Caterpillar has agreed to pay $16.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its 401k plans charged excessive fees to employees. Cat’s news release says the money, minus attorneys’ fees and costs, will go into the accounts of employees and former…

We’ve written recently about St. Louis’ lack of small-business job growth,  and today a new Kauffman Foundation study reminds us why this issue is so important. Analyzing U.S. Census data for 2007, Kauffman says that two-thirds of all net job creation…

A few years ago, an MBA degree seemed like an instant ticket to riches. The typical graduating MBA would deluged with job offers, complete with signing bonuses and other nice perks. That, however, was before the Wall Street meltdown. Now,…

St. Louis banker David Kemper doesn’t like some of the rhetoric he’s hearing about bank bailouts. In particular, he said this morning in a speech at Washington University’s Olin School of Business, he doeesn’t like the fact that banks have…

Bloomberg, picking up on heavy options trading, reports that takeover rumors are once again swirling around MEMC Electronic Materials. The story notes that current-month call options, giving investors the right to buy MEMC shares for $13 on or before Nov. 20,…

NuVox Inc., the last telecommunications company founded by prolific St. Louis entrepreneur Robert Brooks, agreed today to sell itself to Windstream Corp. of Little Rock, Ark. The purchase price is $643 million in cash, stock and assumed debt.

NuVox is what’s…

Illinois and Missouri both lost ground this year in Site Selection magazine’s influential business climate ranking. The magazine’s latest league table, based partly on a survey of executives and partly on actual plant-location decisions, has Illinois No. 14 and Missouri No.…

As I mentioned in Sunday’s column, St. Louis University economist Jack Strauss thinks the lack of an entrepreneurial culture is a big reason why St. Louis has a tortoise-like economy. At a conference Thursday sponsored by SLU’s Simon Center for Regional…

SubsidyScope, a government-tracking effort of the Pew Charitable Trusts, has trained its lens on  Amtrak, and it says the railroad is losing a lot more money than it admits. After adding in depreciation and overhead, which an airline or any other…

Last year’s financial crisis didn’t scare workers away from their 401k plans, new data from Charles Schwab show. In retirement plans managed by Schwab, 77 percent of eligible workers participated at the end of 2008, up from 73 percent a year…