| Portfolio Recovery Associates Closes on Expanded $150 Million ...
NORFOLK, VA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/07/07 -- Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRAA), a company that purchases and manages portfolios of defaulted consumer receivables and provides a broad range of accounts receivable management services, announced today it has closed on an expanded $150 million bank credit line. This credit line expansion is one component of a three-part program announced on April 24, 2007 to move toward optimizing the Company's capital structure. In addition to the larger credit line, this program includes the previously announced $1 per share, one-time special dividend and one million share stock repurchase program. The expanded $150 million line, which includes an option to set a 5-year fixed-rate tranche of $50 million, doubles the Company's credit line from the prior $75 million.
Ocwen Financial Corporation Acquires NCI Holdings, Inc.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., June 6, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Ocwen Financial Corporation (NYSE:OCN) has acquired, by reverse merger, NCI Holdings, Inc. and its operating subsidiary, Nationwide Credit, Inc. (NCI), a privately held accounts receivable management company. NCI will be combined with Ocwen Recovery Group's operations. The consideration for the merger is $55 million in cash, subject to certain closing adjustments. NCI's senior executives, Chief Executive Officer and President Patrick Carroll, Chief Financial Officer George Williams and Executive Vice President of Operations Dale Bissette, are remaining with the company. "Having achieved our cost reduction and improved execution capabilities from Ocwen Recovery Group's global workforce, this transaction is in line with our focus on both organic and acquisition based revenue growth for this segment.
Average Avista bill to increase $6.69 a month
From May 22: Electricity bills for Avista Utilities customers will jump an average of $6.69 a month beginning in June after a federal court wiped out a special cash credit that gave some people in Northwest including most citydwellers a break on their power bills. Though Avista had no hand in this unexpected cost shift, its customers will pay the price along with those of the other six shareholder-owned utilities in the Northwest. Together they sell power to 60 percent of the regions population, and are stinging from an announcement by the Bonneville Power Administration that it would suspend payments of $300 million each year that acted as a credit on the bills of their customers. The money was considered a benefit created by the federal governments massive dams that generate electricity that is marketed by Bonneville.
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