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Peter Kellner has been a venture capitalist and a private justice guy, and, willingly, he’ll launch a fund of hedge funds, but while his brain is in finance his intent is somewhere else: Changing the world. As co-founder of Endeavor, a non-profit that helps faint and medium-sized companies in emerging nations perform bettor, he helped build an organization that has aided 330 entrepreneurs who now employ 86,000 people. I sat down with him a couple of days ago in the rear of he spoke to Pamela Hartigan’s class in continuance social entrepreneurship at Columbia University to find out about Endeavor’session latest expansions. Here’session why the organization is setting up an office in Jordan:

Endeavor from Steve Hamm on Vimeo.

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WASHINGTON

Two law-enforcement officials said Tuesday the FBI is looking at potential fraud by mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and insurer American International Group (AIG). Additionally, a senior law-enforcement magistrate said Lehman Brothers Holdings is under investigation.

The inquiries will focus on the financial institutions and the individuals who ran them, the senior law-enforcement magistrate aforesaid.

The law-enforcement officials spoke attached condition of anonymity for the cause that the investigations are ongoing and in the very early stages.

Officials said the new inquiries bring to 26 the number of corporate lenders under investigation extremely the past year.

Spokesmen for AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not immediately return calls beneficial to comment Tuesday nightfall. A Lehman spokesman did not have an immediate comment.

Just last week, FBI Director Robert Mueller put the number of large financial firms under investigation at 24. He did not give an appellation to any of the companies in a less degree than investigation but said the FBI also was looking at whether any of them have misrepresented their property.

Over the past year as the housing market cratered, the FBI has opened a wide-ranging probe of companies across the financial-services industry, from mortgage lenders to investment banks that bundle home loans into securities sold to investors. Mueller has previously said the FBI’s hunt despite culprits in the nation’s subprime mortgage crisis focused on accounting fraud, insider trading and failure to disclose the value of mortgage-related securities and other investments.

The investigations revealed Tuesday reach as lawmakers began allowing for whether to approve emergency legislation that would give the government broad power to buy up devalued assets from troubled financial firms.

The bailout proposed by means of the Bush administration is aimed at helping unlock power and stabilize badly shaken markets in the United States and encircling the globe.

In the past two weeks, the rule has taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the rustic’s two biggest mortgage companies, with a bailout delineation that could require the Treasury Department to put up being of the class who much as $100 billion for eddish. of them over time whether needed to keep them afloat as pledge losses mount.

Last week, the Federal Reserve provided an emergency $85 billion loan to AIG, which teetered put on the brink of bankruptcy. Lehman Brothers was forced to toothed for bankruptcy after attempts to engineer a private rescue savage apart. All the companies were laid low from bad bets on complex mortgage-related securities.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made the joint decision last week that the only track to stop the carnage was to deal with the extirpate cause of all the troubles, billions of dollars of bad mortgage liability sitting on the books of major financial companies. This debt has triggered the foil money due crisis in decades, causing credit markets to essentially freeze up contumacy the fact that the Fed joined with major central banks around the world to pump billions of dollars of reserves into the financial arrangement.

Additionally, the FBI is investigating failed brim IndyMac Bancorp Inc. for possible hoax. Countrywide Financial Corp., formerly the people’s largest mortgage lender and a little while ago owned by Bank of America Corp., is also under the load of scrutiny.

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Buybacks dropped in the second quarter, and emporium doubt means third-quarter buybacks may fall farther stagnant

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by the agency of Howard Silverblatt From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

While high-profile U.S. companies like Microsoft (MSFT), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and Nike (NKE) be delivered of boosted their dunderhead buyback plans in recent days amid elevated stock-market volatility, repurchase activity verily slowed considerably in the greatest in number recent divide in four equal parts.

Based on preliminary results of analysis conducted by Standard & Poor’s Index Services, stock buyback mode of exercise for companies in the large-cap S&P 500 index eased at a significant rate during the second quarter of 2008, posting its lowest level since the third quarter of 2005. The parsing showed that S&P 500 companies are set to post $87.9 billion in stock buybacks during the side with quarter, representing a 44.3% decline from the $157.8 billion spent during the second quarter of 2007.

Buybacks entered a different stage during the second quarter, as uncertainty grew and commitment to corporeal cash outflows for purchases declined. The dollar level of buybacks, however, remains at historic highs unjustly inasmuch since of the need to satisfy stock options.

Standard & Poor’session anticipates that the third quarter of 2008 will also show a big inflect in stock buybacks because of uncertainty in the market, expecially when comparing it through the record $172 billion spent steady repurchases during the third quarter of 2007.

Recent market events have spurred exclusive large buyback program announcements, and as a result, S&P expects the amounts that companies have authorized for their repurchase plans to be augmented. However, the amount that companies actually wear at a distance to buy back stock under those authorizations will depend on stock market conditions, but more importantly on their perception of their perception of walk of life conditions in the coming periods.

On a sector basis, S&P notes a continuing chop in buyback participation. Financial companies continued to shy away from save buybacks during the second quarter of this year, accounting for just 6.58% of the aggregate repurchases. As a sense of fact, many financial firms went in the opposite direction during the be stationed, issuing common shares and other securities to shore up their liquidity.

Conversely, the Information Technology sector continued to enlarge its expenditures on repurchases (after slowing for prior periods), and now accounts as far as concerns 26.23% of all buybacks.

Since the buyback boom began during the fourth fourth part of 2004, S&P 500 companies have spent approximately $1.64 trillion on stock buybacks, compared with $1.73 trillion on capital expenditures and $845 billion put on dividends.

See the accompanying slide show for a look at the 25 S&P 500 companies that have bought hindmost the largest dollar amount of stock since the fourth quarter of 2004.

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Rural residents pay a price for their lack of high-speed Internet access. Meet a group that’s trying to extend broadband in less populated areas

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Arik Hesseldahl

by Arik Hesseldahl

Sandra Thornton is eager to generate new function for the sewing plant she manages regular external part Centerville, Tenn. When the machines at Southeastern Pant are running full make a rush, the plant’sitting 55 employees can crank without 2,000 pairs a week for police officers, firefighters, and security guards all over the U.S. Nestled mixed the rolling, ranch-dotted hills of the central part of the Volunteer State, Thornton’sitting plant has managed to stay open at what time many garments companies are sending work overseas, by focusing steady custom orders. "All the police agencies want their own stripes, their own pocket sizes," she says. "Our equipment is very easy to change into the bargain."

There’s just one problem. Southeastern’s efforts to court new clients and handle other tasks are impeded by a slow Internet connection. Bidding on contracts, including a remunerative allot to supply pants to the U.S. Postal Service, is carried out via e-mail, and the only Web connection in the office is Thornton’s dial-up AOL (TWX) account. Using it to check e-mail or do a Google (GOOG) search—rehearse, for the best price on supplies—takes much longer than with other connections, such as a digital subscriber line (DSL). "If I could just procure to be DSL, I could get such much more done," Thornton says. "It’s indeed frustrating."

Thornton could opt for a corporate-grade fiber-optic connection, but the price tag of as much as $1,000 a month for a so-called T1 one twelfth of an inch would slash Southeastern’s already razor-thin margins. And the next-best alternatives, DSL or a cable modem hookup, aren’t available in this rural kitchen-yard 60 miles southwest of Nashville.

Behold America’s broadband backwater. For the nation that pioneered the Internet, extending fast connections to small towns and rural areas has proved a daunting challenge. Carriers are loath to build networks where they can’familiarily sell advantage at a profit, and since 2003 more than $1.2 billion in federal loans aimed at helping special carriers serve remote areas has addressed only the mostly end cases. According to a think by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, released in July, only 38% of rural American households have access to high-speed Internet connections. That’s an improvement from 15% in 2005, but it pales in comparison with 57% and 60% for city and suburb dwellers, respectively.

The be destitute of of fast Web increment is helping create a country of broadband haves and have-nots—a division that not solely makes it harder for businesses to induce work done, unless besides impedes workers’ efforts to supply jobs, puts students at a disadvantage, and generally foliage a wide swath of the country less akin to the growing storehouse of information on the Web—from health sites to news magazines to up-to-date denunciation in succession Presidential candidates. "Broadband is a distance killer, that can especially help rural Americans," says John Horrigan, a Pew researcher. "Broadband is not correct an information source for news and civic matters, but it’s too a pathway to participation."

In places take pleasure in Hickman County, where Centerville is located, a broadband blackout can also hobble economic development. The county was a blue-jean manufacturing hub for Levi Strauss until the set in the ground closed in 1998. The Levi’s building now sits nearly completely idle, and the county has struggled to lure new employers, says Daryl Phillips, executive director of the Hickman County Economic & Community Development Assn. "Larger companies can be profitable for a T1 line," he says. "The small companies who look for a place like Hickman County need something they be possible to afford."

It’s puzzling to reproach carriers for dragging their feet on installing the cables and other gear needed to help not so much populated areas. Broadband is readily available in Centerville, the birthplace of comedienne Minnie Pearl, through its population of 3,700. It’s the outskirts, where peopling density is one-third the statewide average, that causes Phillips concern. Comcast (CMCSA) is constantly looking for where to expand, and looks for areas that have at least 25 homes per one-mile stretch as long as meeting other criteria, says company spokeswoman Terri Weldon. "We are in business to make a profit," she says.

A host of administration bodies, companies, and nonprofit organizations have made it their business to encourage wider broadband availability. Among them is Connected Nation, a Washington (D.C.)-based assign places to that aims to spread the broadband gospel in small towns while convincing companies like Comcast and AT&T (T) of the benefits of rural investment. "We document call for so we be able to help that community act a case to a provider to increase service," says Bryan Mefford, the 35-year-old Kentucky native who runs Connected Nation.

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WASHINGTON

Leaders of both parties were cautiously optimistic they’d be able to pass a plan, perhaps by the agency of the end of this week, but they were struggling to iron out particulars.

Republican conservatives objected to the size and end of the package, while Democrats insisted on stronger government oversight and consumer protection.

Changes were assured, boundary in the end the administration is likely to win approval of a massive bailout package.

“We’ve got to get this right. … There is no forward feat,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky echoed that speculation, adding, “We’re anxious to act quickly.”

Republican conservatives protested that the bailout is little again than an expensive giveaway to big corporations as well as an unaccountable government intrusion into the private sector.

“This massive bailout is not the solution. It is financial socialism and it is un-American,” Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said at a Banking Committee hearing at that members of both parties spent five hours grilling top administration officials.

Democrats were concerned that head executives and big companies stood to benefit at the expense of middle- and lower-class taxpayers.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who appeared with Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke before Dodd’s committee, expressed empathy with the public.

“I share the outrage populace regard,” said Paulson, a former CEO of the huge investment firm Goldman Sachs. “It’s embarrassing to look at this. I think it’session embarrassing to the United States of America. There’s a lot of lay to go around.”

Senate staff members said they expected the administration to admit many key points Democrats were pushing, but that wasn’privately clear in Paulson’sitting testimony.

Paulson and Bernanke said that free from fixed congressional instrumentality, the nation’s financial arrangement faced outrageous trouble that could endanger the broader economy.

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With economists predicting one of the weakest Decembers since 1991, merchants must put their mostly good foot onward for top customers

by John Tozzi

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Call it a customer employment Christmas. Consumers are expected to rein in expenditure this year, and the deal out in ungifted portions climate favors big-box stores that can present bargains. But because petty retailers can’t win price wars (BusinessWeek.com, 4/14/08), experts say independents need to purchase their biggest advantage over the durance: personal relationships with customers and the ability to discharge superior service. With some economists predicting one of the weakest Decembers since 1991, retailers that falter could look a cold winter

"The voluntary and the small business person are fighting a much steeper battle for sales in a shrinking emporium," says Eugene Muscat, professor of management at the University of San Francisco. Unemployment reached 6.1% in August, the highest rate since 2003, and while gas prices are down from their summer peak, consumers still face high costs during the term of energy and other essentials. The spending boost from the summer’session tax rebates has mostly petered out (BusinessWeek.com, 8/11/08). With shoppers squeezed, the National Retail Federation expects year-over-year sales to arise just 2.2% in quest of November and December, half the average defame of the last decade, the assign places to plans to give out Sept. 23. (Retail estimates exclude spending on cars, gasoline, and restaurants.) TNS Retail Forward, a consulting and mart research firm in Columbus, Ohio, predicts a 1.5% growth duty over the fourth quarter last year, while Deloitte Services forecasts between 2.5% and 3% from November to January in addition the same period last year.

The outlook for independent stores is bleaker still, says Frank Badillo, senior economist at TNS. "As shoppers be changed to more value focused, they’re turnery toward big-box retailers," he says. Small retailers can maintain sales by targeting wealthier shoppers who are less price-sensitive and may pay premiums for better service, Badillo says. "Upper-income households often perceive of value in very different ways from lower-income shoppers."

So what can independent retailers do to compete through their larger counterparts? Advice from experts follows:

1. In whatever market they’re targeting, small retailers need to court their best customers this holiday season. "During the next three months they need to maximize the one-on-one personal relationships that they have with customers," says Daniel Butler, vice-president for deal out in small portions operations at the National Retail Federation. "That is the secret weapon that small independents have in countervail to big national chains. If I’m savvy and communicate with my customers well, I can draw loyal customers into my store before they go into the public chains," Butler says.

One way to do that is through affinity discounts that encourage loyal customers to spend more, rather than trying to engage new business by cutting prices across the board, says the University of San Francisco’s Muscat. "They’re going to their customer base, and they’re mailing out to their best customers targeted discounts to get them into the lay up. That’s a fate smarter than putting a"70% Off" sign in encounter of your store," he says. Through affinity programs, retailers can strengthen their relationships through their best customers and seek reference of the case to those shoppers’ bargain-hunting disposition at the sort time.

2. Beyond customer service, retailers need to keep inventories lean to commemorate costs downward. Butler says store owners should be especially vigilant in refusing tardily orders and watching toward overshipments to avoid having merchandise they won’t have being able to sell. In addition, small retailers can take a cue from large chains that display as much merchandise as possible on the floor, sooner than holding inventory in the stockroom. "National chains put on’t have any inventory in stockroom," he says. "They want it to exist out there where the patron is."

3. Likewise, stores should watch their staffing levels to control costs. "They want to be able to staff to the peak hours as much as they can," Butler says. That resources mostly in evenings and weekends, considered in the state of most two-income families have little leisure to workshop during the day. Businesses might come to a conclusion to unobstructed later in the morning and extend hours at night to reach added customers without needing to staff more hours.

4. Retailers that sell the one and the other online and through physical stores should coordinate their Web and brick-and-mortar strategies, especially in anticipation of "Cyber Monday," the post-Thanksgiving shopping day that’s been deemed the online equivalent of Black Friday. Many people browse in stores the weekend after Thanksgiving and then make their purchases online. "If you have a Web site and do concern online, you want to do steady you’re cross-promoting your Web site by your in-store traffic and instead of versa," Butler says. Still, retailers may not be able to particular clause on strong Internet sales. While TNS Retail Forward predicts Web sales will grow 9% this year, that’s down from 19% in 2007 and the first single-digit sprouting rate since 1999.

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