Proceeds to be used to repurchase preferred shares issued by the U.S. Treasury under the TARP program Fifth Third Bancorp (“Fifth Third;” NASDAQ:FITB) today announced that it has priced a public offering of 121,428,572 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $14.00 per share, or $1.7 billion in aggregate gross [...]

Creative Marketing has revealed its new internet based marketing space called “Dynamic Marketing Portal.” It is the first ever created by an Independent Marketing Organization for insurance representatives and financial service agents. The major feature of the portal is to make available the online tools industry professionals can use to improve their marketing for client [...]

LPO Creates Secondment Program in India Cobra Legal Solutions LLC announced today the creation of a secondment program for US attorneys currently practicing in the United States. Selected participants will spend from 2 to 6 months at Cobra’s operational facility in Chennai, India, working with the company’s attorney teams, process managers and US-trained attorney managers [...]

Technology professionals endured a second straight year of nearly flat salaries, according to the 2011-2010 Annual Salary Survey from Dice, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals. Tech workers, on average, garnered salary increases of about one percent (0.7%) to $79,384 from $78,845 in 2009, after receiving a similar increase the previous year. [...]

TaxMasters CEO Patrick Cox Warns Businesses, Individuals to Prepare Now or Risk IRS Penalties, Long Term Compliance Problems Although small businesses and individual taxpayers have an extra three days to file their federal tax returns this year, preparing paperwork now is essential to avoid filing for an extension in April. While useful in some situations, [...]

Do sales contests, incentives, and other reward activities do more harm than good to a company’s sales efforts? That depends greatly on their design and management, as well as how they align with the firm’s growth plan, according to a new Performance Perspectives executive briefing, “Sales Operations: The Quest for Efficiency Continues,” published today by [...]

It is reported that each student on average who pays into a living expense “kitty” at school will save roughly 171 pounds. About 8% of polled students reported saving a whopping 750 pounds on joint expenses like monthly bills to nights on the town. 66% of students say they put into a kitty at least [...]

AAA Chicago’s most recent Fuel Gauge Report estimates that in Illinois, regular unleaded gasoline has increased $.16 during the past month, forecasting an average cost of $3.22 per gallon for the month of January, which is $.38 higher per gallon than last year. In northern Indiana, gas prices average $3.09, which is up 16 cents [...]

Crowe Horwath LLP warns private equity groups, lenders and strategic buyers about possible future costs Buyers, who skip evaluating the information technology (IT) systems of a target company, may be making a very expensive mistake, according to Crowe Horwath LLP, one of the largest public accounting and consulting firms in the U.S. “If the company [...]

Two Hard Rock Cafe International (Orlando), Inc. (“Hard Rock”) employees, who worked in the Hard Rock Cafe at Universal Studios in Orlando, today filed a class action lawsuit against Hard Rock for the company’s alleged failure to pay minimum wages that were required under Florida law. The Orlando Hard Rock Cafe is the largest Hard [...]