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IMPERIAL — John V. Price won’t sell you a house. But he’ll sell you a place to build your dream home.

Price, 62, owns Price Acreage LLC, a family-operated business that has been developing semi-rural and suburban home sites in Jefferson and St. Francois counties.

The company subdivides large tracts of wooded land, extends roads and utilities to the rural site, and then sells individual plots of one to six acres each to buyers who later contract with their own homebuilders.

"The freedom to build what they want when they want to build" attracts buyers, Price said. "The lots are big, and different house styles in that environment don’t clash."

He first got into the real estate business with his father, Homer V. Price, who developed subdivisions and home sites in Jefferson County for nearly 50 years before his death in 2004. Among Homer Price’s developments was Olympian Village during the 1960s. After this father’s death, John Price founded Price Acreage.

John Price’s latest project is the Hollows at Frisco Hill subdivision in the Imperial area.

He said the 48 large, heavily wooded lots at the Hollows were particularly attractive because the development is less than 15 minutes from south St. Louis County.

The access roads and utilities are now in place, and the first lots are being sold.

Five deals have closed on the lots since they went on the market early in December, Price said. He said he expected construction of the first houses in the development to start this month, weather permitting.

"It’s a great, great location," he said. "It’s extremely convenient to everything."

The 90-acre development is just southwest of the intersection of Frisco Hill Road and Ambrose Crossing, along the new Frisco Hollows Road that serves the site.

The lots sell for about $69,000 to more than $140,000 each, depending on the size. The average cost of a lot is about $80,000.

Price said that was a good deal — coupled with housing construction costs of $200,000 or so — for a big house on a big lot near the city.

The Hollows does have some restrictions on construction. Houses must have a minimum of 2,000 square feet of floor space and garages that hold at least two cars.

A large range of home styles is allowed, but also within some restrictions on building materials and designs.

Eventually, a property committee of at least three Hollows property owners will be formed to maintain the subdivision roads. The committee also will collect subdivision assessments to be established for community expenditures, such as electric bills for street lights, common ground maintenance, snow removal and road repairs, Price said.

So far, most of the buyers and prospective buyers he’s worked with already live in the Imperial area, Price said. They know about the convenience of the area and simply want to move up to nicer, more private homes at a reasonable cost, he said.

"Our customers are generally pretty sophisticated, and they know what lots cost here and elsewhere," Price said.

The developers had tried to maintain the natural woods as much as possible in subdividing the site and building access roads, said Jeff Price, 27, who works with his father on the Hollows.

"We build to the land, not through the land," he said. "We strive for quality over quantity."

Jeff Price said the trees that did have to be removed for the development were ground into mulch for use by tract buyers.

"On many construction projects, that would have got hauled off and just thrown away," he said.

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South Korean banks may become more willing to finance acquisitions next year as the economy rebounds, said Morgan Stanley Executive Director Peter Chang.

Lenders may “begin to become more open over the next year on providing acquisition financing for deals,” Chang, 32, who oversees Morgan Stanley’s mergers and acquisitions advisory in South Korea, said in an interview in Seoul yesterday. “Improvements in the availability of financing will also help drive the overall level of M&A activity.”

South Korea’s benchmark stock index has jumped 47 percent this year as Asia’s fourth-largest economy leads a regional rebound from the deepest recession since the Great Depression. The economic recovery will fuel overseas takeovers by South Korean companies, Chang said.

“Korea’s economy has held up very well relative to other countries during the financial crisis,” he said. “We think that will create more opportunities for outbound M&A.”

South Korea’s growth will outpace all except China and India among the world’s 15 largest economies over the next two years, according to the International Monetary Fund. The average capital-adequacy ratio at the country’s 18 banks rose to 14.07 percent at the end of September, the highest since at least 2003, the Financial Supervisory Services said Nov. 25.

The ratio, which measures banks’ capital reserves against assets at risk, had fallen to as low as 10.86 percent a year earlier, forcing the government to set up a 20 trillion won ($17 billion) fund to replenish their capital.

Daewoo, Hynix

Morgan Stanley was the top adviser in mergers involving Korean companies this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The New York-based company advised Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. on its 451.6 million euro ($644 million) acquisition of Skoda Power AS of the Czech Republic, the South Korean company’s largest overseas takeover.

Not all companies expected to be up for sale next year will find buyers, Chang said. Korea Development Bank plans to select advisers this month for the sale of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world’s second-biggest shipbuilder. Hynix Semiconductor Inc. creditors are accepting letters of intent from potential bidders until Jan. 29.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said Dec. 16 the government will focus on selling control of Daewoo Shipbuilding, Hynix, Daewoo International Corp. and Daewoo Electronics Corp. next year.

“It remains to be seen if these deals can all be completed over the coming year,” Chang said. “Particularly for larger assets, there are typically only a limited number of parties who are logical, viable acquirers.”

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Hawaii stocks were mixed Friday as Wall Street was up slightly following a jump in retail sales.

Hawaii stocks seeing gains:

• Hawaiian Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: HA), parent company of Hawaiian Airlines, up 3.9 percent to $7.39.

• Bank of Hawaii Corp. (NYSE: BOH) up slightly to $45.57.

• Alexander & Baldwin (NYSE: ALEX) up slightly to $32.82.

• Territorial Bancorp (Nasdaq: TBNK), parent company of Territorial Savings Bank, was up slightly to $17.33.

• Cyanotech Corp. (Nasdaq: CYAN), was up 7.3 percent to $4.40.

• Maui Land & Pineapple (NYSE: MLP) up a bit to $5.85.

Hawaii stocks seeing declines:

• Hoku Scientific (Nasdaq: HOKU) was down 5 installment payday loans.3 percent at $2.47.

• Central Pacific Financial Corp. (NYSE: CPF) was down 1.6 percent to $1.16.

• Hawaiian Electric Industries (NYSE: HE), parent company of American Savings Bank and Hawaiian Electric Co., down slightly to $20.69.

• Barnwell Industries (Amex: BRN) was down slightly at $4.32.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 66 points at 10,472, the S&P 500 was up 4 points at 1,106 and the Nasdaq Composite Index closed down points at 2,190.

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Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling is considering a levy on bankers’ bonuses and this week may reverse a tax cut for Britain’s richest households in efforts to win over voters before next year’s election.

Darling yesterday refused to rule out a tax on excessive bonus payments, although he pledged to hold back from measures that would harm Britain’s banks. He said that lowering the inheritance tax for the richest people is no longer a priority for the Pre-Budget Report on Dec. 9.

“We are not going to be held to ransom by people who believe you can pay extremely large bonuses regardless of what’s going on,” Darling told BBC television yesterday. “You have to be fair. You have to be reasonable. But you have got to keep an eye on what the long term effects are.”

Darling and Prime Minister Gordon Brown are seeking to persuade voters that David Cameron’s Conservative Party, which is sticking to a similar inheritance tax plan, is siding with the rich at a time when the country is recovering from the worst economic crisis since World War II. That strategy has helped Brown’s Labour Party erode Cameron’s lead in opinion polls.

Darling said he has not yet seen bonus plans from government-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and that he has the power to veto any proposals he considers excessive. Darling has also said that he is opposed to punitive measures that would damage a bank’s capital position, making it less likely that he will introduce an industry-wide windfall tax.

“It’s not a black and white world,” Darling said.

‘Super-Tax’

The government may impose a one-year windfall tax on British banks that would raise several hundred million pounds, the BBC reported, without attribution. Options may include a “super-tax” on big bonus earners, a larger employers’ national insurance charge or a direct tax on investment banks, the BBC said.

George Osborne, the Conservative lawmaker who shadows Darling in Parliament, told the same program that he “wouldn’t rule out” a charge on excessive individual bonuses if his party defeats Labour in the election, which has to take place before June.

An ICM Research poll for the Sunday Telegraph showed that the Conservatives are on course to obtain a majority of between 20 and 25 seats in the 646-seat House of Commons. A ComRes Ltd. survey Dec. 1 showed that the U.K. may be heading for a so- called hung Parliament, with Cameron leading Brown by 10 percentage points, down 3 points from October.

Darling stepped up the attack yesterday, saying Osborne’s plea to voters to endure tougher times isn’t consistent with tax cuts for the rich.

Privileged Upbringing

A YouGov Plc poll in yesterday’s Sunday Times showed that more than half of the 2,000 people interviewed viewed the Conservatives as the party of the rich. Cameron said Brown had been “spiteful’ in his efforts to tell voters of his privileged upbringing and elite schooling.

“I really can’t believe it would be the first priority of any government, at this time, to give a tax cut to the top 2 percent of estates in this country,” Darling said yesterday.

Darling said in 2007 that he would raise the inheritance tax threshold to 350,000 pounds ($578,000) from 325,000 pounds for single people and to 700,000 pounds from 650,000 pounds for couples, starting April 2010. Cameron’s Conservatives want to abolish the tax for single people with estates below 1 million pounds and for couples with estates below 2 million pounds.

“If the Labour Party wants to say don’t aspire to get on in life, then so be it,” Osborne said. “It’s part of their lurch to the left.”

Cutting Waste

Darling said this week’s budget statement will spell out some detail on how he plans to implement his pledge to reduce the deficit by as much as half over four years. In April, the budget suggested the chancellor would have to find as much as 60 billion pounds to achieve this.

Darling has already announced tax increases that will account for about one-quarter of that amount, and has earmarked about 9 billion pounds by cutting waste in government departments, leaving him the challenge of finding a further 40 billion pounds by reducing government spending.

Darling told the BBC yesterday that he will scrap a 12.4 billion-pound computer program for the National Health Service that is being developed mainly by iSoft Plc. Similar reductions, rather than staff cuts in schools and hospitals, would indicate “the direction of travel” in this week’s report, he said.

“The NHS had quite an expensive IT system and I don’t think we need to go ahead with it now,” he said.

Brown later today will say that the government will slash other non-essential government programs as it seeks to reduce the deficit.

Fragile Economy

The government will “prioritize the necessities and postpone the things we can do without,” and it “will go further than we have ever gone before in streamlining central government,” Brown will say in a speech today.

Brown said on Dec. 4 in his weekly podcast that a plan to move more government services online would save about 400 million pounds a year.

Darling’s view is that the economy is too fragile to take more steps to repair the 175 billion-pound deficit this year, a Treasury official said this week. Darling will challenge the Labour government’s opponents to spell out their plans on what they plan to reduce, the official said.

The pound snapped two weeks of declines against the euro last week as industry reports showed that U.K. services and manufacturing industries expanded in November, indicating that the recovery is taking hold.

Winning Support

Darling’s approach, contrasting with Conservative Party calls to make deeper and faster cuts, won the support of two groups in London yesterday. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a London-based research group that counts the Treasury and the Bank of England as clients, said Darling should keep stimulating the economy during the next few months before reducing the deficit.

The British Chambers of Commerce said the government should refrain from cutting the fiscal deficit too quickly as the nation’s economic recovery faces “major risks,”

Darling will lower his forecast for the U.K. economy this year, saying the financial crisis has inflicted far deeper pain than he predicted in April, a government official said Nov. 27. Gross domestic product will fall 4.75 percent in 2009, compared with the 3.5 percent drop forecast seven months ago, the official said. Darling said yesterday that growth in 2010 will be “moderate.”

Treasury officials said last week that Darling will scale back his estimate for the cost of bailing out Britain’s banks to no more than 10 billion pounds, from 50 billion pounds.

The reduction in the sum set aside in the government’s accounts to pay for losses will shave about 40 billion pounds off the Treasury’s debt, now about 792 billion pounds, the officials said.

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One year after he was restructured out of the telecom sector and into unemployment, Bruce Bracken got a full-time job again.

His ordeal started in November 2008, as Canada’s unemployment rate began to rise. It ended in November 2009, when Bracken got one of the 79,100 new jobs Statistics Canada said was created last month across the country, with Toronto and Ontario leading the surge.

The remarkable growth, which one analyst called "stunning," dropped the national unemployment rate down a notch to 8.5 per cent, the federal agency said on Friday, though many predict this number will rise in 2010.

During his year working contracts, spending time with his two children, and volunteering with Habitat For Humanity, Bracken heard it all, including: "If we could hire two, we would hire you."

"I got a lot of silver medals," joked Bracken, 45, from the office of his new employer, Toronto-based Upstream Works Software.

His company’s decision was part of a surge in private sector hiring across the county, which saw 27,000 jobs created in Ontario – 21,000 of them in Toronto.

The bulk of Canada’s new jobs were created in the services sector, the agency said.

"It’s certainly encouraging, an economy can’t live off the government alone," said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, referring to the government stimulus projects that will likely not last through the next year.

He also cautioned monthly statistics such as these can be misleading and that multiple-month analysis is more accurate. Shenfeld said that after July, Canada has gained a steady 25,000 jobs per month.

By anyone’s calculation, November’s job growth is nowhere close to employing all those who lost jobs during the entire recession.

The country has lost 321,000 jobs since October 2008 payday loans for self employed.

And by Statistics Canada’s calculations, even Ontario’s strong growth was not enough to dent the province’s 9.3 per cent unemployment rate.

Toronto managed to shave 0.1 per cent off its higher unemployment rate, bringing it to 9.5 per cent.

In Ottawa, Transport Minister John Baird said the federal government is pleased with the numbers, but added: "We can’t, you know, pop the champagne corks."

The majority of these jobs – more than 73,000 of them across the country – were in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, and were mainly in the service sector, particularly education services.

However, this latter point could be what Shenfeld calls "statistical noise," or could reflect one of two things: either this is pickup from September’s academic hiring or it’s hiring to handle the surge of students fleeing the recession in postgraduate studies.

Full-time jobs increased by 39,000 and part-time unemployment grew by more than 40,000, all while the number of the self-employed dropped – which analysts said was positive, considering the self-employed are not as well paid.

On Dec. 1, Statistics Canada recorded third-quarter GDP growth of 0.1 per cent – 0.4 per cent at the annualized rate – which effectively put an end to the recession.

A recession is defined by at least two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.

In September, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development said Canada’s unemployment would only worsen throughout 2010.

With files from Susan Delacourt

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The U.S. Treasury on Monday set long-awaited guidance on a plan for mortgage companies to speed “short sales” of homes and other loan modification alternatives to stem a rising tide of foreclosures.

The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program provides financial incentives and simplifies the procedures for completing short sales, a growing practice in which a lender agrees to accept the sale price of a home to pay off a mortgage even if the price falls short of the amount owed, according to an announcement on the Treasury’s website.

Guidelines address barriers that have often sidelined short sales by setting limits on the time it takes a bank to approve an offer, freeing borrowers from debt and capping claims of subordinate lenders.

The incentives, first announced in May, expand on the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP, that has seen limited success in lowering payments for distressed homeowners. The Treasury earlier on Monday stepped up pressure on mortgage companies to make permanent the 650,000 trial modifications they have started.

“While HAMP program guidelines are intended to reach a broad range of at-risk borrowers, it is expected that servicers will encounter situations where they are unable to approve” or offer a modification, the Treasury said in its announcement.

Financial incentives for completing short sales or similar deed-in-lieu transactions — in which the deed is simply transferred to the lender — include a $1,000 payment to servicers, and a maximum of $1,000 to go to investors who sign off on payments to subordinate lien holders, the Treasury said. Borrowers would receive $1,500 in relocation expenses.

Short sales are favored by real estate agents and community groups over foreclosure because they can preserve the borrower’s credit rating and leave the property in better condition than when a homeowner is evicted. While primary lenders typically realize steep losses, their recovery is typically far better than under foreclosure.

But short sales have been frustrating for borrowers and real estate agents, often hung up by negotiations with multiple lien holders and mortgage insurance companies. Real estate agents have complained that sales fall through as lenders bicker over the sales price, what they should receive from the proceeds, and whether the borrower will be held accountable for the debt in the future.

Among requirements, mortgage servicers have 10 days to approve or disapprove a request for short sale, and when done the transaction must fully release the borrower from the debt.

It also prohibits mortgage servicing companies from reducing real estate commissions on the sale, a practice that has dissuaded many agents from taking short sale listings.

In one of the most contentious issues gumming up negotiations between lenders, the guidance caps the aggregate proceeds to subordinate lien holders at $3,000.

Second lien holders in recent months have begun demanding more money from the first lender, seller, buyer or agent in exchange for releasing their claim, agents have said. Because primary lenders would face larger losses in a foreclosure, some subordinate lenders have felt empowered, the agents said.

The largest second-lien holders are Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc.

Second lien holders may proceed with a short sale outside of the Treasury program, if they felt the cap was too low, a Treasury official said in October.

“If there was a short sale program that didn’t recognize the second lien holder position, it could have pretty damaging consequences for the industry,” Sanjiv Das, chief executive officer of CitiMortgage, said in an interview last week.

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Perhaps Barack Obama’s trip to China this month was not such a flop after all.

Obama was criticized for kowtowing to the Chinese and apparently returning empty-handed, but movement from Beijing last week on Iran’s nuclear program and climate change suggests the U.S. president got further than it seemed at first.

Obama went to China with three major issues on the table — economic relations, climate change and denuclearization — and seems to have made progress on at least two of them.

But analysts said it was unclear exactly how much the U.S. leader had actually influenced the Chinese, or what the long-term impact would be of what was announced last week.

“The Chinese were pressed in a very focused fashion on both of those issues,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“I think their position does reflect, in fact, the impact of the Obama visit and of American diplomacy,” he said.

China offered rare backing on Friday to a vote by the U.N. nuclear watchdog to rebuke Iran for building a uranium enrichment plant in secret, the first such vote against Tehran in almost four years.

China, like Russia, backed the measure, smoothing its 25-3 passage through the International Atomic Energy Agency and departing from an earlier pattern of blocking global attempts to isolate trading partner Iran.

Obama stressed in Beijing that Iran’s nuclear program could disrupt the Middle East and world energy supplies, experts and administration officials said.

The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had argued that Israel saw Iran’s nuclear ambitions as an existential threat, and implied Israel could one day attack Iran to disrupt those ambitions. That argument helped bring the Chinese on board to take a firmer line on Tehran, it reported.

“Obama pressed very hard with the Chinese,” Lieberthal said. “And they went the right way today.”

On Thursday, Beijing said Premier Wen Jiabao would go to U.N.-led climate talks in Copenhagen next month and offered its first firm carbon intensity target, pledging to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each yuan of national income by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

‘THESE THINGS ARE INCREMENTAL’

Washington gave only a guarded welcome to China’s emissions announcement, saying the world would watch progress by the top greenhouse gas emitter. Observers said measuring and verifying implementation would be central going forward.

Bonnie Glaser, a China expert and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said China’s 40-45 percent reduction target was disappointing, but it was a good sign that they made an announcement at all. 

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The stimulus cash that helped boost small business lending this year just ran out.

The Small Business Administration said Monday that it has run through all of the $375 million Congress allocated to temporarily waive fees and boost guarantees on loans backed by the SBA’s lending programs. Businesses still hoping for a slice of the pie can get in line, cross their fingers and wait.

The SBA backs loans made by banks to qualifying small businesses. If the business defaults, the government pays the bank back for the guaranteed potion of the loan. Typically, the SBA charges banks for this guarantee, but since February the agency has been using a pool of Recovery Act funds to eliminate those fees. The agency also temporarily increased its cap on the portion of a loan it will guarantee, raising it to 90%.

The move was a popular one with banks — though not popular enough to halt the freefall in small business lending. The stimulus incentives were in place for more than half of the SBA’s 2009 fiscal year (which ended Sept. 30), but the number of bank loans backed by the SBA still fell 36% compared to the previous year.

Still, SBA officials say the decline would have been even sharper without the incentives. Last week, the SBA backed more than $1 billion in small business loans. By comparison, the agency fielded $684.5 million in loans in all of January, the month before the stimulus measures kicked in.

The money running out wasn’t a surprise. The SBA knew its funding was getting low, and SBA chief Karen Mills put out a statement two weeks ago cautioning banks that the well would soon run dry. At the time, she forecast that the money would last into December. But last week, the SBA notified banks that Nov. 23 would be the "transition date" on which it would revert to its old fee and guarantee structure low rates payday advance.

The SBA would like to see Congress allocate money to extend the measures at least through February. "We are going to continue to work with Congress to appropriate funds to maintain the reduce fees and increased guarantee," said agency spokeswoman Hayley Matz.

Loan applications surged last week as lenders tried to push through as many as possible before the deadline. To allocate the last dollars left, the SBA on Monday launched a Recovery Loan Queue. Those left hanging — both business owners and the banks processing their loans — can check online to see where their application stands. Any applications that don’t make it through before the cash is exhausted will need to be resubmitted for a non-Recovery Act loan.

The SBA currently has 148 loans in queue, totaling $80.3 million.

Small business lending has plunged since the recession set in. At a Washington forum SBA Administrator Mills and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner convened last week to discuss the problem, bankers emphasized the important of continuing the SBA’s enhanced loan guarantees.

David Rader, the head of SBA lending at Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), pushed for an extension into 2011. Wells Fargo was the top SBA lender last year.

"We absolutely have increased our lending opportunities with the stimulus programs. The fee waivers for customers, the increased guarantee, is absolutely saving cash for our borrowers — and cash is king," said Rader at the forum. "I think it is imperative for this body to continue the fee waiver and the 90% guarantee stimulus." 

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News Corporation, the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, has engaged in early-stage discussions with Microsoft about a pact to get paid by Microsoft to remove its news content from Google’s search engine and be available on Bing, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke anonymously to discuss confidential negotiations.

Murdoch has been vocal of late about getting paid for the company’s content online. News Corporation owns many newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Times and The Sun in Britain.

The Financial Times first reported on the discussions, which involve Microsoft possibly paying News Corporation to index its content on Microsoft’s search engine, Bing. The development has the potential for the newspaper industry to finally generate revenue from online news beyond advertising.

A spokesperson for Microsoft was not immediately available for comment. A News Corporation spokeswoman declined to comment.

Microsoft executives have been clear about their intentions to pursue bold measures – and tap into the company’s vast cash reserves – to disrupt Google’s dominant position in the search market.

In a recent interview, Steven Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, noted that Google handled about six times as many search queries as Microsoft, while also producing more than six times as much revenue.

It’s unclear how a partnership with news organizations that fragmented search results and content on the Internet would be received. The notion of walled-off communities on the web falls into a thorny area of debate.

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FedEx Corp shares, which have more than doubled since a low in March, may climb further given the delivery company’s growing exposure to overseas markets such as China, Barron’s reported on Sunday.

FedEx shares benefited from cost cutting over the last 18 months and, as the economic recovery revives the company’s transportation business, the shares could get a boost of more than 20 percent to trade as high as $100, the newspaper reported.

The company is well-positioned to make the most of the economic recovery, and its considerable operating leverage means that when its revenue starts to rise, costs won’t rise as quickly, according to the newspaper.

FedEx, which reported a profit of $3.67 a share for its most recent fiscal year, could earn $7 to $9 a share as markets recover, Barron’s said, citing Rob Pickels, a senior analyst at Manning & Napier.

FedEx shares closed at $81.97 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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