Financial life in a big town

Cities in the U.S. Sun Belt states of California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona dominated the record foreclosure spree in the first half of the year, but distress in other regions emerged as joblessness spread, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Metro areas with populations of at least 200,000 in those four states accounted for 35 of the 50 highest foreclosure rates.

Mortgages have failed the fastest in the areas with the greatest overbuilding, purchases by speculators and reliance on riskier loan products to improve affordability.

But the source of the mortgage trouble has swung from lax lending standards to unemployment.

Some of the areas with the most severe foreclosure activity have started to show improvement as price cuts and first-time buyer tax credits lure purchasers.

With the unemployment rate near a 26-year high and many employers cutting wages, more consumers in areas that were initially spared in the foreclosure explosion are now behind in their home loan payments.

More than 20 percent of areas with above-average foreclosure activity were in Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Illinois and South Carolina in the first half of the year. That shift points to growing unemployment more than to fallout from subprime and adjustable-rate loans, RealtyTrac said in its midyear metropolitan foreclosure market report.

While total foreclosure activity kept rising, “some of the markets that had the highest saturation of foreclosures over the past few years have seen declining rates, while new markets like Provo, Utah, and Boise, Idaho, have seen large increases,” James J personal business cards. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, said in a statement.

“As unemployment rates increase in different parts of the country, it’s very likely that we’ll see similar patterns develop elsewhere,” he said.

Home prices through May plunged more than 32 percent from their mid-2006 peak, with losses varying sharply depending on region, according to Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller indexes.

A rise in foreclosure properties pressure prices of other homes for sale.

“As unemployment rises, we are seeing a change in the financial profile of the people seeking our help,” Suzanne Boas, president of Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Atlanta, said this week.

“We are serving an increasing number of people who work in professional services and skilled trades,” she said. “These people have maintained solid incomes their entire lives, but are now in financial trouble and are reaching out for counseling to help avoid foreclosure.”

In June, 72 percent of homeowners who got foreclosure prevention counseling from the agency, which serves all 50 states, were either unemployed or reported a drop in income.

RealtyTrac this month reported a record 1.9 million foreclosure filings on more than 1.5 million properties in the first six months of this year. The pace picked up after various temporary freezes ended in March. 

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Homes in the Beach neighbourhood of Toronto showed the highest price appreciation this year, according to a study released today.

Existing detached homes in the downtown family friendly neighbourhood saw a 3.79 per cent increase to $715,422, in the first six months of this year compared to last, according to ReMax Ontario Atlantic Canada.

The report looked at the top performing neighborhoods according to price appreciation.

Despite a recession, the average price of a home (including detached houses and condominiums) for the Greater Toronto Area rose by 2 per cent in June to $403, 972, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board.

The board stressed that prices increased mainly because greater sales in some high value neighbourhoods skewed prices upward.

In fact, only 11 of 65 Toronto area districts reported an upswing guaranteed approval payday loans. But some neighbourhoods, according to the Remax study, outperformed the average.

In second place was Pickering to the east, where prices climbed 3.72 per cent to $389,536. The north Toronto suburb of Willowdale ranked third, with a home up 3.32 per cent in value, or $779,537.

The west Toronto neighbourhood of Downsview and Weston showed a 2.25 per cent increase to $384,485. The eastern suburbs of Rouge and Malvern showed a 1.99 per cent increase to $345,468.

The more affordable condominium segment showed the greatest uptick in pricing.

Condos in Cliffcrest and Guildwood in the city’s east end saw the greatest appreciation in value with average prices climbing 6.45 per cent to $175,855.

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It wasn’t the U.S. government’s $173 billion (U.S.) bailout of American International Group Inc. (AIG), whose insurance coverage of losses on global banks’ holdings of soured U.S. subprime mortgages made it "too big to fail," that was cause for public outrage.

It was the news that AIG, under its new, government-appointed CEO, Ed Liddy, was paying $165 million in contractually agreed bonuses to 77 top employees that elicited the hate mail directed at Liddy. One letter read: "You guys should each be strangled with piano wire until you are dead."

The current populist anger with "this remarkable demonstration of rapacious compensation" was inevitable, said William Dimma, a veteran Canadian professional corporate director and author on corporate-governance reforms.

Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist at U.S. consulting firm Weber Shandwick, says focus groups once described outsized CEO pay as "excessive" or "overly generous." Now they use terms like "obscene" and "immoral."

The same absurd saga has played out at Nortel Networks Corp. Soon after filing for bankruptcy protection in January, Nortel won bankruptcy-court approval to make $45 million in bonus payments to about 100 top executives. Meanwhile, CEO Mike Zafirovski said it "wasn’t feasible to pay severance" of any kind to the 5,000 or so lower-ranking Nortel employees the firm laid off in November. Yet it somehow made sense, to Zafirovski and his compliant board, to pay "retention" bonuses at a company soon to be dismantled.

The widespread corporate wreckage, symbolic of the capitalist failure that plunged the world into its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, has spurred calls for reforms including "say on pay," which would enable ordinary shareholders to vote on executive pay packages; and a more extensive use of "clawbacks" to retrieve executive compensation later shown to be the result of fraud or other misbehaviour.

Those reforms had been in the air for a few years. But today’s economic downturn, in which 6.5 million Americans have lost their jobs, has given them Congressional impetus. The examples of excessive-pay outrages are simply too plentiful to ignore, along with their role in encouraging CEOs to embark on high-risk gambits that. If successful, these reckless moves enrich CEOs with stock gains. If unsuccessful, failed CEOs are rewarded with a huge severance packages.

The current economic meltdown has made a mockery of the "pay for performance" notion by which CEOs justified their escalating pay of recent years.

Rick Wagoner was paid a total of $65 million during his last five years running General Motors Corp., a period in which GM accumulated a staggering $82 billion in losses. Stanley O’Neal collected $233 million for managing Merrill Lynch Inc. into the ground. (Merrill has been forcibly merged into Bank of America Corp.)

In 1980, pay for the typical CEO was about 40 times what the average worker was paid. By 2007, that multiple had grown to an outlandish 433 times. The obvious questions arise: Are corporate CEOs 393 times smarter than they were in 1980? Have they been producing 393 times more wealth for shareholders? Well, no, of course.

"Pay for performance" is a cruel joke in the mind of Graef Crystal, the leading U.S. expert on executive compensation payday loans. He calculates that the median U.S. CEO’s pay actually rose 2 per cent during the recession year of 2008, while the Standard & Poors’ 500 Index lost 27 per cent of its value. "The shareholders took a 27 per cent haircut, and in return, the CEO got a 2 per cent raise," Crystal said. "This is the Marie Antoinette school of management at its best."

"An effective way to offset the inclination to offer the promise of too much reward for too little performance," said Dimma, "is to tie all rewards to several years of outcome. And to provide for eventual clawback if performance in the later years detracts from earlier gains."

Clawbacks are a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was a reaction to the accounting scandals at Enron Corp. and Worldcom Inc. They give the SEC the right to seize payments to CEOs and chief financial officers at firms that have restated previous years’ financial statements "as a result of misconduct."

The rarely deployed clawback was used in 2007 to recover $448 million in pay from William McGuire, CEO of HMO giant UnitedHealth Corp. during an options-backdating scandal. Last week, the SEC set a precedent by demanding that Maynard Jenkins, former CEO of auto-parts firm CSK Auto Corp., forfeit $4.1 million in pay he collected during an alleged accounting fraud at the firm in which he has not been implicated.

"This is not punishment," said Nell Minow, co-founder of the Corporate Library, a U.S. firm that champions corporate-governance reforms. "This is fixing the mistake. It was never really his money."

"Say on pay" is immensely unpopular with CEOs. They argue it would distort the carefully calibrated incentives that result in superior performance. It would drive talent to private companies and make the U.S. less globally competitive.

Those arguments might be convincing had CEOs not made such a mess of things in recent years under the status quo. In any case, "say on pay", favoured by U.S. President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, is already the law of the land in Britain, Australia, Norway, Spain and France, where it is non-binding. Only in the Netherlands are shareholder votes on executive pay binding.

CEOs argue that say on pay is an intrusion on a boardroom prerogative. But quiescent boards in thrall to CEOs are hugely culpable in the runaway pay and in approving incentives that don’t encourage sound management but rather CEO-enriching reckless risk-taking.

Many CEOs are quick to turn the argument around and ask why congressmen don’t propose similar laws governing their pay.

But politicians have to answer to the public for their pay and perks, which are quaintly modest in comparison with the average U.S. CEO annual pay of $11 million. And elected politicians enjoy less job security.

After the spectacular underperformance of corporate CEOs in recent years, that probably isn’t an argument in which CEOs want to engage members of Congress. In debating a bill to claw back the unseemly AIG bonuses by imposing a 90 per cent tax on them, Democratic Congressman Earl Pomeroy asked if the AIG bonus recipients had "no shame at all." He added: "You are disgraced professional losers. And by the way, give us our money back."

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Schnuck Markets Inc. announced today that Todd Schnuck has been appointed chief operating officer at the Maryland Heights-based grocery chain.

Todd Schnuck, 50, formerly the grocery chain’s chief financial officer, became president in 2006. As president and COO, he will take on responsibility for the operating side of the family business. He will oversee store operations, merchandising, marketing, logistics, continuous improvement, industrial engineering, facilities maintenance and consumer affairs, as well as pharmacy and fuel operations.

Todd Schnuck earned his B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1981 and an M.B.A. from Cornell University in 1983. He served as associate vice president for investment banking at A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. for four years before joining Schnucks in 1987. For the past 22 years, he has been the company’s chief financial officer.

As chairman and CEO, Scott Schnuck now has oversight for the office of COO as well as strategy, finance, technology, human resources, public relations, legal, real estate, loss prevention, food safety and store design and construction online life insurance quotes.

“This restructuring will allow me to concentrate on guiding the company forward while Todd will ensure that we continue working to enhance the overall customer shopping experience in our stores,” Scott Schnuck said in a press release.

With the promotion, the company also announced other changes in senior management.

Dave Bell, 42, will replace Todd Schnuck as CFO, reporting to Scott Schnuck.

Rick Frede, 56, formerly senior vice president of logistics, will become chief talent and strategy officer, reporting to Scott Schnuck. Steve Carroll, 53, will become vice president of logistics, which under the new structure, will report to Todd Schnuck.

Monsanto Co. and Dow AgroSciences said it won approval from U.S. and Canadian regulators to begin selling a new biotech corn to help farmers ward off weeds and bugs.

So-called SmartStax corn was jointly developed by Monsanto and Dow under a 2007 agreement. The companies plan to begin commercial sales of 3 million to 4 million acres next year.

Creve Coeur-based Monsanto, the world’s largest seller of biotech seeds, sees SmartStax as a blockbuster that could eventually be planted on 50 million to 65 million acres in the U.S., Chief Technology Officer Robb Fraley said Monday on a conference call with analysts. This year, 87 million corn acres were planted.

It represents Monsanto’s second major product in as many years and the platform for future genetic improvements in corn, the company said. Earlier this year, Monsanto began selling higher-yielding Roundup Ready2Yield soybeans.

Monsanto shares rose $4.20, or 5.5 percent, to $80.76 at 5 p.m. Monday in after-hours trading.

SmartStax is the first genetically modified corn that combines eight herbicide-tolerance and insect-protection genes cash loans.

Because the companies are integrating already-developed traits, the companies will be able to "put SmartStax on a fast-track," said Jerome Peribere, CEO of Indianapolis-based DowAgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical Co.

The approval by the Environmental Protection Agency and Canadian Food Inspection Agency is especially noteworthy because regulators agreed to reduce the "refuge area" for SmartStax.

The EPA currently prohibits farmers in the U.S. Corn Belt from planting insect-resistant corn on 20 percent of their acres (50 percent in the Cotton Belt) to guard against developing pesticide tolerance in bugs.

Shrinking the refuge area for SmartStax allows farmers to cut pesticide use and grow higher-yielding corn on more land, improving "whole-farm yield" by 5 percent to 10 percent, Fraley said.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.

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ST. LOUIS — The public’s embrace of the Citygarden sculpture park is helping push more work on the Gateway Mall, the 16-block strip between the Old Courthouse and Union Station.

Citygarden has been open for a little more than two weeks and remains a hit with visitors drawn to the nearly three-acre park of sculptures, tree-lined paths and fountains.

Tricia Roland-Hamilton, director of the Gateway Mall Project, said Citygarden was prompting skeptics to re-evaluate their opinion of the Gateway Mall as an endeavor whose time would never come.

"There’s so much excitement around Citygarden," Roland-Hamilton said. "It has given us some momentum."

For the moment, mall developers are thinking small. They plan to build by late summer a beach volleyball court and Frisbee golf area across Market Street from the downtown post office.

Also scheduled for this year is $200,000 in new lighting at Aloe Plaza, where the bronze nudes of the Milles Fountain reside across Market from Union Station.

DOG RUN, PLAYGROUNDS

The mall’s master plan, primarily by Urban Strategies Inc. of Toronto, calls for a dog run, playgrounds and a small sports field. Nelson Byrd Woltz landscape architects of Charlottesville, Va., designed Citygarden.

Bruce Lindsey, dean of architecture at Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design, said Citygarden’s Market Street side was a model of accessibility for the entire mall. Newly planted mature trees are impressive, and the spray fountain is "fantastic," he said. But the limestone wall near Citygarden’s Chestnut Street side is a barrier, he said.

"Visual accessibility into the park is extremely important," Lindsey said. "It’s what makes a city a city."

He added that Citygarden was too crowded with sculptures.

"I would just take all the art that is here and string it all the way to the Arch," he said.

Lindsey praised Citygarden as a civic asset and said street-level activity should be encouraged all along the mall.

The Gateway Foundation, formed in St. Louis in 1986 by Aaron and Teresa Fischer, spent $25 million to $30 million for the design and construction of Citygarden, plus an undisclosed sum for the sculptures. The foundation will pay Citygarden’s continuing costs except water and electricity but will not develop any more spaces along the mall, said Paul Wagman, the foundation’s spokesman.

EIGHT-YEAR PROJECT

Completing the mall may take eight years and cost $116 million, Roland-Hamilton said. Aldermen have authorized a 24-member advisory board to administer the master plan. Roland-Hamilton said a conservancy group similar to Forest Park Forever would be established soon to raise money for further development.

For now, development efforts will be focused on the mall area west of Tucker Boulevard. Roland-Hamilton said her group wanted to beautify the area to better stimulate work on the numerous projects planned or under way along the mall compare car insurance prices. They include restoration of Kiel Opera House, redevelopment of the former municipal courts building, renovation of the Central Library and conversion of the former Missouri Pacific Railroad headquarters into offices and apartments.

David Ohlemeyer, a principal at the Lawrence Group, said the mall’s presence was a factor in his company’s decision to convert the 1920s railroad headquarters. Interior demolition is done, but the project, called Park Pacific, at 1226 Olive Street, is stalled while the company awaits approval of a HUD-backed loan to resume work.

Across the mall from Park Pacific, work is under way on P.D. George Downtown, formerly the Ford Apartments. The first of the building’s 36 apartments should be ready in December, said Peter George, whose Blue Shutters Development is doing the project.

PERMANENT PAVILION

"Things are looking very positive, compared to December ‘08, when there was no mention of any of this going on," George said. "Anything that brings more people downtown bodes well for landlords."

A large permanent pavilion at Tucker and Pine Street is to be that part of the mall’s main feature. Roland-Hamilton said the public’s new interest in the mall was boosting fundraising for the pavilion, which could be open within a year to accommodate events that already draw a million visitors annually.

Another permanent feature will be a tree-lined sidewalk and bikeway to run along the entire mall’s southern edge. The portion within Citygarden is completed. Roland-Hamilton said she hoped to get $17 million in federal stimulus money to build the rest of the feature.

The far western end of the mall is within developer Paul McKee’s proposed NorthSide project of offices, businesses and homes. Roland-Hamilton said the mall plan would remain vague there with the anticipation that McKee would begin work on his plan, which calls for a 40-story office tower as a bookend of sorts for the Gateway Arch more than a mile to the east.

As Citygarden provides a glimpse into the mall’s potential, Kiener Plaza demonstrates its current shortcomings. Lindsey, the architecture dean, said Kiener’s sunken amphitheater disconnected the plaza from the surrounding streets. Mall developers plan to build a street-level performance area there, but the money, as much as $35 million, is not in sight.

On a pleasant summer afternoon last week, dozens of children climbed on Citygarden’s sculptures and splashed in its fountains as adults strolled among the trees. Dee Pollaci, 67, and her husband, John, 73, of Pasadena Hills, sat on a low wall to watch their granddaughter, Claire, 4, play in the spray fountain nearby.

"We’ve been here for 45 minutes and we aren’t bored yet," she said.

At the same time a block away, Kiener Plaza had a total of 22 visitors.

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The gleaming 80-storey condominium tower that was to lead the revitalization of the Yonge-Bloor intersection in Toronto is teetering on the edge of extinction.

On Monday, the Toronto lender that advanced a $46 million loan is going to ask a court to put the Kazakhstan-backed project into receivership and sell off the now-vacant land its international developer boasts is the "best address in the world."

The lender, a consortium of Toronto businessmen, alleges in court documents that Kazakh developer Bazis International has defaulted on its land loan and the Kazakh bank backing the tower portion of the project is involved in a "massive financial scandal involving fake loans, racketeering and money laundering activities."

"The (land) loan has been in an almost constant state of default since December of 2008," said Toronto consortium leader Gary Berman, in a court affidavit supporting his group’s bid to appoint receiver Ernst &Young.

Berman states in the affidavit that his group wants its loan repaid, or they are willing to purchase the property in a court-approved sale.

Michael Gold, the Canadian face of the Kazakh project, fired back late yesterday, telling the Star he will fight the lender "vigorously" and the project will go ahead. Documents he filed in court say he plans to pay the land loan back, but needs time. Gold’s documents do not deal with allegations against Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank, though he noted the bank is "undergoing a restructuring process." Gold said a receiver can be appointed, but he wants to choose the firm.

About $70 million in deposits put down by roughly 490 condo buyers remain in a law firm’s trust account in Toronto.

Yesterday, the presentation suite at the southeast corner of Yonge and Bloor St. was locked tight. A sign noting its hours indicated it should have been open. The sign encouraged interested buyers – condo unit prices start at $500,000 to "over $8 million" – to book an appointment. The Star left a message, but did not get a call back.

Buyers who entered into agreements for units from floor 68 to 80, were told this week they will get their money back. Gold’s development team has decided to cut the size of the project to 67 floors to reduce construction costs estimated originally at $542 million. No construction has taken place, but the site has been cleared. The move-in date was to be sometime in 2011.

When the units were first offered for sale in November 2007, prospective buyers and real estate agents paid people to line up for weeks, acting as place markers until the sales door opened.

The development proposal for the property dubbed 1 Bloor was enticing. A sweeping slice of glass rising 80 storeys on the southeast corner of the "epicentre of Canada." The glossy brochure spoke of a mood of "effortless sensuality" in the proposed building. There would be a Zen meditation lounge and a reflecting pool. "The interiors of 1 Bloor are sensual, seductive, sexy, sophisticated and intensely urbane." Units would make "you feel transported to a different place." The bathroom would be "a true sanctuary payday loans."

In an interview at the time, Gold, a Russian-born Canadian who married into Kazakhstan’s wealthy Belovich family, said the response from condo buyers was "amazing." Offering 612 condo units, Gold told the Star in 2007 he could sell 5,000. The Belovich family started the Bazis firm in 1991. Gold is married to Veronika Belovich, a member of the family.

Toronto Councillor Kyle Rae backed the project, saying it would restart an area of Toronto he called "an armpit." Rae was not available for comment yesterday.

A lot happened between 2007 and now. Bazis International of Kazakhstan (Gold runs the Canadian arm of the company) initially purchased the land for $63 million. To finance it, Bazis had a $46 million loan from French bank Société Générale. Bazis stopped making loan payments last December.

Société Générale, faced with its own financial woes, sold off the loan to Berman’s group for an undisclosed amount. The group is made up of representatives of three Canadian companies, Tricon Capital Group, the Minto Group and KingSett Capital.

Now, the group wants to be paid out, or to be allowed to buy the property with an eye to building a more modest project. Berman’s group has offered $50.5 million as the opening bid of an auction they suggest take place soon.

In an email to the Star yesterday, Bazis boss Gold accused Berman’s group of trying to "acquire the property for itself and cancel all sale agreements and the proposed development on the site."

"Bazis International Inc. is vigorously opposing the receivership proceedings and fully intends to honour all agreements and to complete the development as planned on schedule," Gold said in a written response to a request for an interview.

The court documents are peppered with international intrigue.

Gold announced in one document that, in June, he had found a financial solution in BTA Bank, which he said committed $195 million (U.S.) to the project.

However, BTA bank is under criminal investigation in Kazakhstan, according to statements made by federal prosecutors in that country. Prosecutors there have filed lawsuits trying to recover more than $1 billion (U.S.) in assets. According to a statement in March by the prosecutors, the bank’s former chair and CEO were involved in a loan fraud scam for years. One published report said the chairman initially denied any wrongdoing before going into hiding.

According to Berman’s group, they determined BTA could not possibly come up with the promised cash. The Kazakh government has announced a bailout of the bank, but international credit rating agencies downgraded BTA "four levels below its previous junk bond rating."

In his response, Gold said BTA is his company’s "house bank" and he believes it will be able to fund the $195 million loan to his Toronto project.

Kevin Donovan can be reached at 416-869-4425 or at kdonovan@thestar.ca.

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BEIJING — China’s economic growth accelerated in the second quarter amid a stimulus-fueled investment boom, boosting hopes the world’s third-largest economy is emerging from the global downturn.

The economy expanded by 7.9 percent in the period from a year ago, up from 6.1 percent growth in GDP the previous quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.

"The data showed the recovery is stronger than expected," said economist Zhu Jianfang of Citic Securities Ltd. "There will be no suspense about achieving the government’s goal of 8 percent GDP growth this year."

Many analysts expect China to be the first major country to emerge from the worst global slump since the 1930s. That could help pull the rest of the world out as China buys more raw materials, industrial components and consumer goods from struggling economies in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
The International Monetary Fund earlier this month raised its forecast of China’s 2009 growth by 1 percentage point to 7.5 percent. The World Bank boosted its forecast last month from 6.5 percent to 7.2 percent.

Goldman Sachs said compared with the previous quarter — the way other major economies measure growth — China’s second-quarter growth accelerated to 16.5 percent on an annualized basis.

The government warned, however, that a full-fledged recovery is not firmly established no fax cash advance.

"The difficulties and challenges in the current economic development are still numerous," a statistics bureau spokesman, Li Xiaochao, said at a news conference. "The basis of the rebound of the people’s economy is not stable."

The faster growth came despite a plunge in China’s trade and foreign investment since late 2008, reflecting continued dependence on a $586 billion stimulus to keep the economy expanding.

The government is trying to cut reliance on exports by boosting domestic consumption with its plan to pump money into the economy through a scheme to build new public works.

Most of the money has gone to state-owned construction companies and suppliers of steel and concrete, but it is flowing into the private sector as those companies pay workers and buy materials.

Rock Jin, chief economist for Sinolink Securities in Beijing, said 2.5 percentage points of the 7.9 percent quarterly growth came from stimulus-financed investment and the rest from production. "If the investment-driven portion of GDP growth can be maintained around 2.5 percent, it will be no problem achieving the goal of 8 percent growth this year," Jin said.

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Rio Tinto Ltd/Plc has evacuated staff in China involved in research of the iron ore and steel industry in response to the detention of some of its iron ore traders by state authorities, the Australian Financial Review reported on Thursday.

The unsourced report from Shanghai also said other foreign groups were moving employees out of China until conditions there become more certain.

A Rio Tinto spokesman in Melbourne, Ian Head, said he could not immediately comment on the report, which said the unidentified number of staff were moved out on Wednesday.

Stern Hu, Rio Tinto’s head of iron ore marketing in China, and three other members of the Shanghai-based iron ore team were detained in early July on suspicion of stealing state secrets health insurance quote.

Hu, a Chinese-born Australian citizen, was accused of obtaining and passing on the Chinese industry’s negotiating position, sources with knowledge of the circumstances have said.

Rio Tinto’s China team carry out some negotiations and manage operational details of term contracts for iron ore, a key ingredient in steel making, as well as tracking market information.

(Reporting by James Regan)

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Steven Rattner, the Wall Street executive who helped the government guide General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC out of bankruptcy, is stepping down, the Treasury Department said.

Ron Bloom, a former United Steelworkers union adviser and Lazard Ltd. vice president, will take over the role in advising the Obama administration’s auto task force, the statement said. Bloom is currently an adviser to the task force.

Rattner is departing three days after the new GM formed with majority federal ownership, and in the month following the creation of Chrysler under government guidance fast cash. Rattner was named in February to help lead the federal process.

"What the task force did was an amazing feat in the time frame," said Dennis Virag, president of the Automotive Consulting Group Inc. in Ann Arbor, Mich.

"His job was to take them in and out of bankruptcy as quickly as possible. He accomplished that job."

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