Bank of America cuts wholesale mortgage unit
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In addition to scaling back its investment- banking operations, Bank of America Corp. is exiting the wholesale mortgage business and eliminating about 700 jobs, bank officials said Thursday.
The nation’s second-largest bank will stop offering home mortgages through brokers at the end of the year to focus on direct- to-consumer lending through its banking centers and loan officers. The move also eliminates jobs in the bank’s consumer real-estate unit.
Rise in small-business loans
Lenders made 2,808 SBA loans worth $545 million in Colorado during the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, according to the Small Business Administration.
That is up from 2,665 loans valued at $556 million during the last fiscal year.
U.S. Bank was the state’s largest SBA lender in number of loans with 540 loans at $48 million. Wells Fargo loaned the largest amount, $57.9 million, across 428 loans.
$400,000 in grants for CSU business program
FORT COLLINS — The College of Business at Colorado State University will receive $400,000 in grants from the Bohemian Foundation to enhance its new graduate program in sustainable enterprise.
The 18-month Master of Science in Business Administration degree in Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise teaches students to use entrepreneurial, sustainable approaches to address poverty, environmental degradation and poor health.
MediaNews to manage two new Hearst papers
Tribune Co. is selling two newspapers in southern Connecticut to Hearst Corp. for $62.4 million, the media conglomerate said Thursday, five months after it was forced to scrap their planned sale to Gannett Co. Inc.
The Tribune Co. said The Advocate of Stamford and the Greenwich Time, the two smallest of its 11 newspapers, will be managed by Denver- based ap Inc. under an existing joint-venture agreement with Hearst.
The joint venture already included the Connecticut Post and The News-Times in Danbury. MediaNews, owner of The Denver Post, will retain 60 percent of the profits from the venture.
Airline group opposes “congestion pricing”
WASHINGTON — The mechanism of “congestion pricing” will not relieve traffic jams in the skies over New York, the Air Transport Association told aviation regulators Thursday.
The government should be focused on increasing “efficiency and capacity in the New York-area airspace, rather than suppressing demand,” said James May, president of the trade group representing the major airlines.
Pair indicted in Jeffco for alleged Ponzi scheme
GOLDEN — Two men who allegedly bilked investors from Israel, Canada and the United States of $7 million in a Ponzi scheme have been indicted on several fraud counts in Jefferson County, officials say.
Hidai Friedman, 32, was indicted on five counts of securities fraud and one count of theft of more than $15,000. Jason Sharkey, 30, was indicted on four counts of securities fraud and one count of theft of more than $15,000, said Pam Russell, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County district attorney’s office.
The Jefferson County grand jury indictment alleges the pair bilked 21 Denver-area investors out of almost $692,642 through a fraudulent real-estate investment scheme between March 2005 and October 2006, Russell said.
