Read all about it! This Week’s Top Line News Summary –9/28/09

Last week we shared with you our firm’s “Top Line News Summary” which included highlights from three sectors including banking, markets, and HR/management.

With coffee and newspapers in hand, a group of our top media relations professionals scanned the headlines again this morning to see what’s happening in the worlds of our top practice areas.  We now share highlights from three different sectors: real estate, healthcare, and bankruptcy.

• Real Estate: Last week, the Federal Reserve offered some signs of an economic recovery and presented the next steps in the central bank’s strategy to prop up the mortgage market by announcing:

1. That it would extend its $1.25 trillion of purchases of mortgage-backed securities into next year in order to help financial markets adjust.
2. A vote of 10-0 to maintain the target federal-funds rate for interbank lending at a record-low range of zero to 0.25%.  See the fed statement for more info.

Both of these moves provide much-needed guidance in a commercial real estate market where financing is scarce, and information on where the market is headed is scarcer.

• Healthcare:  For those following healthcare headlines, the National Association of Community Health Centers released survey findings this week that show federally funded health centers are seeing a surge in patients. According to the survey, the centers are on track to see more than 20 million patients this year.  This number is up by more than two million from last year, and twice the figure of a decade ago.  According to a WSJ article, and a new report by researchers at George Washington University, “additional funding for centers in the House bill would save the health-care system $212 billion to $251 billion over the next decade, in part by reducing the number of visits to hospitals and more highly paid private doctors.”
• Bankruptcy: According to the Associated Press, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune will emerge from Chapter 11 protection this week.  The 142-year-old publication’s bankruptcy involved absolving approximately $400 million in debt and the extraction of $20 million annually in union concessions.  The next move for the newspaper is to find a new publisher to replace the previous owner.

What headlines caught YOUR attention this week?

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