Credit Line

On the seventh floor of a generic building on Deereco Road in Timonium, a young company is trying to change the way people shop online by providing a payment alternative to the credit card. Called Bill Me Later, the seven-year-old business is taking on major competitors, including MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, which made its name as an online payment provider. So far, Bill Me Later is holding its own. It is the sixth-fastest-growing company in the country by revenue - on track to bring in more than $100 million this year - according to Inc. magazine's September issue.

Maryland : Economy Unemployment rises slightly Unemployment in Maryland rose slightly to 4 percent last month, the Labor Department said yesterday. The number is adjusted for seasonal variations. But job creation picked up. In the past 12 months, job numbers swelled by 31,600 - not seasonally adjusted, since it is a year-over-year comparison. The state's unemployment rate in June was 3.8 percent, but the state's new 4 percent rate is the same as it was in July 2006. Jamie Smith Hopkins Manufacturing Wheeling-Pittsburgh refinancing credit line Wheeling-Pittsburgh Corp.

Faced with an uphill battle to raise new equity and a desire not to take on additional debt, Prime Retail Inc. is turning to another weapon in its quest to raise new capital: its factory outlet centers.The Baltimore-based real estate investment trust announced Thursday that it will sell a stake in three of its projects -- including one in Hagerstown -- to an affiliate of a German company for $274 million.Prime Retail expects that the deal with Estein & Associates USA Ltd. will generate $78 million in cash, plus another $24 million from debt refinancing and other payments from the German concern.

WHO SAYS American families are hocking their homes to the hilt, racking up new debt to pay off credit cards and auto loans?A major new study of the housing debt loads carried by Americans suggests that many homeowners don't fit that mold:Nearly 40 percent of all homeowning households now have no mortgage debt -- no first deed of trust, no equity line of credit, no second mortgage.Nearly one of five homeowners between ages 18 and 34 has no mortgage debt. Half of all homeowners between ages 55 and 64 have zero debt against their houses.

Carol Tavris' name was misspelled in the byline and credit line for an article on school violence that appeared Sunday in the Perspective section.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 6/02/98

WASHINGTON -- The Group of Seven large industrial nations endorsed yesterday a U.S. plan to create a new line of credit at the International Monetary Fund that could be used to head off a financial crisis in Brazil.In a joint statement, leaders of the G-7 countries -- the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada -- embraced recommendations for changes in the way international financial transactions are regulated to prevent future economic crises, such as the one that began with the collapse of Asian currencies and stock markets in mid-1997.

IF YOU'RE ONE of the millions of American homeowners with an active credit line tied to the equity in your house, the odds are strong that you're not using the money to fix up your property, pay for college tuitions or invest in a business venture.A new national study of home-equity borrowers reveals that, while home improvement used to be the main reason people took out home equity loans, borrowers now tap their real estate equity primarily to pay off high-cost credit cards, charge account and personal loan balances with lower-cost, tax-deductible home equity dollars.

Ryland Group Inc. said yesterday that it completed a $100 million bond offering that will provide greater financial flexibility and halve the outstanding balance on a revolving credit line.But the 10.5 percent unsecured senior notes and the 10-year term they offer will come at a price: The new debt's interest rate is more than 3 percentage points higher than the floating-rate bank line that Ryland is paying down."This was a transaction to reduce risk on our balance sheet," said Bruce Haase, Ryland's treasurer.

Robert E. Slavin of the Johns Hopkins University's Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk was misidentified in the byline and credit line of an article that appeared in Perspective on Sunday.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 12/17/96

TROY, Mich. -- Kmart Corp. said yesterday that it reached agreement with Chemical Bank for a $3.7 billion credit facility that will allow the struggling store chain to clear its largest financial hurdle.The nation's second-largest retailer will use the lines of credit to replace about $3 billion in debt that comes due next year. The package also will give Kmart $700 million more in credit.The agreement is key to Kmart's revival, analysts said, because it bolsters the chain's financial flexibility and liquidity, and allows management to now focus on reviving earnings and stores.

A 61-year-old Harford County man pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to committing wire fraud in a scheme to bilk 71 companies out of $2.3 million, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Michael Murray of Street faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 6, prosecutors said. Murray was the owner of a business called Chesapeake Supply Inc. on Shannon Drive in Baltimore. He set up a credit line with a packing company in Miami, prosecutors said, and faxed the company a list of false credit references.

On the seventh floor of a generic building on Deereco Road in Timonium, a young company is trying to change the way people shop online by providing a payment alternative to the credit card. Called Bill Me Later, the seven-year-old business is taking on major competitors, including MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, which made its name as an online payment provider. So far, Bill Me Later is holding its own. It is the sixth-fastest-growing company in the country by revenue - on track to bring in more than $100 million this year - according to Inc. magazine's September issue.

Maryland : Economy Unemployment rises slightly Unemployment in Maryland rose slightly to 4 percent last month, the Labor Department said yesterday. The number is adjusted for seasonal variations. But job creation picked up. In the past 12 months, job numbers swelled by 31,600 - not seasonally adjusted, since it is a year-over-year comparison. The state's unemployment rate in June was 3.8 percent, but the state's new 4 percent rate is the same as it was in July 2006. Jamie Smith Hopkins Manufacturing Wheeling-Pittsburgh refinancing credit line Wheeling-Pittsburgh Corp.

Andy Hallmark and his wife faced the same financial squeeze now bringing pain to thousands of homeowners around the country: Their floating-rate home equity credit line had risen to uncomfortably high monthly payment levels - the direct result of the Federal Reserve's interest rate increases over the past two years. The Hallmarks, who live in Annapolis, knew their standard options: Hunker down, stick with their $70,000 credit line and risk further payment jumps in the months ahead. Alternatively, they could refinance their first mortgage and pull out an additional $70,000 to pay off the credit line.

In a trillion-dollar mortgage refi market, they are hardly the most egregious examples of what can go wrong for homeowners. But each case sheds light on the con games that are being played against sophisticated borrowers and the financially naive. Read them and you'll be better equipped the next time you apply for a new mortgage: Daniel Wiercinski is a pharmacist on New York's Long Island, a longtime homeowner, and a regular reader of the financial and real estate pages, who generally tries to keep up with what's happening in the business world.

Host Marriott Corp., the largest hotel real estate investment trust, renegotiated its credit line with banks in exchange for reducing how much it can borrow. The Bethesda-based company can borrow $250 million under the credit line with the amendment. If Host Marriott reduces its ratio of debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization falls, the company may be allowed to borrow as much as $300 million, Chief Financial Officer Edward Walter said yesterday. Host Marriott said the amendment, plus its cash on hand, will allow it to weather weak demand for travel.

The Dutch parent of Giant Food Inc. and Columbia-based U.S. Foodservice said yesterday that its lenders have frozen the remainder of a $2 billion line of credit while the company negotiates a new loan that will come with the kind of restrictions normally reserved for borrowers that have strained financial credibility. The news comes a week after Royal Ahold NV, the largest grocery store owner on the East Coast, disclosed that it had overstated earnings by at least $500 million in 2001 and 2002 as a result of questionable accounting at its U.S. Foodservice unit.

WHAT MAY be the most significant innovation in the American home-mortgage field in more than two decades officially hit the market last week. It's called the "home-asset management account." It grafts a growing equity line of credit onto a standard home mortgage, and essentially makes tax-deductible home equity the centerpiece of a borrower's personal financial affairs. It turns your house into a bank that's always open - if you choose to use it. Here's how it works. You apply for a home-asset management account instead of a traditional mortgage.

IF YOU OWN a home with a mortgage, do you really need any other source of credit? Is there any source of spendable cash that carries a lower interest rate and is tax-deductible to boot? Could your credit cards, personal loans, investment accounts and banking relationships all be tied into your home mortgage? The answers to these questions are swirling in the heads of some of the most creative marketers in the American mortgage business. Large banks, mortgage companies and investors are working on competing versions of a similar concept.

SO, WHAT are you doing the next 13 hours and 27 minutes? You could do your taxes. That's how long the Internal Revenue Service estimates it will take taxpayers to prepare a 1040 return this filing season - 26 minutes longer than a year ago. Though the tax law passed last summer made 441 changes, most of them won't be a factor in filing a return until next year or later. So why the longer preparation time? Some tax professionals half-jokingly blame the extra minutes on Form 1040's Line 47, or the "rate reduction credit."