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US corporations offering loans to poorer customers that often charge more than 30% in interest a month are planning a massive expansion in the UK, prompting warnings that thousands of families could become trapped in a cycle of debt, a problem already seen in America.

One large “payday loan” group told investors it aims to almost quadruple its UK presence – opening some 800 stores and expanding into deprived rural communities – to target families affected by redundancy or loss of income.

Payday lending, in which relatively small sums are offered for the short-term at a cost regularly exceeding 30% a month, is hugely controversial in the US. A n Full Post…

— Brad Lomax has wanted to open a Southside restaurant for 28 years. He will in April.

The owner of several downtown businesses, Lomax is renovating a former McDonald’s location on Holly Road near Everhart Road into Tailfins, a seafood eatery that will offer reasonably priced food options and a drive-thru.

A restaurant on the Southside, and one that caters to fast-food lovers are both firsts for Lomax, the owner of several businesses downtown, including four restaurants.

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Lomax wanted to open his first restaurant along South Padre Island Drive in 1983, but had a hard time getting property owners to take a chance on a then-28-year-old, inexperienced entrepreneur, he said. S Full Post…

— Name: Gregg Turicchi

Title: Owner

Name of business: Turicchi Builders, LLC/DBA Keystone Company

Address: P.O. Box 2708, Port Aransas, TX 78373

Phone: 361-749-8797

Website: www.keystonepa.com

Company description: Keystone is a family-owned custom homebuilder that provides personalized service in designing and building luxury homes. The process includes site management, detailed planning and construction.

Hometown: Richmond, TX

Years in business: 38 years

Tenure in position: 38 years

Education: I graduated from Lamar Consolidated High School in Rosenberg in 1967. I

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Ministers are today facing renewed pressure from the City and industry to water down tax and regulation or face a possible exodus of companies and skilled staff.

After Britain’s biggest bank HSBC was forced to deny reports that it plans to quit the UK because of the bank levy and bonus tax, the CBI warned chancellor George Osborne to give a deadline for scrapping the 50p tax rate or risk losing talented business people and growing companies to cheaper locations abroad.

Director general John Cridland said wealthy business people needed to play their part in cutting the deficit but warned that top rate taxpayers would be tempted to quit the country if the 50p rate became a permanent feature.

“Mobile talent needs a good reason to do business in the UK, so the chancellor should signal a road map for reducing the 50p tax rate,” he said.

Cridland said he had found widespread discontent among business managers at the tax rate as he had toured the country.

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BOSTON – Massachusetts No. 2 and No. 3 health insurers – Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan and Tufts Health Plan – have called off their plans to merge, according to the Boston Globe. The plan, revealed in January, would have created a more robust competitor to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s dominant health insurer, with a combined 1.75 million members, compared with Blue Cross’s 3 million members.

The insurers have been negotiating since January, and, according to the Globe, “have now determined that we are stronger as individual competitors than one company,” the newspaper quoted Eric Schultz, president of Harvard Pilgrim, as saying.

James

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