Morning business round-up: Greek vote hits EU banks - BBC News
What made the business news in Asia and Europe this morning? Here's our daily business round-up:
Continue reading the main storyEuropean banking stocks have fallen sharply despite the victory of pro-bailout parties in Greece's elections on Sunday.
While the victory of the pro-bailout New Democracy party raised hopes that the country would remain in the euro, analysts said much uncertainty remained.
The yield on Spanish bonds - the eurozone country said to be most at risk of needing an international bailout in the future - also remained volatile. The yield on Spain's 10-year bonds had initially fallen as low as 6.767%, before then rising to 7.061%.
In corporate news, staff at car company Ford are staging a 24-hour strike in a dispute over pay and pensions.
Sites at Dagenham in Essex, Bridgend in south Wales, Halewood on Merseyside and Southampton will be affected.
The Unite union said staff were "furious" at plans to shut the final salary pension scheme to new starters and lower their pay rates from 2013.
A Ford spokesman said "the vast majority of the company's employees are not involved in this disagreement".
Majestic Wine has reported a 14% rise in annual profits as it continues to enjoy increasing sales.
Its pre-tax profit for the year to 2 April totalled £23.2m, up from £20.3m a year earlier.
Like-for-like sales, which pull out the impact of new store openings, rose 2.6%. Its total revenues increased by 9% to £280.3m.
Majestic said that sales of fine wine - bottles worth more than £20 - rose 18.5% and now represent 6.2% of UK store sales.
Business headlines
In Asia-Pacific, the world's third-biggest retailer, Tesco, has announced that it is to exit the Japanese marketplace.
The UK supermarket group is to leave Japan in a two-stage process that will first see it sell 50% of its Tesco Japan subsidiary to the country's second-largest retail group, Aeon.
Tesco will then invest £40m in the joint venture before its eventual exit from the business. So far, no deadline for when this will happen has been made public.
Property prices in China fell further in May, indicating that government policies put in place to curb speculation are having the desired effect.
Prices of new homes fell in 55 of 70 Chinese cities from a year earlier.
Beijing has been trying to curb property speculation amid fears that asset bubbles may be forming.
However, there are concerns that if prices fall too much too soon, it may hurt China's overall economic growth.
Australia's Fairfax Media will shed 1,900 jobs over three years and give two high-profile broadsheets a new "compact" format, it has announced.
Websites of the two newspapers, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, will also introduce pay walls from 2013.
Two printing facilities in Sydney and Melbourne are also to be closed by 2014 as part of the cost-cutting measures.
Fairfax said it was taking "decisive actions to fundamentally change the way we do business".
And in our Business Daily podcast, we talk to past and present advisers to Germany's government about the prospects of Chancellor Angela Merkel offering concessions to Greece, following the high support for anti-austerity parties in Greek elections at the weekend.
George Zimmerman jail calls: Trayvon Martin shooter tells wife how to move around money - Orlando Sentinel
"Oh, man, that feels good," he told his wife.
"What?" asks his wife.
"That there are people in America that care," he said.
"Yeah they do," she answered. "Trust me, and boy, after what happened yesterday, so many people (sic) your website kept crashing."
A few moments later, she said, "After all this is over, you're going to be able to have a great life."
"We're will," he corrected her.
"Yeah, we will."
"I'm excited," he said.
Three days later, they talk about how much they love each other.
"O.K., I love you," Zimmerman tells his wife."I love you more, Babe," she said.
During one of their conversations, Zimmerman asks his wife to get a vest for him, her and defense attorneyMark
They make reference to a "safety counselor," someone who's apparently giving them advice on how to stay hidden and safe.
They discuss a five-bedroom house that they hope to lease for a month, cell phone features and their confidence in defense attorney Mark O'Mara.
The two also discussed how to get him safely out of jail. Shellie said one possibility was having someone drive him to an airport parking garage.
"We could have two cars, we could have two rented cars," Zimmerman told his wife.
As for hiding him inside the vehicle, "Well, I have my hoodie," he said, a possible joke, referring to the hooded sweatshirt Trayvon Martin wore the night Zimmerman shot him.
In a call April 16, Shellie Zimmerman told her husband he is a "special and amazing role model to people," to which he replied, "I wish, I wish I were."
Prosecutors in the past two weeks had released a good bit of information about the jailhouse calls. That's because they used them to convince Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. to lock Zimmerman back in jail and to charge Shellie Zimmerman with perjury.
Corey's office alleges that Shellie Zimmerman knew she and her husband had access to $155,000 that had been donated by supporters responding to his request for help on a website.
But when she was asked about it April 20 at his bond hearing, she said the couple was broke.
The Seminole County Sheriff's Office typically records inmate phone calls. Prosecutors listened to them, and those are the six calls released today.
On Friday, Corey's office announced it would release the audio of 151 Zimmerman calls, but after defense attorney Mark O'Mara complained, they slashed the number to six.
In a blog posting, O'Mara wrote that he would today file a motion, asking the judge to prohibit the release of any Zimmerman jail phone call that are not related to the defendant's bond.
That, O'Mara wrote, would compromise the privacy of family members and friends whom he called and who have done nothing improper.
Zimmerman's next court date is June 29, another bond hearing. O'Mara's witness list includes two bail bondsmen and no family members.
rstutzman@tribune.com or 407-650-6394. jeweiner@tribune.com or 407-420-5151.
Business Owners Say All Work No Pay Is Part of the Job - CNBC
How often do small business owners go without a paycheck in order to keep their companies solvent? We reported a few weeks ago on a survey from Citibank that found that 23 percent of 750 small business owners had gone without pay for at least a year during the most recent economic downturn.
That’s shocking to those of us who collect a regular paycheck. But more revealing: 54 percent said they had gone without a check at some time during their entrepreneurial career in order to keep a business afloat.
So we went to members of our Small Business Council — our go-to experts on all things entrepreneurial — to find out how common it is for the owner of a small businesses to go without a paycheck.
“I think it’s very common, says Mitch Free, CEO of MFG.com, an online marketplace for manufacturers. “When I started MFG.com, I paid myself half what I was making previously as an employee for a major corporation. There were numerous times I couldn't even pay myself that.”
Cristi Cristich, had a similar experience. “Although it has been a quite a few years since I have totally missed a paycheck, during my first 10 years in business it was a pretty common occurrence,” says the CEO and founder of Cristek Interconnects, who let us in on how she used credit cards to make payroll.
“Most of the first year of Cristek I couldn’t take a salary," says Cristich, "so while paying employees and creditors out of the cash flow, I kept myself afloat by the credit card shell game. In 1985 I paid my Am Ex Green card off — 90 days past due — by taking an advance on a new Platinum Card credit line they had mailed me. That was back in the days when the computers did not all talk to each other in real time on credit.”
Joseph Dutra, CEO and founder of Kimmie Candy Company says he is still not on the payroll. “I’ll have to talk to the boss about that,” he jokes.
Dutra explains that when he launched the business 10 years ago, it was slow to grow, and some staff did wait for paychecks. He borrowed money from friends and family while he nurtured another venture. That business, an agricultural consulting firm called Westec, has thrived and pays him a salary that allows him to forgo one from Kimmie Candy.
Having multiple sources of income seems to be a common way for entrepreneurs to get by. Beezer Molton recalls living in a "dumpy $175 month apartment" and frequently going without a paycheck after founding Half Moon Outfitters two decades ago. As recently as 2009, he stopped paying himself again, he says, "just to make sure that corporate overhead was as low and debt was being repaid as quickly as possible." Rental properties he'd invested in enabled him to live without tapping savings. "Fortunately those properties remained occupied through the downturn," Molton says.
For many business owners, maintaining good credit is more important than getting paid, says David Greenspon, president and owner of Competitive Edge Advertising Specialty Manufacturing. “Long hours, low pay, if any, and unstable finances were the norm," he says of beginning his business nearly 30 years ago. "I paid my vendors first, in order to achieve and maintain credit," he says. That way, says Greenspan, "I could avoid both SBA and bank financing, which never were friendly to startups. I never missed paying any employee or vendor, but this was because I was always the last in line for payment.”
Starting a business is risky, notes Ronald Barnes, chairman of Midwest BankCentre, who has worked with many small business owners. “In the end, the buck stops with that business owner" says Barnes. "Entrepreneurs deserve to make the big bucks when they succeed because they certainly pay a significant price both emotionally and from a capital at risk perspective when the business fails.”
That risk-reward dynamic may be the opposite of what happens in corporate America. But most of these small business owners wouldn't trade places with the CEOs of major corporations — even if its tough to convince the boss they deserve a raise.
Email us at and follow us on Twitter @SmallBizCNBC.
Tough luck, Generation X: Only half of wealthy Baby Boomers to leave money for their kids...and ONE IN THIRD would rather give it to charity - Daily Mail
- Baby Boomers defined as people between the ages of 47 and 66
- Generation X refers to people born between early 1960s and early 1980s
- 55 per cent of Baby Boomers believe it's important to leave money to offspring
- Most Baby Boomers believe each generation should earn its own wealth
- Three-quarters of people younger than 46 favor leaving money to kids
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When members of the Baby Boomers generation die in the next 50 years, they will leave trillions of dollars in wealth behind, but their children should not hold their breath for a large inheritance.
According to the U.S. Trust Insights on Wealth and Worth annual study released on Monday, only 55 per cent of Baby Boomers - those between the ages of 47 to 66 - think it is important to leave money for their offspring.
U.S. Trust commissioned an independent, national survey of 642 high net worth adults, who were not clients, with at least $3million in investable assets.
Givers: A study found that 31 per cent of wealthy Baby Boomers would prefer to leave their money to charity
One of three Baby Boomers surveyed – about 31 per cent - don’t think it is important to leave a financial inheritance and said they would rather leave money to charity than to their children.
By contrast, three-quarters of wealthy people under age 46 said it's a priority to leave inheritance for their children.
The top reason for not wanting to leave money for their kids is the belief shared by some Baby Boomers that each subsequent generation should work to earn its own wealth.
Following closely behind is the thought that it is more important to invest in children’s success while they are growing up.
‘Our survey points to a shift in generational behavior and outlook, most likely shaped by personal experience and societal responses to economic realities,’ said Keith Banks, president of U.S. Trust.
Banks added that well-off parents are concerned that the next generation is not prepared to inherit wealth, which is not surprising considering the fact that most of the Baby Boomers surveyed don't talk to their kids about money: just 37 per cent said they've fully disclosed their net worth to their children.
Kept in the dark: Just 37 per cent of Baby Boomers said they've fully disclosed their net worth to their kids
Those over age 67 said they weren't having this discussion because they were raised to avoid money talk, while younger respondents said they didn't want to inhibit their kids' work ethic.
Unlike the majority of people from her generation, 63-year-old Kathleen Taylor, of Chimacum, Washington, taught her two grown children since they were young to be responsible for their own money.
That is why she plans to leave most of her money to her children and some money to charitable causes, ABC News reported.
One way Taylor and her husband taught their children about responsible spending was providing the value of college tuition, room and board to each of them and putting them in charge of paying the bills.
‘People thought we were crazy,’ she told ABC.
The Taylors plan to start a college fund once their children start having their own kids. And they intend to add to it on their grandchildren’s birthdays as long as Taylor and her husband are alive.
Mrs Taylor said she hopes her own children will do the same for their great-grandchildren.
The U.S. Trust study also has found that 42 per cent of Baby Boomers and 54 per cent of those under age 46 are paying medical costs for their parents or other relatives.
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