Bert Caldwell

Papa John’s restaurants in Coeur d’Alene, Spokane and other Eastern Washington communities closed Monday night. Tish Muldoon, spokeswoman for Papa John’s International Inc., said franchisee North Country Pizza shut down 12 stores. They will remain closed until the company can find another operator, she said.

Papa John’s restaurants in Coeur d’Alene, Spokane and other Eastern Washington communities closed Monday night.

Warren Buffett is like a kid in a candy store, and he can’t get out. The world’s most famous investor apparently has no taste for chocolate. He fought for months to prevent Kraft Inc. from buying Cadbury. With Hershey’s decision Friday to kiss off a sweeter counterproposal, it appears Kraft will go forward with the deal.

Chairman Sheila Bair does not want a repeat of the cascading bank failures that are soaking up the reserves of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. faster than you can say Troubled Asset Relief Program. Monday, she proposed a system for assessing deposit insurance fees based on the way banks structure their executive compensation packages relative to how much risk they take managing their institutions. The FDIC has assessed institutions based on risk vis-À-vis deposits since 2006. The new approach would refine that system by identifying the ways lending and investment policies might reward management, but increase the risk to the FDIC.

Borgford BioEnergy LLC in Stevens County is one of four Washington companies that will work with the Department of Natural Resources on renewable energy projects using biomass from state lands. The company, with operations at Springdale and Valley, has developed a gasifier that turns waste wood into synthetic gas and bio-char, a material like charcoal that is useful as a soil additive.

The directors of Red Lion Hotels Corp. have removed Anupam Narayan as chief executive officer, replacing him with board member and long-time Avista Corp. executive Jon Eliassen.

Foreclosures in Spokane County fell in 2009 compared with the previous two years, but the toll ballooned in Kootenai County, according to RealtyTrac, which released its statistics today. The 979 properties in Spokane County subject to a foreclosure notice represented a 15 percent decrease from 2008, and a 3 percent dip from 2007 figures, says RealtyTrac, the operator of a national online marketing service for foreclosed properties. Just one-half of 1 percent of homes in the county – one out of every 199 – received a notice of a trustee sale or was repossessed by a bank.

A former Sterling Financial Corp. employee has sued the Spokane financial institution alleging administrators of its 401(k) plan imprudently invested as much as 20 percent of plan assets in company stock that has plunged in value. The lawsuit filed by Cory Deter says Sterling officers, starting with the release of second-quarter 2008 earnings, misrepresented the losses and potential losses the company faced as its substantial portfolio of construction and real estate loans soured.

An index of 15 Inland Northwest stocks outperformed the broader market in 2009 despite dismal results by four local bank holding companies. The Hart Capital Inland Northwest Index climbed 31.8 percent, compared with 23.5 percent for the Standard and Poor’s 500 index and 25.2 percent for the Russell 2000. But the Hart index advanced only 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter, less than one-half the 5.5 percent increase for the S&P.

More than 600,000 Washington and Idaho Verizon Communications land-line telephone users could have a new provider soon, thanks to an $8.6 billion deal opponents say is driven by a federal income tax loophole that will protect $600 million in profits. They warn the deal will also compromise service, once Frontier Communications takes over, and put the new owner in financial jeopardy.

The Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau expects a boffo 2010, Chief Executive Officer Harry Sladich said. Four major conventions alone are expected to generate $17 million in business, he said.

Former Sandpoint real estate agent Dale Lowell, charged with operating a Ponzi scheme, has been ordered to repay his victims more than $2 million by 1st District Judge Steve Verby. Last month, Verby imposed a $40,000 civil penalty after Lowell failed to contest the case, but Idaho Deputy Attorney General Alan Conilogue said the investors probably will have to look elsewhere for their money.

For Spokane International Airport Director Neal Sealock, a Wednesday afternoon news conference showcased a rebuilt tarmac. For Sen. Patty Murray, “It was nice to be standing on some economic recovery money.” For Joe O’Rourke, it was a chance to explain how the project kept him off the streets.

Inland Northwest residents caught between unemployment and decreasing home prices filed bankruptcy last year in numbers not seen since the law was overhauled in 2005. Filings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Eastern Washington jumped 31 percent, to 7,234.

Inland Northwest residents caught between unemployment and decreasing home prices filed bankruptcy last year in numbers not seen since the law was overhauled in 2005.

If household goods were packed in an Atlas Van Lines trailer last year, they were more likely to be headed into Washington than out, but more vans in Idaho were outbound, according to the company’s 2009 migration study. Washington in-migration measured by Atlas was meager: Just 11 more households moved in than moved out; 2,245 versus 2,234.

It’s 2010, but there’s an awful lot of awful 2009 hanging around. Like the unemployed, more than 320,000 idle in Washington as of Nov. 30. In Idaho, almost 70,000 were looking for work. Neither state has lapsed into double-digit rates of unemployment, but many local labor markets have, including Kootenai County and several rural counties on both sides of the border.