Recent stories by Jay Hancock

8:00 PM EST, December 24, 2011

The Interview: Anita Newcomb, banking consultant

In coming years your community bank may be merging with a rival, closing branches and redesigning the interiors of branches that remain, says Columbia-based banking consultant Anita G. Newcomb. With nearly three decades of experience running banks, handling bank mergers and advising banks on strategy, Newcomb sees smaller lending institutions combining in a manner similar to what happened to the industry after the financial collapse of the late 1980s.

8:00 PM EST, December 23, 2011

Jay Hancock: Mercantile discipline could make 1st Mariner shipshape

The winds of economic destruction blow as hard in Baltimore as anywhere else. But business brainpower tends to stay anchored to the land of pleasant living.

11:01 PM EST, December 14, 2011

Jay Hancock: Exelon boss wants merger badly, and he's paying for it

John Rowe made no secret of the fact that he badly wanted a signature merger to top off his career as the chief executive of Exelon Corp. How badly can be seen in the settlement he just agreed to in Exelon's bid to purchase Baltimore's Constellation Energy.

7:36 PM EST, November 17, 2011

Legg Mason's Miller disembarks from flagship Value Trust fund

Legg Mason's famed stock picker Bill Miller will officially hand over the day-to-day management of the well-known Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust fund to his successor, Sam Peters, on April 30, the Baltimore money manager announced Thursday.

5:44 PM EDT, August 21, 2011

Student from Cockeysville missing in Philadelphia

Philadelphia police as well as dozens of friends and relatives were searching Sunday for Roswell Friend, a 22-year-old recent graduate of Temple University who went missing last week after going for a run.

11:03 AM EDT, August 23, 2011

Body thought that of former Dulaney student found in N.J. river

Police believe they've discovered the body of a popular former Dulaney High School athlete who went missing last week after going on a jog near his home close to Temple University in Philadelphia.

7:57 PM EDT, June 6, 2011

Jay Hancock: Groupon: Baltimore restaurants hot and cold on deals

Has The Prime Rib, which requires waiters to wear tuxes and exudes "the intoxicating aroma of old money," according to Esquire magazine, got a deep discount deal for you.

4:34 PM EDT, August 6, 2011

Jay Hancock: Customers protest fund switch by Constellation suitor Exelon

The dismantling of Exelon Corp.'s Zion Station nuclear power plant near Chicago is setting several remarkable precedents.

9:52 PM EDT, August 14, 2011

Parrots rescued from breeding mill find Maryland refuge

Six parrots taken from what was described as a "deplorable" breeding mill in Tennessee found shelter in Maryland over the weekend, rescued by animal-welfare groups and destined for new homes.

May 1, 2011

Jay Hancock: This time, Constellation takeover will go through

Sometime around May 2012, you will open your BGE statement and react with mild pleasure, perhaps, on seeing that your bill is reduced by $200 or so.

7:01 PM EDT, October 27, 2010

Jay Hancock: New team for Calvert Cliffs project, but same challenges

They can cancel the beret and tricolor-flag orders at the Perryman Power Plant.

9:12 PM EDT, April 18, 2011

In oft-stormy relations, Schaefer got business to get things done

Unlike some Democratic governors and mayors, at least William Donald Schaefer had a dialogue with Maryland business leaders. If you can call a blistering, hold-the-phone-from-the-ear conversation a dialogue.

May 31, 2011

Jay Hancock: City raises stakes, questions in convention race

If you want to win an arms race, minor escalation is not the way to go. Only after President Ronald Reagan started developing a wildly expensive and impractical system to shoot down enemy missiles did the Soviet Union give up the Cold War.

12:27 AM EST, November 9, 2010

Jay Hancock: Racing boss stops move to close Laurel Park

Delivering surprising if tenuous hope to Maryland's horse-racing industry, track owner Frank Stronach reversed his organization's move to slash thoroughbred meets and end races at Laurel Park next year, saying he hopes to strike a deal with breeders and state officials to save Laurel as well as Baltimore's historic Pimlico Race Course.

7:08 PM EDT, March 14, 2011

Jay Hancock: Stock price may push Shattuck to sell Constellation to Exelon

Few things inspire financial journalists, stock analysts and investment bankers like rumors about corporate mergers and acquisitions.

7:05 PM EST, December 13, 2010

Jay Hancock: Owners' actions argue for seizure of horse tracks

Eminent domain, which gives government authority to forcibly purchase private property, is a last resort in countries that aren't run by juntas or Politburos.

8:36 PM EDT, April 28, 2011

Jay Hancock: Exelon deal bad for Baltimore despite jobs claim

Nobody knows better than Mayo Shattuck, the former investment banker, that economic value is determined by future cash flows.

7:46 PM EST, November 30, 2010

Jay Hancock: Stronach again fails Maryland horse racing

The best spin you can give Frank Stronach is that he has good intentions but makes bad deals with inappropriate partners — people who seem more interested in slot-machine riches than in the thoroughbred racing he loves.

October 19, 2010

Jay Hancock: Incentive bonuses taint foreclosures, economy

Maryland and most other states outlaw "pay for performance" for political lobbyists for a very good reason.

October 17, 2010

Jay Hancock: Prospects dim for both nuclear energy and Constellation

When Constellation Energy Group and EDF Group teamed up three years ago, the economy was riding high, and so were they.

12:39 PM EDT, September 18, 2010

Jay Hancock: Constellation's partnership with French company tested

Crisis can trash or temper a marriage. We'll soon know which way it goes for Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group and France's EDF Group.

June 9, 2010

Jay Hancock: State should press inquiry into needless stents

Doctors at Union Memorial Hospital would never implant unneeded coronary-artery stents the way Dr. Mark Midei is alleged to have done at nearby St. Joseph Medical Center, a spokeswoman says.

12:34 PM EDT, September 18, 2010

Jay Hancock: Constellation's partnership with French company tested

Crisis can trash or temper a marriage. We'll soon know which way it goes for Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group and France's EDF Group.