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China Construction Bank, one of China's Big Four State-owned banks, signed on Thursday an agreement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on trade financing. The deal marks the beginning of cooperation between CCB and IFC, a private arm of the World Bank Group, in providing customers with a trade financing service. An official with the CCB said the bank will expand trade financing business in developing countries with credit support of the IFC in a bid to further enhance its international competitiveness. Over the past few years, CCB witnessed a fast growth in international business, the official noted. CCB worked out a three-year strategic development program for international business after it was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in October 2005, the first among the Big Four to go public, the official added.
RISMEDIA, October 13, 2006David Lereah, NARs chief economist, said the housing market is showing signs of life and that sales may be leveling out. Many potential home buyers who have been taking a wait-and-see attitude or taking their time and being methodical in the search process are being enticed by lower home prices, Lereah said. Given a positive economic backdrop of lower interest rates and job creation, we expect sales activity to pick up early next year.
Existing home sales are forecast to be fairly stable in the fourth quarter and sales for all of 2006 are expected to drop 8.9% to 6.45 million still the third strongest year after consecutive records in 2004 and 2005. New-home sales are forecast to fall 17.3% this year to 1.06 million, the fourth highest year on record.
EAST BRUNSWICK: Kara Homes, Inc. one of the state's largest private home builders of condominiums and active-adult communities, is anticipating filing for bankruptcy.
Patrick W. Turner, the general counsel for Kara, said yesterday that the company terminated some personnel on Tuesday because it is "trying to restructure'' the payroll.
"We are trying to become more profitable,'' Turner said, without disclosing what sort of financial trouble the homebuilder is experiencing.
Kara Homes sent a memo to several employees indicating that "the company anticipates filing Chapter 11.''
Employees would be eligible to file for unemployment benefits, according to the letter sent by Roberta W. Schultz, the company's vice president of Human Resources and Organizational Development.
In Aug., the Montco home builder posted its first profit drop in 4 years. By Sharon L. Crenson and Brian Louis Bloomberg News Home builder Toll Bros. Inc. has opened sales of its first condominium building in Manhattan, as waning demand for its suburban luxury homes crimped earnings. On Aug. 22, Toll reported a 19 percent drop in fiscal third-quarter profit, its first decline in four years. Sales to the public will commence this weekend, the Horsham company said. "There's no doubt that real estate is down, but certain markets are doing well," said chief executive officer Robert Toll in an interview at the building's Manhattan sales office. "New York has not gone down as the rest of the market has." The Toll building, a 21-story blue-green-glass building at 110 Third Ave., is just south of Union Square Park in Greenwich Village.
Sondra Cochran has been named director of services/vice president of Beverly-Hanks & Associates. She will oversee all aspects of business development of new home communities, maintain and broaden existing relationships with the companys builder-developer clients; build new clients; assist with builder-developer marketing plans; identify, train and manage on-site sales personnel; and implement ongoing new home sales training programs. .
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