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WASHINGTON BUSINESS
World Bank chief defends S. Africa loan
by Howard Schneider
World Bank President Robert
B. Zoellick this week defended plans to lend South Africa $3 bil- lion to build a coal-fired power plant, rebuffing arguments that the bank should only fund clean- energy projects and avoid tech- nologies that contribute to cli- mate change. In a letter to a group of U.S. law-
makers who have challenged the proposed loan to South Africa’s Eskom electric utility, Zoellick said it would be hard to deny help to a developing country as it emerges from a crisis “sparked by conditions in the United States and the developed world.” “Coal is still the least-cost, most viable, and technically feasible option for meeting the base load power needs required by Africa’s largest economy,” Zoellick said, noting that the 4,800 megawatt plant would use efficient “super- critical” technology, enable elec- tricity sales to neighboring coun- tries and help avoid the power shortages that plagued South Af- rica in 2008. The project, due to be voted on by the World Bank board on Thursday, has become a rallying point for environmental groups and others who say the bank should not fund fossil-fuel plants. In late March, Sen. Patrick J.
Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) wrote to Zoellick that they had “serious questions” about the project and that it could shape debate about the bank’s re- quest for additional capital from the United States. The project has been contro- versial within South Africa as well, drawing opposition from some labor groups and others. But in responding to the law-
makers, Zoellick said the bank was balancing the development benefits of projects such as the Eskom plant with other environ- mental objectives. South Africa, he said, has well-developed plans to address climate change but no alternative for quickly boosting its power capacity.
“South Africa represents one- third of sub-Saharan Africa’s economy, so slowdowns precipi- tated by lack of energy will ripple throughout the continent,” Zoel- lick wrote.
schneiderh@washpost.com
LOCAL DIGEST
INTERNET
AOL looking to sell Bebo social site
Struggling AOL plans to sell or shut down Bebo nearly two years after buying it for more than $800 million in an expansion of its social-networking ambitions. In an e-mail to employees, Jon Brod, who runs AOL’s start-up ac- quisition and investment unit, AOL Ventures, said Bebo would need a “significant investment” to remain competitive.
Although Bebo has been in the shadow of rivals such as Face- book, it has been strong in for- eign markets, including Britain. But Bebo’s audience has been slipping in the United States. Ac- cording to ComScore, Bebo had 5.1 million U.S. users in February, down from 5.8 million a year ear- lier and a sliver of the 210 million that Facebook has.
— Associated Press
INVESTING
Carlyle fund raises $1.1 billion
NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Vocus CEO Rick Rudman, front, played Greg Detlass in a table tennis tournament at the software company’s Lanham headquarters in 2007.
Vocus to stay in Prince George’s County
Office space in Beltsville will be designed to look, feel like a small town
by Nicole Norfleet
The public relations software
firm Vocus announced Tuesday it would be moving its headquar- ters from Lanham to Beltsville, a move of about 10 miles, and stay- ing put in Prince George’s County after considering other locations. The new office space, set to be
renovated beginning this sum- mer, will be modeled after new urbanist developments such as Seaside, Fla., with offices and oth- er facilities mirroring buildings found in a small town all within the confines of a large warehouse. For example, the mailroom will be designed to resemble a post of-
Monitor your investments at washingtonpost.com/markets.
Daily Stock Market Performance
Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
11,200 10,500 9800 9100 8400 7700
Nasdaq Composite Index
2500 2250 2000 1750 1500
S&P 500 Index
1200
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1189.44 +0.2 +6.7 2436.81 +0.3 +7.4
fice. The finance department will take on the look of a bank. A lounge area will be designed like a spa.
“I think it’s going to show peo- ple how you can create an envi- ronment that both makes em- ployees more productive and makes their time at work more enjoyable,” said Rick Rudman, president and chief executive of Vocus. The new office, located in Am- mendale Business Park, will cost between $7 million and $8 mil- lion to build out, he said. It will provide 93,000 square feet of space, almost double the room at the firm’s current three-building headquarters. A couple of weeks ago, Vocus moved into a renovat- ed office in College Park and ex- panded Herndon offices. While the office’s features will
be finalized in the next couple of weeks, Rudman said, some space
concepts that are being tossed around are a retro record store for employees to download music and drink coffee and a town cen- ter complete with benches and possibly a fountain. Vocus’s cur- rent offices include a basketball court, pool and a 1950s-style din- er.
“People are creative and ener-
getic at different times of the day, and they need to relax and blow off steam at different times of the day, so that’s what our environ- ment supports,” he said. “The new building is really just taking that to the next level.” The 10-year, $20 million lease agreement signed Tuesday sig- nals the end of a year-long search for a new company home, Rud- man said. Last year, another loca- tion in the county had been cho- sen, but the builder was unable to secure financing, he said. Prince George’s County Eco-
THE MARKETS
10,969.99
Close %Chg
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Daily
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Industry Group
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S&P 500 Industry Group Snapshot
Daily
Power Prodct & Enrgy Trdr Household Products
Wireless Telecomm Svcs Office Electronics Personal Products
Construction Materials
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18.60 53.86
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0.2
YTD
2.0
2.0 1.1
0.0 2.0 0.4 0.5 0.3 0.2
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DJ Total Stock Market Index 12,396.70 Russell 2000
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128.93
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United Tech 74.67 Verizon
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Daily
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–1.4 –0.2 –0.8 0.1 0.7
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YTD
–1.5
9.8 1.4
10.0 10.7 8.6 1.9
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–6.8 5.5 7.6
–5.8 3.9
10.0
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Daily%Chg YTD%Chg
0.2 0.5 0.2
7.8
12.2 7.9
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Money market funds 6-Month CDs 1-Year CDs 5-Year CDs New car loan Home-equity loan
0.79 0.81 1.18 2.59 6.49 7.72
0.29% 0.25% 3.25%
Bank Prime Federal Funds LIBOR 3-Month
30-Year fixed mortgage 15-Year fixed mortgage 1-Year ARM
3.23% 4.52% 5.25%
Australia (ASX 200) China (CSI 300) Hong Kong (Hang Seng) Japan (Nikkei)
4953.70 3405.15
21,537.00 11,282.32
Cross Currency Rates
EU €
US $
US $ per EU € per
Japan ¥ per Britain £ per Brazil R$ per
Canada $ per Mexico $ per
0.7464 93.7600 125.6200
0.6550 0.8776 0.0070 1.7529 1.0013
2.3486 0.0187 1.3417 0.0107
12.2181 16.3696 0.1300
0.9
–0.1 1.4
–0.5
Japan ¥
1.3399 0.0107 0.0080
Britain £
1.5269 0.5705 1.1396 0.4258
Brazil R$ Canada $ Mexico $ 0.9987 0.0819 0.7454 0.0611
143.1500 53.4879 93.6300 7.6730 0.3736
2.6763 1.5289 0.5712
0.6541 0.0536 1.7506 0.1435 0.0820
18.6558 6.9700 12.2018
Close
71,095.65 12,156.71 33,801.21
269.37
4053.94 6252.21 5780.35
%Chg
–0.3 –0.2 0.5
0.7 0.5 0.3 0.6
YTD%Chg
–7%
–3.0% 0 +3.0%
Commodities
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nomic Development Corp. pro- vided an incentive package that included a low-interest loan and tax credits for property and job creation to keep Vocus in the county. The package is valued at $1.1 million, according to Steve Vintz, the company’s chief finan- cial officer. “We partnered with the state of
Maryland to provide an attractive incentive package for this out- standing company to stay here in the county to utilize our educated workforce, supportive business environment and excellent infra- structure,” said Kwasi Holman, president and chief executive of Prince George’s County Economic Development Corp., in a press re- lease. The 400 Vocus employees that
work at the company’s headquar- ters could relocate to the new lo- cation as early as February 2011.
norfleetn@washpost.com
Carlyle Group, the District- based private-equity firm, raised $1.1 billion for its first fund tar- geting investments in the finan- cial services industry. The team, started in June 2007 and headed by Olivier Sarkozy, has already invested in three companies, Carlyle said. Private-equity firms are amass- ing funds and courting financial services companies, some of which are struggling in wake of the credit crisis.
— Bloomberg News
CONTRACTING
Stanley to provide Army support
Stanley Inc. of Arlington, which provides information tech- nology systems to the U.S. gov- ernment, said Tuesday that it won a three-year, $126 million contract with the U.S. Army to provide logistics and other sup- port services. The contract involves support
services for the Field Logistics Readiness Center at Fort Riley, Kan. The team, which consists of Stanley, Eagle Support Services and Orion Technology, also will perform maintenance on a wide variety of ground support sys- tems.
— Associated Press
Data and graphics by
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2010
$3.6095 $3.4650 $86.84
$1135.10
Close %Chg
–0.5 +0.2 +0.3 +0.2
Daily
Orange Juice Silver
$4.10 –4.2
Value of $1000 invested for the past:
Daily
0% +7%
Exchange-Traded (Ticker) %Chg
Coffee (COFF.L) Copper (COPA.L) Corn (CORN.L) Cotton (COTN.L) Crude Oil (CRUD.L) Gasoline (UGAS.L) Gold (BULL.L)
1.1 1.5 1.5 1.9 2.3 1.1
Natural Gas (NGAS.L) Silver (SLVR.L)
Gainers
Zale Corp
0.9 4.0 0.8
Gainers and Losers from the S&P 1500 Index
Daily
Close %Chg
$2.93 11.8
First BanCorp PR Boston Private Fin National Penn Banc Papa John's
Synovus Financial First Commonwealth Rogers Corp
Marshall & Ilsley Huntington Bncs Boyd Gaming
$3.00 10.7 $8.26 8.0 $7.88 7.8 $28.10 7.4
WilmingtonTrustCorp $18.36 6.9 Pinnacle Financial Nautilus Inc
$17.07 6.7 $3.17 6.4 $3.62 6.2 $7.43 6.0 $32.15 6.0 $8.81 5.9 $5.85 5.8 $10.93 5.6
Cathay Gen Bancorp $12.65 5.6 Kilroy Realty
UnitedCommunityBank $5.18 5.5 Tollgrade Comm Century Aluminum PrivateBancorp
$16.35 5.3 $14.65 5.2
10-year note
Yield:
5-year note
Yield:
3.95 2.70
4:30 p.m. New York time.
$33.39 5.5 $6.59 5.4
Losers
Massey Energy Align Technology Bally Technologies
Cadence Design Sys Valmont Industries Mannatech Inc Invacare
Micron Technology Standard Register
Universal Forest IntercontinentalEx TrueBlue Inc
The Finish Line Kensey Nash Kulicke & Soffa KB Home
2-year note
Yield:
6-month bill
Yield:
1.13 0.25
Note: Bank prime is from 10 major banks. Federal Funds rate is the market rate, which can vary from the federal target rate. LIBOR is the London Interbank Offered Rate. Consumer rates are from Bankrate. All figures as of
Close %Chg
$48.45 –11.4
Daily
$18.44 –9.8 $40.51 –4.3
StdMotor Products $10.57 –4.1 Skyline
$18.45 –3.9 $6.76 –3.8 $83.13 –3.7 $3.66 –3.7 $26.31 –3.6 $10.23 –3.5 $5.51 –3.3
Meritage Homes Corp $20.62 –3.1 Stamps.com
$10.05 –3.1 $38.94 –3.0 $107.07 –3.0 $15.42 –3.0 $17.27 –2.9 $22.78 –2.9 $7.15 –2.9 $16.51 –2.8
Treasury Performance Over Past Three Months
Soybeans Sugar Wheat
$900
$1.3340 $17.93
$9.4450 $0.1589 $4.6350
day
$1000
Close %Chg
–1.7 –1.0 +0.9 –3.1 +2.2
Daily
month
$1100
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