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A Sandy Hook firm is making waves in the engineering field, winning a competitive bid for a U.S. Army Corp of Engineers contract for engineering and architectural services in the North Atlantic.
Founded a little more than a decade ago as Earthworks, the recently renamed e4sciences already has pieces of major projects, including the deepening of the New York/New Jersey Harbor.
The contract was jointly awarded to Atelier Ten out of New York.
People’s United Financial Inc has installed some of the highest tech ATMs in the nation in its Manhattan branch.
NCR, the guys who make the ATMS and self-checkout kiosks in supermarkets and for airlines, announced the installation of the first smart card machines in the U.S. for People’s.
“They should get a lot of credit for being ahead of the curve,” said an NCR spokesman.
The major card payment companies, including Visa and MasterCard, have issued new specifications to improve consumer security and banks are expected to go to a chip and pin card in America that’s widely used in Europe and Canada.
Chip and pin cards have microchips embedded in them and are considered more secure. Had cards in the U.S. been of this type, according to NCR, it would have made it more difficult for an international ring of thieves to steal $45 million recently.
Many European countries have been on this system since 1996.
People’s had not yet posted a press release announcing the move or when it would be providing customers with the cards or plans to convert the rest of its ATM system.
It should be noted, the ATMs will accept our regular, less-secure cards.
People’s shares are trading near a 52-week high at $14.23 on Wednesday. The bank’s shares hit their highest value in a year this month.
New tweaks in collective bargaining rights in the state could force employers to post notices in break rooms announcing when employees can vote in a union.
The State Labor Department is holding a public hearing on June 10, at 10 a.m. at the Department of Labor, 200 Folly Brook Road, Wethersfield, where the public can comment on some of the proposed changes to the Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations regulations.
Some of the changes are truly technical and involve when to use lower case or upper-case letters, others are more substantive and involve when the clock starts on petitions and details on what kinds of activity are considered interference.
Secret ballots are required under the proposal, but there is an interesting provision governing the voting rights of people who either the union or employer object to being part of a collective bargaining unit. Those poor saps are allowed to vote, but must place their ballot in a sealed envelope until their status is determined.
Thuggery on either side is right out under the rules.
For more info, visit the DOL.
The Wall Street Journal said today that the owners of Copper Beech Farm are offering the more than 50-acre estate on Long Island Sound for the highest listing price in U.S. at $190 million.
The owners told the Journal their kids are grown and so they’re putting the homestead up for sale. You should know, Greenwichers, the Journal was told there’s a possibility of subdividing the property.
This isn’t the most expensive property for sale in US history, just the highest price listed this year. According to Forbes, there are plenty of homes that cost more around the world and in the U.S. Lat year, One Hyde Park, London sold for $221 million and that’s just an apartment.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported this week that applications for home loans fell 7.3 percent last week on weaker refi and 
new purchase activity. At the same time, banks upped the interest rate for conforming loans to 3.67 percent, a rise of just 0.41 percent from the previous week.
Is there a correlation between the rise in rates and the drop in applications? We’re not sure. Sort of a chicken and egg, thing.
But we did check to see how much the rise in rates could have cost some home buyers and there are implications for further increases.
If a person buying a home a $300,000 home in Danbury put down 20 percent and financed at the 3.59 percent rate of two weeks ago, they’d have a monthly payment of about $1,089.80. That doesn’t include taxes, insurance, etc.
Buying that same house a week later at the 3.67 percent rate would increase the monthly payment $11 to $1,100 per month, according to Bankrate.com’s mortgage calculator.
Not a tremendous burden, really, it’s three or four cups of coffee at Starbucks a month.
If the rate, however, were to go up a full percent, to 4.59 percent, a person buying our Danbury home would have to pay $1,228.91, a month.
Here in the Mighty Financial Mines, as one reader recently dubbed us, we wondered what would happen to the market if interest rates went up.
Those eggs are cooked
There are several scenarios, of course. Probably the best has the Fed raising rates when the economy starts growing at a stronger pace, thawing out the great wage ice age. In that case, people could probably afford to pay more as hiring increases and employers provide raises and the real estate market could continue to improve.
But, if rates go up in a weaker economy, there is a chance the market could slow down with some people get priced out of it. And in a worse case scenario, prices could actually fall, as sellers have to cave to the reality of what buyers can actually finance.
Unless, of course, the bankers do something like, loosen up their underwriting standards…
But for now, a jump in rates doesn’t look likely, though it is, as Ed Deak, the don of Connecticut Econ, posited in our future.
“They can’t stay at zero forever,” he said in a recent interview.
Jumbo loans also went up according to the MBA, rising to 3.87 percent. Refinance activity was down 8 percent and purchases were off 4 percent.
Check out the MBA for more info.
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said Tuesday the state will get about $1.5 million from Ranbaxy, the India-based generic drug maker, who settled allegations this week that it was selling generics that were less than full strength or less than pure.
Ranbaxy agreed to settle the charges after a whistleblower made allegations about its drugs in court. The feds and states got involved because, ultimately because Medicaid, like private insurance policies, pushes patients to use cheaper generics when available. In all, the Indian pharmaceutical made 26 generic type of drugs between 2003 and 2010.
Ranbaxy agreed to pay fines and restitution to Medicaid programs, while not admitting it did anything wrong.
Getting on the bus
After the last student gets off the bus to go home in June in Trumbull and Shelton the kids will shout and run, feeling the joy of being set free for the summer. For the 174 bus drivers and other employees working for First Student, they’re facing the prospects of not having jobs.
First Student lost the contract for the schools in Trumbull and Shelton and as a result filed a mass layoff notice with the state last week. It doesn’t mean the people will definitely not have jobs come the next school year, changes in bus contracts occur fairly regularly here in Connecticut and the incoming companies often hire the drivers who know the routes and the towns.
Still, in this economy, it’s not the most pleasant way to head into the summer, especially withe every company looking to find a way to shed costs.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy opened the bank of Connecticut to Cannondale this week, providing the bicycle maker with a $3 million loan, $2 million of which will be forgiven, if the company creates 75 jobs when it moves from Bethel to Wilton.
While plenty of people are down on Connecticut, it ranked for the sixth worst place to do business according to a recent survey of CEOs, Malloy has been willing to put the state’s money where his mouth is and give it to companies to stay and expand here.
(Malloy likes to say Connecticut is open for business.)
Cannondale, a division of Montreal-based Dorel, plans on using the money to purchase office equipment and IT systems when it moves 145 employees to the new office in Wilton.
The bond commission will have to approve the deal, which provides the loan over 10 years at 2 percent interest. But, if Cannondale creates 75 new jobs over the next four years, the state will forgive $2 million.
Dorel, Cannondale’s parent corporation, reported on Thursday net income of $22.3 million for the first quarter of this year. Bad weather hurt bicycle sales and cut into revenue the company reported. Besides Cannondale, Dorel owns several prominent bike brands, including Schwinn and Mongoose.
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