Corporate

SAM is inviting the world’s 2,500 largest companies to take part in this year’s SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment.

Based on SAM’s annual sustainability analysis, the best companies in each sector are selected for inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI).

The DJSI are the most highly recognized and long-standing global sustainability indexes.

The investment volume of DJSI-based portfolios now exceeds $8 billion.

Another erroneous foreclosure at Bank of America

It’s happened again. Bank of America, by some measures the largest bank in the United States, has erroneously foreclosed on a house and then sold it right out from under the owners, who were up to date on their payments and the victims of another mistake.

Kleiner Perkins Bets The iPad Is ‘Magic’; Doubles iFund To $200 Million

The Thrust Fund takes the maxim ‘invest in people’ literally: in an effort to generate growth capital for their social enterprises, three people are selling equity in their own future earnings.

A truism among venture capitalists is that not only do they invest in promising business concepts; they also “invest in people.”

Is Elevation Partners “the worst run institutional fund of any size in the United States?” That was the assertion of a Wall Street 24/7 post earlier this week, and a bunch of readers emailed Dan Primack of PEHUB for his reaction.

A Double Flop for the Fontainebleau

The projects have led to a welter of claims from creditors and contractors against Fontainebleau Resorts, various affiliates of Turnberry, and Jeffrey Soffer himself.

Bankrupt Lehman Brothers is suing Soffer over $400 million in personal guarantees he made on loans to build the retail portion of Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Soffer has said that Lehman’s claims are not valid.

The United States is becoming a broken society. The public has contempt for the political class. Public debt is piling up at an astonishing and unrelenting pace. Middle-class wages have lagged. Unemployment will remain high. It will take years to fully recover from the financial crisis.

In the UK alternatives have been explored most fully by the British writer Phillip Blond. 

How the e-newsletter company Constant Contact works with their nonprofit bookstore neighbor More Than Words

By: Bob Nicoson and Sue LaChance*

How many financiers do you think ended up in jail after America’s Savings and Loans scandals? The answer can be found in a fascinating, old report from the US Department of Justice.

According to some of its records, between 1990 and 1995 no less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted, and 1,072 placed behind bars. Another 2,558 bankers were also jailed, often for offenses, which were S&L-linked too.

$350,000 grant to produce comprehensive strategy for reducing hunger and malnutrition

PITTSBURGH – The H. J. Heinz Company Foundation announced today that it will sponsor a nutrition-mapping project conducted by the World Food Program (WFP) in Bangladesh, which will result in a comprehensive strategy for addressing that country’s nutritional deficiencies in an efficient and sustainable manner.

The H. J. Heinz Company Foundation is supporting the project in the first year with a grant of $350,000, as well as in-kind technical assistance.