By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – The good, the bad, and the ugly in North Texas...and there's a lot of it. I'm Maxine Shapiro with Marketplace Middays.
Dallas ranked as the fifth most affordable city for corporate meetings. The survey from GetThere, a division of Sabre, ranked Jacksonville, Florida first, followed by Indianapolis, Atlanta and Tucson, Arizona. I doubt if they considered the not-yet-open, new ZaZa hotel. Oh, forgive me, "boutique hotel," with its oversized, individually decorated rooms going for up to $1000 a night. And in the "How to Win Friends and Influence People Category," developer Charlie Givens was quoted in the Dallas Morning News today saying, "Uptown is the area of opinion makers. All those upscale condo owners are filled with Hotel ZaZa customers. They may live here, but they have friends and family who don't."
Dallas-based Tuesday Morning, the leading closeout retailer of upscale home furnishings, gifts and related items in the U.S., reported a 400% increase in earnings per share over its third quarter last year. That equals ten cents per share up from two cents per share. That's good.
TXU, whose problems have been mounting for months, announced a 38% drop in earnings. That's 78 cents per share versus $1.29 for same time last year. Hopefully, with the sale of its European unit behind them, they can concentrate on rebuilding investor confidence.
And Irving-based ACE Cash Express, the nation's largest check-cashing chain, got more than a slap on the wrist yesterday from federal regulators. A small California bank, Goleta National Bank, was ordered to stop providing "payday loans" through the offices of ACE. Payday loans are those very short-term, extremely high-interest cash advances given out by ACE and other companies and are usually paid back by the borrower on his or her payday thus the term. Interest rates can exceed 1000%.
By using these small banks, companies like ACE can get around the state laws restricting this practice. ACE was also fined $250,000 - Goleta Bank, $75,000. For KERA Marketplace Middays, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.