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In its first financial report without Aol in a decade, Time Warner Inc. raised its dividend as it reported quarterly sales and profit Wednesday that rose from a year earlier and beat Wall Street’s forecasts.

The media conglomerate’s strong quarter was led by robust revenue and earnings from the television and film divisions — the company’s two strongest units. Cost-cutting, including roughly 500 job cuts, at Time Warner’s publishing division, Time Inc., bolstered profit in that unit even as sales decreased.

"We began 2009 with an ambitious agenda and we achieved what we set out to do," said CEO Jeff Bewkes on a conference call with investors. "Time Warner is in a better position than ever … and industry trends are going our way."

For the full year, Time Warner said it expects earnings per share to grow in the "mid-teens" after posting adjusted earnings per share of $1.83 for 2009. The company’s 2010 forecast roughly matches what analysts expect: a 16% rise to $2.12 per share in 2010, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

Shares of Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500) fell 1% in midday trading.

The recession had cut sharply into Time Warner’s media subscriptions and advertising sales, but the company signaled that the worst was likely over by forecasting improved profits, reporting better-than-expected financial results for the quarter and by raising its dividend.

Time Warner raised its dividend by 13.3%, or 2.5 cents, to 21.25 cents per share per quarter. For the year, Time Warner will issue dividends worth 85 cents per share, up from 75 cents.

The outlook for the media company has improved after completing two spinoffs of non-core units during the year and restructuring Time Inc. In early December, Time Warner let go of the revenue-draining Aol (AOL) unit, and in March spun off its cable service provider Time Warner Cable (TWC).

The 2001 AOL-Time Warner merger is widely considered to be the worst in history, but it was ultimately Bewkes’ focus on a "new content-focused Time Warner" that brought the short-lived marriage to an end.

By the numbers

The New York-based parent company of CNNMoney.com and Fortune said its net income rose to $627 million, or 53 cents per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a $16 billion loss in the year-earlier quarter.

Excluding a charge of 2 cents per share, Time Warner said it earned 55 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time items from their estimates, forecasted earnings of 52 cents per share.

The company said adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA), a commonly used profit metric for media companies, rose 35% to $1.5 billion, matching analysts’ expectations.

Time Warner’s sales rose 2% to $7.3 billion, topping analysts’ forecasts of $7.2 billion.

Sales were mostly boosted by the company’s filmed entertainment segment, which includes film studio Warner Bros. Revenue rose 7% in the division, led by strong box office sales of "Sherlock Holmes" and best picture Oscar nominee "The Blind Side." DVD sales of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "The Hangover" also bolstered overall revenue.

Time Warner’s television networks, which include CNN and other Turner programming, also performed well in the quarter. Sales grew 4% on an 11% rise in cable subscriptions, which more than offset a 4% drop in advertising sales.

The biggest decline in sales came from the Time Inc. unit, in which revenue fell 13%. Ad sales fell 12% at the company’s publishing arm, and subscriptions were down 6% in the quarter.

But last quarter’s restructuring of Time Inc. helped grow profits and adjusted OIBDA in the quarter. It was the first time the publishing unit’s earnings and adjusted OIBDA rose on a year-over-year basis since the first quarter of 2008. 

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Bank of Florida Corp. reported a net loss for the year ended Dec. 31 of $108.7 million, or $8.51 a share, compared with a net loss of $13.2 million, or $1.03 a share for 2008.

The financial results for 2009 were mostly significantly impacted by a $62 million goodwill impairment charge recorded during the third quarter, the company said in a release. The increase in the net loss for 2009 also was due to a $49.2 million increase in the provision for loan losses, the release said.

For the fourth quarter, Bank of Florida reported a net loss of $19.8 million, or $1.55 a share, compared with a net loss of $10 million, or 78 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Bank of Florida (NASDAQ: BOFL) is a $1.4 billion-asset multibank holding company headquartered in Naples. One of its subsidiaries, Bank of Florida-Tampa Bay, has $252 million in assets and two offices in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

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Leaders of a new Western New York trade group representing small manufacturers were installed at the organization’s inaugural meeting Jan. 26.

Matt Gehman, president and owner of Metal Locking Service Inc., of Buffalo, and John Goller, president of Arrow Grinding Inc., in the city of Tonawanda, were installed as co-presidents of the 60-member Buffalo Niagara Manufacturing Alliance.

Officers and a six-member board also were elected.

The new organization is a joint venture of the National Tooling and Machining Association’s Buffalo chapter and most members of the Machine Shop Association of Western New York.

The group’s goal is to have 100 members within three years and to put the Buffalo-Niagara region “back on the map as the place to go for machining and manufacturing needs, to create a large networking pool and to establish advocacy for our group with local and federal government,” said spokesperson Crystal Newman, Metal Locking’s marketing manager.

Machine Shop Association, which Newman said disbanded after formation of the new organization, was established in 1912.

The Buffalo chapter of the NTMA, which represents the U.S. precision custom manufacturing industry, still exists but with a smaller membership, she said.

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Complete Landscaping Systems Inc. expects to close soon on its nearly $500,000 purchase of the adjacent Second Street building that is occupied by Baldridge Electric Inc. The price also includes buying the Complete Landscaping building at 1727 E. Second, which the company had been leasing. Acquiring the 8,000-square foot site next door will nearly double the Complete Landscaping’s space. The additional space at 1717 E. Second will allow Complete to accommodate the Green Thumb Lawn and Landscaping operation, which it recently purchased for $1 million.

The two companies have close to 150 employees. Complete Landscaping made nearly $10 million is sales in 2009 and serves customers in 11 states, primarily in the Midwest and Northeast. The company hopes to more than double its revenue in 2010. The company says acquiring Green Thumb will further spur growth. Complete Landscaping has been in business for 27 years.

The company was named earlier this year one of 15 finalists for the Wichita Business Journal’s 2009 Best in Business awards payday loans. It was named in August to Inc. Magazine’s 5,000 list, which ranks the fastest-growing, privately held companies in the United States. Complete Landscaping ranked No. 1,582 — No. 87 in the construction category — and has grown 202 percent since 2005. Revenue was $2.7 million in 2008. Baldridge, meanwhile, continues its search for a new location.

Owner George Baldridge says the company is considering six or seven possible locations — likely smaller than the 8,000 square feet he is selling. He says Complete won’t move in until his company, which is not closing, finds a new location. The company has been at its Second Street location for about 18 years.

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Editor's note: This story is part of a special section included with the Jan. 22 print edition of the Phoenix Business Journal. For more on the print edition: jbertolino@bizjournals.com.

Paul Smiley understands on a personal level what Luke Air Force Base means to the economy.

Smiley, a military retiree, and his partner, Peter Ehrenfeld, started Sonoran Technology and Professional Services in Goodyear two years ago to offer technical support primarily to the military. They get the bulk of their business from Luke.

It has branched out from there, but Smiley, the company’s president and CEO, said building relationships through Luke created a good foundation for his business — and Luke has been a good foundation for the local market.

“There is no global economy without a local economy,” he said.

In 2002, the first economic impact study of Arizona’s military bases conducted by the Maguire Co. for the Arizona Department of Commerce pegged their input into the state’s economic system at $5.7 billion. In 2008, a revised study found the military industry was infusing

$9.1 billion in direct and indirect economic impact into the state. Those numbers make the military Arizona’s largest industrial group.

Luke’s economic impact was reported as $2.1 billion in the 2008 study. The facility got its start as a World War II training base and now trains F-16 fighter jet pilots.

Preserving value

West Valley officials had always known Luke had intrinsic value to the region beyond security.

“I don’t think we ever put a number on it, but we weren’t surprised,” said Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs.

The initial Maguire study led the region and state to work together to keep all of the state’s military bases — including Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson and the U cash advance.S.

Army’s Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista — off the Base Realignment and Closure list in the early part of the 2000s.

All were spared, but now Luke is fighting for survival once again.

The military has chosen a new fighter, the F-35, to replace most of its fighter and bomber jets, including the F-16. Several bases across the country, including Luke along with bases in Idaho, Florida and even Tucson, are jockeying for the right to host pilot and mechanic training for the F-35.

The outcome could dramatically alter the future of Luke as an ongoing military installation.

“Sometimes, I think we have to go back and sell that (economic) message again,” Scruggs said. “The military is somewhat invisible. You don’t really see it every day.”

60 percent boost

According to the 2008 Maguire study, Luke directly employs 10,281 people, and money from those employees is filtered into the local economy by way of direct and indirect purchases. The base’s greatest impacts are in the retail, service and real estate industries, where it pumps roughly $1.1 billion into the economy.

“When you see how the money cycles around the economy, and the services it goes to, it was impressive,” said Deb Sydenham, assistant deputy director of the Arizona Department of Commerce.

The jump in the combined economic impact reported for the state’s three bases from 2002 to 2008 was roughly

60 percent — in part because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have kept the military active, and in part because base officials better understood during the second study how to recognize the impact they were having, Sydenham said.

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Consumers scored a few unexpected victories in a set of Federal Reserve rules issued earlier this week.

The Fed issued 1,155 pages of rules Tuesday telling banks how to comply with new laws regulating credit cards that go into effect on Feb. 22. In a handful of cases, in which the law was unclear, federal regulators used their discretion to go a step further to protect consumers.

One little-known practice that the Fed banned: Card issuers won’t be allowed to set minimum interest rates.

"I was pretty pleased with that," said Nick Bourke, co-author of the Pew Charitable Trusts credit card study. "These floors simply didn’t meet the requirements of the law."

The Fed will also prevent banks from automatically enrolling consumers in over-the-limit programs that charge regular fees. The Fed will also make it more difficult for banks to exert control over interest rates based on changing indicators, such as the prime rate.

Banking industry experts agreed that the Fed tended to side with consumers in creating the new rules implementing credit card laws.

"This demonstrates the Fed is trying to anticipate moves and err on the side of consumers," said Nessa Feddis, vice president and senior counsel for the American Bankers Association.

New laws

Congress passed new laws last spring cracking down on banks’ ability to hike interest rates.

Starting Feb. 22, a consumer’s rate won’t be hiked just because a cell phone bill was paid late. In fact, a bank won’t be able to raise rates, even if a consumer is late paying a credit card bill, until 60 days have passed.

In addition, monthly statements will clearly indicate how long it would take for a consumer to pay off his balance making only minimum payments.

But the new laws give wiggle room for rate hikes when it comes to so-called variable-rate cards, which offer interest rates based on a financial indicator, such as the prime rate, which rises and falls with the health of the U.S. economy.

Since the prime rate is at 3.25%, a historic low, experts predict credit card rates based on the prime will increase once the Federal Reserve starts raising rates, perhaps as early as this year. With the new credit card laws about to kick in, banks have been hiking interest rates and switching customers into prime rate-based cards.

Floors: Consumer groups had complained that banks were fiddling with credit card rates that were supposed to be beyond the banks’ control by instituting minimum rates or "floors."

The Fed agreed with the groups, so the floors will go away Feb. 22.

A recent Pew Charitable Trusts study found that more than a third of the largest card issuers had instituted minimum interest rates. In December 2008, only 10% of banks had such a floor.

The industry considers these minimum interest rates a way of accounting for the inherent risk in credit card lending.

But consumer groups said that minimum interest rates conflict with the law’s intention to allow these rates to rise and fall based on fluctuations in the prime rate.

Pick a rate: The Fed also agreed with consumer groups that banks shouldn’t have the upper hand when it comes to picking which prime rate should apply to an interest rate.

Some banks had adopted a practice in which they got to choose the prime rate to be applied, picking a day with the highest rate during a long period, such as 90 days. That picking practice gives banks more opportunity to ensure that a higher interest rate is applied.

"Instead of picking an index on a specific day, they’d take the index and say, we want the maximum interest rate for the last three months," said Joshua Frank, a senior analyst for the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit advocacy group.

The new Fed rules prohibit card issuers from such picking, at least for existing balances on cards. If banks want to try such a move with future credit card purchases, the banks would first have to give consumers 45 days advance notice, which officials say makes the practice less likely.

Feddis said losing the ability to pick the prime rate isn’t a big deal for most banks, and only garnered them about an extra 50 cents on a $2,000 balance.

Opt-in: Consumers also will not be automatically enrolled in credit card programs that offer the option to charge beyond credit limits.

Similar to overdraft protection for checking accounts, such programs often charge regular monthly fees that consumers may not notice. Starting on Feb. 22, card issuers will be required to ask consumers if they want such over-the-limit protection on their credit cards.

Consumer groups called the new opt-in rule an unexpected coup.

The move could ding banks, said Feddis of the American Bankers Association. They won’t be able to charge an over-the-limit fee, even if they accidentally process and clear a charge for a cardholder who is beyond his credit limits, the Fed rule stated. 

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Swiss Post Solutions Inc. has opened a D.C. office at 1875 Eye St. NW to support its client roster in the mid-Atlantic region.

New York City-based Swiss Post Solutions, which provides office support services, opened operations in more than a dozen cities last year.

The D.C. office currently employs several account managers, supporting Swiss’ four local clients in the legal and financial markets. The D.C. office is expected to remain small for the first year or so, with sales and operations staff guaranteed online personal loans.

The D.C. office will be run by Jamie Lawless, vice president of strategic markets. The firm scored its first D.C.-area client three years ago and the rest came on board in the past year or so.

Swiss Post Solutions is a subsidiary of the Swiss Post organization, a $7.5 billion organization headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.

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Employers once again slashed a substantial number jobs off their payrolls in December, according to a disappointing report from the government Friday. But there was a small glimmer of hope as well.

The payroll number for November was revised to a net gain of 4,000 jobs. That’s the first increase in jobs in nearly two years. The government had previously indicated that 11,000 jobs were lost in November.

Still, the government reported a loss of 85,000 jobs in December — much worse than expected. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected no net gain or loss in payrolls in December.

The economy has lost 7.2 million jobs since the start of 2008. Losses for 2009 alone came to 4.2 million jobs, the most in one year since the government started tracking payrolls in 1939.

But even with the poor end to the year, the pace of job losses has slowed dramatically from the beginning of 2009. There were 741,000 jobs lost in January, the worst total in 60 years.

Some economists said that this broader trend is more important than the bigger-than-expected losses in December.

"I don’t see this as a setback. We’re still on the right trend here," said Tig Gilliam, CEO of Adecco Group North America, a unit of the world’s largest employment staffing firm.

Gilliam said he’s expecting job growth to resume in the first three months of this year, perhaps as early as February, and that gains of about 200,000 to 300,000 jobs a month by the middle of this year are possible.

"Our clients are still cautious, still concerned about the strength of the recovery," he said. "But they’re much more focused on adding resources."

But other economists said this report showed how weak the economy and labor market continues to be two years after the start of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

"There is still plenty to be concerned about. Layoffs have clearly slowed but hiring shows few signs of accelerating," said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo Securities.

The unemployment rate stayed at 10% in the December, in line with economists’ forecasts.

It could have risen except for the fact that many people who want jobs stopped looking and were no longer counted as unemployed. That group of people wanting a job but are not counted in the labor force rose by 263,000 to a record 6.3 million.

Another 9.2 million people are stuck working part-time jobs when they want full-time work. Including discouraged workers and those not able to find the full-time job they want, the so-called underemployment rate rose to 17.3% from 17.2% in November.

Long-term unemployment also worsened in December, with those out of work for more than six months rising to a record 6.1 million. The typical unemployed worker has been out of work for five months.

Construction and manufacturing, two sectors of the economy particularly hard hit during the recession, again suffered large job losses in December. Construction lost 53,000 jobs while employment in manufacturing fell by 27,000 jobs.

But the losses were not limited to those areas. Retail employment fell by 10,000 jobs on a seasonally-adjusted basis, even with the holiday shopping season in full swing. The leisure and hospitality industries cut 25,000 workers.

Perhaps the most encouraging news from December was a 46,5000 net increase in temporary help jobs. Temporary employment is typically seen as a leading indicator of job growth because employers will add part-time workers before they’re willing to hire permanent employees.

While most economists believe that the recession ended at some point in the middle of 2009, the labor market generally doesn’t turn as quickly as the overall economy. Employers often wait to make sure of improved conditions before adding staff once again.

But the disappointing numbers for December raise worries that continued problems in the labor market could keep economic growth weak for much of this year, perhaps even leading to a so-called double dip recession.

Even if there isn’t another recession, a so-called jobless recovery can feel like a recession for the typical American worker. After the 2001 recession ended, job losses continued for nearly two years and resulted in 1.1 million additional job losses.

Christina Romer, chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, called the December job loss a "slight setback" in a statement. But she pointed out that quarterly job losses steadily declined throughout the year.

"The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative," she said. "It is essential that we continue our efforts to move in the right direction and replace job losses with robust job gains."

But Republicans argued the report shows that the administration’s stimulus package passed by Congress on mostly party lines at the start of 2009 is costing jobs instead of helping.

"A jobless recovery is a far cry from what the American people were promised last winter when Washington Democrats jammed through a trillion-dollar ’stimulus’ that they said would create jobs ‘immediately,’" said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R- OH) in a statement. "Instead, roughly 3 million Americans have lost their jobs since then, and joblessness remains in the double-digits."

The House passed a $154 billion jobs bill at the end of December that includes about $48 billion in infrastructure spending and another $27 billion in help to the states to prevent the layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters. There is also $79 billion in additional benefits and health insurance assistance for the unemployed.

The measure will be considered by the Senate after it returns to session Jan. 19. 

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Greece’s debt situation isn’t much worse than Italy’s even after downgrades to its credit ratings in the past month, Nomura Holdings Inc. economist Peter Westaway said.

“If we look at public-sector debt and interest payments, Greece isn’t doing particularly worse than Italy,” Westaway, a former Bank of England official, told reporters at a briefing in London today. “The concern of an imminent default is overblown.”

Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings all lowered their ratings on Greece’s debt in December. Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou this week rejected speculation the country will need a bailout to tackle the budget deficit, the biggest in the European Union no teletrack payday loans.

“We believe a default is still some way away,” said Westaway. “There are fiscal issues that need to be addressed but it’s really a pan-European thing.”

Greece has pledged to cut its deficit to 8.7 percent of gross domestic product this year from 12.7 percent in 2009 and push it below the European Union’s 3 percent limit by 2012.

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At the start of 2009, who could have imagined that we’d actually have reasons to look back at the year fondly?

It began with much to be worried about — the health of Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) and other big financials; looming bankruptcies at GM and Chrysler; a stock market at its lowest point since 1997; and a labor market hemorrhaging jobs.

But heading into the year’s final days, optimism reigns supreme. The S&P 500 is up 23.5% this year, the worst appears to be over for big banks and Detroit and many economists are even predicting growth for the overall economy and job market in 2010.

Still, people should not get overly excited.

As I wrote in late November, many investing experts think that it’s unlikely the market will do as well in 2010 as it did this year. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be another bear run next year. Rather, returns for stocks may be relatively mundane.

There are several reasons why that may be the case. But the biggest one is that there needs to be more compelling evidence that the economy is really improving as opposed to just holding steady after the precipitous plunge in 2008.

And investors may be ignoring some of the risks. First and foremost, it’s not yet clear if the economy’s 2.2% growth in the third quarter is sustainable.

Some worry that the economic rebound is merely a byproduct of government spending, not consumer spending. After all, retail sales during the holiday season were not exactly robust.

"The signs of underlying demand — absent federal stimulus — continue to be pretty soft," said Keith Hembre, chief economist with First American Funds in Minneapolis.

Hembre also fears that the housing market is still incredibly weak, which could dampen any chances of a strong recovery. He argues that the relatively strong sales for existing homes last month was driven by foreclosures. New home sales, on the other hand, fell 11%

Ted Parrish, co-manager of the Henssler Equity fund, agreed that housing is the big wild card for 2010.

Parrish said that he’s not sure just yet what will happen to the housing market once the Federal Reserve stops buying mortgage-backed securities early next year. Many credit the Fed’s purchases with helping to keep mortgage rates relatively low.

"Right now, the government is buying all these mortgage-backed securities and that is still propping up the housing market business cards. It will be interesting to see what happens to rates after that."

Beyond housing, there are concerns about what impact all of this year’s massive stimulus spending will have on the long-term health of the U.S. economy.

John Derrick, director of research with U.S. Global Investors in San Antonio, said that there is the potential for a so-called "double-dip recession", i.e. another economic downturn following a brief period of growth.

Derrick said he is fairly optimistic that there won’t be such a dip, but he does think there is reason to be worried about what interest rates at zero percent combined with the trillions of dollars pumped into the system by the Fed could do to the dollar.

"Things don’t look too bad for the next 6 to 12 months," he said. "But there is an argument that the Fed and government engineered a stop-gap measure to save the economy and delayed the inevitable. There is a potential for debasing the currency."

Given the dollar’s weakness this year, some could argue the greenback is already debased. For that reason, Parrish said one of his key worries is that any more spending that drastically increases the federal budget deficit could lead some foreign investors to bail on the dollar.

Now don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean that the economy is going to have another tailspin next year. It just means that the expectations for a blockbuster recovery may be off the mark.

Hembre said he thinks that growth will be strong in the first half of the year but will taper off a bit in the second half. Overall, he’s predicting about a 2% average growth rate for the whole year.

That’s not bad, especially when you consider how bleak things were in late 2008 and earlier this year. But it still does show that there is a big disconnect between Wall Street’s bullish take on the economy and the more skeptical view many consumers have.

"We’re on the right side of the economic cycle right now," Derrick said. "But the average individual may still be looking for jobs or not getting pay raises."  

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