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The Bank of Japan will hold an emergency board meeting tomorrow to consider ways to help companies obtain funds as the recession deepens.

The policy board will discuss expanding the range of corporate debt it accepts from lenders to encourage banks to increase funding for businesses, the central bank said on its Web site today. The meeting will start at 1 p.m. in Tokyo and Governor Masaaki Shirakawa will brief the press at 3:30 p.m., the statement said.

Shirakawa said today that companies’ access to funding is deteriorating “at an accelerating pace” and likened an increase in borrowing costs to the country’s credit crunch 10 years ago. Japanese banks are once again becoming less willing to lend on concern that businesses won’t repay debt.

The credit squeeze “may have already depressed capital spending as smaller firms hoarded cash in order to meet year-end obligations,” said Naomi Fink, Japan strategist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in Tokyo. “A shock to small and midsize companies who dominate the services sector could prove the straw that broke the camel’s back for the Japanese economy.”

Public broadcaster NHK reported earlier today that the policy board will discuss allowing banks to use corporate bonds with lower credit ratings as collateral for obtaining cash from the central bank. The program would stay in place until April, NHK reported, without saying where it got the information.

Year-End Funding

The central bank is working on ways to help companies obtain funds to settle accounts “during the run-up to the calendar and fiscal year-ends,” Shirakawa said in a speech today. Diminishing access to credit may “depress economic activity from the financial side,” he said.

“Success in supplying greater liquidity could mean the difference between an uneventful year-end and an acute corporate funding squeeze,” said Fink at Tokyo-Mitsubishi.

Shirakawa said that while yields on corporate debt are “somewhat lower” than they were during Japan’s credit crunch a decade ago, they are rising at a pace “comparable to that in 1998 and 1999.”

Corporate bond sales in Japan plunged 45 percent in November from a year ago, data compiled by Bloomberg show. NTT DoCoMo Inc. and Nippon Steel Corp. paid higher yield premiums last week when they sold the first bonds outside the public works sector since Oct. 15. The shortage of credit drove bankruptcies among publicly traded companies to a record 30 this year, after property developer Morimoto Co need cash. collapsed last week.

Rate Cut

Lending between banks has tightened even after the central bank’s Oct. 31 decision to cut its overnight lending rate to 0.3 percent from 0.5 percent. The three-month Tokyo interbank offering rate, or Tibor, rose for the 16th straight day to 0.883 percent, 583 basis points higher than the target for overnight lending. Three-month Tibor was 388 basis points higher on Oct. 30.

Future policy decisions depend on developments in the economy and financial system, Shirakawa said. The governor acknowledged last month that the rate cut has done little to lower other borrowing costs.

“It’s still doubtful whether the central bank’s additional measures to help corporate financing alone will be enough to counter the economy’s rapid deterioration,” said Kiichi Murashima, chief economist at Nikko Citigroup Ltd. in Tokyo. “The central bank may be forced to lower the key rate further.”

Collateral Accepted

The Bank of Japan currently accepts the top seven of 10 investment-grade corporate bonds that are publicly placed. It also takes AAA-rated asset-backed securities and some higher grades of asset-backed commercial paper.

The balance of commercial paper, which companies use for short-term funding, fell to 12.8 trillion yen ($134 billion) in October, the lowest since March 2002.

Shirakawa repeated that he’s reluctant to lower the benchmark rate again and revive a 2001-2006 policy of keeping borrowing costs near zero percent. Further reductions could impede the flow of funds in the money market by making returns so low that investors have little incentive to trade, he said.

The central bank is also watching the risk that prices will fall as oil and commodity costs drop, the governor said. Gains in consumer prices excluding fresh food will ease “at a rapid pace,” he said, adding that the key gauge of inflation may turn negative in the year starting April, he said.

Core inflation slowed for a second month to 1.9 percent in October, the government said last week, and the central bank forecasts the index will slow to zero next fiscal year.

The global economy won’t show clear signs of a recovery until mid-2009 at the earliest, Shirakawa said.

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China should do more to rebalance its economy from investment, exports and industry to consumption and services as it rolls out a $586 billion stimulus package, the World Bank said.

“Additional measures are necessary to make headway with rebalancing the pattern of growth,” the Washington-based lender said today. Steps should include extra spending on health, education and social welfare and raising energy and resource prices, it said.

The World Bank cut its forecast for China’s economic growth next year to 7.5 percent from 9.2 percent in the previous quarterly report after the global financial crisis deepened. More than half of the expansion will come from “government-influenced spending,” after the State Council this month announced measures including infrastructure projects, the report said.

“China urgently needs to rebalance its growth towards domestic demand,” said Mark Williams, an economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in London. “With the world economy facing a painful downturn it can no longer rely on consumers overseas to lift it up.”

China’s economy, the world’s fourth largest, expanded 9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the slowest pace since 2003. The World Bank’s forecast is for the weakest growth in almost two decades next year.

‘Sharp’ Export Decline

“The impact of the international financial and economic turmoil on China’s economy has been manageable so far, but is expected to intensify,” Louis Kuijs, a World Bank economist, said in Beijing. “Looking ahead, prospects are for a sharp reduction in export growth.”

Country director David Dollar said the nation is in the “early stage” of talks with the lender on providing money for loans to other developing nations. He wouldn’t give more details.

The World Bank praised China for keeping the yuan stable against the dollar as the U.S. currency strengthened.

“China’s exchange-rate policy has thus been a source of stability in regional and global financial markets,” the lender said business card design. China’s “effective exchange rate has strengthened considerably,” it said.

The U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against six major currencies including the euro and the pound, has climbed 19 percent since the end of June. The yuan has gained 0.4 percent against the U.S. currency in that time.

Health, Welfare, Yuan

Strengthening further the exchange rate and increasing the yuan’s flexibility would help to rebalance the economy, partly by making monetary policy more effective, the World Bank said.

Boosting spending on health, education and social welfare would aid low-income earners and “reduce the reluctance to consume,” the report said. Some measures announced in the stimulus package, such as rural subsidies, will help, it said.

Charging industries the full cost of energy, water, utilities, and natural resources would also aid rebalancing efforts, the World Bank said.

The economy will probably grow 9.4 percent this year, down from a previous estimate of 9.8 percent, it said, noting a “particularly pronounced” slowdown in the housing market.

China’s export slowdown is set to spread from destinations including the European Union to emerging markets, where more than half the nation’s shipments go, the report said. The World Bank predicts imports worldwide will shrink next year for the first time since 1982.

Inflation “is no longer an issue of concern for the immediate future” and is likely to cool to 2 percent in 2009 from 6.5 percent this year, the World Bank said.

China’s foreign-exchange reserves, already the world’s biggest, will likely swell to $2.045 trillion this year and $2.547 trillion by the end of 2009, the report said.

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The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. may revise a $1.4 trillion debt-insurance program to address complaints that it would spur an exodus from the $250 billion market for overnight loans between banks.

The FDIC is considering charging different fees depending on the maturity of the debt, instead of its previous plan for a flat fee. Companies including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. said the original proposal threatened to make the overnight federal funds market too costly compared with alternatives such as direct loans from the Federal Reserve.

“We are definitely thinking through how to respond to some of the concerns that have been raised,'' Art Murton, director of the FDIC's insurance and research division, said in an interview. “Complexity is somewhat inevitable. We're doing our best to take away unnecessary confusion.''

The deliberations show how officials are trying to avoid some of the unintended consequences that have plagued other government programs. Banks in September protested a Treasury plan to insure money-market funds, saying it could spur a rush out of bank deposits. Some companies claim the Fed's purchases of top-ranked commercial paper penalize second-tier firms.

The FDIC had proposed charging a standard fee to insure all eligible senior unsecured debt. Banks argued that the federal funds market should be treated differently. If that market costs too much, banks might switch to government lending programs like the Fed's discount window or Federal Home Loan Bank advance programs, they said.

Banks Complain

“Such an outcome would not achieve the FDIC's goal of improving shorter-term unsecured inter-bank funding markets,'' law firm Sullivan and Cromwell wrote in a letter to the agency on behalf of nine large banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan and Bank of America.

High premiums on federal funds lending “could effectively shut down the overnight funds market,'' said Louis Crandall, chief economist of Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey. “Most current activity in the overnight funds market would either not take place or be diverted to other instruments such as Eurodollars that are not subject to the FDIC's new fees.''

Banks have until Dec. 5 to decide whether to participate in the FDIC's program. Premiums started accruing on Nov. 13 for all banks, and those that don't want to take part must notify the agency. The FDIC plans to release final regulations for the program as soon as this week.

“We have certainly heard a lot on the fed-funds issue,'' Murton said.

Backstop for Lending

The program is separate from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion bank bailout freecreditscore. It is designed to provide a broad backstop for interbank lending. The FDIC rolled out the plan on Oct. 14, in response to debt guarantees announced by European governments.

The FDIC is offering the debt insurance through its Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, which also includes expanded deposit insurance for business checking accounts. As laid out in the interim regulation, the FDIC will guarantee all new senior unsecured debt issued between Oct. 14 and June 30, 2009, up to a cap that will be set for each institution when it signs up.

Critics say the program is too complicated and won't be as effective as intended. FDIC Chairman Bill Isaac, now chairman of Secura Group LLC, said the idea is “convoluted'' and has drawn fire from smaller banks.

“The small banks are just livid about what's going on,'' Isaac said. “The small banks feel like they didn't have anything to do with creating these problems, yet they're being asked to pay for them.''

`Competitive Disadvantage'

Chip MacDonald, a banking lawyer at Jones Day, said banks may choose to participate so they don't lose an edge against rivals. Bankers who opt out “may be at a competitive disadvantage,'' he said.

Banks are automatically enrolled unless they opt out. If a bank holding company joins, all of its banking subsidiaries must also join, and the program terms apply to all commercial paper, promissory notes and other eligible debt like federal funds loans. That was a change in the FDIC's thinking, Murton said.

“We may have signaled an openness'' to partial participation, he said. “As we thought more about it in the next few days, we decided that it made more sense to have all in or all out for the instruments and the entities.''

Nonbank affiliates are excluded from the program. A finance unit, such as General Electric Co.'s, can apply to join, the FDIC said. GE said last week it had been accepted, which will provide a backstop for up to $139 billion in the company's debt.

That puts the company on a more even footing with banks, according to Crandall.

“Once the terms of the FDIC guarantee program are set, we're likely to see a wave of issuance of guaranteed medium-term notes by participants,'' Crandall said.

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The Federal Reserve is working on a plan that would give it authority to regulate the clearing of trades for the $33 trillion credit-default swap market, according to people with knowledge of the proposal.

The Fed, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are discussing a memorandum of understanding that lays out oversight of clearinghouses that would become the central counterparty to credit-default swap trades, said the people who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.

The SEC and CFTC would also share trading information under the plan, the people said.

“The main concern is systemic risk and that's much more in the Fed's wheelhouse than the SEC or CFTC,'' said Craig Pirrong, a finance professor at the University of Houston who studies futures markets. “The Fed is the natural place for it to go.''

The Fed has been pushing the industry to form a clearinghouse that would absorb losses should a market maker fail. Regulators stepped up their efforts after the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September and the near-collapse of American International Group Inc. The New York Fed has been meeting with groups including CME Group Inc., Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and NYSE Euronext to press them to accelerate their progress.

New York Fed spokesman Andrew Williams and Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. CFTC spokesman David Gary and the SEC's John Nester declined to comment.

Announcement This Week

Credit-default swaps are financial instruments based on bonds and loans that are used to speculate on a company's ability to repay debt. They were conceived to protect bondholders against default, and pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should the company fail to adhere to its debt agreements short-term cash loans.

An announcement of the regulatory structure could come by the end of the week when President George W. Bush hosts a gathering of world leaders in Washington to discuss ways to fix the financial crisis, said one of the people who has read a draft of the plan.

“All the regulators want to push this forward,'' Pirrong said. “The credit crisis meeting on Friday is as good an excuse as any.''

Chicago-based CME Group is competing with Intercontinental Exchange of Atlanta and NYSE Euronext to create a system. CME Group Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue said last week that he is open to Fed oversight for his clearing plan. CME Group is currently regulated by the CFTC.

ICE, CME

Intercontinental Exchange Chief Executive Officer Jeff Sprecher has set up his clearing plan as a special purpose banking entity within the state of New York. Intercontinental agreed to buy Chicago-based Clearing Corp. last week to help it get participation in its plan from the nine major banks that own the Clearing Corp. and that make up the majority of the market.

CME Group, partnered with hedge fund Citadel Investment Group LLC, has said it is ready to begin clearing CDS contracts as soon as it receives regulatory approval. Sprecher said today his group may be ready before year end.

“We're waiting for regulatory approval. I think positions will start moving in the next few weeks,'' he said at the Futures Industry Association conference in Chicago today.

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More than one in four American adults have encountered employment discrimination, according to a new survey by FindLaw.com.

The survey, which asked 1,000 adults if they believe they have ever experienced discrimination by an employer in job interviews, hiring, pay or promotions, found race topped the list (39 percent), followed by age (34 percent), gender (30 percent), religion and sexual orientation (7 percent) and other (26 percent)

"It is important to note that not all discrimination is prohibited by law," said Stephanie Rahlfs, an attorney and editor at FindLaw.com. "Only discrimination based upon a classification that is considered ‘protected’ – race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, or union activity under the federal anti-discrimination laws – is illegal 1 hour cash advance.”

Among the survey’s findings:

• Forty-two percent of African-Americans have experienced racial discrimination in the workplace.

• One in 10 women claim they have experienced gender discrimination in the workplace.

• One in seven people age 45 and older (15%) claim they have experienced age discrimination in the workplace.

• One in eight people ages 18 to 24 (13%) say they have also experienced age discrimination.

• While racial discrimination was highest in the South, age, gender and religious discrimination were most likely to occur in the Midwest.

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The International Monetary Fund reached agreement with Ukraine on a $16.5 billion loan to help support the nation's financial system as turmoil in global credit markets and recession concerns sweep eastern Europe.

The 24-month loan is conditional on parliamentary approval of legislation to support the country's banks, the Washington- based lender said today in a statement. Ukraine also will need to balance its budget by reining in social spending and narrow the current-account deficit, the Kiev-based central bank said in a separate statement.

Eastern Europe is being buffeted by the global credit crunch as investors stung by losses in developed nations sell riskier emerging-markets stocks, bonds and currencies. Ukraine is the first nation in the region to receive IMF help during the crisis. Belarus this past week joined Iceland, Pakistan, Hungary and Ukraine in requesting at least $20 billion of emergency loans from the IMF to help repay debt.

“The money is only half of the issue, conditionality is key,'' Timothy Ash, head of emerging-market research at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London, said in a telephone interview. “We hope the Fund is maintaining its push for a more flexible exchange rate, far-reaching reforms in the banking sector and more privatization.''

Banks

President Viktor Yushchenko faces an economic meltdown as prices for the nation's main exports, including steel, drop and a weakening currency makes goods purchased abroad more costly. He has urged the cabinet to raise custom duties to curb imports and help domestic producers boost exports to counter the widening trade gap.

Ukraine agreed to set up a fund that will buy stakes in the nation's banks and pass legislation that forces lenders to halt dividend payments to retain capital, central bank official Serhiy Kruhlik said in a telephone interview in Kiev today.

The central bank took control of closely held Prominvestbank on Oct. 7 and promised an injection of 5 billion hryvnia ($830 million) to bail out Ukraine's sixth-biggest bank by assets after a run by depositors.

The government also plans to raise the state guarantee on bank deposits to 100,000 hryvnia from 50,000 now and will use proceeds from privatizations and bond sales for the bank bailout fund, according to Kruhlik. The parliament is scheduled to vote on the amended legislation on Oct no teletrack payday loans. 28.

`No Consensus'

“As of now, there is no consensus between Ukrainian political forces about a stabilization program,'' said Svitlana Maslova, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London. Investors “will closely look at the details of the policy package to assess the impact of the program.''

Industrial production contracted 4.5 percent from a year earlier in September and the trade gap widened to a record $12.5 billion in the eight months through August.

Ukraine's current-account deficit may widen to $15 billion this year, central bank governor Volodymyr Stelmakh said earlier this month. The current-account gap was $7.5 billion, or about 6 percent of gross domestic product, in the first eight months of the year.

The former Soviet republic's currency tumbled 13 percent last week and touched a record 6.0812 per dollar on Oct. 24. the lowest since the hryvnia was introduced in 1996. Ukraine's annual inflation rate almost tripled to a record 31.1 percent in May before easing back to 24.6 percent in September.

Elections

Ukraine is the least creditworthy of Europe's transition economies measured by the cost of credit-default swaps, conceived to protect bondholders against default. Its economic predicament is complicated by a political crisis that led to collapse of the government and calling of early elections.

Yushchenko dissolved the parliament on Oct. 8 and a new one will be chosen on Dec. 14, the second national elections in as many years. His party, which seeks closer ties with the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, quit the coalition on Sept. 3 after former ally, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, joined with the pro-Russian opposition to strip the president of some powers.

Yushchenko and Timoshenko joined forces to win the 2004 election after the bloodless Orange Revolution on promises to move the country toward the West. After a split in 2005, the two reunited before last year's elections.

Since then, Yushchenko and Timoshenko have been locked in a battle over how to tackle Europe's fastest inflation rate, sell state assets and how to spend budget funds.

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Catholic Healthcare West, the San Francisco hospital system that is the eighth largest in the nation, said Monday that two senior executives will share executive vice president/COO positions within the 41-hospital organization.

Bill Hunt and Marvin O’Quinn, the two executives, will each have operational responsibility for about half of CHW’s facilities. They replace Michael Erne, who retired this month after being with CHW since 1997, officials said Oct. 13.

By making this move, CHW said, it has eliminated three “group president of operations” positions, resulting in a flattening of the operations structure for the organization.

Hunt was promoted from an internal position as president of group operations, responsible for overseeing the operations of 15 hospitals in Northern California and Reno, Nevada. He had held several leadership roles at CHW since 1996, officials said.

He also served as president/CEO of the CHW Medical Foundation, a 300-plus physician group practice in Northern California. In his new role Hunt will be responsible for operations in Northern California from the Oregon border south to Kern County, CHW said, along with “physician engagement efforts” throughout the 41-hospital system.

O’Quinn is currently president and CEO of Miami’s Jackson Health System, where he will remain until year-end. He will join CHW Jan. 1.

He will be responsible for facilities in Arizona, Nevada and California from San Luis Obispo south, along with integrated process management and ambulatory operations cheap payday advance.

“Bill and Marvin bring a breadth of health-care experience to CHW,” Lloyd Dean, CHW’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “They are ideally suited to this role, I have the utmost confidence in their leadership, and I look forward to working with them to further strengthen our ministry and ensure that all who need health-care are able to receive it.”

Dean added that the two-headed COO model’s benefit is “a much broader range of expertise and oversight for an organization of our size than would be possible under the conventional, single-executive approach.”

Late last week, CHW reported that its operating income for the fiscal year ended June 30 dropped 47 percent, revenue grew 12 percent, and investment income dropped 81 percent, due largely to accounting changes and one-time write-offs, according to a report in the Sacramento Business Journal, an affiliated publication. Operating income fell to $160 million in core businesses, down from nearly $300 million the previous year.

Net income, meanwhile, tumbled to $170 million from $891 million the prior year, the Sacramento paper reported, but would have been $485 million not including one-time events.

The three-state system has nearly 10,000 doctors and 53,000 employees.

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The fate of German lender Hypo Real Estate (HRXG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) hung on the outcome of a showdown on Sunday between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and banks over who would foot the bill for a bailout.

Banks and insurers withdrew their support for a government-led 35 billion euro ($48.50 billion) rescue deal for HRE after new refinancing problems came to light at the Munich-based lender.

Berlin scrambled to arrange talks to hammer out a new deal before markets open on Monday and also announced that it would provide an unlimited guarantee for private deposit accounts as part of its reaction to the banking crisis.

The banks involved in the talks welcomed the deposit guarantee as a sensible step and were confident agreement could be reached in the coming hours, a banking source familiar with the situation said on Sunday, adding “we are making progress (fast cash loan).”

Earlier on Sunday, Merkel and her Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, speaking at a hastily arranged news conference, expressed exasperation at HRE and the banks that pulled out of its rescue.

“I am pretty angry that the management of (HRE) in the last few days has revealed a further liquidity hole of unknown size,” Steinbrueck said.

“The federal government refuses to be forced into some sort of shared responsibility by this bank or to put the entire burden of the risks on taxpayers.”

HRE is relatively small when compared with other firms in Frankfurt’s blue-chip DAX .GDAXI index of leading companies, but its role as a lender for commercial property, infrastructure and government financing makes it a major financial player. 

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European leaders pledged to bail out their own nations' banks while stopping short of a regional rescue effort to deal with the global credit crisis.

At a summit in Paris yesterday, leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, the European Central Bank and the European Commission agreed to ease accounting rules, seek tougher financial regulations and weaken enforcement of competition and budget laws.

“Each government will act according to its own methods and its own means but in a coordinated manner with the other European states,'' French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who called the meeting, told reporters.

The gathering came a day after U.S. lawmakers approved a $700 billion bank-rescue package and as Europe's own initial bailout efforts began to unravel. Germany's Hypo Real Estate Holding AG said a government-backed 35 billion-euro ($49 billion) deal collapsed yesterday when banks withdrew their support. Belgian authorities worked to shore up Fortis after the lender received an 11.2 billion-euro lifeline on Sept. 28.

Europe “is still a dwarf compared to the U.S.'' in terms of willingness to spend, said Laurence Boone, an economist at Barclays Capital in Paris. The statement on supporting banks “is not a progress. It's the same as before the summit.''

The failure to forge a consensus approach to shore up banks roiled by soaring borrowing costs reflects the divisions in the 27-nation bloc. Germany criticized a plan floated by French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde to set up a rescue fund. A chorus of opposition greeted Ireland's decision to guarantee its banks' deposits and debts.

`Collective Action'

Hours before the summit, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, met Sarkozy to press the need for agreement. “Collective action is even more necessary in Europe than in the U.S. because Europe is more complex than the U.S.,'' he told reporters. “Action must be taken quickly and in a concerted manner.''

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's opposition underscored the hurdles to forging a unified front. “Each country must take its responsibilities at a national level,'' she told a joint press conference after the summit.

The government leaders did agree on policy recommendations for the European Commission and for a global summit they're seeking to deal with the credit crisis (payday loan online).

They said they would seek to harmonize guarantees of deposit levels in the wake of the Irish move. The U.K. bank regulator increased its insurance ceiling to 50,000 pounds ($88,500) per account from 35,000 pounds to stem a flow of funds to Ireland.

`Global Summit'

Their joint statement called for a global summit “as soon as possible'' to implement “a real and complete reform of the international financial system.''

Sarkozy said that “all actors'' must be supervised, including rating firms and hedge funds. Executive-pay systems must also be reviewed, he said.

“We want a new world to come out of this,'' Sarkozy said. “We want to set up the basis for a capitalism of entrepreneurs, not speculators.''

Anticipating increased spending, declining tax revenue, and government bank takeovers, they called for “greater flexibility'' in the application of European Union competition and budget rules.

European finance ministers last month pledged to keep their budget deficits below 3 percent of gross domestic product even as the economic slowdown dented tax receipts and boosted welfare payments.

Accounting Rules

The leaders said they want to allow banks to keep some assets valued as if they'd be held until maturity, instead of having to review their value each quarter.

“That's to stop the down-spiral of assets' value,'' Barclays' Boone said. “That's the closest thing the commission can do to what the Americans do.''

They also said they want to change accounting rules that require banks to review their holdings each quarter and report losses when the values decline, the so-called mark-to-market standard. Banks worldwide have written down $587.7 billion since last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

With their economies headed into recession, European leaders said the European Investment Bank will lend 30 billion euros to support small and medium-size companies that may struggle to find cash.

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Constellation Brands Inc (STZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world’s largest wine producer, posted a quarterly profit excluding items that beat Wall Street estimates by a penny, and maintained its full-year earnings outlook.

On a net basis the owner of Robert Mondavi and Ravenswood wines reported a loss for its fiscal second quarter of $22.7 million, or 11 cents per share, compared with a net profit of $72.1 million, or 33 cents per share, a year before.

Excluding restructuring charges, acquisition-related costs, inventory write-downs from selling some Australian assets and other items, Constellation earned a profit of 45 cents per share. Analysts on average were expecting 44 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.

Net sales rose 7 percent to $956.5 million, with branded wine sales growing 6 percent and spirits sales growing 4 percent.

Excluding the recent acquisitions of premium wine brands including Clos du Bois and Wild Horse, the company’s branded wine business rose 4 percent faxless online payday advances. In North America, wine sales rose 7 percent from the year-ago period, when the company sold much less wine in order to reduce distributors’ inventory levels.

Wine sales, excluding acquisitions, fell 3 percent in Europe and 1 percent in Australia and New Zealand. The company said recent price increases hurt sales volume.

Sales of the company’s spirits brands, which include Svedka Vodka, Black Velvet Canadian Whisky and 99 Schnapps, rose 4 percent.

The company maintained its prior earnings outlook for fiscal 2009, which ends in February, saying it expects to earn $1.68 to $1.76 per share, excluding items.

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