Johnson Bank Exec on a Mission
Johnson Bank President and COO Russ Weyers is spending much of his time away from the $5.4 billion-asset bank spreading the message that the banks aren’t the bad guys in the current financial mess. Read the Business Journal of Milwaukee article. (1/31/09)

Bankruptcy Filings Up 35%
Bankruptcy filings in Wisconsin increased slightly more than the national average last year – 21,141 filings in 2008 (the large majority of them personal consumer bankruptcies), compared with 15,626 in 2007, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/30/09)

No Industry Spared
Since the beginning of the year, companies in southeast Wisconsin have announced plans to cut more than 2,000 jobs across a broad range of sectors. “Every region and every industry is getting hit,” said Marquette University Professor Cheryl Maranto. Read the Business Journal of Milwaukee article. (1/30/09)

New Home Sales Lowest Since ’63
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that new home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 331,000 in December. That’s down nearly 15 percent from a revised 388,000 annual rate in November – and the lowest on records dating back to 1963, the Business Journal of Milwaukee reported. (1/30/09)

State Warns of Tax Scams
The state departments of Ag, Trade and Consumer Protection and Revenue are warning Wisconsin residents to beware of phone calls or e-mails claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service. Read more about tax scams on WKOW Channel 27’s web site. (1/29/09)

Bremer Foundation Creates Fund
The St. Paul-based Otto Bremer Foundation is spreading $4.2 million to various nonprofits in Minnesota, North Dakota and western Wisconsin to provide direct grants to families and individuals in crisis. The Foundation is unique in that it owns Bremer Financial Corp., which reported a 5.7 percent increase in income in 2008 compared with 2007. Read more at MinnPost.com. (1/29/09)

DFI: Lending Still Strong
Wisconsin banks “have aggressively lent money in their communities” during the economic downturn, with a ratio of loans to deposits higher than the national average, Department of Financial Institutions banking administrator Mike Mach told members of a Senate committee. Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article. (1/28/09)

Leadership Largely Unchanged
At banks that are receiving federal bailout money, nearly nine out of every 10 of the most senior executives from 2006 are still on the job, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory and company documents. (1/27/09)

Slight Rise in Home Sales Predicted
Reduced prices and low interest rates are expected to increase the sale of existing homes by 1 percent in 2009, according to an economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association quoted in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/26/09)

Feingold Opposed Geinthner Confirmation
Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold was one of only three Democrats who voted against Timothy Geithner when he was confirmed as treasury secretary, the Chicago Tribune reported. (1/26/09)

Rates Not Boosting Sales Yet
Low mortgage interest rates haven’t boosted home sales yet, but real estate agents are optimistic that will happen. And Jim Bradley, president of Home Savings Bank of Madison, said about 15 percent of the mortgage applications his bank has processed recently are for sales instead of refinancing. Read the Wisconsin State Journal article. (1/24/09)

Rough Year for Wis. Banks
One in every six Wisconsin banks took a loss in the third quarter of 2008. Even though that’s better than the national average of one in four, the state’s ratio will almost certainly be worse when the FDIC releases fourth-quarter data, analysts said in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/24/09)

People Saving with Low Rates
Record-low mortgage rates are keeping Madison-area lenders busy, with as much as five times the normal volume. “People are extremely rate sensitive, more so than ever before. They’re literally watching for an eighth of a percent,” one lender said. Read the Wisconsin State Journal article. (1/23/09)

Bright Spots Amid the Turmoil
Some segments of the banking industry are healthy and are lending money, especially to strong commercial and industrial clients. Lending institutions that are in a strong financial position still have a significant appetite for commercial loans, Russ Weyers, president and COO of Johnson Bank told the Small Business Times. (1/23/09)

Wis. Banks Safe and Sound
The banking industry is one of the most highly regulated industries with very complex, technical rules that must be followed. While the industry as a whole is facing challenging times as a result of the current economy, the banks in Wisconsin as a whole are strong, wrote Rose Oswald Poels of the Wisconsin Bankers Association in a Small Business Times opinion column. (1/23/09)

New Firm Buys Distressed Assets
Milwaukee-based Bellwether Capital Group Inc. was founded in October for the express purpose of helping banks rid themselves of distressed assets. “Our client buys all or any identified non-performing (assets) at the full note plus any accrued interest,” said Michael Blumenfeld, the firm’s president, in the Small Business Time. (1/23/09)

Not Quite the Great Depression
Northern Trust Bank economist Paul Kasriel compares expectations for the current recession with the Great Depression in a Small Business Times column. (1/23/09)

Foreclosures to Slow in 2009?
The nation’s foreclosure hemorrhage has finally slowed and 2009 should see a significant decline in foreclosures as buyers return, pushing home prices up and fueling a real estate recovery, according to the 2009 Outlook from Foreclosures.com reported in the Small Business Times. (1/23/09)

Two More Join Fed Program
The parent companies of The Baraboo National Bank and Manitowoc’s Bank First National have joined the list of Wisconsin banks participating in the federal government’s Capital Purchase Program, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/22/09)

Ransom Retires in Black River Falls
John Drace is the new president of Jackson County Bank in Black River Falls, replacing Gene Ransom, who led the bank since 2001. Fred Goettl will now serve as executive vice president. Read the Jackson County Chronicle story. (1/21/09)

Bill Would Extend Wage Lien
Current Wisconsin law allows employees to collect up to $3,000 in back wages when their employer files for bankruptcy or ceases operations. A new proposal authored by state Sen. John Lehman (D-Racine), named the Employee Wage Protection Act, would eliminate the $3,000 per employee cap in recovering unpaid wages. If passed, the bill could restrict lending, bankers say. Read more in the Small Business Times. (1/20/09)

Milwaukee Foreclosure Plan OK’d
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has approved a city of Milwaukee plan to spend its $9.2 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program allocation on a program to assist homebuyers who purchase foreclosed properties. The program will also fund rental unit rehabilitation, large project rental development, demolition of unsafe structures, a land bank and more, the Small Business Times reported. (1/20/09)

Results of Banker Survey Released
Nearly 90 percent of bank chief executives recently surveyed by the Wisconsin Bankers Association said they believe the state’s economy is weakening, and 54 percent expect businesses in their markets to cut employees in the next six months. Read more in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/19/09)

Merger Forms Westbury Bank
The bank formed by the merger of West Bend Savings Bank and Continental Savings Bank will be called Westbury Bank. With assets of $680 million, Westbury is the 22nd-largest bank based in Wisconsin. Its headquarters is in West Bend, with a regional office in Greenfield and 28 locations, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. (1/19/09)

No Prosecution for Bad Check Writers
Outagamie County is the 16th county in Wisconsin to contract with the Minnesota-based Financial Crimes Services, which charges bank fees and required class fees on top of restitution to people who write bad checks, allowing them to avoid criminal prosecution, the Appleton Post-Crescent reported. (1/18/09)

Re-fis Send Banks into Overtime
Milwaukee-area lenders say they are being bombarded by applications for mortgage refinancing as interest rates hover around 5 percent, prompting banks to reassign staff to mortgage processing and work extra hours, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/17/09)

Chicago Fed CEO: Outlook Sluggish
Even if the economy begins to grow again in the second half of this year, job losses are likely to continue mounting into the middle of 2010, said Charles L. Evans, president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago at the Wisconsin Economic Forecast Luncheon in Madison. Read more in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or WisBusiness.com. (1/15/09)

Latest Foreclosure Stats Released
In Wisconsin, 25,164 foreclosure filings were made in 2008, 62 percent more than in 2007 and 249 percent more than in 2006, on a total of 19,695 properties, according to numbers for RealtyTrac – a service that provides foreclosure information to potential buyers – reported in The Capital Times. (1/15/09)

Hendee Focused on Relationships
Former Firstar Corp. Chairman and Milwaukee civic leader John Hendee focused on relationships with people, said family members and former associates. He died Jan. 4 at age 82. Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel obituary. (1/14/09)

Banker Recalls Robbery
McFarland State Bank Chairman and CEO David Locke has been named Banker of the Year by NorthWestern Financial Review. In addition to the full article about Locke in the magazine’s Jan. 15, 2009, issue, NFR wrote about a time when he faced masked gunmen while working as a teller early in his career. Read the NFR blog entry. (1/13/09)

CU League Opens Madison Office
The Wisconsin Credit Union League opened the Credit Union House, a 2,500-square foot-office on the Capitol Square in Madison. The office gives the league’s 250 members a place to host meetings with state officials, the Small Business Times reported. (1/13/09)

Bank Plans Cedarburg Location
West Bend-based Commerce State Bank announced it will open a location in Cedarburg this spring. The bank opened in fall of 2005 and has grown to $275 million in assets, the Small Business Times reported. (1/13/09)

Milw. Home Prices Near Stability
Home prices fell 4.6 percent and sales of existing homes dropped 18.2 percent in the Milwaukee metro area. Still, it appears that home prices here are holding up much better than homes nationally, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. (1/12/09)

WBA: Banks Wrongly Portrayed
Wisconsin banks have tightened up lending amid the financial crisis, but they’re not hoarding cash like Washington pundits charge, a panel from the Wisconsin Bankers Association said in a conference call with the media. Banks are “squeaky clean compared to the squishy segments in the mortgage investment industry with which they're sometimes wrongly lumped,” the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported. (1/10/09)

Credit Crunch Squeezes Businesses
The credit crunch ranks as the No. 1 risk this year for businesses because of its extraordinary and direct impact, as well as its unpredictability, accounting firm Ernst & Young said in its 2009 business risk report. And according to the National Association for the Self-Employed, an estimated 3.7 small business owners hold “toxic” mortgages that are scheduled to reset at much higher interest rates. Read more in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/10/09)

U.S. Job Loss Worst Since 1945
The U.S. Labor Department reported that the nation lost almost 2.6 million jobs in 2008, the most since 1945. Of that total, 524,000 jobs were lost in December, fostering a fearful mindset that may make the downturn worse, economists said. Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article. (1/9/09)

Four Wis. Banks Sell Stock to Treasury
The parent company of AnchorBank announced plans to sell about $110 million in senior preferred stock to the U.S. Treasury. Other Wisconsin banks participating in the federal government’s Capital Purchase Program are M&I Marshall & Ilsley Bank, Associated Bank and Nicolet National Bank, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/9/09)

Bank Warns of Phishing Scam
Associated Bank said customers and non-customers have been the target of a “phishing” attack in which Internet thieves use e-mail or text messages to try to trick people into revealing personal financial information, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. (1/9/09)

Fiserv Insurance Becomes StoneRiver
The name of Brookfield-based Fiserv Inc.’s insurance unit will be changed from Fiserv Insurance Solutions to StoneRiver beginning in March, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/7/09)

Hudson Banker Retires
After a career of more than 35 years in banking, Ken Heiser, market president of Associated Bank in Hudson, has announced his retirement. Heiser was formerly president and CEO of First National Bank of Hudson, a position he started in 1981, and was named market president for Associated Bank in June 2007 when Associated Banc-Corp acquired First National. Read the Hudson Star-Observer article. (1/7/09)

Remembering Carl Pohlad
In the NorthWestern Financial Review blog, Tom Herbst looks back on 40 years of working with Carl Pohlad, who passed away Jan. 5 at the age of 93. Herbst, who was CEO of Pohlad’s Marquette Financial Companies, said they “would fly off to a town and negotiate a deal when we were there, oftentimes right on a sheet of paper. I can even remember a time where we bought a bank where he wrote the deal on the back of a napkin.” Read more. (1/6/09)

Pigeon Drop Scam is Back
An 86-year-old woman didn’t fall for the old “pigeon drop” scam outside a grocery store in Madison, thwarting two women who tried to con her out of her money. In a pigeon drop, the scammers show a wad of cash, claiming they found the money, and want to split it up between the scammers and the “pigeon,” the one being taken. Read the Capital Times story. (1/6/09)

Economic Trends Event Planned
The 2009 Northern Trust Economic Trends Breakfast will be presented by Small Business Times on Jan. 21 at the Italian Community Center in downtown Milwaukee. Read more or register. (1/6/09)

Alternate Financing Group Formed
To help its customers overcome the “current difficulty in obtaining traditional bank financing to purchase businesses,” Sunbelt Business Brokers has partnered with Pendarvis Capital Group, a Maryland-based financial group, to provide alternative financing, the Small Business Times reported. (1/6/09)

Guaranty Tries to Prevent Foreclosures
Stung by mortgage foreclosures and delinquencies, Guaranty Bank in Brown Deer is mounting an aggressive campaign to make monthly payments more affordable for some of its customers. The bank has developed a system to help it identify borrowers who might fall behind on payments or who face loan adjustments that could jolt them financially, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article and editorial. (1/4/09)

Wis. Foreclosures Set New Record
As home prices fell and job losses climbed in 2008, foreclosure filings surged a record 21.5 percent in Wisconsin – and foreclosure experts say the worst probably isn't over because unemployment is spreading in the weak economy, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (1/2/09)

Recession Official in Wisconsin
In what could be the biggest understatement so far this early new year, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue has officially declared the Badger State to be in a recession, according to a story in The Capital Times. (1/2/09)

M&I Foreclosing on Condo Project
Marshall & Ilsley Corp. is foreclosing on a suburban Chicago million of condominium development and is seeking to collect nearly $19 unpaid loans connected to the project, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. (1/1/09)

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