By Beth Healy, Globe Staff

A former Fidelity Investments trader was found liable by a federal jury in Boston for insider trading when he used his mother's brokerage account to buy and sell a technology stock that Fidelity itself was actively trading.

In a case brought by the Boston office of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, David K. Donovan Jr. of Marblehead was found to have improperly profited by trading shares of Covad Communications Group Inc., in 2003. The SEC said Donovan obtained confidential information from Fidelity's internal system that it was buying a substantial amount of Covad stock, and then bought Covad shares in his mother's account. The SEC said the stock was sold out of Donovan's mother a month later, after Covad shares had risen in value.

The jury did not find Donovan's co-defendant in the case, David R. Hinkle of Texas, liable for insider trading. The case was decided Nov. 20 and made public today.

David Bergers, regional director for the SEC's Boston office, said, "Holding Wall Street insiders accountable for trading on insider information is critical to maintain the public's trust. We are pleased with the jury's verdict.''

In a statement Donovan's attorney, Raipher D. Pellegrino, predicted the insider trading finding would be overturned on appeal because of "evidentiary problems that arose during the trail."

Full entry

Globe Staff

NSTAR, the Boston-based electric and gas utility, said it has been awarded $7.6 million in federal stimulus funds for two projects designed to modernize and enhance the electric grid.

This award from the US Department of Energy is in addition to $10 million in stimulus funds that the Energy Department awarded to NSTAR last month, NSTAR said in a press release.

Describing today's award, the press release said: "The first project is an innovative smart grid program that enables customers to make real-time energy decisions to reduce energy usage and costs. The second award is for a pilot project that will test the feasibility of connecting distributed resources like solar power projects into an urban electric grid, a problematic engineering challenge for utilities in large cities across the country."

Globe Staff

Beacon Power Corp., a Tyngsborough company that offers products and services to support efficient electricity grid operation, said today that the US Department of Energy has announced that Beacon Power has been awarded a stimulus grant valued at $24 million.

The grant will be used in the construction of a flywheel energy storage plant that will be located in Chicago, Beacon Power said in a press release.

Associated Press

BEDFORD - Interactive Data Corp., a provider of financial market data, said that it's buying certain online financial data operations from Dow Jones & Co. for $13.5 million in cash.

Interactive Data sells real-time market data and other information to traders and financial institutions. It's buying technologies from Dow Jones that provide online news, market data, research, advanced charting, portfolio management, and alerts.

Dow Jones will retain its news business and assets such as BigCharts.com, which was part of its acquisition of MarketWatch Inc. in 2005.

Interactive Data said the acquisition will boost its online financial data business, which gives financial institutions various features on their websites to let consumers look up stock prices, manage their portfolio, get news about stocks they own, and others.

The Dow Jones business being acquired already has 200 institutional and other customers.

Interactive Data also agreed to redistribute news from MarketWatch to these institutions, which will make it available to their customers.

The acquisition is expected to boost cash flow this year and next, but won't boost earnings until 2011. The deal is expected to close in several weeks.

Shares of Interactive Data fell 15 cents to $25.95 in afternoon trading.

Associated Press

BOSTON - Investment manager Eaton Vance Corp. said its profit jumped 39 percent in the fourth quarter on higher assets under management and lower investment losses.

For the three months ended Oct. 31, the company earned $48.4 million, or 39 cents per share. That compared to $34.9 million, or 28 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Quarterly revenue edged up 2 percent to $254.1 million from $249.8 million the same time last year.

Earnings in the latest quarter were increased by about 5 cents per share by tax adjustments primarily related to stock-based compensation.

Last year, Eaton Vance's investment losses cut fourth-quarter earnings by 13 cents per share. The company recorded an impairment charge of $13.2 million on investment losses.

The performance beat Wall Street expectations. On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 33 cents per share on revenue of $250.3 million.

In the latest quarter, assets under management grew to $154.9 billion, up 26 percent from $123.09 billion in 2008. That helped lift quarterly investment advisory and administration fees 2 percent, to $195 million.

For the full year, Eaton Vance earned $130.1 million, or $1.08 per share. That was down 34 percent from $195.7 million, or $1.57 per share last year.

Thomas E. Faust Jr., the company's chairman and chief executive, noted in a release that earnings in 2010 should continue improving as a result of expense controls and favorable trends in asset management.

Shares of Eaton Vance fell 94 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $29.60 in afternoon trading.

Associated Press

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University has received a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to establish a new fellowship for business reporters.

The grant of more than $900,000 from the Las Vegas-based foundation will cover the cost of annual fellowships for one business journalist and one community journalist for five years beginning next fall. The Reynolds foundation first established the community journalism fellowship at Harvard in 2005.

Nieman Foundation curator Bob Giles says the grant is particularly important at a time when economic and business news is dominating the headlines and becoming more complex.

Journalists will be able to study topics from management and investment theories to international politics at any of Harvard's schools during the yearlong fellowship.

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Globe Staff

A global investor confidence index compiled by a unit of State Street Corp. fell by 7.6 points to 100.8 from October’s level of 108.4, partly because of jittery Asian investors, while the index for North America ticked up 1.1 points from 101.1 to 102.2.

The results were released by State Street Global Markets, the investment research and trading arm of State Street Corp., a Boston company that provides financial services to large investors.

The State Street Global Markets press release included a statement from Harvard University professor Ken Froot, who helped develop the index.

"Across all regions, institutional investors are largely treading water; neither increasing nor reducing their aggregate holdings of risky assets," Froot said. "However, the aggregate figures mask some country- and region-specific views. This month, for example, institutional investors aggressively pared their holdings in selected markets, such as Australia, while continuing to add to their emerging markets holdings. Overall, investors are displaying some caution about the current level of equity valuations, and a desire to see more evidence of real economic activity and aggregate demand, particularly in the US, before adding to equity exposures."

The graph that accompanies this post was included with State Street's press release.

Globe Staff

Tomorrow could be a great day for letter carriers - if the folks delivering the mail happen to be fans of Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

Here's the latest word from the highly caffeinated publicity department at the Canton-based chain: "On the eve of the holiday season, Dunkin' Donuts, America's all-day, every-day stop for coffee and baked goods, is delivering a very special gift to the men and women who deliver our holiday cards, catalogs, and presents. On Wednesday, Nov. 25, Dunkin' Donuts will serve free coffee to any United States Postal Service (USPS) letter carrier. Any USPS letter carrier that is wearing an official uniform or shows their union card identification can visit participating Dunkin' Donuts restaurants throughout the country for a free coffee, any size. No additional purchase is necessary."

Globe Staff

October sales of single-family homes in Massachusetts jumped 17.2 percent to 4,295 from 3,664 in October 2008 - the highest number of sales for the month of October since 2005 and the biggest increase in year-over-year sales so far in 2009, said the Warren Group, which added that a federal tax credit for first-time home buyers helped stimulate sales.

October was the fourth consecutive month that single-family home sales climbed, and condo sales also increased, said the Warren Group, a Boston firm that tracks local real estate activity and publishes Banker & Tradesman.

But median prices for both single-family homes and condominiums slipped from year-ago levels.

The median price for single-family homes sold in October fell 2.8 percent to $277,000 from $285,000; that 2.8 percent drop compares with a 1 percent drop in September, the Warren Group said.

On a volume basis, Massachusetts condo sales rose 12 percent to 1,854 from 1,655 in October 2008, the firm said. That's a "significant reversal" for the local condo market, which in the first six months of 2009 saw double-digit percentage declines in sales, the firm added.

The median selling price for Massachusetts condos dropped 8.1 percent to $240,000 in October from $261,000 during the same month in 2008, the Warren Group said.

Referencing sales activity for single-family homes, Timothy M. Warren Jr., chief executive of the Warren Group, said in a statement."Sales volume has increased for four consecutive months so I think that there’s some evidence here that a housing recovery is on its way. But we can’t say that the housing market has completely turned the corner yet because median home prices are still declining year-over-year."

Timothy Warren added: "The tax credit that’s being offered to home buyers has certainly stimulated home sales. And while unemployment is still a concern, I think that people who have jobs are probably feeling a little bit more optimistic about the financial markets and the overall economy and they’re more willing to go out and make big purchases like buying a home."

(Today's Globe features an AP story that noted that there has been a recent surge in regional home as many first-time home buyers rushed to qualify for an $8,000 federal tax credit that was scheduled to expire at the end of this month before Congress extended it through April.)

Separately, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors issued its own monthly report on the state's housing market. While the association uses a different method to track real estate activity, its October results were roughly in line with those of the Warren Group's.

On a volume basis, 3,828 Massachusetts single-family homes were sold in October, up 17.7 percent from October 2008 and up 11.7 percent from September 2009, the association said.

The median price for a single-family home last month was $287,000, down 2.6 from a year ago and down 1 percent from September 2009, the association said.

In October, 1,519 condos were sold in Massachusetts, up 17.2 percent from October 2008 and up 4 percent from September 2009, the association said.

The median condo selling price in October was $240,000, down 4 percent from a year ago and down 7.7 percent from the previous month, the association said.

The number of single-family homes put under agreement in October was up 27 percent compared with the same time last year (3,662 homes in 2008 to 4,652 homes in 2009), the association added, and the number of condos put under agreement in October was up 33 percent compared with October 2008 (1,319 units in 2008 to 1,983 units in 2009).

"It is apparent from this significant jump in home sales in October, which is the biggest year-over-year gain we’ve seen since November 2004, that buyers were making sure to take advantage of the tax credit prior to its deadline,” association president Gary Rogers said in a statement. "Now that the President has extended and expanded the credit, we should see continued improvement in the market through the winter and into the spring."

A third report on housing was also issued today - the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. Some economists deem Case-Shiller the best measure of housing prices because Case-Shiller focuses on repeat sales.

According to seasonally adjusted figures, Boston-area home prices fell 0.2 percent in September when measured against August.

That halted a positive trend. Through August, the S&P/Case-Shiller Indices noted that Boston-area prices had risen for several consecutive months.

Looking at 20 markets across the country, the indices released today noted that on a composite basis, home prices were up 0.3 percent in September from August.

Boston-area home prices in September were down 3.3 percent from September 2008, less than the 9.4 percent decline for the top 20 markets across the country, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Indices.

Globe Staff

David McKean has been named the chief executive of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, its board of directors said.

McKean will oversee all operations of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization that provides financial support, staffing, and creative resources for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, a federal institution.

McKean, currently staff director for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, served as chief of staff for US Senator John Kerry from 1999 to 2008; McKean succeeds John Shattuck, who resigned as chief executive in August to accept the position of president and rector of the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.

McKean grew up in Hamilton and is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College.

The "announcement of McKean’s appointment follows the recent election of Kenneth R. Feinberg as chairman of the board of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation," the foundation said in a press release. "Feinberg succeeded Paul G. Kirk Jr., who resigned as board chairman in September when Governor Deval Patrick appointed him interim US Senator from Massachusetts."

Globe Staff

Rhode Island officials have signed a bill that authorizes a Rhode Island license plate for the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation; proceeds from a license plate that will feature the Patriots log will benefit local non-profit organizations, the Patriots said.

The signing ceremony in Providence also kicked off the the 2009-10 'Keep the Heat On' campaign, an effort that provides heating assistance to struggling Rhode Islanders, the Patriots said.

The bill, a Patriots press release said, "allows Rhode Islanders to purchase the special New England Patriots license plates for a fee of $41.50 over the regular registration fee. Of that fee, $21.50 will go into the state's general fund and $20 will go to the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation, the nonprofit organization founded by Patriots owner Robert Kraft to help support charitable and philanthropic agencies throughout New England."

Final design of the license plates are pending approval by the state police, the Patriots said.

Today in Globe Business

November 24, 2009 06:00 AM |Comments ()

As market surges, many can't afford to hop back in

Arthur Caparell would love to be riding the stock market’s recent resurgence, but he’s still trying to recover from the recession’s blows.

The burly 57-year-old machinist watched his retirement savings wither and then, last March, he was laid off. He depleted his savings to get by, and now, with no money left to invest, he is watching the stock market rise with no hope of recouping his loss.

“Now is the time to invest,’’ said Caparell, who has picked up hours working at his girlfriend’s Roslindale flower shop. “But I’m more concerned about taking care of bills than with stocks.’’

To read the full story, please click here.
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Grim forecast for venture capital

Money will be hard to come by for venture capitalists next year as they struggle to lure skittish investors whose portfolios are still recovering from the recession.

“There will be fewer firms, fewer venture capitalists, by this time next year,’’ said Michael Greeley, a general partner with the Boston venture capital firm Flybridge Capital Partners. “Marginal venture firms will definitely be leaving the market.’’

Former venture capitalist Howard Anderson looks toward 2010 and thinks of a line from “The Lion King’’: “Not everyone invited will be coming back from lunch.’’

To read the full story, please click here.
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BOSTON CAPITAL: Breathing easier

LogMeIn Inc., a Woburn software company that raised $106 million by going public less than five months ago, was back in the stock market last week to sell more shares.

Why? Because it could, for one thing. The public market ate up more than 3.1 million shares of LogMeIn without a burp last Thursday. Nearly all the shares were offered not by the company but by its venture capital backers and other insiders. Total take: $58 million.

Most companies that sell additional shares so soon after their initial public offering represent one of two extremes, businesses that are hotter than a pistol or burning through so much cash they must ask for more. LogMeIn is neither, and that says something encouraging about the market for all kinds of Massachusetts companies in search of funding.

To read the full story, please click here.
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Meeting plans

It may not seem like the best time to talk about a massive expansion for the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

The economic downturn has pummeled the convention industry for the past two years. The size, the number of exhibitors, and attendance have fallen in nearly every quarter, according to the industry publication Tradeshow Week.

But the convention business has fared better in Boston than in the nation as a whole, as the medical and life science sectors, which account for about a third of the convention business in the city, have stayed relatively strong compared to other industries during the economic downturn.

To read the full story, please click here.
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This flu season: Have hand sanitizer, will travel

In the age of swine flu, Greyhound bus drivers have a lot more to think about than driving the bus.

Each driver now goes through training to assess passengers who look sick, asking them: “Are you running a fever? Do you feel achy?’’ Buses are also now equipped with vinyl gloves and a respirator mask in case drivers have to interact with a passenger who becomes ill.

Millions of Americans will be boarding planes, buses, and trains this week to visit friends and relatives for Thanksgiving, and this year riding in enclosed spaces with other people comes with a new worry: Does the person coughing in the seat next to me have the H1N1 virus?

To read the full story, please click here.
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By Casey Ross, Globe Staff

Already one of the biggest buildings of its kind in New England, the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center would double in size under a an expansion plan unveiled today by state officials, eventually becoming a 1-million-square-foot tourism "campus" on the South Boston Waterfront.

But while trumpeting the need for a larger facility to win bigger convention shows, state officials were not able to say how they would pay for an expansion that could top $1 billion. One official acknowledged authorities will have to reexamine the existing package of travel and tourism-related taxes and fees, which pay for the current facility's debt, to see if they need to be increased.

The blueprint released today calls for the construction of several new buildings around the convention center: a new massive exhibit hall behind the center, a 1,000-room hotel to one side and a 5,000-seat auditorium elsewhere on the campus. It also calls for several parks and a network of pedestrian bridges and walkways to make the area around the center friendlier to foot traffic.

"There will have to be a discussion about the financing model and what it will take to move forward with expansion," said James Rooney, executives director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority.

Today's announcement kicks off a year-long planning process that will narrow down the options for the expansion and work with neighbors and nearby community leaders to determine the best location for some of the new facilities. A special commission is due to report on its findings by Dec. 31, 2010.

Only then would a finalized plan be presented to the state Legislature, which would likely have to authorize borrowing to finance construction of the expansion, as well as any revenue mechanics to repay that debt. The debt on the current facility is being repaid by a combination of taxes on hotel rooms, fees on rental cars, taxis and tourist trolleys.

Globe Staff

First Wind, a Boston-based wind power company, said that it has begun construction for an expansion of its Stetson Wind project in Danforth, Maine.

The first phase of the Stetson Wind project began operations in January. This second phase of the project is designed to add 25.5 megawatts of capacity to the project. When the second phase of the project goes operational, something expected to happen next spring, the $200 million Stetson Wind project will have the capacity to generate a total of 82.5 megawatts of power, or roughly enough to supply 33,000 homes, First Wind said.

"Recently, Harvard University announced that it will purchase half of the power generated by the Stetson Wind II facility as well as the associated Renewable Energy Certificates," First Wind added in today's press release.

Globe Staff

The average price of a gallon of gas in Massachusetts is unchanged from the previous week at $2.619, AAA Southern New England said.

AAA puts out a weekly survey that focuses on self-serve, regular unleaded gas, and in the latest weekly survey from AAA, the national average for self serve unleaded gas was $2.64, AAA Southern New England said.

"A year ago at this time, the Massachusetts average price was $1.91 - 70 cents lower than today’s average," AAA Southern New England said.

Globe Staff

Fantini & Gorga, a Boston mortgage banking firm affiliated with Eastern Bank, said that it recently arranged $6.385 million in acquisition financing for two self storage properties on behalf of its client, Storage Opportunities Partners LLC, an owner and operator of self storage facilities.

One of the properties is in Falmouth, and it consists of five buildings on 4.88 acres, with 79,495 square feet of rentable area and 749 units, Fantini & Gorga said; the other property is in Fairhaven, and that facility contains 41,583 rentable square feet in six buildings, with 337 units, on 4.06 acres.

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(This 2007 artist's rendering of the Zumwalt is a Navy handout.)

Associated Press

Raytheon Co., the Waltham-based defense contractor, said today that it has received a $241.3 million US Navy contract to deliver additional software for the Zumwalt-class destroyer.

Software development will help integrate interaction with computer components for the ship's engineering machinery controls and damage control systems, particularly to control ship propulsion, integrated power, and other systems.

Work will be done at Raytheon in Tewksbury and the Seapower Capability Center in Portsmouth, R.I.

Globe Staff

You might think that with the widespread availability of high-speed Internet, folks would be more inclined to do their online holiday shopping at home than at the office, but a new study from the National Retail Federation and a firm called BIGresearch suggests that online shopping on the boss's time will continue to be popular.

"This year, 53.5 percent of workers with Internet access, or 68.8 million people, will shop for holiday gifts from work," said Shop.org, a division of the retail federation. "According to the survey, three-fourths (73.8 percent) of young adults 18-24 with Internet access will shop at work, and men are more likely to shop from work than women (56.3 percent vs. 50.8 percent)."

The release included a statement from Phil Rist, executive vice president of strategic initiatives for BIGresearch, which conducted the survey for Shop.org.

Said Rist: "Although employers may cringe at the thought of their workers browsing or buying gifts online at work, there is a potential bright side. Employees who spend 10 minutes at the office completing their holiday shopping online are likely to be much more efficient than those who use extended lunch breaks waiting in line at the store and fighting holiday traffic on the way back to work."

The study was released as online merchants gear up for "Cyber Monday." Shop.org claims to have coined the term in 2005 after retailers noticed a trend of people shopping online on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday is now viewed as the "ceremonial kickoff" to the online holiday shopping season, Shop.org said.

With concerns that the recession has converted many one-time big spenders into penny-pinchers, merchants online and off are expected to offer holiday discounts this year as a way to get shoppers to loosen up.

According to Shop.org’s new "eHoliday Survey," 87.1 percent of retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 83.7 percent last year and 72.2 percent in 2007.

Associated Press

PROVIDENCE - Governor Don Carcieri's administration has failed for months to spend $20 million meant to insulate poor people's homes against the winter chill and put unemployed people to work during one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression.

All the while, the Republican governor has criticized President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan as ineffective in creating jobs even though the state isn't spending all the money it's been given. Half the funding had arrived by July, but state officials say it will only start flowing this week to agencies ready to spend it.

Rhode Island was among five states that had not started spending their weatherization funding money by late September, according to an analysis of federal records by the National Association for State Community Services Programs. The others were Alaska, Indiana, Vermont, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.

Jeanne Gattegno, president of Westbay Community Action, a charitable agency that helps Kent County residents become self-sufficient, attributed the delays to complex rules governing the stimulus program and state officials trying to cope with a sudden influx of cash.

"We were surprised it took this long, but it's here now at last," Gattegno said.

Full entry

Globe Staff

iBasis Inc., a Burlington-based wholesale carrier of international long-distance calls, and Royal KPN N.V. said they have agreed to a deal in which KPN will pay $3 per share for the stock in iBasis that KPN doesn't already own.

KPN, a telecommunications company in the Netherland, currently owns 56 percent of the shares in iBasis. Earlier this year, KPN made unsolicited offers to buy the shares in iBasis that it didn't already own; iBasis termed earlier offers of $1.55 a share and $2.25 a share "inadequate."

Referencing the $3 offer made today, iBasis said that the special committee of its board of directors has unanimously approved the agreement and recommends that iBasis stockholders tender their shares in KPN's tender offer.

In their joint press release today, iBasis and KPN says the latest offer of $3 a share values the 44 percent of iBasis shares that KPN doesn't own at $93.3 million. That offer represents a premium of 158.5 percent over the $1.16 average closing price during the three-months before the announcement of the tender offer and a 32.7 percent premium over the Friday closing price of $2.26, the companies said.

As part of the agreement, iBasis will drop its legal efforts to block KPN's earlier offers, the release said. (To read a Globe story about those legal efforts, please click here.

The companies said that iBasis operations will continue to be located in Burlington.

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