Brightbridge Wealth Management

Zurich Financial Services AG, Switzerland’s largest insurer, said fourth-quarter profit declined 46 percent after losses from Thai floods and other natural catastrophes.

Net income fell to $557 million from $1.04 billion a year earlier, the Zurich-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. This missed the $729.1 million average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

The company booked insured losses after reinsurance of $225 million in the quarter, said Chief Financial Officer Pierre Wauthier, adding that earnings were also crimped by a higher tax rate and a donation to charity. Zurich Financial said it will keep its dividend unchanged after increasing its 2010 payout to an 11-year high of 17 Swiss francs ($18.53) per share.

The pall of Europe’s debt crisis is obscuring evidence that the rest of the global economy is in decent shape. Stock markets slumped Friday after European finance ministers said the Greek government must take more steps to secure further aid, triggering the departure of six ministers from Prime Minister Lucas Papademos’s cabinet and fuelling violent street protests in Athens. But away from the noise and confusion of European capitals, and contrary to the outlooks of gloomy Wall Street forecasters, U.S. companies are steadily hiring and investing, generating momentum that will help offset whatever harm comes from Europe’s troubles. While Greece plunged deeper into chaos, the U.S. Commerce Department released data showing U.S. imports surged at the end of 2011, the latest signal that the world’s largest economy finally is on track for a lasting recovery. Canada, Mexico and China were among the beneficiaries, as the U.S. trade deficit with its largest trading partners widened. U.S. imports jumped 1.3 per cent in December, to $227.6-billion (U.S.), the biggest one-month increase since July, 2008. Consumption accounts for about 70 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product, making imports an important barometer of economic health. Demand was strong across industries, including capital equipment such as machinery and semiconductors, which climbed to a record. The trade numbers follow stronger-than-expected hiring figures, including a report earlier this week that showed...

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss bankers are on the defensive with their secretive industry under sustained attack for sheltering tax dodgers. Some cannot travel abroad for fear of arrest in tax investigations.

But the fur coats and expensive cars on display around the Paradeplatz square at the heart of Zurich’s financial district – as well as booming house prices – tell a different story: business is good in a city now ranked the world’s costliest.

Zurich overtook Tokyo as most expensive according to a new ranking by the Economist Intelligence Unit because of the soaring Swiss franc.

Business (tags: )
Fiarce - 11 days ago - 1888pressrelease.com
Airbnb announced a $50,000 insurance policy and the formation of a 24/7 customer support hotline Monday after two users recently said their use of the company's travel services had left them the victims of vandalism and theft.

The pall of Europe’s debt crisis is obscuring evidence that the rest of the global economy is in decent shape. Stock markets slumped Friday after European finance ministers said the Greek government must take more steps to secure further aid, triggering the departure of six ministers from Prime Minister Lucas Papademos’s cabinet and fuelling violent street protests in Athens. But away from the noise and confusion of European capitals, and contrary to the outlooks of gloomy Wall Street forecasters, U.S. companies are steadily hiring and investing, generating momentum that will help offset whatever harm comes from Europe’s troubles. While Greece plunged deeper into chaos, the U.S. Commerce Department released data showing U.S. imports surged at the end of 2011, the latest signal that the world’s largest economy finally is on track for a lasting recovery. Canada, Mexico and China were among the beneficiaries, as the U.S. trade deficit with its largest trading partners widened. U.S. imports jumped 1.3 per cent in December, to $227.6-billion (U.S.), the biggest one-month increase since July, 2008. Consumption accounts for about 70 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product, making imports an important barometer of economic health. Demand was strong across industries, including capital equipment such as machinery and semiconductors, which climbed to a record. The trade numbers follow stronger-than-expected hiring figures, including a report earlier this week that showed the fo...

Reporting from Washington-

A top senator, angry that Facebook Inc. failed to quit millions of preteens from making use of its social networking internet site, accused co-founder Mark Zuckerberg of lacking “social values” and becoming far more concerned with creating the firm than with children’s privacy.

“It really is my common feeling that folks who are 20, 21, 22 years old actually don’t have any social values at this point,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) told one more top Facebook executive at a hearing Thursday.

“I feel he was focused on how the organization model would function,” Rockefeller stated about Zuckerberg, who was a 19-year-old Harvard student when he designed Facebook in 2004. “He wanted to make it bigger and faster and greater than anybody else ever had.”

The company’s policy calls for users to be at least 13, a move developed to steer clear of federal regulations for sites employed by young children. But a current Consumer Reports survey identified that about 7.5 million active Facebook users were younger than 13.

Rockefeller’s comments came as a Facebook executive for the initial time came below congressional quizzing in a current round of hearings about concerns that technologies businesses are not protecting individual privacy. Executives from Apple Inc. and Google Inc., which sent witnesses to a hearing last week, also appeared a...

Swiss stocks fell, with the country’s equity benchmark posting its longest streak of weekly losses since November, as China’s economy slowed more than forecast and concern about the euro-region debt crisis gained.

ABB Ltd. (ABBN), the world’s biggest power-grid supplier, led a drop in shares sensitive to economic growth. Cie. Financiere Richemont SA, the second-largest maker of luxury goods, also retreated. UBS AG (UBSN) and Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN), the country’s two biggest banks, followed a gauge of European lenders lower.

The Swiss Market Index (SMI) slipped 0.9 percent to 6,072.12 at the close in Zurich. The measure of Switzerland’s biggest and most actively traded companies sank 1.5 percent this week, its fourth straight decline. The gauge has still gained 2.3 percent in 2012 as the euro area sought to contain its debt crisis and as U.S. economic reports surpassed estimates. The broader Swiss Performance Index decreased 0.8 percent today.

“We remain in a cycle that began in 2007, marked by periods of strong rebounds followed closely by market corrections,” Francois Moute, chairman of Neuflize Private Assets in Paris, and Chief Executive Officer Olivia Giscard d’Estaing wrote in a note. “In our opinion, this means it’s best to remain cautious.”

The volume of shares changing hands in the SMI was 8.3 percent higher today than the average of the last 30 days, according to data compiled by Bloombe...

Business (tags: )
Fiarce - 11 days ago - 1888pressrelease.com
Airbnb announced a $50,000 insurance policy and the formation of a 24/7 customer support hotline Monday after two users recently said their use of the company's travel services had left them the victims of vandalism and theft.

(1888PressRelease) August 21, 2011 - Airbnb announced a $50,000 insurance policy and the formation of a 24/7 customer support hotline Monday after two users recently said their use of the company's travel services had left them the victims of vandalism and theft.

Up to this point, Airbnb - a website that connects travelers with people who are willing to host travelers - had been on a hot streak: It had landed high-profile celebrity and tech investor Ashton Kutcher as an advisor, as well as a funding round of $112 million, which valued the company at $1.3 billion.

In June, an San Francisco Airbnb user identifying herself as E.J. said on her personal blog that a person who rented her apartment on the website had trashed her home and stolen her jewelry, some cash and electronics, among other things. E.J. followed up that post with one Thursday accusing Airbnb of trying to get her to remove her original blog post as well as neglecting to help her recover from the "nightmare" of a situation.

Another Airbnb user, Troy Dayton, told the website TechCrunch that he too had his home vandalized by someone who had rented his apartment through the service and that he'd come home to find "meth pipes everywhere."

After a back-and-forth between TechCrunch and investors in Airbnb, Chief Executive Brian Chesky wrote a blog post Monday saying his San Francisco start-up hadn't handled its users' situations correctly and was looking to make thing...

The pall of Europe’s debt crisis is obscuring evidence that the rest of the global economy is in decent shape. Stock markets slumped Friday after European finance ministers said the Greek government must take more steps to secure further aid, triggering the departure of six ministers from Prime Minister Lucas Papademos’s cabinet and fuelling violent street protests in Athens. But away from the noise and confusion of European capitals, and contrary to the outlooks of gloomy Wall Street forecasters, U.S. companies are steadily hiring and investing, generating momentum that will help offset whatever harm comes from Europe’s troubles. While Greece plunged deeper into chaos, the U.S. Commerce Department released data showing U.S. imports surged at the end of 2011, the latest signal that the world’s largest economy finally is on track for a lasting recovery. Canada, Mexico and China were among the beneficiaries, as the U.S. trade deficit with its largest trading partners widened. U.S. imports jumped 1.3 per cent in December, to $227.6-billion (U.S.), the biggest one-month increase since July, 2008. Consumption accounts for about 70 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product, making imports an important barometer of economic health. Demand was strong across industries, including capital equipment such as machinery and semiconductors, which climbed to a record. The trade numbers follow stronger-than-expected hiring figures, including a report earlier this week that showed the fo...