From Crain’s New York: Not much life left in the party

The severity of the recession may have caught some companies by surprise in 2008, but this year reality has sunk in … The lavish celebrations of years past are not making a comeback this year in the city—or anywhere else in the country.

Just 62% of companies nationwide are planning holiday parties this year, down from 77% last year and 90% in 2007, according to a survey by outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.
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Restaurants and hotels that count on this lucrative business say their private party business is off by about 20% this year, compared with a dismal season in 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

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The WSJ has an article on landlords cutting effective rents: Landlords Offer Incentives to Stay Put

… Equity Residential said new tenants in the third quarter paid 9% to 10% less rent than the previous residents. … Denver-based UDR is offering renewing tenants a flat-screen TV, new carpet, kitchen upgrade or, $300 in cash. … Some landlords have also become more open-minded about tenants with credit issues involving home foreclosures.

Rents are falling because vacancies are at record levels. Reis recently reported that the apartment vacancy rate in cities hit a 23 year high of 7.8 percent in the third quarter, and Reis expects the vacancy rate to reach a record 8 percent soon. Read the rest of this entry »

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Press Release: CIT Board of Directors Approves Proceeding with Prepackaged Plan of Reorganization with Overwhelming Support of Debtholders

And from the NY Times Dealbook: CIT Files for Bankruptcy

On Sunday afternoon, the company filed for Chapter 11 — but under a so-called prepackaged bankruptcy plan that will enable it to emerge from court protection by the end of the year. Read the rest of this entry »

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Another busy week ahead starting with construction spending, the ISM reports, vehicle sales, the Fed meeting (little change in wording expected), and ending with the employment report. Did the unemployment rate hit 10% in October?

Here is a summary of data released in October and the updated Unofficial Problem Bank List.

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From Greg Gordon at McClatchy Newspapers: How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash

In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.
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A Goldman spokesman, Michael DuVally, said that the firm decided in December 2006 to reduce its mortgage risks and did so by selling off subprime-related securities and making myriad insurance-like bets, called credit-default swaps, to “hedge” against a housing downturn.

DuVally told McClatchy that Goldman “had no obligation to disclose how it was managing its risk, nor would investors have expected us to do so … other market participants had access to the same information we did.” Read the rest of this entry »

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