Kudos to Dairo Fuentes for the article in the August edition of Florida Trend discussing his role and focus as the president of FIBA.

We came across this article recently and think it contains many helpful reminders. Especially number 5 which talks about the pitfalls of conducting your job search exclusively online. Due to the amount of people online, posting a job online can overwhelm a company with applicants which has lead companies to keep some information offline. Please click here for the entire article.

Yahoo! Finance
July 26, 2010

Five Mistakes Online Job Hunters Make

A recent study shows the government is being paid back the funds used to bailout banks ahead of schedule with interest. The report issued July 7th by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods indicates the Capital Purchase Program is making a profit. The expected return is 5% when all the banks have repaid the government’s investments.

See the full article on CNBC.com

New York Times – 7/10/10

We mention a trend in our newsletter and the NY Times confirms it days later. For those who read our mid-year report, Nason & Nason is seeing hiring pick up and expects it to continue through 2010. This, along with moderate growth from the tail spin of the previous year, is creating demand and the beginning of an accelerating talent shortage. Candidate shortage is becoming quite evident in segments of the market that are not as regulated and in more robust economies such as Brazil. Better things are yet to come.

See the full article at NYtimes.com

BY DENNIS NASON
Special to The Miami Herald

The constant chatter from Washington about how they are going to help small businesses is like a sad joke with no punchline. Despite lots and lots of talk, quite the contrary is happening. Banks are not lending to small business in any meaningful way and they won’t.

In fact, contraction is underway, the effects of which will be shown in continued shuttering of storefronts and emptying offices. For small businesses today, success is measured in terms of survival.

What is so wrong with the government response? Let’s start with government incentives for small business, such as tax credits for new hires.

One has to be making money to take advantage of tax credits. You cannot subtract credit from losses.

Besides, who wants to take on new hires until there is some hope of a steady cash flow to pay for them?

SBA loans are easier to get — if you have real assets to pledge, and there are few business people who have property not already leveraged.

Why pay 5 percent more for the hassle of a government loan, if one can get a second mortgage for that property at half the rate? It makes good press but few are ever disbursed.

The government defines small business as up to $50 million in sales, but in this market, that is a pretty big company.

For most small businesses the major form of credit is the corporate credit card. These credits have been capriciously cut in half and if one still has this formerly dependable financing alternative, it is probably at 25 percent.

And these are the simpler problems.

The more serious issues have to do with the weak conditions of the banks themselves and the changing nature of the client-bank relationship.

By relationship I mean every man for himself and survival of the fittest.

If you are fortunate enough to have had a line of credit, it may be frozen or pulled. Community banks are under siege by regulators to get their portfolios and leverage under control. Washington adds to, rather than resolves, small business’ problems.

Further, the regulators are all over the quality of assets, which are now suspect since many small businesses are just now providing tax returns reflecting last year’s losses.

Even though the businessman has been repaying and is current, his assets have deteriorated. His losses have sucked up his cash and as he struggles to regain stability, lines are being cut and frozen.

The bank’s response? Sorry old friend, we are fighting for our own survival.

Weak banks may not make reliable partners. If one should choose to clean up a line of credit, there is no guarantee of getting it back.

This scene will be commonplace in the coming months and will exacerbate the problems of the weaker banks.

The new wave of credit problems is about to roll in and will hit much closer to home.

Recovery? Not quite yet.

Hopefully well-run businesses and professional practices can hold on until enough money sloshes through the system to surf to safety, but don’t expect much help from the government or your banks.

Article can be found on www.miamiherald.com

• Flavio Souza, Banco Itau Private Bank International, "I think it is going to be Netherlands and Germany in the finals (although my heart says Uruguay and Spain)."
• Mario Waingortin, Bank Hapoalim International, "It is going to be Uruguay and Germany, but it is difficult to overlook Netherlands"
• Robert Barthelmess, BPD Bank, Uruguay v. Germany in the final with Uruguay as the champion.
• John Rodriguez, HSBC, Netherlands v. Germany in the final with Germany as the champion.
• Andy Mastai, UBS, Netherlands v. Germany in the final with Germany as the champion.
• Mauricio Laniado, Intercredit, Uruguay v. Germany with Germany as the champion.

What a year so far and we are only at the half way point. What is in store for the second half? The financial scene is at best unsettled. In the first half of the year we have seen a House divided in Washington, FATCA tax legislation passed and now being implemented, an overkill and overloaded financial reform bill, economic and environmental disaster in the Gulf, a meltdown in commercial real estate on top of residential and its negative impact on banks, especially community banks, disruption of the European financial system, the longest war in US history casting its negative pall over the country, polarizing solutions to the rising cost of the health system, unemployment hovering at 10%, and in a world that has turned its undivided attention to the World Cup, how can one possibly see six months ahead? All this, and with a stock market subject to wide gyrations, is certainly enough to make one skeptical of the second half year to come.

Yet despite all this, hiring has returned to financial markets and there is some room for optimism. We see signs of a strong job market in the later part of the third and fourth quarters of this year. In the longer term, there will be fundamental changes in the way financial services are conducted and where the business is to be transacted but in recent months banks and companies have been hiring. Hiring has been different than in the recent past in that admin and support jobs have been leading the way. Temp hiring continues to remain steady and somewhat, although not quite as, strong. One good sign is that 85 % of our temps are being hired for perm positions which is a strong indicator of demand. There are indications that more senior hirings are on the way especially for those that can produce revenues. What seems to have happened is that employers have held the strings very tight and squeezed productivity out of the staff, cutting back and forcing longer hours, shorter vacations, and pressuring management into doing their own clerical work as well as their required jobs. People are getting tired and the job market is beginning to ease up, opening up alternatives. This, along with moderate growth from the tail spin of the previous year, is creating demand and the beginning of an accelerating talent shortage. Candidate shortage is becoming quite evident in segments of the market that are not as regulated and in more robust economies such as Brazil. Better things are yet to come.

Public anger at the reported abuses in the system, excessive payouts, and bullying by the credit card industry left little resistance to the sweeping changes that occurred. We won’t know the lasting effects in the coming months as it may take a generation to realize what just happened. We can surmise that there will be major changes in the way the financial industry conducts business and to a large extent where it conducts its business. We do know there will be much more government involvement in pricing, salaries, counterparties, taxes, and systemic oversight which is more likely to push the financial business to Singapore than Main Street.

It is still a work in progress as the regulations will have to be written and they will make a decisive difference in how the legislation is sculpted into enforcement. The devil is in the details. About half of the legislation is reinforcing banking fundamentals. The immediate effects on the job market, for the remainder of the year will be minimal. Evidently and eventually a layer of government oversight jobs will be created. In the short term, the reform legislation should have only marginal effect and our best estimate of a strong job growth in the financial sector for the remainder of the year still looks promising.

Talk of an economic recovery may be premature and we certainly are not through the commercial real estate crisis. Certainly 2010 has been better than 2009 and hiring trends are also looking positive. Recent data indicates a mixed picture with some local banks returning to profitability, others reducing their non-performing loan portfolios while still others are adding the collateral backed loans to their balance sheets as the borrowers default on their loans. No surprise which loans are the worst performers – real estate both commercial and residential. Many banks with insufficient capital issues are living on borrowed time. Small businesses are facing their own issues as the uncertain economy causes cash flow worries and getting a loan is hard to accomplish. Despite the talk coming out of Washington, D.C. the loans are not forthcoming. This is a result of banking regulators putting pressure on banks to get their balance sheets in better shape and businesses reporting losses making them less attractive loan candidates. Many small businesses are having their lines cut as banks deal with their own issues and cannot continue to maintain smaller relationships especially. Survival will be the measure of success for many small businesses.

The new legislation will certainly increase consumer compliance requirements. This will imply a cost as the consumer protection agency ramps up. Small banks have less flexibility to offset costs. FDIC fees will be increased, although not as much as in the big banks but increased costs nevertheless. There will be no new TARP money for the few small banks that had considered that route. One piece of good news is that trust preferred securities will still be allowed to be included as capital and phased out over time. Still many small banks are stretched to their leverage maximums particularly since those limits have been unofficially reduced. Unfortunately we will see several banks in our community unable to meet the capital requirements and solve their real estate loan problems. For them time is not on their side.