The Desert Sun from Palm Springs, California • Page 15

THE DESERT SUN WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2011 A1S 1 1 DOW 12,096.16 ft AMEX 2,287.18 500 1,257.81 NYSE 7,509.05 NASDAQ 2,686.20 SENIOR EDITORBUSINESS JAMES MEIER (760) 778-4623 or businessthedesertsun.com DjoDEiedDmi duo landed as top entrepreneurs 1 Valley-based company went public. Hoffman and Weiner walked away with Ernst Young's top 2011 national Entrepreneur of the Year award Saturday during a Strategic Growth Forum that drew 2,300 business executives to Palm Desert. "What I do is design, build and improve ecosystems," Hoffman said. "If you can design them the right way, you can improve individuals' lives and society." Bryan Pearce, Ernst Young's Americas director for the Entrepreneur of the Year awards, said Hoffman and Weiner had "keen insight into consumer needs and an ability to continually look for new opportunities for growth and expansion, making them the ideal overall winners." There were 250 regional winners chosen from more than 1,800 nominees, Ernst Young officials said. Nominated companies employ 500,000 people and generate $125 billion in annual revenues.

Other national, industry-specific winners in the West included Steve Streit, CEO of Monrovia-based By Mike Perrault The Desert Sun PALM DESERT Entrepreneur Reid Hoffman started the website Linkedln out of his living room eight years ago. A few years later, he met Jeff Weiner, a top executive at Yahoo! at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference. Within weeks, Weiner became Linkedln's CEO. Today, their professional social network and resume website has more than 135 million members in 200 countries. In May, the Silicon Green Dot in the financial services category; and Dr.

Patrick M. Byrne, CEO of Cottonwood Height, Utah-based Overstock.com in the retail and consumer products category. Streit's initial idea was to provide credit cards to suburban kids on the Internet, but he quickly discovered it wasn't kids buying, but adults. It's now a leader in the prepaid debit card market with 2010 sales up 40 percent over the previous year. Other Ernst Young's industry-specific winners were: CEO Roger D.

Linquist, Metro- PCS Communications (media). CEO Jose R. Mas, Mas Tec (real estate). Former CEO Tim Sullivan, Bucyrus International (manufacturing). CEO Andrew Mason, Groupon (emerging).

CEO Aubrey K. McClendon, Chesapeake Energy Corp. (natural resources). Chirag Patel, president, and Chintu Patel, CEO, Amneal Pharmaceuticals (life sciences). CEO Ric Elias, Red Ventures (services).

EUROPEAN FINANCIAL CRISIS Retail sales record fifth monthly increase ii Ian mmiMim nil i in inn 1 1 mi ummwuk m- SVmjch nrnr A woman looks at the display in an empty Hermes store in Amsterdam's P.C. Hooftstraat, one of the most expensive shopping streets in the Netherlands, on Tuesday. The Dutch economy contracted for the first time in more than a year in the third quarter, peter de-iongthe associated press European economy has all but stalled, report says it rt if? fH 4i BUSINESS BRIEFS San Jose Apple names Levinson non-executive chairman Apple has named board member Arthur Levinson as its non-executive chairman to fill the vacancy left open when co-founder Steve Jobs died last month. Levinson is chairman of Genen-tech a pharmaceuticals company he joined as a research scientist in 1980 and led as chief executive from 1995 to 2009. Levinson has been co-lead director on Apple Inc's board since 2005.

He joined the board in 2000. Robert Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney was tapped as a director. New York Wal-Mart's results show U.S. turnaround Wal-Mart got an early Christmas gift: Its strategy of offering the lowest prices and shoppers' favorite goods is starting to bear fruit just in time for the holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

on Tuesday reported its first quarterly gain in revenue at stores open at least a year after nine consecutive quarters of declines at its branded U.S. business. It did this by hammering its message of low prices across the store and restocking the brands and products that people care most about. That the world's largest retailer is turning a corner is a positive sign for the retail industry and the U.S. economy as a whole.

Its core low-income shoppers have been particularly hard hit by joblessness and the other challenges of the nation's weak economy. The results indicate that those most hurt by the economic downturn are willing to spend if you offer them rock-bottom pricing. Washington Geron's exit a ding for stem cell research Geron Corp. is exiting the field it pioneered in a calculated business move that underscores the long, costly path embryonic stem cells face to become real-world products. Late Monday, the company said it would halt its study of a stem cell-based treatment for spinal cord injury, the first embryonic stem cell trial approved in the U.S.

Geron's withdrawal leaves a handful of U.S. companies pursuing medicines using embryonic stem cells, which are capable of morph-ing into any of the more than 220 cell types in the human body. Scientists hope that one day stem cells might be used to replace or repair damaged tissue from ailments such as heart disease, Parkinson's and stroke. Washington Pension insurer posts $26 billion deficit The federal agency that insures pensions for one in seven Americans ran the largest deficit last year in its 37-year history. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

says it ran a $26 billion imbalance for the budget year that ended Sept. 30. Its pension obligations rose by $4.5 billion. The PBGC also earned less money in the stock market, which helps to fund pension plans. Returns were $3.6 billion, half what it earned the previous year.

The Associated Press The Associated Press WASHINGTON Consumers are giving a modest lift to the economy. They spent more on trucks, electronics and building supplies in October to boost retail sales for the fifth straight month. The gains provide an encouraging start for the October-December quarter. They come just as separate reports show that wholesale prices are flattening and U.S. shoppers are spending more at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer.

Still, consumers might not be able to sustain their spending growth if unemployment remains high and pay raises scant. And Europe may be on the brink of a recession that could further slow U.S. growth next year. "The consumer has to come through this holiday season if we are going to get back to more decent growth rates, and the early readings are those households have hit the stores quite strongly," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors. Retail sales rose 0.5 percent from September to October, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

Healthy auto sales helped. Even without autos, sales rose by the most since March. And excluding autos and sales at gasoline stations, sales rose 0.7 percent, also the biggest increase since March. A rebound in consumer spending was the key reason why the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the July-September quarter. It was the best quarterly performance in a year.

Economists said the October retail sales data suggest that the economy is growing at roughly the same pace in the final three months of the year. Consumer spending fuels about 70 percent of economic activity. Stronger growth has helped calm fears that the U.S. economy might be at risk of another recession. Still, economists worry that the spending can't continue at the same pace.

Over the summer, consumers spent more while earning less. Many had to dip into their savings to make up the difference. "Overall, the economy appears to be growing at a decent clip," said Paul Dales, a senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. Still, Dales added, "Consumption cannot grow at a faster rate than incomes indefinitely." One positive sign for the U.S.-economy: Inflation pressures are starting to ease, largely because energy costs have declined.

U.S. companies paid less for wholesale goods last month for the first time since June. And excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called "core" wholesale prices were unchanged. Lower prices mean consumers will have more buying power, potentially boosting consumer spending. A jump in gas and food prices earlier this yea had slowed consumption over other goods.

October retail sales were 7.2 percent higher than the same month last year. Internet and catalog sales have risen more than 11 percent since then. Consumers also spent more on sporting goods and at hobby and book stores. Auto sales have also rebounded since the Japan earthquake and tsunami The 0.4 percent rise in October from September followed a 4.2 percent surge in the previous month. Sales have increased 7 percent from the same month last year.

A beggar plays a saxophone in Milan, antonio calanniap Invisible to tourists: Italy's growing poor The Associated Press LONDON Europe appears headed for a recession if it isn't in one already. Economic growth has all but stopped in Europe, statistics showed Tuesday. The stall comes just when Italy, Greece and other nations need growth to help them wriggle out of the chokehold of debt. The European Union economy grew a paltry 0.2 percent in July, August and September compared with the three months before, the EU statistics agency said. That is the same growth rate as the previous quarter, and far slower than the 0.7 percent before that.

And the picture is probably even worse. The statistics did not include Italy and Greece, the two countries in the most debt trouble. And their debt crisis only got worse in October, the month after this snapshot was taken. Besides lowering standards of living and hurting the job market in Europe, a recession would be bad news'f or the U.S., which sells 20 percent of its exports to Europe, and for Asia. Taken as a whole, Europe also has the largest economy in the world, producing $16.2 trillion in goods and services last year.

The United States produced $14.5 trillion last year, China $5.9 trillion. So economic sickness in Europe has the ability to slow growth around the world. "People are uncertain," said Ferdinand Fichtner of the German Economic Institute DIW. "That is poison for growth." Fear that the economic slowdown will make the debt crisis worse were evident in financial markets Tuesday. Borrowing costs rose for many nations, an indication that investors are nervous about lending to them.

In Italy, the yield on the closely watched 10-year bond rose to 7.04 percent late Tuesday, up 0.46 percentage points from the day before. Spain was at 6.29 percent, up 0.22 percentage points, and France was at 3.66 percent, up 0.23 percentage points. 1 The Associated Press ROME They line up at soup kitchens by the thousands. Individual debt is rising, savings are eroding and many young people have simply given up, staying home without studying or even looking for a job. They are Italy's invisible poor, unseen by tourists, ignored by the country's fat-cat politicians and living in a reality that's a far cry from former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's description of an affluent country where "the restaurants are full." Or in the words of Francesa Zuccari, who runs a soup kitchen in Rome: "There is another city out there where people cant get to the end of the month." This is the Italy facing Mario Monti, the economics professor tapped to form an interim technocratic government after Berlusconi was forced to resign last weekend.

International markets and the European Community decided the 75-year-old media mogul lacked the political clout to enact needed reforms to head off a debt crisis and get the economy moving. On Tuesday, Monti won support from Italy's two largest parties, but the question remains whether politicians will back his expected painful reform measures at the risk of social peace. On the one hand, Italy's elite manufacturers are girding for an increase in luxury exports and some wealthy Italians are looking to move their money into the real-estate markets in New York, Miami and Paris. On the other, the state statistics institute ISTAT says 8 million Italians, almost 14 percent of the population, are living in "relative poverty." While tourists may not see the poor as they visit Tuscany's rolling hills, Venice's waterways or the Amalf i coast's picturesque villages, they are increasingly visible on Italian city streets. Many Italians have begun taking their money out of banks, fearing reports that measures to help fight the sovereign debt crisis might include deductions from bankaccounts, as was done in the 1990s.

"They are putting it under the mattress, or even inside empty wine jugs in the cellars. We are a country of farmers," said Elio Lannutti, president of consumer protection group Adusbef. To be sure, Italy isnt as bad off as Greece or Portugal, which are both in recession, struggling with high unemploymentas they are being bailed out by international lenders. But Italy's prospects arent great either, particularly given its brain drain and policies that have pushed Italy's underutilized youth even further to the margins. CORRECTIONS If you have a correction or clarification, please contact Senior Editor for Business James Meier at (760) 778-4623 or at james.meierthedesertsun.com zn it-Lai IbJ.