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Construction on a hotel Fishers-based Dora Bros. Hospitality Corp. is building in downtown Columbus can resume, now that Sears, Roebuck & Co. has withdrawn part of a lawsuit it filed in November. But the retail giant still wants monetary damages, according to The Republic of Columbus. Sears, based in Hoffman Estates, Ill., claims construction on […]
Online banks usually avoid brick-and-mortar overhead. Eliminating expense is the core of their business advantage. So why did First Internet Bancorp spend $12 million to acquire traditional mortgage lender and savings bank Landmark Financial Corp. and its two Indianapolis branches? Because the acquisition of Landmark provides First Internet an opportunity to finally broach the mortgage market. Landmark, which traces its roots back to 1925, is best known as a new-construction underwriter in the local home and commercial builder market. Its…
Small public companies yet to comply with the stringent accounting provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could receive a reprieve from federal regulators weighing a one-year extension. Section 404 of the act requires public corporations to assess their internal accounting controls to ensure their financial reporting is accurate-and requires accounting firms to vouch for those controls. To comply with the act, which was enacted in the wake of financial scandals at Enron Corp. and MCI WorldCom, public companies have devoted thousands…
I was scanning a 2004 report on corporate security the other day when the phrase “Less than half of all businesses ever evaluate their return on investment (ROI) on security spending” came scrolling down the page. The sentence includes a presumption that is just dead wrong. No security software ever made its purchaser a dime. It can make the seller wealthy, but there is no way security software is an investment. It’s a cost, and always will be. In point…
WORTH SEEING COWBOYS & INDIANS Eiteljorg showcases famous artists’ not-so-famous work Cowboys and Indians aren’t what come to mind when the world thinks of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, two great American pop artists better known for comicbook imagery and Campbell’s Soup cans. And that’s what makes “Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters” and “Andy Warhol’s Cowboys & Indians” so fascinating and surprising. The artists’ exhibits, presented under the common title “Pop! Goes the West,” run through April 15 at the…
Trustees, picture this: You are at the table with the beneficiary children of one of your most successful clients. You are reviewing the estate of their deceased parent. You have the unpleasant task of explaining that the insurance policy that was purchased 15 years ago had lapsed several years prior to Dad’s passing. Result: nothing to lighten the tax bill. Most trustees do not adequately manage the life insurance policy assets held inside the trust. According to a 2003 survey…
The face of the homeless is changing in our community. Two decades ago, the image conjured up by Indianapolis residents would be that of a panhandler near the Circle or the occasional man with the “Will work for food” sign standing just off an exit ramp; homeless families were virtually nonexistent. The fact is, this image is about half right-literally. Single homeless men make up around 60 percent of the homeless in our city. Remarkably, the other 40 percent are…
Indiana’s automotive manufacturing employment for the last decade peaked at 142,000 in 1999. Since then, the sector has shed
20,300 jobs-a staggering one-seventh of its total. Another 5,220 are slated to be cut soon. And there’s no end in sight.
For many investors, picking a financial advisor is like Forrest Gump picking chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get. It doesn’t need to be this way. Although there is no sure-fire formula for picking a good advisor, an investor can greatly increase the chances of a good selection by focusing on the following important issues. There is no substitute for experience. Look for an advisor with at least 10 years experience advising investors, and 15 to 20 years…
How does aviation technology conceived at Oxford University and developed with the help of Rolls-Royce end up being tested at Methodist Hospital and commercialized in Carmel? Oxford BioSignals Medical CEO Frank Cheng knows the answer. Even better, he can explain why his startup is poised to add 120 jobs over the next few years. “At this point, I don’t see anything we can’t do right here in Indiana,” he said. Formed in 2000, Oxford BioSignals began its life when research…
Robert J. Brody, president and CEO of St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers, announced March 8 that St. Francis would shutter
its inpatient hospital in Beech Grove and expand its south-side hospital by 2010. In an interview with IBJ, Brody laid out
the ills that beset hospitals across the country.
After the market swoon a few weeks ago (which I said in this column on Jan. 8 and Feb. 5 was overdue), you might be feeling a bit woozy. You might be weak in the knees, but it’s time to take a big whiff of smelling salts and turn bullish. Even if you are a bull, you are not bullish enough. With the pullback, you might have been lucky enough to catch the market wiggle, but it is time to…
Financial advisors counsel clients on income, estate and gift taxes among other things. But they often neglect residential property taxes. That could well be a mistake. Property taxes are a significant cost of owning real estate – typically 1 percent to 1.5 percent of market value. So, they must be considered in making financial decisions. They can also be a significant cash-flow consideration for someone in retirement who has a lot of illiquid wealth-not just for your primary residence, but…
About a year ago, we had to move my wife’s father into an assisted-living facility and sell his home in LaPorte. That also meant going through his many possessions and determining what were keepsakes. My father-in-law, John Parker Jr., always has been a huge fan of Indiana high school basketball, and he spoke proudly of the many times he made the drive down to Indianapolis to witness the State Finals. Lo and behold, as we rummaged through boxes and drawers,…
Debate over a developer’s plan to buy 71 acres of woods and wetlands on Crown Hill Cemetery’s northern edge for a retail-and-residential
project will come to a head this week when the Metropolitan Development Commission votes on the proposal.
When it comes to the battle of the ‘burbs-at least those north of Indianapolis-Carmel seems to get all the glory. Not that it’s undeserved, considering the progress and growth that have taken place under Mayor Jim Brainard. But lest you haven’t noticed, Carmel’s rival to the northeast-Noblesville-has fired up its afterburners in the last few years and is making major strides on the development front. Some of the credit should go to that city’s first-term mayor, John Ditslear, who was…
Subprime is a funny term. The word prime connotes best of class, front row, all that stuff. Stick the word sub in front of it and it seems as if you are getting something a few rows back, but still better than average. Pertaining to the residential mortgage market, however, the word means something entirely different. Asset bubbles are created from something genuine (the Internet is indeed changing everything) and they are extended through the use of leverage. Now that…
ATMs are still convenient, but not much of a novelty anymore. That distinction now belongs to remote-deposit capture-a high-tech advancement that guarantees a big payoff for banks and their customers alike. “From a technological standpoint, it’s the biggest thing happening in banking in 2007,” said Lee Wetherington, senior vice president at Brentwood, Tenn.-based software maker Goldleaf Financial Inc. Remote-deposit capture eliminates the need for businesses to physically deposit checks at their bank branch. Using the new technology, checks are scanned…
It’s been 15 years since third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot briefly captured the nation’s attention with his crisp, witty promises to “look under the hood” to fix the problems in Washington. Since that time, some problems have gotten worse, some have gotten better. But in this era of political polarization and legislative gridlock, the idea of a new face coming to town to actually fix some of the problems we face today is as appealing as ever. What would such…
I notice that my home county, LaGrange, did not make Progressive Farmer magazine’s 2007 list of Top 10 Rural Counties in America. Then again, “progressive” is not a word that leaps to mind for a county that is about 40-percent Amish. Actually, none of Indiana’s 92 counties made the Top 10. According to the magazine, the best rural places to live in America are (in reverse order): 10. Polk County, N.C.; 9. Amador County, Calif.; 8. Garfield County, Okla.; 7….
