Business and Economy

The owner of the Pantagraph Newspaper in Bloomington is highlighting some financial results ahead of its fiscal year end reports next month. Lee Enterprises reports it cut fourth quarter costs more than revenue fell.

Total revenue was down 4.4% for the quarter ending in September. Cash costs dropped 7.8% or nearly $10 million. Lee says the decline in overall revenue is an improvement from the previous quarter.

For the full year, Lee has paid down nearly $79 million in debt. Its principal debt remains about $726 million.

Champaign Urbana will take an employment hit over the next two years with the departure of the Kraft Food cheese making operation. Kraft Heinz announced a transition to dry and sauce production in Champaign and said there would be job losses, but declined to say how many. Kraft is currently the largest industrial employer in Champaign with 1,800 jobs.

Economic Development officials in the Champaign Urbana area say they were not notified in advance of the change and will be contacting Kraft Heinz.

A high-frequency commodities trader has been found guilty of disrupting commodity futures prices to make $1.4 million. A federal jury convicted Michael Coscia of fraud and spoofing. The 53-year-old Coscia was accused of fraudulently earning money through the Chicago-based CME Group, the world's largest operator of futures exchanges, and European futures markets in 2011. Coscia of Rumson, New Jersey artificially bumped up commodities prices by placing orders that he cancelled within milliseconds.

Illinois will begin its first medical marijuana sales within the next two weeks and public sentiment ranges from cautious to elated. State officials say required ID cards are being mailed this week to 3,200 approved patients. Lab testing of legally grown marijuana has started. A half-dozen retail shops are licensed and ready. It will be a big moment for the 2-year-old pilot program. Patients will finally get a chance to buy a drug legally that some admit they now purchase on the black market. Some say they will drive long distances to buy their first legal weed.

The Illinois Department of Corrections says it will return five semi-trucks to a company that has walked away from a contract after the state failed to pay. The Larson Group agreed to six-year contract in 2010 to lease five trucks to the agency for $68,000 a year. The company decided to walk away from the contract a year early because the department owes more than $17,000. An IDOC offshoot called Illinois Correctional Industries used the trucks. IDOC spokeswoman Nicole Wilson says the agency is scheduled to return the trucks Thursday. Right now they are parked at a warehouse in Lincoln.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security reports the jobless rate dropped in September in all of the metro areas the agency tracks. But the department's director says job growth remains weak.

The Bloomington Normal unemployment rate is 4.3% down from 5% in September of last year. That's the lowest rate for September since 2007 when it was 3.9% in the twin cities. The metro area rate is the lowest in the state.

The Moody's credit rating agency has downgraded $26.8 billion in Illinois' general obligation bonds, saying the move was due to the state's weakening financial position during the year. In lowering the bond rating to Baa1 from A3, Moody's Investors Service said its expectation is that the ongoing stalemate on the budget due July 1 will lead to further deterioration of the state's finances.  

The lower a state's credit rating, the tougher, and more expensive, it is to borrow money.

Caterpillar was stung by ongoing weakness in the mining and oil and gas industries during the third quarter and revenue fell short of expectations. The Peoria construction and mining equipment maker lowered its full-year earnings forecast with expectations that the costs of restructuring the company will rise sharply. Shares fell more than 2 percent before the opening bell Thursday. Last month Caterpillar announced another round of job cuts that could exceed 10,000 people through 2018.

Details of the Mitsubishi severance package are in the new contract approved recently by the United Auto Workers. The agreement comes as Mitsubishi prepares to end production next month and shut down the plant by June.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security says the statewide unemployment rate fell in September but the state lost jobs. The department says in its monthly report unemployment fell to 5.4 percent in September. That was down from 5.6 percent in August but still higher than the 5.1 percent national rate. The department pointed out that Illinois lost a net 6,900 jobs in September. Department director Jeff Mays said the state's job growth is "dismal."  

Home sales in Bloomington Normal were up 21% last month from September of a year ago. The Association of Realtors also says through three quarters of the year, home sales are up 7.6%. Growth for the third quarter slowed from previous quarters this year. Third quarter sales increased just under 4% as the area absorbed news of the coming Mitsubishi plant shutdown.

The average price of a home sold has increased slightly for the year and for the month.

Sales of new homes remain a very small part of the total. All of the growth last month was in sales of existing homes.
 

A third consecutive overall index drop in a monthly rural bankers survey suggests an economic slowdown is ahead for rural parts of 10 Western and Plains states. The Rural Mainstreet Index sank to 44.4 this month from 49.0 in September and 50.0 in August. The overall index is computed from various economic category scores, and survey organizers say any score below 50 suggests that factor will decline.

Illinois wants insurance companies in the small group market to submit changes to their small business policies as quickly as possible following a bipartisan adjustment to the nation's health care law. President Barack Obama signed legislation last week that gives states flexibility about whether to change the definition of ``small business'' under the law.  

In an Oct. 9 memo to insurers, the Illinois Department of Insurance says it will keep defining ``small'' as employers with 1 to 50 employees.