Joseph N. DiStefano
Falling college enrollments and a drop in county and state support were cited by Moody's Investors Service for its decision to cut its bond rating for 9,400-student Montgomery County Community College to Aa3 from Aa2.
The downgrade on $54.6 million in revenue bonds sold through Pennsylvania's State Public School Building Authority makes it more likely the college will have to pay higher interest on future borrowings. MCCC "plans to issue $34 million of additional debt within the next year," Moody's analyst Emily Schwarz noted. The new borrowing will boost MCCC's total debt above its annual income -- even though enrollment has fallen in each of the past two years.
Moody's blamed a "30% cut in operating support" from Montgomery County government, which will likely put the college's budget into deficit. That follows a 10% cut in state support last year. The school relies on state and county support for about $4 of every $10 it spends, Moody's noted.
Joseph N. DiStefano
"Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate how Governor Tom Corbett handled the Pennsylvania State University child sex abuse case," reports Bloomberg here.
“The office will conduct a timely investigation that leaves no stone unturned,” Kane, a Democrat, told Bloomberg, in a story reported by Phil Milford in Wilmington and Romy Varghese in Philadelphia. "The findings will be made public, she said." Previous NY Times story here.
Joseph N. DiStefano
Liberty Property Trust, Malvern, says it will build a 200,000 sq ft, 6-story office building at the 40-year-old Great Valley Corporate Center office campus for Vanguard Group, the mutual fund giant.
Project cost: $55 million. Work will start in March, to finish in mid-2014. D2CA Architects designed the building, Studio Brian Hanes designed the ground, Bala Consulting Engineers is project engineer.
Vanguard, based in a nearby office complex on PA 29, has also considered the neighboring former Wyeth drug factory complex in East Whiteland and a farm on US 100 near the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Downingtown entrance as expansion sites. Vanguard was advised in the Great Valley deal by Jones Lang Lasalle's Ron Cariola and Mike Morrone.
Joseph N. DiStefano
Perrigo Co., the Michigan-based animal pharma company which recently acquired Sergeant's Pet Care,, says it has agreed to pay $160 million to buy Yardley-based generic over-the-counter pet drugmaker Velcera Inc., which markets PetArmor flea and tick products. The price is a rich 2.7x Velcera's $60 million in sales last year, which typically implies rapid growth, or a desire to forestall potential competitors.
"Velcera's product mix represents a natural extension to the Sergeant's portfolio we acquired last October," Perrigo boss Joseph Papa said in a statement. Velcera raised $33 million in a 2007 stock sale. It has been trading, like its products, over-the-counter.
Joseph N. DiStefano
Brandywine Realty Trust, a Radnor company that is one of Center City's dominant landlords, has asked Campus Crest Communities, a Georgia-based company mostly known for building student housing at suburban and small-town colleges in the South and West, to put up student housing on a site permitted for a 36-story high-rise tower at 2930 Chestnut St. in University City, according to two real estate industry sources familiar with the deal.
Despite Crest's apparent lack of experience on big-city high-rise work, digging started last weekend for foundations for the project, which is part of the Cira 2 complex that Brandywine hoped to build on the block between Chestnut and Walnut streets, 29th and 30th streets, adjoining the Penn campus to the south and Drexel to the north.
Brandywine had proposed two towers for the block, and state and city leaders had offered tax breaks in an attempt to lure office employers, hotels, apartments and ohter tenants. But the proposals were put on hold during the economic downturn that started in 2008.
Joseph N. DiStefano
The U.S. Government's General Services Administration is leaving PREIT Real Estate's office complex at 801 Market St. in Center City (the former Strawbridge & Clothier store) moving 600 federal workers to 122,000 sq ft at the former Rohm & Haas headquarters on Independence Mall at 6th and Market, says Dow Chemical, which bought Rohm & Haas three years ago.
Dow had tried to sell the modernist landmark building but found a weak market in Center City, where residential demand is rising but office space, rents and workforce remains stuck at the levels of 10 and 20 years ago. Instead, after cutting hundreds of headquarters jobs, Dow kept the upper floors as offices for the business group that includes the ex-Rohm chemical plants, and put the rest up for lease.
801 Market is still home to the Inquirer, state agencies, and other offices. PREIT has long delayed a plan for renovating the neighboring retail space at the Gallery, where it has tried over the years to get state officials to give it taxpayer subsidies, and to attract high-end retailers and a casino, among other tenants. Dow says it still employs around 2,000 at offices, labs and plants around Philadelphia.
Joseph N. DiStefano
Brandywine Realty Trust, Radnor, says it will redevelop 1900 Market Street, which houses Nasdaq's Philadelphia Stock Exchange operations and investment and law firm offices, "as a Class A office building."
Brandywine says it is committed to offices at 1900. "The redevelopment program will commence in early 2013 and be completed by 2015," Brandywine said in a statement today.
Brandywine paid $34.8 million to buy the 457,000 sq ft building in 2011. Last summer its lead tenant, the politically connected law firm Cozen O'Connor, announced plans to vacate 200,000 sq ft. But, given the sale price of $76 sq ft, "the building's existing tenant base, current below-market leases and purchase price will provide an attractive yield," the landlord predicts.
Joseph N. DiStefano
New loans to apartment developers and mortgage orginators helped boost profits for Customers Bancorp.
Customers yesterday reported record profits of $7.6 million/40 cents a share for the last quarter of 2012, and $23.8 million, or $1.73 a share, for the year, compared to $4 million/39 cents in 2011. Deposits grew to $2.4 billion, up from $1.6 billion. Customers says 4q returns on assets was 1.06%, up from 0.66% a year earlier. Return on equity was 11.32%, up from 8.47%.
Customers was cobbled together by Jay Sidhu from a series of poorly-performing Northestern U.S. banking operations after he was forced out of Sovereign Bank by a badly-timed revolt by activist shareholders,
Joseph N. DiStefano
Philadelphia native Stephen Felice is President and Chief Commercial Officer of Dell Computer, the Austin-based company that's trying to turn itself from the giant of the aging personal-computer business into a "business solutions" maker -- while also grappling with a rumored takeover offer backed by Microsoft Inc. (corrected)
I sat down with Felice at Comcast Center today as he was helping Dell run a "Think Tank on Entrepreneurs and Small Business," part of Dell's outreach to small and midsized businesses, who now account for a quarter of the company's sales.
Felice talked about some of the people who showed him the road from St. Matthew's Parish in Mayfair to a top job at one of the biggest U.S. tech firms:
Joseph N. DiStefano
Beneficial Bank, the biggest lender still based in Philadelphia, has narrowed it down to three possible new headquarters buildings, all in different parts of Center City, for its central staff of around 250, says chief executive Gerry Cuddy.
The bank's current office in the Penn Mutual tower near 4th and Walnut has cool views of the city's brick colonial neighborhoods backed by the Delaware and the Market Street high-rises -- but the space is broken up and Cuddy wants a single "bloc" of up to 120,000 sq ft, because, hey, space in Philly is as cheap now as it was 20 years ago, mostly.
"Our lease expires March 1 of 2014," so he wants to make a decision this February, to give a year's moving time, he told me.
