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Having reached capacity at their two St. Louis brewing facilities, the makers of Schlafly beer are finalizing arrangements to expand production through deals with two out-of-state breweries.

St. Louis Brewery Inc. has tentative agreements with brewing sites in Stevens Point, Wis., and Latrobe, Pa., company co-founder Dan Kopman told the Post-Dispatch. The brewer will begin making some lager-style beers in Wisconsin as early as this summer in an effort to keep up with booming craft-beer sales.

The arrangement allows Schlafly to act as a tenant, renting brewery equipment and space from the out-of-state beermakers. The move is more cost- and time-efficient than building a third local brewing site, Kopman said.

"Even if we acquired land today, it would be five years before we were brewing on a new site," he said. "We needed something a little sooner than that."

The brewery has reached its production ceiling in St. Louis.

On Friday, cranes lowered four stainless-steel, 200-barrel fermenting tanks into the company’s Bottleworks brewery in Maplewood. The new tanks — where yeast ferments and beer develops alcohol and carbonation — cap a $500,000 project that will help increase Schlafly’s annual local production by nearly 30 percent to 45,000 barrels of beer.

"This is the end of how much we can squeeze into Bottleworks," Kopman said. "Nothing else will fit in the building."

St. Louis Brewery will send raw ingredients as well as personnel and lab equipment to the Wisconsin brewery to keep standards in line with its St. Louis operations. The Pennsylvania facility will be used only if additional production is needed, Kopman said. Both out-of-state locations specialize in lager brewing and have canning lines should the brewery decide to put its beers in cans — a move several craft brewers have recently made.

Many start-up and regional breweries have turned to arrangements with outside producers as the credit market tightened and demand for craft beer climbed, said Paul Gatza, director of the Colorado-based Brewers Association payday loans with no fax.

It’s a good way to quickly fill expansion needs, Gatza said, but it "can create more work and travel for brewing staff … to ensure brand consistency over multiple brewing systems."

St. Louis Brewery currently sells about 90 percent of its Schlafly brands in the St. Louis metro area, though the company has expanded distribution into parts of Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee. Any Schlafly beer brewed outside of St. Louis will say so on its packaging.

"In the long term, we’re committed to making all the beer that we sell in St. Louis in St. Louis," Kopman said. "We just need some breathing room right now."

St. Louis Brewery will be sharing the Wisconsin space with, among others, O’Fallon Brewery of O’Fallon, Mo., which last year outsourced production of its year-round beers to Stevens Point.

O’Fallon founders Tony and Fran Caradonna, who saw sales of their beers increase 36 percent in 2009, made the decision to contract-brew after reaching capacity at O’Fallon’s 3,000-barrel-a-year brewery northwest of downtown St. Louis.

Kopman also reported surging retail sales so far this year — up about 18 percent compared with January-February 2009. Schlafly set a company record last year by selling about 30,000 barrels of beer, which translates to about 10 million 12-ounce bottles.

Gatza expects the demand for craft beers to continue climbing, which means even more options for consumers. "There has never been a better time for beer drinkers in America."

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The owner of Quality Candy Shoppes and Buddy Squirrel has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but the future of the 13-store St. Francis-based chain could not immediately be determined.

Quality Candy Shoppes/Buddy Squirrel of Wisconsin Inc. filed for bankruptcy Jan. 15 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Milwaukee. The company listed assets of between $1 million and $10 million and liabilities in the same range.

Two of the company’s largest unsecured creditors are suppliers: Cargill Inc., for $89,938, and Wright Brothers Paper Box at $10,959. The other top unsecured creditors include radio station owner Lakefront Communications, $10,332; George Pinter, accounting services, $8,910, and J.M. Swank Co., $8,032.

Harris Bank is the company’s secured lender and is owed an unspecified amount.

In a Jan. 19 hearing, Quality Candy/Buddy Squirrel sought emergency funding to make its payroll. Bankruptcy Judge Margaret McGarity approved the motion and required the company to provide an accounting of its cash use by this Wednesday and make interest-only payments to the bank until then payday loans guaranteed no fax.

Another hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8.

Jonathan Goodman, an attorney for the company, declined to comment Monday. The president, CEO and sole shareholder is Margaret Gile, who represents the third generation of family ownership.

Quality Candy was founded in Milwaukee in 1916, according to the firm’s Web site. In the 1960s, Quality Candy bought Buddy Squirrel of Wisconsin, and in 1999, the two businesses were merged and the company was renamed Quality Candy Shoppes/Buddy Squirrel of Wisconsin Inc. The company built a 15,000-square-foot distribution center in 2001.

Margaret Gile, represents the 3rd generation as owner and president.

Quality Candy/Buddy Squirrel owns and operates stores in the Milwaukee area, Racine and Madison.

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The Greater Cincinnati Microenterprise Initiative (GCMI) and Adams/Brown Counties Economic Opportunities Inc., were among 11 organizations and municipalities to share more than $591,000 in microenterprise grants from the Ohio Department of Development.

The grants, funded through the Ohio Housing Trust Fund and Community Block Development Grant Program, help develop local microenterprise businesses.

GCMI will receive $58,300 to give training and technical support to 85 low- and moderate-income micro-entrepreneurs, according to a news release.

The Adams/Brown organization also will be awarded $58,300 for 40 low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs, and for loans to four microenterprise businesses.

“Microenterprise businesses throughout the nation and our state are a major source of employment,” said Lisa Patt-McDaniel, director of the Ohio Department of Development, in the release.

Other areas receiving grants include: Athens, Pike, Franklin, Perry, Columbiana, Morgan, Van Wert and Vinton counties, and the city of Zanesville.

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Canada’s premier luxury retailer, Holt Renfrew, has replaced Caryn Lerner as its president following a year in which many luxury retailers struggled.

Lerner, an American with a strong fashion background, will be succeeded by Mark Derbyshire, a 40-year-old former Canadian Tire marketing executive who was most recently in charge of human resources at Holt Renfrew’s parent company.

The changes are effective immediately, said the owner of the 11-store chain.

"Mark has displayed tremendous leadership and business acumen over the six years he has been with our organization," said W. Galen Weston, chairman of Holt Renfrew. "We are confident that he will continue to evolve and grow Holt Renfrew as an international brand and a continued fashion authority in Canada."

Lerner will stay on as an independent consultant to Holt Renfrew’s parent firm, Wittington Fashion Retail Group, the company said.

Lerner’s departure, after five years as president and chief executive officer, took some retail industry observers by surprise and raised questions about the luxury department stores’ performance. Long considered a leader in fashion retailing, featuring names like Prada, Gucci, and Jil Sander, Holt Renfrew faced increased competition as designers opened their own shops on Bloor, and the Bay expanded its designer floor at its flagship store in downtown Toronto.

"This sounds like a fairly sudden change of direction," said Wendy Evans, president of the retail consulting firm Evans & Company.

Noted Maureen Atkinson, a partner in the retail-consulting firm J.C. Williams Group: "I don’t think their results have been spectacular. I think that’s been an issue and a challenge. I don’t think it’s her. I think it is what it is. The economy. I think there’s a whole bunch of reasons why they’re not really doing well payday loans guaranteed no fax."

However, the Weston family appeared to be "firmly behind her," Atkinson said of Lerner.

Luxury retailers across Canada were hit hard at the start of the recession but had seen their performance improve toward year-end, Evans noted. "The high end has certainly taken a beating over the last year or so. But in the last couple of months luxury retailing has seen some pretty good signs of life."

Holt Renfrew’s results are not publicly available.

"2009 was a tough year for everybody. But it was a pretty good year for Holt Renfrew," spokesperson John Crean said in an interview later. "Going into 2010, the board (of directors of Holt Renfrew) is very optimistic about the prospect for Holts going forward."

Describing Derbyshire as "a relationship guy," Crean said his first priority would be meeting with customers, suppliers and employees. "You’ll see him in short order reach out to them on what their perspective is on what Holts is doing well and what it can do better."

Derbyshire’s most recent title, chief talent officer for Wittington Fashion, involved recruiting senior talent across all of the holding group’s properties, Crean said.

The private company, owned by the wealthy Weston family, also owns two other luxury retailers, Selfridges in London and Brown Thomas in Dublin.

Derbyshire was previously head of human resources at Holt Renfrew, which operates nine stores in Canada. He grew up in a retail family. Both his father and grandfather owned Canadian Tire dealerships.

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MONTREAL–Bombardier Inc. has received an order from Spain's national rail operator to maintain a fleet of high-speed trains for 14 years, the transportation equipment maker announced Thursday.

RENFE will pay US$917 million to Bombardier and Spanish railway vehicle maker Talgo to maintain the new trains. Bombardier's share of the contract comes to US$405 million.

The maintenance activities will take place at RENFE's depots in Spain with work expected to begin in 2010.

Bombardier will be responsible for the preventive and corrective maintenance of the train power-heads, power supply, signalling and propulsion system and auxiliaries.

The trains that will be maintained are currently being manufactured by Bombardier in association with Talgo.

Bombardier is no stranger to Spain's railway industry, and employs more than 600 people at various sites in the country. The AVE 102 and AVE 103 high speed trains and the Madrid Barajas airport people mover are among its key projects in the region.

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European consumer prices increased for the first time in seven months in November led by energy costs as the economy recovered from the worst slump since World War II.

Prices in the 16-nation euro region rose 0.6 percent from a year earlier after falling 0.1 percent in October, the European Union statistics office in Luxembourg said today. Economists had projected a gain of 0.4 percent, the median of 30 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey showed.

Oil prices have risen 9 percent in the past three months as the economy has gathered strength. While the euro-area economy returned to growth in the third quarter, companies continue to cut costs and eliminate jobs to bolster earnings. The European Central Bank has signaled it sees “moderate” inflation and is in no rush to withdraw stimulus measures.

“The medium-term outlook for euro-zone inflation remains very subdued,” said Martin van Vliet, a senior economist at ING Bank in Amsterdam. ING anticipates the ECB will “adopt a very gradual approach to withdrawing its emergency liquidity measures, and to keep interest rates on hold for an extended period,” he said.

The euro was higher against the dollar after the inflation report, trading at $1.5050 at 10:52 a.m. in London, up 0.4 percent on the day. The yield on the German 10-year benchmark bond dropped 0.1 basis point to 3.15 percent.

Latest Forecasts

The ECB said on Nov. 12 that professional forecasters project European inflation will average 0.3 percent this year and 1.2 percent in 2010. The Frankfurt-based central bank, which aims to keep annual gains in consumer prices just below 2 percent, will release its latest forecasts for economic developments and inflation on Dec. 3.

For now, a recovery may remain too fragile for companies to start adding workers. European unemployment probably rose to 9.8 percent in October from 9.7 percent in the previous month, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The statistics office will release the unemployment report tomorrow at 11 a.m.

Remy Cointreau SA, France’s second-largest liquor company, on Nov. 25 forecast “modest” third-quarter sales after profit dropped 18 percent in the year’s first six months. Hugo Boss AG, Germany’s largest clothing maker, said earlier this month that it projects sales will remain “challenging” in the first half of 2010.

Coming Months

European households anticipate prices will decline further in coming months. A gauge of consumers’ price expectations over the next 12 months rose to minus 11 in November from minus 14 in the previous month, the European Commission said on Nov. 27.

“Economic activity is unlikely to be strong enough to generate significant inflationary pressures for some considerable time to come,” said Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS Global Insight in London. “There remains a compelling case for the ECB to only very gradually withdraw its emergency liquidity measures.”

The ECB has cut borrowing costs to a record low, purchased covered bonds and injected billions of euros into markets to encourage lending. Policy makers meeting in Frankfurt on Dec. 3 may keep the key rate at 1 percent, a Bloomberg survey shows.

“We still don’t know to what extent the incipient global recovery has enough support on its own to allow for exceptional stimulus to be withdrawn without the danger of a relapse in activity,” ECB council member Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said on Nov. 23. Inflation “although positive, will remain at moderate levels in the near future.”

The statistics office will release a breakdown of November inflation data on Dec. 16.

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U.S. regulators are looking hard at banks’ expected future tax benefits and the result for some financial institutions could be more writedowns.

Any charges are much more likely to hurt regional and community banks, than the largest U.S. lenders, who have more ways to preserve the benefits, known as “deferred tax assets,” or DTAs.

The most common reason for a bank to write down these assets is an expected lack of taxable income in the future. As income becomes less likely, regulators including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp are pressing banks to write them down, experts told Reuters.

Regulatory pressure often means that, at the margin, accountants are inclined to be much more conservative when evaluating these assets.

“As long as the FDIC is looking at this, writedowns will be much more widespread,” said Jim Goeller, a partner at tax firm Perry-Smith in San Francisco, which audits more than 60 banks in California. An FDIC spokesman said the agency looks at all assets on the balance sheets and expects banks to follow accounting rules.

Publicly traded banks have about $134 billion of deferred tax assets on their books, according to SNL Financial. In that sense, the problem is small compared with the $1.7 trillion of commercial real estate on companies books, for example.

But for some banks, valuation adjustments can be serious. Consider The South Financial Group Inc, which recently wrote down its deferred tax asset by $200 million.

The writedown, known as a valuation allowance, had little impact on its regulatory capital levels. But it did influence its tangible common equity, a measure of capital increasingly important to stock investors and debt rating agencies.

The Greenville, South Carolina-based bank said in a filing this week that it is looking to boost its common equity, potentially through issuing shares.

Issuing shares now is difficult for banks. Starkeville, Mississippi-based Cadence Financial Corp has a large deferred tax asset, but has posted quarterly losses since the third quarter of 2008.

As of September 30 this year, it had not been forced to write down any of the asset. Chief Financial Officer Richard Haston says the bank looks at its DTA every quarter. It is unclear whether an adjustment will be necessary in the fourth quarter.

“It would probably be very difficult for a bank our size to raise capital now,” Haston said.

As of September 30, the bank’s deferred tax asset was $30.6 million, or about 25 percent of Cadence Financial’s net worth as measured by its book equity.

Lawmakers gave some relief to banks last week — a new law signed last Friday will allow businesses to count accumulated losses against five years of income, compared with prior limits of two years. But those “carrybacks” apply only to banks that did not sell equity or warrants to the government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. 

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Insurance giant AIG has made progress on its restructuring and will likely be able to repay a taxpayer bailout and buy back much of the government’s stake in the company, Moody’s Investors Service said on Monday.

The Moody’s statement was a rare expression of optimism for American International Group Inc, which has received up to $180 billion of federal aid and is now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers.

Moody’s said AIG’s restructuring plan still relies heavily on government support, but if its operations and global financial markets continue to stabilize, the company likely can generate enough value to repay the government.

The vote of confidence sent AIG’s hard-hit shares up 3.7 percent to $37.52. The cost of insuring $10 million of AIG debt for five year fell to around $732,000 annually, down $10,000 from Monday, according to Markit Intraday.

AIG posted its second straight quarterly profit last week, helped by a recovery in the value of its investments. But its underlying business remained weak. For details click on

The quarterly results “show continued stabilization of the core insurance operations despite challenging market conditions,” Moody’s said.

With the government likely to recoup its investment, it has incentive to continue supporting AIG and its various creditors, Moody’s said bad credit payday advance. The agency affirmed AIG’s long-term credit rating of A3, the seventh-highest investment grade, with a “negative” outlook.

Credit spreads on AIG’s 8.25 percent notes due in 2018 tightened by 0.15 percentage point on Tuesday, to 7.51 points over U.S. Treasuries, according to MarketAxess.

AIG’s $180 billion of federal aid includes more than $80 billion in loans. The company has sought to sell major business units to help repay the government, but has struggled to find buyers willing to pay enough.

Since the appointment of former MetLife Chief Executive Robert Benmosche as AIG CEO in August, the company has focused on rebuilding the value of some businesses previously slated for sale, Moody’s said.

“We believe that the slower approach to restructuring could help AIG to generate more favorable values from its business portfolio than would be the case under rushed asset sales,” it said.

(Reporting by Dena Aubin; Additional reporting by Joe Giannone and Karen Brettell; editing by Walker Simon and John Wallace)

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Ford Motor reported a surprise profit for the third quarter Monday, helped by a bump in sales from the Cash for Clunkers program, a reduced cost structure and problems at its U.S. rivals.

The company also announced plans late Monday to raise $3 billion in order to further boost its balance sheet.

The only major U.S. automaker not to file for bankruptcy this year earned $997 million, or 29 cents a share, compared to a loss of $161 million, or 7 cents a share on that basis a year earlier.

Excluding special items, Ford reported a profit of $873 million, or 26 cents a share, in the period. Analysts had been forecasting a loss of 12 cents a share for the quarter on this basis. Ford said it was the first pre-tax operating profit since the start of 2008.

In a separate announcement, Ford said it will issue $1 billion in common stock and $2 billion of debt that will be convertible to common shares. The company said it will start issuing them beginning next month. The automaker also said it hopes to extend the maturity of its revolving credit facility by two years to 2013.

"We expect the moves will enhance Ford’s automotive liquidity and over time reduce the company’s debt burden, providing an additional cushion given the still uncertain state of the economy," said Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally in a statement.

The company said cost cutting during the past year and an improved outlook for sales leads it to believe Ford will be "solidly profitable" in 2011, excluding special items.

That’s the most bullish outlook Ford has offered investors since it started losing money in 2005. The company had previously said it was looking for break-even or better results that year.

Turning the corner. The guidance raised hopes that the company may have turned the corner on nearly five years of losses for its key North American auto operations.

"Our third quarter results clearly show that Ford is making tremendous progress despite the prolonged slump in the global economy," said Mulally.

The company said it lowered its structural costs by $1 billion compared to a year earlier, with about half of that improvement coming in North America.

While Ford did not need federal assistance or a bankruptcy reorganization as rivals General Motors and Chrysler did, it was able to win concessions from its unions that resulted in a $300 million structural cost reduction. Ford also said it paid about $200 million less for materials and commodities in the quarter.

Ford still faces some potential problems in the near term. In a vote announced Monday afternoon, the United Auto Workers union rank and file rejected additional contract concessions sought by Ford management, including a freeze on entry level wages.

And Ford said it expects sharp declines in European sales in the next year partly because an even larger Cash for Clunkers there this year will steal demand from future months.

Still, Mulally told investors that the company remains hopeful it could be profitable in 2010, not just by 2011, and that the longer time frame in the new guidance is a way of being cautious.

"The reason we couched it that way is we’re just not sure about the strength of the recovery," Mulally said. Ford will detail further guidance on 2010 profits when it reports fourth-quarter results in January.

Digesting the details. Results in North America were helped by much stronger sales than a year earlier, particularly in the United States, where the company was one of the prime beneficiaries of the Cash for Clunkers program that gave buyers up to $4,500 if they traded in a gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient vehicle.

Even without the Cash for Clunkers program, which lifted the whole industry out of the doldrums, Ford made gains on many of its rivals during the quarter.

During the quarter, Ford’s U.S. market share rose by 2.2 percentage points to 14.6%. Ford benefited from steep market share declines at GM and Chrysler in the wake of their bankruptcies, but it also posted bigger market share gains than Japanese rivals such as Toyota Motor (TM) and Honda Motor (HMC).

Shares of Ford (F, Fortune 500) gained more than 8% Monday.

The company reported overall revenue of $30.9 billion in the quarter, down $800 million from the same period a year ago due to a decrease in revenue at its Ford Credit unit.

Ford said that global auto sales rose $100 million from the third quarter of 2008, to $27.9 billion. It sold 1.23 million vehicles worldwide, up 5% from a year earlier, and its average net pricing also improved along with its sales volume. Auto revenue in North America soared by $2.9 billion, or 27%, to $13.7 billion.

Ford also said it made money on its auto operations, and that it reported positive cash flow of $1.3 billion from its auto businesses. The company had been burning through significant amounts of cash every quarter since the second quarter of 2007 as it suffered from years of ongoing losses.

"While we still face a challenging road ahead, our [company] transformation plan is working and our underlying business continues to grow stronger," Mulally added.

Ford’s automotive unit earned $446 million in the quarter, compared to a loss of $2.9 billion in the year-earlier period, as the company’s core auto operations in North America returned to profitability for the first time since the first half of 2005. 

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Spain’s unemployment rate, the highest in Europe, held at 17.9 percent in the third quarter as state stimulus spending put people to work, even as the government warned the figure would rise again by year-end.

The number of unemployed fell by 14,100 from the previous three months to 4.12 million people, the Madrid-based National Statistics Institute said today. From a year earlier, 1.52 million people joined the unemployment lines. The jobless rate was expected to rise to 18.7 percent, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of eight economists.

Spain’s government has implemented one of the largest stimulus plans in Europe, putting more than 400,000 people to work widening sidewalks and building cycle tracks in cities. Finance Minister Elena Salgado said yesterday that the fourth quarter could bring “more worrying” jobless data as the third quarter was traditionally more favorable for employment.

“We’ll reach the peak of unemployment in Spain in the second quarter of next year, and it will be very close to 18 percent,” said Jose Carlos Diez, chief economist at Intermoney Valores in Madrid, the only economist in the Bloomberg survey to forecast a third-quarter rate below 18 percent.

Immigrants Leaving

The active population, or the number of people employed or looking for work, fell by 89,000 people in the third quarter, or 0.4 percent, and most of the decline was among foreigners, suggesting some immigrants may have gone home.

The International Monetary Fund forecasts unemployment will exceed 20 percent next year, and joblessness among young people is almost twice that level, sapping support for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Spain’s opposition People’s Party extended its lead over the ruling Socialists to five percentage points, the most since Zapatero was first elected in 2004, according to an Oct. 12 poll in newspaper Publico.

Zapatero’s Socialists would win 38 percent of the vote compared with 43 percent for the PP if elections were held now, said the poll prepared by Publiscopio. Unemployment is Spaniards’ main concern, according to the state- run Center for Sociological Research.

Once the motor of job-creation in the euro region, Spain is now suffering from the end of a decade-long construction boom that has left a glut of 1 million new, unsold homes and produced the deepest recession in more than half a century. The IMF expects the Spanish economy to contract 0.7 percent in 2010, while the euro area, U.S., and U.K. post full-year growth.

Rising joblessness is swelling the budget deficit as the government has extended jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and is implementing stimulus measures worth 2.3 percent of gross domestic product. The shortfall will swell to 9.5 percent of GDP this year, one of the largest in the euro region, before narrowing to 8.1 percent in 2010.

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