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Banner Corp. said it issued more than 85 million shares of stock at $2 per share in a recent stock offering and raised about $162 million, after discounts and commissions were deducted.

Last week, Walla Walla-based Banner (NASDAQ: BANR), parent of Banner Bank and Islanders Bank, said it “intends to use a significant portion of the net proceeds from the offering to strengthen Banner Bank’s regulatory capital ratios and to support managed growth . The company expects to use the remaining net proceeds for general working capital purposes.”

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ST. LOUIS — Anheuser-Busch unveiled a shake-up in its marketing department Tuesday that divides responsibility for beer brands along consumer-segment lines and places greater importance on developing new products and reaching multi-cultural consumers.

But the brewer was close to mum on any layoffs that might result from the shake-up. A-B marketing Vice President Keith Levy said, "There were some, but we’re not getting into numbers."

The only specific departure mentioned, via an e-mail sent to A-B workers, was Marlene Coulis. She is an 18-year A-B veteran who holds the title vice president of consumer strategy, insights and innovation. She will stay through month’s end, A-B said. The brewer gave no reason for Coulis’ departure. She could not be reached for comment.

The marketing changes were anticipated since A-B announced last month that it planned sweeping changes to both its sales and marketing. Company President Dave Peacock said the changes were aimed at making A-B "optimally organized and as efficient as possible."

The changes were developed after months of work under the code name "Kashi" — as in the cereal with the slogan "Go Lean." Sources said about 450 jobs would be cut as part of the initiative free credit report online.

A-B’s sales force learned its fate two weeks ago, with a series of promotions and, according to sources, 90 layoffs, including four vice presidents.

In the marketing department, A-B said three top-line executives were promoted to new roles: Linda Tucker to vice president of insights, Julia Mize to vice president of marketing solutions and Juan Torres to senior director of value brands.

All are A-B veterans.

Several others are staying in their current roles. But across the board, there is more emphasis on reporting directly to Levy, including Pat McGauley, vice president of innovations, and Eduardo Pereda, senior director of multicultural marketing.

Such changes represent the company’s priority on brand development and multicultural segments, Levy told the Post-Dispatch on Tuesday.

The brewer also realigned the way it handles marketing to fit consumer segments — premium light (Bud Light, Michelob Ultra and Select 55), imports and crafts (higher-end consumers), value brands (important brews, but with less marketing support) and Budweiser.

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Zhu Zhu Pets robotic hamsters, the must-have toy of Christmas 2009, were named Toy of the Year on Saturday by the Toy Industry Association, also winning two category awards.

The toys, a product of Clayton-based Cepia LLC, won the award for Girl Toy of the Year, for a toy developed for girls of any age, and for Innovative Toy of the Year, for an outstanding toy that combines innovation and play value.

Russell Hornsby is founder, owner and chief executive of Cepia, which has 15 employees.

The Toy of the Year Awards program in New York City is the kickoff to this week’s American International Toy Fair. The Toy Industry Association is a not-for-profit representing more than 500 producers and importers of toys and youth entertainment products sold in North America.

For a complete list of winners, go here.

Cepia created Zhu Zhu Pets (which means “little pig” in Chinese) with affordability in mind personal business card. The suggested retail price for each hamster is $7.99, and accessories range from $3.99 to $19.99.

Sean McGowan, a toy industry analyst with Needham & Co. in New York, projected sales of $300 million in 2010.

The robotic hamsters have a video game in the works.

A former Mattel designer, Russell Hornsby previously founded Trendmasters, a St. Louis toy company with $189 million in revenue that was best known for its Rumble Robots. Trendmasters sold its assets and products to Malibu, Calif.-based JAKKS Pacific Inc. for about $25 million in 2002.

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European leaders ordered Greece to get the bloc’s highest budget deficit under control and promised “determined” action to staunch the worst crisis in the euro currency’s 11-year history.

The agreement, brokered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, called for closer monitoring of the Greek economy and stopped short of offering concrete steps to help Greece handle a debt load exceeding annual economic output. Greek bonds rose and the euro fell after the deal was announced at a European Union summit today.

“It’s a political message that we wanted to send out,” EU President Herman Van Rompuy told reporters in Brussels. “The Greek government will take the responsibility for cleaning up its public finances.”

The declaration, which Merkel called a “clear political signal” to Greece, left open how the EU would respond to a fresh wave of speculative attacks against Greece or countries such as Spain and Portugal, which are also struggling to cut their budget deficits. The statement echoes prior calls for Greece to get its accounts in order and gave the International Monetary Fund a monitoring role.

Finance ministers are working on measures such as setting up a lending facility for Greece, with each country paying in according to its size, an EU official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it’s premature for a European bond.

‘Breathing Space’

“Markets will only normalize once they outline more detailed measures,” said Andreas Rees, an economist at UniCredit MIB in Munich. “The statement won’t be enough to reassure investors. It’s some breathing space.”

Greek bonds, which have plunged since December on concern the country will be unable to tackle its deficit, extended a three-day rally, with the yield on the two-year government bond falling 35 basis points to 5.11 percent at 7:45 p.m. in Brussels.

Concern about the costs of a hazily worded commitment by Europe’s richer countries pushed the euro down 0.4 percent to $1.3685. Its slide to a nine-month low of $1.3586 on Feb. 5 forced Greece to the top of the EU agenda out of concern that market turmoil might spread.

Called by Van Rompuy to sketch out a 10-year economic strategy, the summit turned into a crisis-management exercise that tests Europe’s ability to run a common currency with 16 separate national fiscal policies.

Rescue Talks

The main event came before the 27-nation EU meeting, when Merkel piloted the Greek rescue talks with Papandreou, Trichet, Van Rompuy, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the panel of euro-region finance ministers paydayloan.

Under pressure from political allies at home who are opposed to giveaways to countries that live beyond their means, Merkel pressed for strict conditions on any European financial lifeline for countries that spend too much and save too little.

Demonstrating Germany’s sway in the euro region, the declaration was issued in the EU’s name before other leaders were consulted. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said there was “no detailed discussion” over the Greek backstop.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the main mover behind the EU-wide rescue of banks in October 2008, also wasn’t involved. In London when Merkel’s crisis meeting started, Brown later said Greece is in the hands of countries using the euro.

Greek Deficit

Greece, representing 2.7 percent of the bloc’s $13 trillion economy, posted a budget deficit of 12.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, the highest in the euro’s history and more than four times the EU’s 3 percent limit.

Papandreou’s government needs to sell 53 billion euros ($72 billion) of debt this year, the equivalent of about 20 percent of GDP. Greece’s credit rating was cut by Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings in December.

Greek plans to cut public-sector wages, trim welfare provisions and raise taxes have provoked street protests that threaten to throw the government’s aim of slicing the deficit by 4 percentage points in 2010.

By living under EU strictures, Greece no longer controls its own economic destiny, Papandreou said. Speaking after the summit, he said: “We have lost a part of our sovereignty because of this loss of credibility. We are determined to regain this lost credibility. We will do anything necessary.”

Resisting IMF

EU leaders resisted putting Greece in the sole hands of the IMF, concerned that recourse to outside assistance would expose Europe’s inability to get its own house in order.

EU treaties bar the ECB or national central banks from bailing out members countries through buying their debt or offering loans, while rules on government-to-government support are more flexible.

Whether from individual countries or the EU as a whole, a financial lifeline for Greece would open a new chapter in the euro experiment by breaking with the orthodoxy that each country has to steer its own economy.

“I don’t think there is any bluff here. This is a very, very serious commitment to back up Greece,” said Jacques Cailloux, chief European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in London. “This is once in a lifetime moment for monetary union.”

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The U.S. economy remains mired in a recession, prospects for next year are weak and home prices may resume declines, Harvard University economics professor Martin Feldstein said.

“The recession isn’t over,” Feldstein said today in an interview on Bloomberg Radio in New York. “It will be a while before we have enough information to know if the recession ended.”

Feldstein is a former president of the National Bureau of Economic Research and remains a member of the group’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, the panel charged with determining when recessions begin and end. His comments are at odds with those of the panel’s chairman, Robert Hall, who said early this month that the recession may have ended.

Employers in the U.S. cut 11,000 jobs in November, the fewest in 23 months, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 10 percent from 10.2 percent, a government report showed on Dec. 4.

The report “makes it seem that the trough in employment will be around this month,” Hall said in an interview on the day the figures were released. “The trough in output was probably some time in the summer. The committee will need to balance the midyear date for output against the end-of-year date for employment.”

The economy has lost more than 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. The total number of workers collecting unemployment checks as well as those taking extended government benefits totals about 10 million, according to Labor Department statistics released today.

‘Extended Period’

The Federal Reserve yesterday repeated its pledge to keep interest rates “exceptionally low” for “an extended period” and said the “deterioration in the labor market is abating.”

Ben S. Bernanke won backing for a second term as Fed chairman today in a 16-to-7 vote by the Senate Banking Committee. The nomination next goes to a vote of the full Senate.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.8 percent annual pace in the third quarter after shrinking for each of the previous four quarters. Growth will average 2.6 percent next year, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists early this month.

Restrained consumer spending suggests “2010 is going to be a very weak year,” said Feldstein, 70, who was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan administration.

“Thrift in the long run is a very good thing, but increasing thrift as you come out of a recession is going to be a drag,” he said easy to get unsecured personal loans.

Housing Market

Regarding the residential property market, where the recession initially emerged, Feldstein said the Obama administration’s effort to revive the housing market is a failure and home prices will continue to decline.

“It was just not well enough designed,” Feldstein said. “They ended up failing.” That suggests the housing slump will “continue to push down house prices,” he said.

“We saw a little pause in home-price declines in the summer but I think that was because of the first-time home buyers program,” Feldstein said. “We’re not going to get that boost.”

The U.S. House voted Dec. 11 to tighten rules for derivatives and create powers to break apart healthy financial firms that pose a risk to the economy. The House rejected a “cram-down” amendment that would have given federal judges the power to lengthen mortgage terms, cut interest rates and reduce loan balances for homeowners in bankruptcy court.

Mortgages Modified

Lenders permanently modified 31,382 of the 4 million mortgages targeted for loan relief under the Obama administration’s main foreclosure prevention plan through last month, the Treasury Department announced on Dec. 10.

Economic reports today suggested the government’s efforts to revive growth with fiscal stimulus may be working for now, Feldstein said in a separate interview on Bloomberg Television. “The danger is we will run out of steam,” he said.

The index of leading economic indicators rose for an eighth consecutive month in November, a sign growth will extend into the first half of 2010. The Conference Board’s gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months increased 0.9 percent after climbing 0.3 percent in October.

Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region expanded in December for the fifth month, led by sales and employment gains. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index climbed to 20.4 this month. Readings greater than zero signal growth. The bank’s district covers parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and all of Delaware.

(In the U.S., hear Bloomberg Radio on satellite radio: Sirius Channel 130 and XM Channel 129. In New York City, tune to WBBR 1130 on the AM dial.)

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Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz urged U.S. lawmakers to use “overwhelming force” to cut a 10 percent unemployment rate that is forecast to rise.

Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York and a former White House adviser under President Bill Clinton, told the Joint Economic Committee that more government spending and tax cuts are needed to put Americans back to work.

“There is, in economics, something akin to the Powell doctrine in the military: One needs to attack the problem with overwhelming force,” Stiglitz testified, referring to former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. “As we approach the looming jobs problem, we should not repeat the mistakes we have continually made in responding to this crisis: too little, too late.”

President Barack Obama this week proposed additional spending on the nation’s transportation system, tax credits to spur hiring by small businesses and incentives to make homes more energy efficient in a second round of initiatives aimed at cutting the jobless rate.

Employers have cut more than 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. The unemployment rate last month fell to 10 percent from a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October. The rate will exceed 10 percent through the first half of next year, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists taken Dec. 1-8.

“We should not be fooled” by the decline in the jobless rate, Stiglitz said. “Growth in private demand” will probably be “insufficient to restore employment to normal levels any time soon.”

Too Small

Stiglitz said the $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts enacted in February “has been working” although it was too small.

“Unless action is taken, we risk facing a vicious cycle: unemployment contributing to a weak economy, more mortgage foreclosures, more bad debts, lower demand, and possibly more, but certainly not less, unemployment no faxing payday loan.”

Stiglitz said priorities for spending should include extending unemployment benefits, aiding states facing revenue shortfalls, giving tax credits for weatherizing homes, government jobs programs and research and technology initiatives.

The economist shared the Nobel Prize in 2001 for work on problems that may arise in markets when parties don’t have equal access to information.

Restructure Mortgage Debt

Stiglitz also said Congress should act to encourage mortgage debts be restructured to reflect lower home values.

He said banks and mortgage lenders have been discouraged from restructuring home loans because they are allowed to carry those loans at face value even though many of the mortgages are underwater and likely to result in a default.

“I call that marking to hope, not marking to market,” Stiglitz said.

He said Congress should pass a “homeowner’s Chapter 11” bankruptcy reorganization law to make it easier for people to force a restructuring of their mortgage debt.

“That would provide a legal backdrop to encourage restructuring,” Stiglitz said. “We need a homeowners Chapter 11 that treats homes at least as well as we treat corporations.”

Stiglitz, 66, also said the Federal Reserve contributed to the financial crisis by failing to supervise banks or stem the housing bubble. He questioned proposals to give the central bank more authority to supervise firms whose failure might threaten the financial system.

“Giving more power to an institution which has failed so miserably, with results that have imposed such costs on all of us, cannot be the right solution unless there are deep and fundamental reforms in the institution, of a kind that are beyond those currently being discussed,” he said.

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Whole Foods Market announced Wednesday that it is seeking space in downtown Honolulu as an alternative to its planned Ward Village Shops location.

In a brief announcement, the company said it is looking for “a new location to serve the downtown area of Honolulu as construction of the Ward Village development has halted.”

The company said that no Whole Foods representatives were available for comment.

The store at the Ward Village Shops had originally been planned as Whole Foods’ flagship store for Hawaii. It was scheduled to open in early 2008, but the Texas-based natural foods chain instead opened its first Hawaii store at Kahala Mall in September 2008.

Construction at the Ward site — between Auahi Street and the Queen Street extension — stopped in December 2008 when landlord General Growth Properties ordered the general contractor on the project to stop work.

The Whole Foods building and the adjoining 900-stall parking structure are about 60 to 70 percent complete.

It was not clear from the statement if Whole Foods was permanently abandoning the Ward site or if it would still locate there if General Growth resumed construction. General Growth, which owns the Ward complex as well as Ala Moana Center, declared bankruptcy in April with about $10 billion in debt.

General Growth has not said when construction on the $100 million project, which has already been stopped several times because of the discovery of ancient Hawaiian remains on the site, would resume.

Whole Foods said it is still on track to open a Maui store in February and a Kailua store on Oahu in 2011.

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Financially troubled San Francisco streaming music service imeem Inc. has been acquired by MySpace, according to numerous reports.

CNET News quoted sources valuing the deal at $8 million, with a $1 million payment in cash together with earn outs and accounts receivable. The company had raised more than $30 million in venture funding, according to CNET.

At least half of the company's 55 employees will lose their jobs as as a result of the acquisition, sources told CNET cashadvance. MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Imeem is the fourth ad-supported streaming music site to go bust or sell for peanuts, CNET said.

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Morgan Stanley is looking to sell its 34 percent stake in investment bank China International Capital Corp, the U.S. bank’s China chief executive said on Monday.

“We are a passive investor in CICC, so getting out (of it) is the general direction,” Wei Sun Christianson told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference.

She did not say whether Morgan Stanley was in talks to sell its stake or name potential investors.

Private equity firms Bain Capital and General Atlantic are among those eyeing the stake in CICC, China’s largest investment bank, in a deal that could fetch more than $1.2 billion, Reuters reported last week.

People with direct knowledge of the matter said first-round bids for Morgan Stanley’s stake are due on Tuesday.

The bank wants to sell because its role in CICC has been reduced to that of a passive investor and it feels frustrated, bankers say. Because Morgan Stanley already has one joint venture, regulators will not approve another one.

“We are looking for partners to cooperate closely with us in China,” Christianson said on Monday.

Morgan Stanley won approval from Chinese regulators early last year to sell its stake in CICC, but it took it off the block when bids came in too low. Now that the market has bounced back, it is trying again.

(Reporting by Kang Xize and Alan Wheatley; Editing by Jason Subler and David Cowell)

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Someone comes to your door and says your water heater is inefficient or unsafe.

Would you like a replacement?

Stop right there. If you say yes, you may be sorry.

Look what happened to a couple living in Ajax. The wife is at home with a newborn baby.

A National Home Services agent came to her door and said he was replacing water heaters in the area from Sept. 14 to 16.

Assuming he was with the company from which they rented the water heater, she said yes.

"Twenty minutes after being asked to sign to acknowledge the change, a technician arrived to remove our water heater," the husband says.

The couple read the contract later that day and decided to cancel the deal with National Home Services.

They were told there would be a $600 fee to remove the water heater after it had been installed.

When I heard about this, I thought there might be a legal issue.

Under Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act, you have the right to cancel within 10 days without a penalty if you sign a contract in your home worth more than $50.

I asked the Consumer Protection Branch whether National Home Services could be seen as trying to get around the rules by installing the new tank during the 10-day period.

If the door-to-door supplier initiates the transaction, "the 10-day cooling-off period is absolute. The supplier installs on a rush basis at its own risk," said director Chris Ferguson.

It’s different if the consumer calls the supplier for an emergency replacement and insists on getting it within 10 days.

In such a case, the consumer may be liable to pay the supplier reasonable compensation for installation or removal.

However, pushing to perform a service within the 10-day period can be seen as trying to deny the consumer the right "to cool off" under the statute, said Vishnu Kangalee, another consumer protection official.

Moreover, suppliers can’t charge a big penalty to a consumer who requests the right to cool off within 10 days – even if the contract has a clause they believe allows them to do this.

"In our view, such a clause is not sufficient if the consumer has neither solicited nor requested the supplier to perform the service within the 10-day cooling-off period," Kangalee said.

Gord Potter, executive vice-president of Just Energy (which owns National Home Services), agreed to let the couple out of the contract without the $600 penalty.

Enbridge Gas (formerly Consumers Gas) once had a monopoly on water heater rentals in Ontario.

Direct Energy bought the business in 2002, but didn’t face any competition until recently.

Direct Energy doesn’t go door to door to replace your water heater, said spokesman Joshua Orzech. Nor does it make you sign a long-term rental contract with penalties to get out early (as competitors do).

Another National Home Services sales agent visited the same couple yesterday and used the same misleading sales pitch.

"I said, `Shouldn’t you start out by saying that you are a competitor to Direct Energy, who we deal with, and that you want our service?’ He just took off," the new mother told me.

So, remember this: If a sales agent induces you to replace your water heater during the 10-day cooling off period, but you change your mind, you can’t be charged a removal fee.

Call the Ontario consumer ministry at 416-326-8800 for help in obtaining a refund.

Write to onyourside@thestar.ca

or check the On Your Side blog at www.ellenroseman.com

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