Baker Watts

Skateboard row hits the Internet A Baltimore police officer is suspended after a video appeared on the Internet showing him manhandling a teen skateboarder at the Inner Harbor. Allstate can stop coastal policies Maryland regulators said there is nothing illegal about Allstate's decision to stop writing new homeowner policies in some coastal areas. Obama, McCain score in primaries Voters in Maryland, Virginia and Washington gave primary election wins to Barack Obama and John McCain.

A New York investment firm has purchased a 5 percent stake in Baltimore Bancorp Inc., which announced in late January that several potential buyers are examining its books.Leon Cooperman, financier and president of Omega Advisors Inc., a private New York hedge fund, purchased 838,100 shares between Jan. 28 and Feb. 17 for $15.69 to $17.19 a share, according to a Schedule 13D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.Baltimore Bancorp, parent of the Bank of Baltimore, has 16.7 million shares outstanding.

Richard Paul Sullivan , a former chairman and CEO of Easco Corp. who had been active in Republican state politics and civic affairs, died Sunday of cancer at his Owings Mills home. The longtime Guilford resident was 79. Mr. Sullivan, whose father was president of the American Girl Shoe Co. and whose mother was a homemaker, was born and raised in Newton, Mass. After graduating in 1950 from St. Sebastian's School in Milton, Mass., he earned a bachelor's degree in 1954 in marine engineering from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Alex. Brown Inc. may have swung open the door for Baltimore financial services firms to pair up with national suitors, but don't look for the city's other major, locally based investment houses to merge anytime soon.Legg Mason Inc., T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. and Ferris, Baker Watts Inc. staunchly maintain they have no plans for corporate marriages, and feel no pressure to follow Alex. Brown's lead."We've spent 30 years getting Legg Mason to the point it is today, and it is not our objective now to be acquired by somebody," said Raymond A. "Chip" Mason, chairman and chief executive.

Provident Bankshares Corp. reported a 1.3 percent increase in third-quarter profit yesterday, beating analyst estimates by a penny in a quarter that saw many regional banks struggle with low interest rates. Net income for the quarter was $13.3 million, or 53 cents per share, compared with $13.1 million, or 52 cents per share, in the third-quarter last year. The bank's shares fell 45 cents to $30.46 per share in trading yesterday. The modest increase in profit came as the bank promoted its growing commercial loan portfolio, improved income from fees and continued expansion into the Washington-area market, where it gets more than a third of its commercial loan business.

Ferris Baker Watts said yesterday that two traders will be allowed to return to work while the brokerage and federal officials probe trades on behalf of a former client accused of stealing millions of dollars from investors. The two are among six top executives and traders in Baltimore and Hunt Valley who either resigned or were placed on leave in the months after the company's outside counsel and federal investigators began looking into the trading activity. Institutional traders John Belgrade and Mark LaVerghetta, who will return to work this week, helped process trades for a Cleveland man whom the Securities and Exchange Commission says took in $50 million from investors and diverted some of it to make inappropriate stock trades through accounts at Ferris and elsewhere.

IT'S GOING TO BE hard imagining Baltimore without investment broker Julius Westheimer, "Westy" to family and friends, who died Wednesday afternoon at his Pikesville home while recuperating from recent surgery. The irrepressible optimist and quintessential Baltimorean would have celebrated his 89th birthday next week. Thousands of others felt they knew this consummately friendly man through his free-lance financial columns and regular appearances for 29 years on Wall Street Week. He contributed an endless stream of colorful travel and feature pieces as well as news analyses of business and foreign affairs to The Sun, The Evening Sun and Sunday Sun Magazine for nearly half a century.

Louis Akers Jr., vice chairman and former chief executive of Ferris, Baker Watts Inc., has taken early retirement from the Baltimore brokerage, making him the highest-ranking executive to leave since federal investigators began probing the company's trades on behalf of a former customer accused of fraud. A Ferris spokeswoman said Akers' retirement began Friday, ending a nearly 18-year career with one of the nation's largest remaining regional brokerage houses. Nearly four months ago, Akers, 55, joined five other top executives and traders in taking temporary leave from the company.

THE AMAZING Ray Charles was everything the Maryland School for the Blind hoped for and more. From the moment he sang "Georgia on My Mind" to the spectacular "What I Say" to end the show, he had all the folks at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on their feet begging for more.Charles was the star attraction at the school's fund-raiser concert, which raised more than $102,000. Among those in the audience were Mayor Kurt Schmoke and former O's pitcher Tippy Martinez. Mary Beth Marsden of WMAR-TV was the evening's emcee and local performer Deanna Bogart was the opening act.I'm told that the concert was the first in what will be an annual series to raise money for the school, a private, nonprofit institution that has served Maryland children for 144 years.

It's news that Baltimore brokerage Ferris, Baker Watts is selling out to a rival. It's bigger news that it didn't happen 10 years ago. Give the firm credit for longevity, even if industry fusion finally claimed it. It might have stayed independent even longer, but its own missteps accelerated the inevitable. Ferris' absorption by Minneapolis-based RBC Dain Rauscher marks another step in a consolidation process that began in 1975, when Congress allowed brokers to cut the price of stock commissions, and accelerated in the 1990s with the fall of barriers between banking and brokering.