A back-to-back Philadelphia World Series championship would be "the worst omen for the economy if history repeats itself," says Bloomberg News here, citing West Chester-based Moody's Economy.com analyst Ryan Sweet and recalling the old Philadelphia A's 1929 and 1930 performance that ushered in the Great Depression.

The US Treasury has passed out another $5 billion in "New Markets Tax Credits" to investors who back projects that banks apparently can't or won't finance on the cheap. The annual progarm has been juiced this year by an extra $1.5 billion in federal Recovery Act funds.

List of the developers who'll be awarding the credits to their private-sector investors here. Locally, includes:

- $90 million for the Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a Philadelphia-based entity that finances supermarkets, publicly-funded charter schools, and "other commercial real estate assets" in the New Jersey-Washington corridor;

- $15 million for "Reading's Future Inc.," a Reading-based developer, controlled by Boscov's Department Stores Inc.,  that builds or acquires stores, offices and homes.

Metro Bancorp (formerly Commerce Bank of Pennsylvania) and First Republic Bank of Philadelphia have again extended their merger deadline, to Dec. 31, from the previous Oct. 31. Reports here and here.

Metro follows a fast-growth business plan modeled on the former Commerce Bancorp, whose founder, Vernon Hill, is Republic's lead investor. The banks' bosses announced the deal last fall, and their boards voted approval in March.

But Metro, which has already pushed back the deadline from June to October, says the banks need another two months "to obtain required regulatory approvals for the merger." They're still waiting for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Banking Department to say it's OK.

When Lehman Bros. blew up last fall because it invested billions of dollars of clients' money in bad mortgages, the paintings that had lined the corridors and walls of its offices from Wall Street to Wilmington were dumped on the recessionary art market.

Samuel Freeman & Co., in the 1800 block of Walnut St., will be taking bids on the Lehman detritus as part of its "Modern & Contemporary" art auction, Sunday, All Saints' Day, at noon. Sale catalogue here.

Won't do much to comfort former Lehman shareholders, investors in Lehman retirement products, or ex-employees. Though it's cheerful stuff, some of it.

Some 200 of those paintings, illustrations, photos and sculptures will be up for bid in a collection of around 400 items of 19th and 20th Century art, including abstracts, urban scenes (mostly New York), an Annie Liebovitz photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Roy Lichtenstein's  "I Love Liberty", and much more. Andy Warhol's "Grace Kelly" is listed at $40,000 plus.

He calls them "gentlemen's clubs" so people will think "it's a cut above" the old-time "titty bars," says Alan Markovitz, managing partner of the Penthouse Club on Castor Ave. near Allegheny, which opened late this summer. The name "soft-pedals what you do" with city officials and solid citizens. "If you don't put it in their face - 'Strippers! Topless Dancers!' they don't bother you. We try to keep it more upscale."

Markovitz says he grew up a "Jewish greaseball at Oak Park High" in 1970s suburban Detroit, got into the business as a bartender, lost his virginity to a dancer, decided "This is for me," and parlayed investments from his employer and his Holocaust-survivor TV-repairman father (plus "wealthy individuals and private equity investors") into a collection that currently numbers seven topless clubs in Michigan, Florida, and now Pennsylvania.

Markovitz tells his story in his new self-published book, Topless Prophet. In town checking on the club, he stopped by the Inquirer office and told me something I don't always hear from entrepreneurs: Philadelphia is an easy place to do business, and cheap. Though, he adds, his partners' local ties might have a lot to do with that:

After he bought rights to use the Penthouse name on clubs from the bankrupt magazine publisher, a Penthouse employee introduced Markovitz to two would-be Philadelphia club owners: construction contractor Mike Rose and boxer-turned-towing and salvage operator Anthony ("TKO") Boyle, who'd been looking at the vacant 30,000 square foot property on Castor for a big topless bar. "It's doing pretty well," Boyle told me. "It's extravagant, compared to the other Philly clubs. I didn't want to show my wife the bathrooms, she might get ideas... Alan designed everything."

»  More Detroit breast mogul backs Philly's new topless bar

Ace Ltd., a global insurer run from offices in Zurich, New York and Old City Philadelphia, reported flat third-quarter sales in a weak global insurance market, and a big jump in earnings thanks partly to recovering investment values and a lack of costly summer storm damage. Report here.

Chief executive Evan Greenberg, son of American International Group founder Hank Greenberg, went on to deny his company is cutting premiums or extending extra coverage to win business from AIG and other struggling rivals. "There are some cowboys out there. There are guys writing this at what we think are pretty nuts terms, and so it's not completely a disciplined market. That's for sure."

Indeed, Ace "has benefited from a flight to quality in the insurance sector," CreditSights Inc. analysts Rob Haines and Joseph DiCarlo told bond investors in a report. "ACE is well positioned to benefit from current market dislocation and should be able to capture market share at the expense of weker competitors," thanks to its "transparent and capable management team." All this without a government bailout.

Shares of Lincoln National Corp., best known in Philadelphia as corporate sponsor of the Eagles' Lincoln Financial Field, rose as much as 15% to around $25 in trading today as the Radnor-based insurance and annuities company reported better-than-expected profits and lower-than-expected costs. Results here.

Lincoln shares fell from the mid-$50s to as low as $5 in trading last fall amid fears big insurers would collapse as the value of their investments plunged. The company agreed to accept a $950 million investment from the U.S. Treasury's Capital Protection Program, boosting its capital and reducing its financing costs..

Lincoln paid the government $16 million last quarter and will pay around $18 million in the current quarter for the use of that money, chief financial officer Frederick J. Crawford told investors in a conference call today. It's been a "tumultuous" year, his boss, CEO Dennis Glass, said.

Harleysville Group got lucky in the third quarter, according to Janney Langen McAlenney analyst Robert Glasspiegel's report to clients this morning. Earnings report here.

Harleysville says written insurance premiums fell 8%, vs an expected 5% drop, in the weak insurance market. But earnings were still above expectations, thanks in part to the "absence of cats."

He doesn't mean felines; he means hurricanes and other catastrophes. Those big claims trimmed Harleysville for less than $1 million in the quarter, down from nearly $4 million last year.

Harleysville also "deserves kudos" for "timely" investments in stocks: Harleysville was able to mark its equity portfolio at $177 million, a $42 million gain over its cost, while rivals' portfolios are still underwater or breaking even. "Very few insurance companies re-risked" buying into the market this year, in time for this year's rally, Glasspiegel concluded.

Brandywine Realth Trust shares were flat this morning, in a rising market, after the Radnor-based office landlord reported cash flow a little better than expected for the first quarter. Report here.

Brandywine's sharheolder dividend, 10 cents a share in the fourth quarter, around 15 cents each quarter next year, "was below our expectations," wrote Janney Montgomery Scott analysts Daniel P. Donlan and Andrew DiZio.

They figure Brandywine  CEO Jerry Sweeney "is choosing to maintain a healthy spread between its free cash flow and dividend payout," so Brandywine will be ready "to take advantage of future acquisition opportunities." Plus they expect Brandywine's home market in Philadelphia and other mid-Atlantic office centers "should see a recovery in rental rates and demand ahead of the broader U.S. market." 

They're urging investors to buy the stock. Sweeney will talk to investors at noon, dial 800-683-1525 and punch in code 276 190 47 to listen in.