Denver – Colorado regulators have sued two Waco, Texas, companies and 11 men who allegedly sold fraudulent life-insurance policies to 114 Coloradans for $11.5 million.
The policies were viatical and life settlements, which are life- insurance policies sold by a terminally ill person or senior citizen for an amount smaller than what the policy pays.
The Colorado Division of Securities sued Life Partners Inc. and Life Partners Holdings Inc. Also named were 11 men, including nine from Colorado, who allegedly sold the policies.
The companies and men have been temporarily barred from selling securities in Colorado. Regulators claim Life Partners and the other defendants were unregistered to sell securities in the state and misrepresented their products to investors.
Additional business news briefs:
NEW YORK
KKR seeks $16 billion in loans for First Data
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. will seek a record $16 billion of high-yield loans with the fewest restrictions to help fund its buyout of First Data Corp., the world’s largest processor of credit-card payments.
Banks led by Credit Suisse Group agreed to provide a $14 billion, seven-year term loan and a $2 billion, six-year revolving- credit facility, Greenwood Village-based First Data said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
Head of exploration to leave Gold Fields
Gold Fields Ltd., owner of the world’s largest gold deposit, said Craig Nelsen, executive vice president and head of exploration, will leave the company.
Nelsen will set up a new venture in Denver, Johannesburg- based Gold Fields said Wednesday. Nelsen will be chief executive of the unidentified company, it added.
DENVER
Judge OKs SEC deal with Qwest ex Szeliga
U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger on Wednesday approved a settlement between former Qwest chief financial officer Robin Szeliga and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Szeliga agreed to pay $577,000 in fines and restitution to settle civil fraud charges. She is also barred from ever being a director or officer of a public company.
The SEC alleges in its suit, which is pending against former Qwest chief executive Joe Nacchio and a handful of other former company officials, that the executives fraudulently boosted Qwest revenue by $3 billion from 1999 to 2002.
DENVER
MediaNews selects Caspio’s Web services
ap, the nation’s fourth-largest newspaper publisher and owner of The Denver Post, has selected Caspio Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., to provide Web-database publishing services.
The Caspio Bridge product helps newsroom workers easily deploy scalable database applications related to topics such as home sales and school test scores.
DENVER
Qwest satellite video may add Net features
Qwest, the fourth-largest U.S. phone company, may add Internet features to its satellite video service provided by DirecTV Group Inc.
The company is examining a program similar to AT&T Inc.’s Homezone, Qwest chief executive Dick Notebaert said Wednesday at an investor conference in New York. Homezone works with Dish Network’s satellite-TV set-top box and can deliver digital photos, music and movies from the Web.
DENVER
Quiznos on lookout for new ad agency
Quiznos is searching for a new creative agency to handle its $80 million advertising account, Adweek reported Wednesday.
The Denver-based sandwich chain split recently with Chicago’s Ogilvy & Mather.
GLENDALE
China trade update to be offered tonight
Denver’s business leaders will receive an update this evening on the recent trade talks between the U.S. and China.
The China Town Hall, which will be videocast in Denver and 30 other cities, features Thomas Christensen, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state. The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at the Loews Denver Hotel, 4150 E. Mississippi Ave. in Glendale.
CHICAGO
Motorola plans to cut another 4,000 jobs
Cellphone maker Motorola Inc. said Wednesday it will cut another 4,000 jobs as part of a plan to improve sagging financial and operational results.
The company already is eliminating 3,500 jobs as part of a two-year cost-cutting plan to save $400 million. Those layoffs, announced in January, are to be completed by June 30, it said.
Motorola said it will save another $600 million in 2008 by cutting 4,000 more workers.
ARMONK, N.Y.
IBM’s tech overhaul leads to 1,570 layoffs
IBM Corp. laid off 1,570 people Wednesday, primarily from an ongoing overhaul of operations in its technology-services unit.
The company carried out a similar level of job cuts at the beginning of the month, for a total of 3,023 in this quarter and 3,720 for the year, according to IBM spokesman Edward Barbini.
DENVER
Three channels gone from Comcast analog
Comcast customers looking for C-SPAN 2, MSNBC or the TV Guide channel on their analog cable lineup are seeing blank, blue screens. Comcast said Wednesday it has removed the networks from its analog programming lineup in Colorado.
A digital cable package includes the networks.
