giovedì 6 maggio 2010

Barter On The Minds Of Business Owners

BarterNews,From the desk of Bob Meyer... 05/04/2010

Barter On The Minds Of Business Owners

A recent survey by Pitney Bowes showed that 33% of businesses would barter with their customers/suppliers/employees if their firm’s financial situation were to decline or remain flat in the next six to twelve months.

Only two categories barely nosed out the 33% bartering notation — both at 34% — which were laying off employees and changing the products/services offered.

BarterBook Seeks New Marketing Techniques

BarterBook is looking at new ways to market trade exchange memberships with the help of VirtualBarter’s software. BarterBook will resemble the look and feel of Facebook, the popular social networking site.

Members of BarterBook will have the option to refer friends to join the social bartering network, as well as providing products and services to barter.

For more information on BarterBook click here.

For more information on VirtualBarter click here.

Riggs Likes Social Network Idea Too

Annette Riggs, Managing Director of The Community Connect Trade Association located in Westminster (CO), is looking to use social networks to spread the barter message virally.

For more information click here.

New Land Rush By U.S. Home Builders

Across the U.S., home builders are battling to acquire land lots in preparation for ramping-up home construction. According to Greg Vogel, chief executive of Land Advisors Organization, a national land brokerage firm based in Scottsdale (AZ), the best-located lots are commanding double what they would have a year earlier.

Builders are particularly interested in finished lots — land with improvements such as sewers and streets in place, allowing for homes to be constructed quickly.

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A Creative Exchange Sees Bank Moving Toxic Assets

Georgia’s third largest bank, United Community Banks (Nasdaq:UCBI), has struck a barter-type deal with a New York-based private equity firm, Fletcher International. Fletcher will acquire $100 million in United’s most illiquid assets.

These assets are ones the bank couldn’t have shed from its books without essentially giving them away and burning enormous capital. In the exchange the private equity group receives warrants for equity in the bank.

The complex transaction covers nonperforming commercial and residential mortgages and foreclosed property — mostly partially built houses and raw lots — in the North Georgia Mountains, the Western Carolinas and along the Georgia coast.

The deal will essentially take illiquid assets off the balance sheet and free up capital. In short, United gets capital back (instead of losing capital in fire sales) while also structuring the deal to be accretive to capital over time through a stock investment by its new private equity partner.

Fletcher now has rights to acquire $65 million in convertible preferred stock and will acquire warrants to purchase up to an additional $65 million in common stock. They will also put $10 million in deposits into the bank in exchange for the financing.

Bottomline: A good deal for everyone. And United is now in the position of becoming a consolidator of failed banking institutions.

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