Lynnwood-based City Bank reported third-quarter profits of $4.78 million, up a fraction from profits of $4.76 million in the same quarter last year. The bank reported a 4.1 percent increase in net interest income, to $9.2 million. Noninterest income climbed 13.4 percent, to $8.6 million. However, those gains were largely canceled by a 17.4 percent jump in noninterest expense, which bank officials attributed to increased mortgage loan commissions and expenses at Diligenz, City Bank’s wholly owned subsidiary. For the first nine months of the year, City Bank has shown a profit of $14.71 million, down less than 0.1 percent from a profit of $14.72 million in the first nine months of 2002.
Virginia Sen. John Warner’s proposal to lease 25 Boeing 767 planes as refueling tankers and then buy an additional 75 in a standard purchase would save as much as $4 billion over an Air Force plan to lease 100 planes, two new congressional studies say. But advocates of the leasing deal say the Air Force doesn’t have the money to buy the planes right now, and leasing would get the planes into the air sooner. The Air Force, meanwhile, said Friday it is not ready to support Warner’s plan.
Residential construction picked up in September climbing to the second-highest level seen so far this year, a fresh sign that the housing market is helping to power an economic resurgence. The Commerce Department reported Friday that builders broke ground on 1.888 million housing units in September, representing a 3.4 percent increase over August’s level. September’s performance was stronger than the pace of 1.827 million units that economists had forecast. Housing construction slowed a bit in August, after booming in July. That’s when housing starts clocked in at a red-hot rate of 1.89 million units, a 17-year high, and the best performance this year.
A federal jury convicted Rite Aid Corp.’s former chief counsel Friday of conspiracy, witness tampering and other charges in a scheme to inflate the pharmacy chain’s earnings so he and other executives could get big payouts. The guilty verdict for Franklin C. Brown, 75, marked the first conviction by a jury since a string of high-profile scandals rocked the business world two years ago. After two-and-a-half days of deliberations, the jury found Brown guilty of conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of grand jury proceedings, obstruction of government-agency proceedings, witness tampering and five counts of lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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