sonya Headen said.
The high on Thursday was 59 degrees. The low of 31 degrees was recorded at 2 p.m.
Winter arrives officially on Dec 22.
Citigroup to take over seven troubled funds
Citigroup will take over seven troubled investment funds and assume $58 billion of debt to avoid forced asset sales that would further erode confidence in capital markets. Moody's Investors Service lowered the bank's credit ratings.
The biggest U.S. bank by assets will rescue the so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, taking responsibility for their $49 billion of assets, the New York-based company said in a statement late Thursday.
Citigroup follows HSBC Holdings Plc, Societe Generale SA and WestLB AG in bailing out SIVs to avert fire sales of assets. The funds, which sell short-term debt and invest the proceeds in higher-yielding securities, have cut their holdings by more than 25 percent since August to $298 billion, Moody's reports.
WASHINGTON
Official won't recuse self from Google case
The head of the Federal Trade Commission said Friday she won't remove herself from an antitrust review of Google's purchase of online advertising company DoubleClick, rebuffing requests from privacy groups opposed to the transaction.
Deborah Platt Majoras, chairwoman of the FTC, said she has reviewed a petition from the groups with the agency's ethics official and other staff, and determined that "the relevant laws and rules...neither require nor support recusal."
The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy said in a petition Wednesday that Majoras' husband, John Majoras, is a partner at the Jones Day law firm. The groups alleged that DoubleClick hired Jones Day to represent the company before the FTC on its acquisition by Google, the leading Internet search company.
WASHINGTON
Plan submitted to help bakery exit bankruptcy
Yucaipa Cos., the private equity firm controlled by billionaire investor Ron Burkle, and the Teamsters union have submitted a bid to bring Interstate Bakeries Corp. out of bankruptcy that values the Twinkie maker at $580 million.
Absent from the deal, first proposed in November, is Mexican bakery giant Grupo Bimbo. The company said Thursday it "is not in a position to submit a bid for the purchase of Interstate Bakeries."
Bimbo's announcement comes after a warning by Moody's Investors Service late last month that it would consider lowering the company's credit rating if it proceeded with the purchase of the Kansas City, Mo., maker of Twinkies, Wonder bread and Hostess cupcakes.
The company operates a Wonder Bread-Hostess bakery in Henderson.
HealthSouth agrees to pay settlement
HealthSouth Corp., the largest U.S. chain of rehabilitation hospitals, agreed to pay $14.2 million to resolve U.S. claims that it falsely billed government health insurance programs and paid illegal kickbacks to doctors.
The doctors involved will pay $700,000 under a separate civil settlement, the Justice Department said in Washington.
The settlement followed disclosures made by HealthSouth in 2004 and 2005 after an internal investigation and change in management, the government said.
The case involves requests for payments from the Medicare and Medicaid programs for services to patients by doctors with whom HealthSouth had financial relationships. The settlement also resolves allegations the company paid other doctors to get patient referrals.
NEW YORK
Treasury prices decline for third straight day
Treasury prices fell for a third straight day Friday, keeping the benchmark 10-year yield above 4.2 percent, after news that consumer inflation last month had its largest increase in more than two years.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 0.25 points to 100.13 with a yield of 4.23 percent, up from 4.21 percent late Thursday. Prices and yields move in opposite directions.
