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Business briefs, September 4

Rocky staff and wire reports

Published September 3, 2008 at 9:05 p.m.

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Allen McConnell

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NATIONAL

GMAC to close 200 offices, lay off 5,000 employees

Lender GMAC Financial Services said Wednesday it will close all of its 200 retail offices and lay off about 5,000 employees as part of plans to reduce its mortgage lending and servicing operations because of the housing market downturn.

The majority of the layoffs are slated for GMAC's mortgage lending division, Residential Capital LLC, or ResCap, and will reduce the work force at the unit by 60 percent, the company said.

About 3,000 employees may receive word of the cutbacks this month. Other cutbacks are expected to take place by the end of the year, the company said.

The company also said it would stop making mortgage loans through external, wholesale brokers. ResCap will continue servicing loans and lending through brands such as Ditech or GMAC Mortgage Direct, which customers can reach online or through call centers, said spokeswoman Jeannine Bruin.

TIVO SHARES UP Shares of TiVo Inc. jumped Wednesday after the company said it will launch a new high-definition digital video recorder under an extended agreement with DirecTV Group Inc.

The new development deal extends the companies' agreement by five years to Feb. 15, 2015, and helps TiVo gain access to DirecTV's HD market. El Segundo, Calif.-based DirecTV said it will still offer its own set-top boxes to customers, but the new TiVo box will be an additional option.

GANNETT PURCHASE Gannett Co. said Wednesday that it bought a 10 percent interest in CareerBuilder from Tribune Co. for $135 million, giving it a majority stake in the employment Web site.

The deal bumps Gannett's interest in CareerBuilder up to 50.8 percent. Tribune now owns 30.8 percent of the Web site, with McClatchy Co.'s stake at 14.4 percent and Microsoft Corp.'s interest at 4 percent.

DISCOUNT CONTINUED General Motors Corp. said Wednesday it is extending its employee-pricing discount through the end of the month, saying the program's two-week run has been highly successful.

GM said it will continue offering employee discounts through Sept. 30 to all customers on all 2008 GM vehicles in stock except medium-duty trucks, and it is extending the number of 2009 models included in the sale. The incentive program was previously set to end Tuesday.

STAPLES PROFIT DROPS Staples Inc. said Wednesday that its second-quarter profit dropped 16 percent as the office supply chain was hurt by slowing sales in U.S. stores.

The Framingham, Mass.- based retailer earned $150.2 million, or 21 cents a share, for the quarter ended Aug. 2. That's down from a year-ago profit of $178.8 million, or 25 cents a share.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn 21 cents a share on revenue of $4.69 billion. The performance was largely in line with the company's pre-announced results.

Staples said sales jumped 18 percent to $5.07 billion from $4.29 billion during the same period last year.

LOCAL

Greenwood Village software company gets $3.7 million

Secure64 Software Corp. said it secured $3.7 million in funding from a consortium of private investors and institutions.

The Greenwood Village software provider said it would use the money to expand its sales and marketing activities and to introduce new products.

STAFFING HIKES Seven percent of chief financial officers in the Denver area expect to add accounting and finance staff during the fourth quarter of 2008 and 7 percent anticipate reductions in personnel, according to the most recent Robert Half International Financial Hiring Index. The majority of respondents, 85 percent, anticipate no change in hiring.

Job reductions climb 12 percent during August

Job cuts announced by U.S. employers last month jumped 12 percent over a year ago to cap the busiest summer of downsizing in six years, according to a report Wednesday.

The monthly job reductions slowed somewhat from July but still exceeded the year-ago figure for a seventh time in 2008, according to job placement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Employers announced plans to reduce their work forces by 88,736 jobs in August - 14 percent fewer than the 103,312 job cuts announced in July but 12 percent more than the 79,459 recorded in August 2007.

For the summer period of May through August, job cuts totaled 377,325, up from 249,197 in the summer of 2007. The latest tally pushes the total of announced cuts in 2008 to 667,996, up 29 percent from 515,855 in the first eight months of 2007.

* Orders to U.S. factories rose by a larger-than-expected amount in July as demand for aircraft, machinery and iron and steel all posted solid gains.

The Commerce Department reported that new orders increased by 1.3 percent in July, much stronger than the 0.8 percent increase economists had been expecting.

Just in

* Monfort College of Business professor Allen McConnell was named a 2008 Outstanding Faculty Advisor by Beta Alpha Psi, the honorary organization for financial information students and professionals.

* The Colorado Black Chamber of Commerce appointed Fred Niehaus and Richard Rhoades to its board of directors.

* Denver-based SysTest Labs hired Chris Kendall as chief financial officer.

* Jordy Construction hired Esperanza Malia as director of business development.

* Littleton-based tw telecom inc. raised $290,000 to benefit SungateKids, a Denver-based nonprofit for victims of child abuse and their families.

* The University of Colorado at Denver named Janet Lopez director for P-20 Education Initiatives.

* Loveland-based Tenfold Collective's Web site was ranked as one of the Top 10 Sites To See by HOW Magazine.

* CIBER Inc. named Terje Laugerud, CEO of its European and Eastern Asia/Pacific operations, responsible for CIBER's SAP Practices on a global basis.

* ProConnect Public Relations and Altitude Public Relations merged and will operate under the ProConnect name.

* Optic Nerve donated 1,000 pairs of sunglasses to the dZi Foundation for missions to Nepal and India.

* Waddell & Reed added Ryan Burton as personal financial advisor in the Denver area.

* Schenkein added Greenberg Traurig as a client.

* The Colorado Chapter of the Business Marketing Association will host a dinner keynote titled The New World of Marketing - Engaging Social Media to Expand Business Reach with Karl Ossentjuk, vice president of Business Services for Comcast, next Wednesday at the Renaissance Hotel. Information: bmacolorado.org

* Cambridge Solutions Ltd. appointed Tim Kirkpatrick to vice president of BPO Sales.

* Vincent J. Bocchinfuso received the Qualified Pension Administrator credential from the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries.

* CoBiz Financial added Nathan Nelson as a commercial banker at Colorado Business Bank in Vail and Elizabeth Tanaka as a customer service manager at Colorado Business Bank in Cherry Creek.