Ford says Hatchbacks Rising from the Dead

USA Today

It's easy to come up with a list of things that most Americans hate. Dandruff, mosquitoes, liverwurst, income taxes, room-temperature beer, shiny polyester, to name a few. Then there are hatchbacks, which Americans used to like, but now generally hate. But that could be changing.

Ford reports that 60% of the buyers of its new Ford Fiesta minicar are opting for the five-door hatchback. By contrast, Ford says that only 8.3% of all cars sold last year were hatchbacks. Could the stubby-car look be on its way back?

It's not just Ford. Other automakers are creeping cars without traditional trunks into their market with some success. Kia Soul for instance is hot. Or Honda Fit, the car that Ford set out to beat with Fiesta.

In Europe, hatchbacks remain popular along with station wagons, another body type that Americans have spurned. Ford says it's also going to take a chance on the next Ford Focus, and offer a hatchback version here as well.

"American car buyers have grown accustomed to the convenience of hatch body styles after years of owning SUVs and crossovers," said George Pipas, Ford sales analyst.

As Ford continues to roll out global vehicle platforms like Fiesta and the next-generation Focus, the company is investing in flexible plant capacity. The flexibility will ensure Ford is able to react quickly to changing tastes, providing a vehicle mix – hatchback or sedan, base model or fully loaded – to serve varied consumer demands around the world.

Also heartening for Ford, the automaker says buyers are opting for more options in the smallest of cars, odd given that the sour economy would usually lead buyers to take fewer options. Half of Fiesta buyers, for instance, want leather upholstery.

Fiesta is just getting started in sales after a setback involving a production slowdown at the Mexican plant where they are made due to a quality-control problem. Ford never disclosed what the issue involved.

So we'll see. Once Fiesta sales start to roar, hatches may go pop.

Is Exporting the Best Way for Small Businesses to Expand

USA Today

Dozens of international explorers gathered recently at a hotel here. But they didn't want to talk about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or biking through Namibia.

Instead, the group wanted to figure out how to expand their products and services to foreign markets — how to take their businesses global.

"We're a small, financially sound family-owned business, and we're treading water during these (tough economic) times," said David Newton, president of Newrent, a trailer sales and rental firm in Kearny, N.J. His U.S. sales are on the decline, and he thinks there might be a market for selling refrigerated trailers overseas. But he is at a loss about what to do.

"Who do we call? Who do we talk to?" he said.

Newton knows that new revenue streams — partially from foreign markets — could help keep alive the company that his father founded as a trucking firm. So he headed to the "matchmaking" summit, the first in more than 15 years sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration. It offered exporting financial advice, as well as tips on shipping, product compliance and cross-cultural business practices.

"I'm just walking around here asking guys questions," said Newton, who was among more than 150 attendees.

Newton was sheepish about his lack of exporting knowledge, but government officials are thrilled that he and other businesses owners are considering the practice.

During a Sept. 16 meeting with his newly founded President's Export Council, President Obama said that boosting exports was a top priority. "The more American companies export, the more they produce," he said. "And the more they produce, the more people they hire — and that means more jobs." He also reiterated his goal of doubling U.S. exports during the next five years through a new National Export Initiative.

In 2009, the U.S. exported about $1.57 trillion in goods and services such as food, technology and health equipment. The goal: at least $3.14 trillion by 2015.

About 280,000 — or just over 1% — of U.S. small businesses currently export. Of those, 59% export to just one country.

"We think businesses can do more," Joseph Hurd, Department of Commerce senior director of export promotion and trade policy, said last Monday.

With nearly 96% of the world's population and two-thirds of purchasing power outside the U.S., Hurd and other government officials want small and midsize businesses to think beyond U.S. borders.

Jennifer Schroder says her employer, Galison, has had success with foreign sales. "Our international business has been growing much faster than our U.S. business," she says. The firm produces stationery under its company name and educational games under the Mudpuppy label.

But she and colleague Lisa Ann Frisone came to the SBA summit in search of partners who could help them streamline their exporting strategy.

Exporting to foreign markets comes with an array of issues, such as completing mounds of paperwork and deciphering often-complicated customs rules.

"You have to understand all the nuances of exporting to other countries," says Luz Hopewell, director of the Small Business Administration's Office of International Trade. "Sometimes if (a firm) doesn't get the right license or doesn't have the right paperwork, the product can be returned from the shipping docks."

It's not that easy

For smaller firms that don't have many resources, the idea of sending goods overseas can be daunting.

One in three small-business owners say fears about not getting paid prohibit them from exporting, according to a 2010 survey among exporting and non-exporting members of the National Small Business Association and the Small Business Exporters Association. Nearly the same proportion said exporting would be too costly.

Amit Roy, who founded the information technology firm Proviatek in 2004, is well aware of exporting hurdles. His company started doing IT work but in 2008 began to export biomedical equipment to India and Singapore.

Since then, he has hit one stumbling block after another. For instance, some of his exported products must be kept at -5 degrees Celsius while in transit. At first, Roy thought he could do this by using dry ice but soon discovered that in some international areas, dry ice is considered a hazardous material. He then had to opt for more expensive gel packs to keep his products cool.

"The learning curve has been expensive," he says.

Hurd, Hopewell and other speakers at the summit spoke openly about the troubles that budding exporters face.

"We don't make it easy to export," Hurd admitted.

Government officials at the SBA, Department of Commerce and other agencies hope to change that with more conferences like the one in Jersey City.

Those groups are also promoting resources such as the country's 19 export assistance centers, websites such as www.export.gov and the 800-USA-TRADE (800-872-8723) help line as tools that can help entrepreneurs export.

"Business can really be totally ignorant about exporting," Hopewell says. Her goal is to "prepare the business ... and make certain that they are well informed of the benefits as well as the risks" of exporting.

"A business is not by itself on the road to become an exporter," she says.

Besides hoops, Hill inspires as Filmmaker

USA Today

A different kind of work consumed Grant Hill this offseason. It wasn't rehabilitation for the formerly oft-injured Phoenix Suns forward, and the lights, cameras and action were focused, for a change, on someone else.

Last weekend, executive producer Hill presented at Duke, his alma mater, a private, rough-cut screening of Starting at the Finish Line: The Coach Buehler Story. It's Hill's first venture into film, joining him with teammate Steve Nash as documentary producers.

Hill's is about legendary Duke track coach Al Buehler [pictured], who coached either cross country or track there for 45 years and was manager for three U.S. Olympic teams.

Little is known about the role of Buehler, 79, in forging integration at Duke and the all-white Atlantic Coast Conference — or how he invited LeRoy T. Walker, a future U.S. Olympic Committee president who was track coach at historically black North Carolina Central, and his athletes to train with Buehler's team.

Neither is much known about Buehler paving the way for future women's All-American Ellison Goodall to compete in track, nor how his three men's track scholarships went for women's field hockey.

With producer-director Amy Unell, Hill hopes to complete the project soon so it can premiere at festivals and find a network for distribution.

"My role has increased," says Hill, who also narrates the documentary. "The closer we've gotten to the finish line, I've been more involved."

Unell, a 2003 Duke graduate, began working on the project almost a year ago. Hill was entrenched in the regular season and playoffs as his Suns made a surprising run to the Western Conference finals.

An art enthusiast since college, Hill has staged 20th-century African-American art exhibitions. Now, he has the bug for film.

"I like inspiring stories. There's a number of them out there. I was talking to a 10-year-old. He talked about (The) Blind Side. He also talked about Glory Road. The stories behind them connect with people," Hill says. "To try and bring those stories to life, it would be kind of fun. It's just finding the right project and figuring out your game plan."

The Suns have regrouping to do, too, despite winning 54 games last season. They lost All-Star power forward Amar'e Stoudemire to free agency, then added Hedo Turkoglu, Josh Childress and Hakim Warrick. "We have a lot of depth," says Hill, who averaged 11.3 points and 5.5 rebounds. "It's going to take time to figure out."

No matter how successful this documentary turns out, Hill, who has his 38th birthday next week, vows it won't send him into retirement.

"As long as I'm healthy, regardless of what goes on with films or anything else, basketball is the most important thing," he says. "This might be the last year of my contract, but I don't look at it as the last year of my career."

Hot tickets: NBA owners contend they lost more than $370 million last season and need to reduce the percentage of revenue for player salaries in the next collective bargaining agreement. Yet a report in SportsBusiness Journal said the league set a record with more than $100 million in new full-season ticket revenue for 2010-11.

As of Sept. 22, clubs had added more than 50,000 full-season tickets, a 40% jump from the same date last year. With single-game tickets, the Miami Heat alone sold more than 20,000 for home games Tuesday, the highest one-day total in franchise history.

Michigan Teen Kills 448-pound Black Bear with Arrow

Associated Press

A 17-year-old Michigan girl began her big game hunting career with a bang - or rather a whoosh - by killing a 448-pound black bear with a bow and arrow from 16 yards away.

High school senior Jessica Olmstead of Battle Creek shot the bear during a hunting trip last month in Oba, Ontario.

She told the Battle Creek Enquirer for a story published Tuesday that the bear was the first animal she killed with the new bow.

"As soon as my dad got it for me I was immediately comfortable and I was ready to use it the next day," Jessica said.

"When I go out hunting, it's really exciting," she said. "Whenever I see a bear I just want to go at it. When you're hunting, your heart is racing, your blood is pumping, and you feel that adrenaline rush. I really love to hunt."

Her father, Tim Olmstead, told The Associated Press that his daughter eats the animals she hunts, including the bear, and does not kill just for fun.

He told the paper he's been teaching others to hunt for more than 30 years and that he's never had a student pick up the fundamentals as quickly as his daughter.

"I'm not just saying this because she's my daughter," he said. "But she's probably one of the best listeners I've every taught. With the bear she showed a lot of patience. She tracked the bear, killed it, and gutted it like a pro."

Jessica's hunting exploits range beyond the wilderness. Earlier this month, she caught a 20-pound salmon in Lake Michigan, near Holland.

"Fishing is a lot like hunting in a lot of ways," Olmstead said. "But I think that with fishing, it takes a lot more strength and a lot more patience to be successful."

GMAC Drew `False Testimony' Sanction Years Before Eviction Halt

Bloomberg

Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit, which suspended evictions in 23 states last week after finding employees didn’t verify foreclosure documents, was sanctioned in 2006 for similar practices, court records show.

GMAC gave “false testimony” when it justified foreclosures by submitting sworn affidavits signed by a mortgage executive who later said in a deposition she didn’t actually review the loan documents or sign in the presence of a notary, according to a 2006 court order filed in Duval County, Florida. In response to the sanctions, GMAC Mortgage directed employees to “read and fully understand” court documents before signing.

“Do not sign unless you have that comfort level,” said a policy directive from GMAC Mortgage’s James Barden, then- associate counsel for the legal staff. “It is the integrity of our cases that is at stake and we cannot afford anything less than full accuracy.”

GMAC Mortgage is facing new allegations in court documents that it evicted homeowners without verifying that borrowers actually defaulted or whether the firm had legal standing to seize the homes. Ally, the Detroit-based auto and home lender, said this week it found a “technical” deficiency in its foreclosure process allowing employees to sign documents without a notary present or with information they didn’t personally know was true.

Loan Industry

Ally declined to say how many loans may be affected. The firm, formerly known as GMAC Inc., ranked fourth among U.S. home-loan originators in the first six months of this year with $26 billion, and fifth among loan servicers, with a $349.1 billion portfolio, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry newsletter. It’s also the beneficiary of more than $17 billion in U.S. bailout funds.

Servicers conduct billing and collections on mortgages, sometimes for other firms that actually own the loans, and handle foreclosures when borrowers default.

Gina Proia, a spokeswoman for Ally, confirmed that a policy directive was issued in 2006, “but we recently became aware of a breakdown in the process. The process has since been addressed and the prior practice is no longer taking place.”

Mark Paustenbach, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department, which owns 56.3 percent of Ally, declined to comment. Kim Fennebresque, a director named by the Treasury to serve as an independent board member, didn’t return calls.

In a statement earlier this week, Proia said “the entire situation is unfortunate and regrettable and GMAC Mortgage is diligently working to resolve the situation,” and that “there was never any intent on the part of GMAC Mortgage to bypass court rules or procedures.” Florida was among the 23 states where evictions have been halted.

Verification

Lawyers defending borrowers have accused mortgage firms including GMAC and JPMorgan Chase & Co. of foreclosing on homeowners without making proper efforts to verify the accuracy of the documents. In foreclosure cases, companies typically file affidavits to start court proceedings. Affidavits are statements written and sworn in the presence of someone authorized to administer an oath, such as a notary public.

The 2006 case stems from a GMAC Mortgage foreclosure that began in August 2004 on a home owned by Robert and Lillian Jackson. The filing included an affidavit signed by a GMAC officer laying out the amount owed on the loan.

Florida Circuit Court Judge Bernard Nachman sanctioned GMAC in May 2006, saying that the company “submitted false testimony to the court in the form of affidavits of indebtedness.” The company was ordered to submit an explanation and confirmation that the policies were changed, and told to pay defendants’ legal costs of $8,135.55.

Legal Directive

GMAC’s legal department issued a statement afterward that told employees “not to sign verifications on court pleading documents unless you have independently reviewed and checked the facts.” The policy, distributed in June 2006, also stated in italics and boldface that employees should sign documents only in the presence of a notary. GMAC told the court four years ago that the policies were “being corrected.”

In December 2009, a GMAC Mortgage employee said in a deposition that his team of 13 people signed about 10,000 affidavits and other foreclosure documents a month without verifying their accuracy. The employee’s supervisor is the same executive sanctioned in the 2006 case.

GMAC’s internal review discovered the new discrepancies “a few months ago” and halted the practice, according to Proia’s statement earlier this week. Barden, who wrote the 2006 directive, and the two employees still work at GMAC, Proia said. Barden didn’t return a request for comment left on his work phone.

GMAC Impact

“They’re acting like this is a new problem,” said O. Max Gardner III, a bankruptcy attorney at Gardner & Gardner PLLC in Shelby, North Carolina, who isn’t directly involved in either GMAC case. “It’s the exact same thing,” Gardner said. “This is not just a GMAC problem. This is an industry-wide problem.”

Deborah Rhode, a Stanford University law professor and director of the school’s Center on the Legal Profession, said GMAC Mortgage’s behavior may amount to misleading the court.

“It’s not ‘technical’ when people attest under oath to knowledge they don’t have, and it doesn’t matter that in fact there isn’t actual error or discrepancy,” Rhode said. “Any court would take this very seriously.”

Judges could decide to dismiss the foreclosures, sanction the attorneys and company or levy a “substantial” financial penalty that would “get their attention,” she said.

The U.S. took control of Ally as part of a larger effort to prop up auto manufacturers. On a national level, regulators and lawmakers are trying to persuade bankers to avert foreclosures as seizures of homes by banks set records. Bank repossessions climbed 25 percent in August from a year earlier to 95,364, according to RealtyTrac Inc., the Irvine, California-based data provider.

Exelon Plans Debt Sale to Buy Deere Wind-Power Unit

Bloomberg

Three wind projects set to begin in Michigan

Exelon Corp., the largest U.S. producer of nuclear power, plans to sell $900 million of 10- and 31-year debt to fund its purchase of a Deere & Co. wind-power unit.

The bonds may be issued as soon as today through Exelon Generation Co. according to a person familiar with the transaction. John Deere Renewables LLC will cost $860 million with an additional $40 million if Deere starts constructing three projects in Michigan, Exelon said today in a regulatory filing that didn’t specify the debt offering’s size or timing.

Exelon’s acquisition marks the Chicago-based company’s first foray into owning and operating wind projects, it said in an Aug. 31 statement. The 735 megawatts of wind capacity, enough to power as many as 220,000 homes in eight U.S. states, will add to 2012 profit and advances Exelon’s 2008 promise to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, according to the statement.

“We took this deal to the rating agencies well in advance of doing it,” Bill Von Hoene, Exelon’s executive vice president for finance and legal, said at a conference on Sept. 15. “They concluded, as did we, that it was credit neutral.”

The notes may be rated A3 by Moody’s Investors Service and BBB by Standard & Poor’s, said the person, who declined to be identified because terms aren’t set.

The acquisition will make Exelon the 13th-biggest wind generator in the U.S., Von Hoene said in the call.

Task Force: Michigan Ready for Plug-In Vehicles

The Detroit News

Members of the Michigan Plug-in Electric Vehicle Preparedness Task Force said today that Michigan is ready for the first plug-ins to roll off assembly lines this fall.

Members of the task force, which formed earlier this year and includes representatives from the automakers, state, utilities, nonprofits and environmental groups, as well as electrical inspectors and contractors, said that work jointly accomplished behind the scenes should make it easy for Michigan residents to drive and charge their plug-ins.

Special plug-in charging rates have been set for Consumers Energy and Detroit Edison customers, and there are utility incentive programs to help defray the cost of a charging station and installation.

Automakers also are helping with charging stations. Ford Motor Co., for example, will provide free home charging stations and installation for the first 5,000 customers who buy the plug-in Ford Transit Connect, said Charles Gray, chief engineer of hybrid programs for Ford.

At the state level, the House of Representatives is considering a bill that would provide those who pay the Michigan Business Tax and install a public charging station a MBT credit of up to 30 percent of the cost and installation.

And modifications to the state building code to allow home charging stations to be installed on a separately metered circuit are before the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, said Michigan Public Service Commission Chairman Orjiakor Isiogu.

"The goal is to have the code amended and effective before (plug-ins are) commercially available," he said.