The Markets February 6, 2009

Eddie Bauer Suspends Match

Like a number of other companies, Eddie Bauer has announced it is suspending its 401(k) match contributions for 2009 to cut costs.
Reported by

Tom Helton, the company’s senior vice president of human resources, said the company is still considering other ways to seek savings on benefits, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal. The match suspension is in addition to job cuts and salary freezes.

According to a news release on the company’s Web site, it is eliminating an aggregate 193 positions in the company’s corporate headquarters in Seattle, its information technology center in Chicago, a distribution center in Columbus, and a call center in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. The job cuts represent an aggregate of approximately 15% of the non-retail staff.

The announcement said Eddie Bauer is also reducing the size of its Board of Directors and overall board compensation, representing a cash savings of 40% to 50%.

Neil Fiske, president and CEO, has volunteered to reduce his salary by 10% for the remainder of the year.

Eddie Bauer joins other companies suspending their 401(k) match as a cost-cutting measure, including several other retail companies (see “Macy’s Expense Reductions to Include 2009 Match Cuts,” “Saks Suspends 401(k) Match, Drops 1,100 Jobs,” and “Sears Suspends 401(k) Match in Face of Declining Sales“).

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Products February 6, 2009

New Columbia-based ETF Comes to Market

Global index provider FTSE Group (FTSE) has licensed GlobalX Management Company to create a new exchange traded fund based on the FTSE Colombia 20 Index.
Reported by
According to the firm, the ETF will be the first in the United States to track the index, which represents the performance of the top 20 stocks, ranked by liquidity, then size, in one of the world’s fastest growing emerging markets.
The index meets FTSE’s stringent liquidity standards and employs a unique capping methodology to ensure regulatory compliance in the listing of financial products on US exchanges. Equities within the index are also free-float weighted to ensure that only the investable opportunity set is included, according to the announcement.
FTSE notes that, amidst global market turmoil over the course of the trailing year, ending 30 January 2009, Colombia was one of the top performing emerging markets. The FTSE Colombia 20 Index was down only 5.38% in USD total return terms over that period, as compared with the FTSE Emerging All Cap Index, which fell by 50.92%.
The FTSE Colombia 20 is heavily weighted in Oil & Gas, Banks, and Financial Services as classified by ICB supersector. The top two companies in the index are Ecopetrol SA, the largest Latin America IPO in 2007, and Bancolombia SA, the largest commercial bank in the country.

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