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CURRENT NEWS TOPICS FOR INSURANCE:
 MoneyGram raises $73,000 for education causes
A round-the-world relay by Dallas-based MoneyGram International Inc. raised more than $73,000 for education and school supplies.
The company donated $10,000 and school supplies to the students of Onesimo Hernandez Elementary School in Dallas. The two-month initiative kicked off at Dallas' Peeler Elementary School in December.
During the course of the relay, MoneyGram traveled to 10 schools in eight countries. Some of the stops included Pitesti, Romania; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Acapulco, Mexico; Moscow; Pasig, Philippines; and Rome...
Bank of America mortgage chief Barbara Desoer to retire
 Barbara Desoer will retire from Bank of America after her long-suffering stint as head of the bank's troubled mortgage operations.
BofA announced her retirement in an internal memo. The Wall Street Journal was first to report the story.
"I have given it my all," she said in the memo, according to the Journal.
Desoer will end a 34-year career at Charlotte-based BofA and its predecessors. She has served in various senior leadership roles, reported directly to two CEOs and has been listed among the most powerful women in banking...
Yahoo's Asian deal to officially close in 2013
Yahoo Inc. and its Asian partners are working on a deal that is not expected to officially close until 2013, All Things Digital's Kara Swisher points out in an article on Monday.
The definitive agreement centers around selling Sunnyvale-based Yahoo's (NASDAQ:YHOO) 33 percent stake in China?s Alibaba Group and 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan, with a Feb. 24 target date to seal the deal that could now be pushed back to mid-March.
As the Wall Street Journal and Swisher point out, it is also a complex "cash-rich split-off" to avoid taxes...
Ralcorp completes Post spinoff
 Officials at Ralcorp Holdings Inc. said today that the company completed its spinoff of Post Holdings Inc. to Ralcorp shareholders on Friday.
Ralcorp shareholders received one share of Post common stock for every two shares of Ralcorp common stock. Following the distribution on Friday, 34.4 million shares of Post common stock were outstanding.
Post (NYSE: POST) replaced Comstock Resources Inc. in the S&P MidCap 400 index, while Ralcorp (NYSE: RAH) remains in the S&P MidCap 400 index.
Post?s stock was down 1...
Congress members' stock ownership includes GE, Intel, BofA, Apple, Berkshire
 Stock ownership and possible insider trading by members of Congress has come under scrutiny lately and prompted bipartisan calls ? including from the White House ? for new restrictions and rules related to financial holdings.
New rules are making their way through Congress that would limit insider trades on Capitol Hill
For more information, click on the slideshow to the right.
A report by the Center for Responsive Politics indicates many members of Congress own large amounts of stock, and among the top holdings are some of the nation's biggest companies, including some of the biggest banks...
Northwestern Mutual on Baltimore hiring spree
 Northwestern Mutual wants to hire 40 financial representatives for its Baltimore office by the end of 2012. The Milwaukee financial services giant also has openings in Baltimore for 40 college interns interested in insurance and finance careers.
?We?re hoping to add professionals to keep pace with the strong demand among consumers for financial advice and financial security,? Scott Iodice, Northwestern Mutual?s managing partner for Maryland, said in a statement.
Overall, Northwestern Mutual wants to recruit 5,000 workers across the country this year...
H&R Block gets caught up in phishing scam
 Scammers pretending to represent H&R Block Inc. are sending text messages in an attempt to get their hands on personal information, and H&R Block is trying to short-circuit the scam in the midst of its busy tax season.
Typically, victims get text messages saying there has been a problem with their H&R Block (NYSE: HRB) Emerald Card and giving a telephone number for the person to call to straighten out the situation. Those who call are asked to share credit card and other sensitive information.
Emerald Cards are reloadable debit cards H&R Block offers customers seeking to get their tax refunds quickly...
Top of the List: Baltimore-area mortgage lenders
 Each week we give you a countdown of the top five to 10 companies or organizations from one of our Lists publishing in our Friday paper. This week?s edition is the ?Largest mortgage lending firms in the Baltimore area.?
We compiled the List using data from MortgageDataWeb.com, which in turn collects its data directly from municipal recordings such as courthouse recordings of deeds. Here are the top lenders, ranked by combined amount of Baltimore-area conventional and government mortgage loans between Nov...
Slideshow: Top stock investments by members of Congress
Stock ownership by members of Congress has been an issue recently after several media reports that were critical of what some viewed as politicians capitalizing on inside information about the financial crisis, including a featured report on CBS news program "60 Minutes."
Just this week, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, called his peers in the Senate to be forbidden from owning individual stocks, saying it creates conflict of interest on several issues. Brown has reportedly sold all of his individual stock already...
New York sues Bank of America, Wells and Chase
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued banking?s Big Three ? JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo -- on Friday in New York State Supreme Court over their use of an electronic mortgage database that played a key role in financing the nation?s historic housing bubble, the New York Times reports.
The lawsuit claims the database, called the Mortgage Electronic Registration System or MERS, resulted in deceptive and illegal practices, including false documents used in foreclosure proceedings...
Bank of America?s mortgage chief to retire
Barbara Desoer will retire from Bank of America after her long-suffering stint as head of the bank's troubled mortgage operations, The Wall Street Journal reports.
BofA announced her retirement in an internal memo in which she said, "I have given it my all," according to the Journal.
Desoer will end a 34-year career at Charlotte, N.C.-based BofA and its predecessors. She has served in various senior leadership roles, reported directly to two CEOs and has been listed among the most powerful women in banking...
Startup America Partnership offers new domain name for startups
The Startup America Partnership is bolstering its incentives for young companies to join and changing the domain name for its website, Portfolio.com reported. Startup America has landed a deal to offer startups a .co website domain free for a year, through a deal with .CO Internet, itself a startup that launched last year.
BofA to keep head count at 100 Federal St.
Bank of America will look to maintain its downtown Boston presence at current levels even as it cuts 30,000 workers companywide and puts its landmark building at 100 Federal St. on the sale block, the Boston Business Journal reports.
A spokeswoman for the bank said BofA?s share of the office space at 100 Federal St. will remain the same, even if the company sells the building, implying that the bank intends to maintain staffing levels at its Financial District skyscraper, the BBJ reports.
Charlie Kiser targets startups with new venture
Charlie Kiser, who has worked for Bethsda-based biotech InforMax and Arlington's Fortius One and Bluenog, took the advice of some venture capitalists and started planning a new business, according to The Washington Post.
The former sales executive is creating a consulting and investment fund that would connect local tech companies with investors.
Capital Hunt: What last year means for 2012
Last year was a great one for business owners interested in selling their companies. Consider the following:
? Attractive pricing ? When companies are sold, they're typically priced at a multiple of their earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
Multiples in 2011 returned to levels not seen since the start of the economic downturn. Across all deal sizes, valuations for the third quarter of 2011 averaged 6.4 times EBITDA, the highest average quarterly valuation since early 2009, according to GF Data...
Blog: January jobs, Johnson gets infusion
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed workers fell in January to the lowest levels since 2009.
The U.S. economy added 243,000 jobs in January, beating economists? expectations and continuing the trend of positive economic data that began in the fourth quarter of 2011. The unemployment rate dropped from 8.5 percent to 8.3 percent.
?All in all, a solid jobs report that is supportive of ongoing income and spending growth and improvement in business and consumer sentiment,? said Robert Dye, a Comerica Bank economist...
Startup advice from a $1 billion venture firm
The most successful IT companies usually have solutions built around their software.
This was just one bit of advice doled out to startup managers by David Jahns of Galen Partners during a presentation at the Entrepreneur Center in Nashville.
Connecticut-based Galen Partners was recently named the Entrepreneur Center?s health care sponsor for 2012. The firm has more than $1 billion in assets under management, and is looking to invest in young Nashville-area health information technology companies earning roughly $5 million to $10 million in annual revenue...
Wangard buys Good Hope Road strip mall for $900,000
 A strip mall facing West Good Hope Road outside a Pick ?n Save sold for $900,000 to an affiliate of Wangard Partners Inc., which is lining up tenants to fill 3,700 empty square feet in the building.
Wauwatosa-based Spectrum Development Group LLC, which developed the outlot mall in 2006, sold the property southeast of the busy retail intersection of West Good Hope and North 76th Street in Milwaukee.
?A lot of retailers today that would lease space in a strip center like this, they want to be out front of a large retail anchor that is going to generate traffic,? said Tony DeRosa, vice president of development for Wangard Partners, Milwaukee...
Money Talks: January job report, S&P gain buoy expectations the recovery is entrenched
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed workers fell in January to the lowest levels since 2009.
The U.S. economy added 243,000 jobs in January, beating economists? expectations and continuing the trend of positive economic data that began in the fourth quarter of 2011. The unemployment rate dropped from 8.5 percent to 8.3 percent.
?All in all, a solid jobs report that is supportive of ongoing income and spending growth and improvement in business and consumer sentiment,? said Robert Dye, a Comerica Bank economist...
Database: Bank failures in U.S. since 2001
As the U.S. economy -- and that of global markets -- continues to reel from the Great Recession, many lending institutions still are struggling to regain their footing.
In the past three years alone, 389 banks have failed, including 90 in 2011, according to New York-based Invictus Consulting Group LLC.
Note: Click here for database of all 389 bank failures since 2001.
Of those, four were Ohio-based banks, including Peoples Community Bank in West Chester, which closed in July 2009, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation data...
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