BUSINESS BRIEFS
Ford retakes title of nation's No. 2 car seller with high Fusion sales
Advertiser News Services
DETROIT — Detroit's Big Three is becoming Ford and the other two.
While its rivals stay afloat with billions in government aid, Ford grabbed a bigger slice of the U.S. car market in April with record sales of its fuel-efficient Fusion. Those results pushed it past Toyota to retake its post as the nation's No. 2 car seller.
Even though Ford's monthly sales tumbled 32 percent from a year earlier, it captured 16 percent of the total market. Most of those gains came at the expense of General Motors and Chrysler, which unlike Ford are dependent on federal help.
Overall U.S. auto sales reported yesterday fell 34 percent from a year earlier. Automakers sold about 820,000 light vehicles in April, about 38,000 fewer than in March but still a big improvement over January's 27-year low.
"It seems we're bouncing on the bottom of the bathtub, but it's somewhat stabilized," Chrysler Vice Chairman Jim Press said.
'STRESS TEST' RESULTS DUE OUT ON THURSDAY
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve will release "stress tests" results for the nation's biggest banks on Thursday, according to a government official.Deliberations between banks and regulators about the tests' results pushed back the release date, which initially was expected to be earlier in the week.
In addition to an overall snapshot of the health of the 19 large banks being assessed, the Fed will provide detail about individual banks, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter.
The Fed will describe the resources banks would need to absorb losses on certain types of loans and investments under adverse economic conditions. Last week, Fed officials said that all 19 banks that underwent stress tests will need to keep an extra buffer of capital reserves beyond what's now required, in case losses continue to mount. That would mean some banks will likely have to raise additional cash.
TRUSTEE: INVESTOR MADE $1B IN MADOFF SCANDAL
NEW YORK — A longtime Los Angeles money manager and philanthropist raked in more than $1 billion in false earnings from disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, a trustee overseeing the liquidation of Madoff's assets said.In a complaint filed in Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, court-appointed trustee Irving Picard alleged that Stanley Chais must have known Madoff was running a massive Ponzi scheme and should be forced to forfeit the earnings to help pay claims from thousands of burned investors.
Chais, who also handled investment accounts for Hollywood luminaries such as Steven Spielberg, has insisted he was a victim of Madoff. The swindle, he said, wiped out the Chais Family Foundation, which made millions of dollars in annual contributions to various Jewish causes.
