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HONG KONG -(Dow Jones)- Tycoon Li Ka-shing’s charitable foundation is set to become the second-biggest shareholder of China Timber Resources Group Ltd. (0269.HK) after the fund and several investors entered into deals to buy shares in the Hong Kong-listed company to help fund its plan to buy toll-road assets in Inner Mongolia.

China Timber said in a statement Friday that Li Ka Shing Foundation Ltd. agreed to buy 3.0 billion new shares in the company at HK$0.40 each, valuing the investment at HK$1.2 billion. The foundation will own a 12.85% stake in China Timber after the company completes its share placements.

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BOSTON – Massachusetts foreclosures last year rose by 32 percent compared with 2009, The Warren Group said Wednesday.

The real estate tracking firm said lenders completed 12,233 foreclosures last year, up from 9,269 the year before.

In Bristol County, Mass., foreclosures totaled 1,280 in 2010, marking a 45 percent increase from the 884 foreclosures completed the year before.

Warren Group CEO Timothy M. Warren Jr. attributed the increases to Bay State lenders spending 2010 working through a backlog of foreclosures started in previous years. T

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Even in a town where the millionaires have outnumbered the restaurants, David S. Band has loomed larger than most.

For more than four decades, from an office atop downtown Sarasota’s M&I Bank Building in the law firm he forged into a local powerhouse, the attorney-turned-investor ruled a real estate empire.

In all, Band-led partnerships have bought and sold hundreds of office buildings, shopping centers, assisted-living centers, hotels, condominium complexes and tracts of land.

Thanks to shrewd investing and good timing, sales of the properties have netted tens of millions of dollars, property records show, for a tight circle of wealthy friends and investors — such as retired businessman Stanley Kane — who are among Sarasota’s elite.

For Band, the deals brought more than just profit.

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Heavy and volatile flows of speculative capital into developing countries are highlighted by the World Bank today as a significant risk to global economic recovery.

Stressing the importance of the emerging world as a force behind growth, the bank says there is a sharp contrast between the robust performances of Asia, Latin America and Africa and the sluggish recovery in the richer nations of the west.

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WALTHAM, Mass. – The Small Business Association of New England is requesting nominations for its New England Innovation awards.

“Innovation is at the heart of economic prosperity and SBANE continues to recognize those companies that have transformed their innovative ideas into a product or service that delivers proven value to customers,” the organization said.

Companies employing between 10 and 300 people (nonprofits, two to 300 employees) and $100 million maximum revenue should send in their applications by Feb. 28. Award

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