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Community Bank to issue $50 million in new stock

Written on January 19, 2012 – 5:56 am | by Stephanie Brodribb

Community Bank to issue $50 million in new stock DeWitt, NY — Community Bank System, Inc. will issue more than 1.8 million shares of stock to pay for its recently announced purchase of 19 HSBC branches across Upstate New York.

Community Bank said it will price 1.852 million shares of common stock at $27 per share to bring in $50 million.

The stock sale is expected to be ready for market Friday, the parent of Community Bank said in a release issued Monday.

The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CBU. It traded above $28 for much of the day on Tuesday. In the past year, the stock closed as low as $21.67.

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Tags: 50 Million, New Stock, Stock

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S&P, Greece pressure euro zone to boost defenses

Written on January 18, 2012 – 7:18 am | by Ashley Johnson

– Mass euro zone ratings downgrades are unlikely to shake up investors too much, but with Greek debt talks at an impasse, pressure has been loaded on the bloc to shore up its defenses and glimmers of optimism from last week have been firmly doused.

With the United States and Japan already downgraded from “AAA,” the likes of France and Austria are in good company and Standard & Poor’s ratings cuts had been flagged in December. Nonetheless, the upbeat tone that surrounded last week’s strong Spanish bond auction now seems a distant memory.

“The euro zone crisis is now dominating market activity again, after a period in which better economic news from the U.S., and easier monetary policy in China had helped markets move higher,” said Dominic Rossi, chief investment officer, equities, at Fidelity Worldwide Investment.

Shares in Asia fell more than 1 percent on Monday in reaction to the S&P downgrades and the euro hovered near a 17-month low against the dollar.

U.S.

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Tags: Defenses, Euro Zone

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Airwaves clear slightly for community radio

Written on January 14, 2012 – 3:36 pm | by Michael Harris

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Mild-mannered community activist Albert Knighten found himself in handcuffs last month when police and federal agents raided his home and shut down a pirate radio station he operated out of a spare bedroom. Supporters say his bare-bones operation filled an important niche in a predominantly black section of Fort Myers, a community whose residents often feel overlooked and underserved by commercial radio.

The retired Navy air traffic controller, now facing a felony charge of operating the station without a license, is front and center in the efforts of a national community radio advocacy group to highlight a law that clears more space on crowded radio dials and gives low-power operators the first opportunity in more than a decade to get licensed.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to start taking applications for the new stations sometime this fall. P

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Tags: Radio

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The Square takes a swipe at taming transaction fees

Written on January 13, 2012 – 1:22 am | by Stephanie Brodribb

Urban Bean manager Liz Abene started hunting for a new way to process card payments after the coffee shop’s transaction fees skyrocketed. It was costing $60 a month, she said, just to have the credit card equipment on the counter.

Her solution: the small, white, cube-shaped card reader called Square.

Resembling an oversized piece of Chiclets gum, the Square is one of several new approaches that offer small retailers alternatives to complete reliance on traditional payment providers such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express.

The companies — including eBay’s PayPal, ProPay and SparkBase — are part of a brewing battle over how we pay for things in person. The volume of mobile card payments surged by more than half in 2011 to $86.1 billion, according to tech researcher Gartner Inc., as small businesses look for ways to get around transaction fees for card payments.

Eric Grover, a payments consultant with Intrepid Ventures in Minden, Nev., said the potential market is “huge.” Still, he sees Square, which processes payments through a subsidiary of J.P.

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Tags: Fees, Transaction Fees

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Petrol chain wins ‘fake’ Coke injunction

Written on January 10, 2012 – 7:37 pm | by Michael Harris

The United Petroleum chain of service stations has won an injunction banning Today Tonight from airing a story which claims United is tricking customers by selling fake Coca-Cola.

The Victorian Supreme Court agreed to United’s legal bid to ban the show after hearing evidence that Seven’s Today Tonight had conducted an investigation of a number of its stores, including filming one customer with a hidden camera.

In ads on its website Today Tonight claimed that: ”consumers are being tricked into buying fake foreign products that are infiltrating our stores by appearing exactly the same as the big brands”.

Contact the reporter:

But United’s national merchandise manager, Mark Harris, said in an affidavit that the chain had clearly advised Today Tonight that it did not sell any fake or inferior Coke products.

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Tags: Injunction

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