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Roubini Says `Panic' May Force Market Shutdown
By Alexis Xydias and Camilla Hall

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Hundreds of hedge funds will fail and policy makers may need to shut financial markets for a week or more as the crisis forces investors to dump assets, New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini said.

``We've reached a situation of sheer panic,'' Roubini, who predicted the financial crisis in 2006, told a conference of hedge-fund managers in London today. ``There will be massive dumping of assets'' and ``hundreds of hedge funds are going to go bust,'' he said.

Group of Seven policy makers have stopped short of market suspensions to stem the crisis after the U.S. pledged on Oct. 14 to invest about $125 billion in nine banks and the Federal Reserve led a global coordinated move to cut interest rates on Oct. 8. Emmanuel Roman, co-chief executive officer at GLG Partners Inc., said today that as many as 30 percent of hedge funds will close.

``Systemic risk has become bigger and bigger,'' Roubini said at the Hedge 2008 conference. ``We're seeing the beginning of a run on a big chunk of the hedge funds,'' and ``don't be surprised if policy makers need to close down markets for a week or two in coming days,'' he said.

Roubini predicted in July 2006 that the U.S. would enter an economic recession. In February this year, he forecast a ``catastrophic'' financial meltdown that central bankers would fail to prevent, leading to the bankruptcy of large banks exposed to mortgages and a ``sharp drop'' in equities.

Bear, Lehman

The comments preceded the collapse of Bear Stearns & Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. as well as the government seizure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a benchmark for American equities, has lost 37 percent this year, including its biggest daily drop in more than twenty years on Oct. 15.

The Dow average rose 2.5 percent to 8728.73 as of 10:55 a.m. today in New York.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi roiled international markets on Oct. 10, first saying world leaders were discussing shutting down global financial exchanges, and then saying he didn't mean it.

``In a fairly Darwinian manner, many hedge funds will simply disappear,'' Roman said, speaking at the same event as Roubini.

The hedge fund industry is stumbling through its worst year in two decades and posted its biggest monthly drop for a decade in September. Hedge funds are mostly private pools of capital whose managers participate substantially in the profits from their speculation on whether the price of assets will rise or fall.

`Very Ugly'

``Things are getting very ugly also in the emerging markets,'' Roubini said. ``The usual saying is when the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Unfortunately, this time around the U.S. is not just sneezing, it has a severe case of chronic and persistent pneumonia. It's becoming a mess in emerging markets.''

Developing nations' borrowing costs jumped to the highest in six years today as Belarus joined Hungary, Ukraine and Pakistan in seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund to help weather frozen money markets and a slump in commodities. Argentina risks defaulting for the second time this decade.

``There are about a dozen emerging markets that are now in severe financial trouble,'' Roubini said. ``Even a small country can have a systemic effect on the global economy,'' he added. ``There is not going to be enough IMF money to support them.''

Roubini, a former senior adviser to the U.S. Treasury Department, earlier this month said that the world's biggest economy will suffer its worst recession in 40 years.

``This is the worst financial crisis in the U.S., Europe and now emerging markets that we've seen in a long time,'' Roubini said. ``Things will get much worse before they get better. I fear the worst is ahead of us.''

To contact the reporters for this story: Alexis Xydias in London at axydias@bloomberg.net; Camilla Hall in London at chall24@bloomberg.net.

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Lawmakers: Don’t use bailout funds for bonuses
The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders made clear Wednesday they do not want money from the financial industry bailout to boost executives’ pay.
    The top House Republican and the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate sent letters to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson after reports about how the $700 billion plan might be used.
    “Funds made available under the economic rescue package should not be used to pay for bank acquisitions, raises and executive bonuses,” wrote House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., wrote “to express concern about the level of compensation” for top executives at banks set to receive bailout dollars.
    A day earlier, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sought salary information from nine banks selected to receive $125 billion.
    The Troubled Assets Relief Program was created as part of the bailout to buy devalued mortgagebacked securities from tottering banks to unclog credit markets. But the legislation also gave the Treasury the power to make direct stock investments in financial institutions.
    While the bailout legislation includes limits on compensation, Pelosi and Reid cited concerns about the direct investment program.
    Treasury guidelines say participants must follow compensation restrictions contained in the law. Critics say the restrictions are weak. The law says executives should not have incentives to make risky investments. It also says an executive who receives a bonus based on false financial statements must repay it. Lastly, it says “golden parachutes” are not available for the top fi ve executives of a company.
    Several news organizations have published stories saying that banks receiving funds from the bailout are using them to make acquisitions. They have also reported companies are going ahead with plans to pay dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives.
    Treasury spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin said Wednesday that using the funds for acquisitions was within its broad goal of spurring more lending. “It’s in no one’s interest to have unhealthy banks that are unable to play the role of lenders in the economy, who threaten the financial system,” she said. “So it’s possible and even appropriate if capital is used to create strong, healthy financial institutions.”

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Gov’t must borrow $918B for bailout

BY MARTIN CRUTSINGER The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — The government, raising cash to pay for the array of financial rescue packages, said Monday it plans to borrow $550 billion in the last three months of this year — and that’s just a down payment.
    Treasury Department officials also projected the government would need to borrow $368 billion more in the first three months of 2009, meaning the next president will confront an ocean of red ink.
    The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget estimates all the government economic and rescue initiatives, starting with the $168 billion in stimulus checks issued earlier this year, total even more — an eye-popping $2.6 trillion.
    One day before voters set out to elect the 44th president, new economic reports brought more bad news.
    The widely watched Institute of Supply Management gauge of manufacturing activity plunged in October to its lowest level since the country’s last deep recession, the 1981-82 downturn.
    And automakers turned in terrible October sales figures. Sales sank 45 percent at General Motors Corp., 30 percent at Ford Motor Co., 25 percent at Honda Motor Co. and 23 percent at Toyota Motor Corp.
    The Commerce Department’s report on construction spending Monday showed a 0.3 percent decline in September, the third drop in the past four months.
    “We are now deep in the belly of the recession beast,” said Bernard Baumohl, managing director of the Economic Outlook Group.
    The economic
    MELTDOWN
    The government reported last week that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, shrank at an annual rate of 0.3 percent in the July-to-September quarter. Two straight quarters of lower GDP generally mean a recession, and many economists expect the fourth quarter to be worse than the third.
    In addition to the borrowing numbers, Treasury released estimates by major Wall Street bond firms projecting that total borrowing for this budget year, which began Oct. 1, will total $1.4 trillion, nearly double the previous record.
    Major Wall Street firms were equally pessimistic about the size of the federal deficit this year. They projected it will hit $988 billion for the current budget year, more than twice the record. In July, the administration projected a deficit for this year of $482 billion, but that was before the financial crisis erupted in September.
•
    Supporters of the government rescue packages argue that the ultimate cost to taxpayers should end up being a lot smaller, partly because the Federal Reserve is extending loans to banks that should be paid back.
    And in the case of the $700 billion rescue package, the government is buying assets — either bank stock or distressed mortgage-backed assets — that it hopes will rebound in value once the crisis has passed.
    But the government still needs to borrow massive amounts to buy the assets, an effort that has driven up borrowing costs to levels never before contemplated.

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Treasury Gives Tax Breaks to Banks Atop Bailout Money

Tuesday , November 11, 2008

WASHINGTON —

Some of the nation's biggest banks are in for a windfall -- on top of the $700 billion government bailout -- thanks to a new tax policy quietly issued by the Treasury Department.
The notice gives big tax breaks to companies that acquire struggling banks hit hard by the mortgage crisis. In some cases, the tax breaks could exceed the cost of acquiring the banks, according to analyses by private tax experts.

The change could cost the Treasury as much as $140 billion by enabling firms that acquire struggling banks to use more losses incurred by those banks to offset their own taxable profits.

Wells Fargo & Co., which made a bid to acquire Wachovia Corp., just days after the notice was issued, stands to reap about $20 billion in additional tax savings because of the change, according to the analyses. Wells Fargo paid $14.8 billion in a stock deal to buy Wachovia.

The notice was issued Sept. 30 as Congress debated the $700 billion bailout plan. Some members of Congress are upset that such a sweeping tax change was issued with no public hearings or congressional input.

"I am concerned that the notice, which was never debated by Congress, could end up costing taxpayers tens of billions of more dollars on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars already approved by Congress in the financial rescue plan," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter last week to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Treasury Department spokesman Andrew DeSouza said the notice was issued to provide tax guidance to firms involved in bank takeovers at a time when numerous financial institutions are struggling and their value can be difficult to determine. He said it wasn't aimed at any one specific taxpayer or transaction.

"Treasury has worked very hard at expediting tax guidance to provide clarity regarding uncertain tax issues relating to the financial markets," DeSouza said. "This guidance was developed over many weeks by Treasury and the IRS and was not requested by any outside institution. This was broad guidance."

Some tax lawyers on Monday questioned the legality of the notice, but DeSouza said it is authorized under the department's regulatory authority.

When one bank acquires another, it is allowed under tax law to use some of the unrecognized losses of the bank it acquires to offset its own revenues for tax purposes. That lowers the tax liability of the merged bank.

Before the notice was issued, the merged bank could write off only a limited amount of the losses. The notice removed those restrictions, enabling the acquiring banks to make huge reductions in their tax liabilities.

In some cases, banks can qualify for refunds of taxes paid in previous years through writing off losses of the banks they acquire, said Robert Willens, a corporate tax lawyer in New York.

DeSouza said the Treasury Department did not issue a formal estimate on the cost to taxpayers.

However, a widely circulated commentary by the law firm of Jones Day estimates that banks could reap tax savings of up to $140 billion by acquiring banks with large losses related to the housing market downturn.

Willens estimates the change will cost taxpayers $105 billion to $110 billion. He calculated that it will reduce Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc.'s taxes by about $5.1 billion through its takeover of National City Corp. Spain-based Banco Santander could cut its tax liability by an additional $2 billion with its takeover of Philadelphia-based Sovereign Bancorp, he said.

Willens is one of the tax lawyers who doubts the legality of the notice. But, he said, repealing it could be disastrous for the banking industry and for financial markets.

"I suppose that some of these banks would have to be seized by the government," Willens said in a telephone interview. "That would just send shock waves through the market."

Quoted from bumblethru

Isn't it comforting to know that loans are being given out with our tax dollars?

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Congress examines $700 billion rescue program
Published - Nov 13 2008 07:50AM EST | AP
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER - AP Economics Writer

While the Bush administration shifts course on its $700 billion rescue plan, Congress is examining whether even bigger changes should be made in the program in light of the deteriorating economy and soaring mortgage foreclosures.

The debate may not be resolved until President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20 and pursues policies for administering the rescue program that are likely to be more closely aligned with his Democratic allies in Congress.

In anticipation of the change of administrations, Democrats were holding hearings in both the House and Senate on Thursday examining various aspects of the most serious financial crisis to hit the country in 70 years.


The House Oversight Committee was examining the role that hedge funds may have played in recent market turbulence. Among those scheduled to testify was billionaire investor George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management.

Meanwhile, the Senate Banking Committee will hear from executives of a number of financial institutions including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo on the issue of how the government's $700 billion rescue effort is operating and particularly whether the government should be requiring more commitments on the use of the money to address rising mortgage foreclosure problems.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced Wednesday that the administration had decided to scrap what had originally been the centerpiece of the program _ a proposal to buy troubled assets to get them off the books of banks as a way of promoting increased lending.

Instead, Paulson said the administration will proceed with an alternative plan to spend $250 billion to buy stock in the banks as a way of bolstering their financial situation and accomplishing the same goal _ getting the institutions to return to more normal lending.

However, critics contend the administration should be imposing more restrictions on the stock purchases as a way of insuring that the banks will use the government resources to increase lending rather than just hoarding the cash or using it to acquire other banks or boost dividends for stockholders.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said even with the changes in the rescue plan he was still disappointed in the administration's unwillingness to issue strict guidelines to ensure that participating firms use the funds to increase lending.

"In these difficult times, fear is still overwhelming confidence," Schumer told reporters on Tuesday.
More reports detailing the difficulties facing the economy were expected on Thursday with the Labor Department releasing its latest look at weekly applications for unemployment benefits, the Commerce Department reporting on the trade gap for September and the government reporting on the budget deficit for October.

The level of jobless claims was expected to remain at levels indicating the labor market is under severe strains, reflecting what many economists fear could be a deep and prolonged recession.

The government reported last Friday that the unemployment rate soared to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as businesses cut another 240,000 jobs.


The trade deficit was expected to show some improvement, declining to $57 billion in September, compared to $59.1 billion in August, reflecting a big drop in the price of imported oil and a weakening economy, which is dampening demand for other imports.

The budget deficit, however, was expected to show a big increase in October, the first month of the new budget year, rising to $101.5 billion, compared to $57 billion in October 2007. The soaring costs of the bank rescue and the weak economy are expected to put the country on track to run up a record deficit for the current budget year of between $700 billion and $1 trillion, a staggering sum for a single year.

Despite its new flexibility, the administration said Wednesday it remains opposed to using the rescue fund to bail out the ailing auto industry or to provide guarantees for home loans, an idea that supporters contend offers the greatest hope for helping legions of Americans who are facing foreclosure.

Congressional Democrats felt otherwise on autos, and strongly. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were pressing for quick passage of a major package for carmakers during a postelection session that begins next Tuesday, and one key House Democrat was putting together legislation that would send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies.

Paulson told reporters Wednesday that the administration was exploring the possibility of setting up a program in conjunction with the Federal Reserve that would provide support for the $1 trillion market in securities that fund such vital consumer products as credit cards, auto loans and students loans. About 40 percent of consumer credit is supplied through the sale of these securities that are backed by payments consumers make on their credit cards and other loans.

The administration has already spoken for all but $60 billion of the initial $350 billion supplied by Congress, including the $250 billion for direct stock purchases from banks and $40 billion for a new loan supplied on Monday to help stabilize troubled insurance giant American International Group.

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Wall Street Socialism Paves Way for Global Government

AIM COLUMN  |  BY CLIFF KINCAID  |  NOVEMBER 14, 2008

...the best chance for conservative principles to prevail was to follow the conservative principles embodied in the 2008 Republican platform.

Now that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has essentially admitted that his Wall Street bailout plan isn’t working, it’s worthwhile to examine the fawning media coverage he received when he pressured President Bush and Congress into approving it. “This former investment banker may be the right man at the right time,” was one of the headlines over a gushing September 29 Newsweek article by Daniel Gross. Among his attributes, we were told, Paulson was an Eagle Scout.

But as an Eagle Scout myself, I seem to remember that the Boy Scout motto was “Be prepared.” Paulson seems not to be prepared for anything.

As Michelle Malkin, who was opposed to the bailout, puts it in her new column: “The man doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

In a separate Newsweek article in the same issue, Fareed Zakaria said, “In Paulson, America is extremely fortunate to have a man of tremendous intelligence, drive and pragmatism, who will engage in ‘bold and persistent experimentation’ until the job is done.” The article was headlined “Big Government to the Rescue.”

In retrospect, the phrase “persistent experimentation” apparently means making mistake after mistake and not being held accountable for them.

Making Paulson out to be the boy next door, Newsweek included a series of photos apparently taken from the Paulson family album. There was a photo of Paulson as a “college football star,” a photo of the “nature-loving Paulson” holding a hawk, a photo of Paulson on a kayak, and so on.

But there was a bit of hard news in the piece. Paulson, Gross reported, “had always been a Republican―but more a Rockefeller Republican than a DeLay.” This is another way of saying that this Wall Street banker and former CEO of Goldman Sachs is a liberal. A better description would be Wall Street socialist. So how did he end up as Bush’s Treasury Secretary? He was recruited for the job by White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who, from 1994 to 1999, was Executive Director for Legal & Government Affairs at Goldman Sachs International in London.  

“In many ways, Paulson was the ideal person to deal with this mess,” Gross reported at the time. Paulson was “noted for self-discipline, focus on controlling risk and mastery of detail.” Now he comes across as a dummy who not only doesn’t know what he’s doing but isn’t willing to step aside so that someone more knowledgeable can take command.

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush seems even more clueless. He gave a Thursday speech to the Manhattan Institute pretending that American-style capitalism still exists. “I’m a market-oriented guy, but not when I’m faced with the prospect of a global meltdown,” Bush said. He went on to say, “History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, it is too much government involvement in the market.”

Does the President realize that he is contradicting himself? Needless to say, none of this inspires confidence. His bizarre comments receive little attention because he is considered a lame duck and Paulson is really running the show.

Now free to speak her mind, Alaska Governor and former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has weighed in, telling The Weekly Standard that she is getting tired of Paulson’s changes to the bailout plan. “I think the surprises make the electorate distrust elected officials and their ability to appoint people who are to be looking out for the public’s interest,” she says. This is an understatement. People not only don’t trust the government, they are getting angry at the reckless policies that threaten national bankruptcy and may consign generations of Americans to living under socialism.

However, Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, tried to convince House Republicans to vote for the plan that Palin now attacks in the pages of his magazine. Kristol endorsed Paulson’s plan, saying “failing to pass it will exacerbate them [financial problems], and will keep the markets in a state of roiling uncertainty at best, and meltdown at worst.” So what has happened since its passage? As you may have noticed, the markets have continued in uncertainty and we seem to be undergoing a meltdown.

Kristol added at the time that “House Republicans should help pass the bill. I think it’s the only responsible thing to do in terms of the economy. But I also think it’s the only way McCain has a chance to win.” He added that, “Passing the bailout would give McCain a fighting chance to win, which in turn provides the best chance―the only chance―for conservative principles to prevail in the next few years.”

In fact, the best chance for conservative principles to prevail was to follow the conservative principles embodied in the 2008 Republican platform. That document declared, “We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself.”

You may have noticed that McCain, who followed Kristol’s advice and voted for the bailout, went down to defeat on November 4. By the way, most House Republicans voted against the bailout. They have been proven right by events. It would be nice if Kristol would admit the error of his ways. But that is not a practice that is commonplace in conservative or liberal media circles these days.

Similarly, Paulson didn’t really admit that he himself had made a mistake. Instead, he declared on Wednesday that “It was clear to me by the time the bill was signed on October 3rd that we needed to act quickly and forcefully, and that purchasing troubled assets―our initial focus―would take time to implement and would not be sufficient given the severity of the problem.”

In other words, by the time that the bill had been signed, Paulson knew that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that he had proposed wouldn’t work. That is why he quickly changed the plan to use the taxpayer money to buy stakes in banks. Now, “new strategies” are being tried and developed, he says. And it is all being done, of course, at our expense.

One of the new strategies, he indicated, will come out of Saturday’s international financial summit in Washington, D.C. The nations of the world must develop a “shared interest in a solution” on a global level, he says.

Bush, in his speech, called for “leading nations” to “better coordinate national laws and regulations.” He urged the “reform” of international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank so that their “governance structures” come to “better reflect the realities of today’s global economy.”

I think I’m starting to get it. First it was “Big Government to the Rescue.” But since that didn’t work, we now need “Global Government to the Rescue.” We will not only lose our money but the sovereignty of our nation. Our media have been active accomplices in this unfolding catastrophe.

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Goldman Sachs CEO, six leaders give up 2008 bonuses

Sun Nov 16, 10:56 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and six company leaders have renounced their 2008 bonuses, a company spokesman said Sunday.
Blankfein and the other company directors requested the company's central committee in charge of bonuses not to make the payments due to the company's poor performance in 2008. Their request was accepted, the spokesman told AFP.
"This decision applies to seven top executives," he said.
"The fiscal year is not ended. For other executives, the compensation will be determined by what the company earns," the spokesman added.
The investment bank's 2008 cycle ends in November.......http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081117/bs_afp/useconomycompanygoldmansachs

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CIC Teams With Industry Leader iPipeline to Provide Electronic Signature Platform to the Nation's Top Insurance Carriers
PR Newswire
Posted: 2008-11-24 09:00:00
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., and EXTON, Pa., Nov. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Communication Intelligence Corporation ("CIC") (OTC Bulletin Board: CICI), a leading supplier of electronic signature solutions for business process automation in the financial industry and the recognized leader in biometric signature verification, announced today that it has formed an alliance with iPipeline, a leader in on-demand software that supports marketing, selling, and processing solutions for the nation's top insurance carriers, distributors and producers. Under the alliance, the two companies are providing a combined offering to a leading provider of comprehensive life insurance products, for a variety of wealth management needs. This initial application is exclusively provided to a top-5 US insurer.




Under the terms of this agreement, CIC will provide iPipeline with its industry proven electronic signature technology. The CIC products provide real-time eSignature capture, verification, and binding as well as the ink display and encryption technologies for iPipeline's wizard-based iGO Forms Platform. iPipeline's iGO Platform is an intelligent fillable forms solution being deployed for a leading life insurance product provider's high-net-worth life insurance customers. This Web-based service offers rapidly accessible product information, rate quote and application forms. The combined capabilities enable validation of completed forms, accuracy of the information provided, and an electronic approval process, and access to all of this information in the client systems without the significant expense and delays associated with the traditional paper-based process.




"With our focus on full functioning, easily extensible and proven electronic signature technology, CIC is an excellent choice for us because of its successful track record in the financial services sector," said Tim Wallace, CEO of iPipeline. "The cost and time savings realized through straight through processing are significant. CIC's electronic signature technology provides the final and essential step to easily migrate to a truly paperless environment. Our combined offering provides our customers with a safe, secure and convenient experience."




"When leading insurance companies select and deploy our electronic signature solutions, it validates the confidence in CIC and its products that we strive for," stated Guido DiGregorio, CIC's Chairman & CEO. "We see a significant trend among carriers towards integrating forms with eSignature. We look forward to continuing our work with iPipeline to support its current and future product and customer needs, the goal of which is to enable straight through processing of electronic forms and the ultimate objective of a truly paperless process."




About CIC




Communication Intelligence Corporation ("CIC") is a leading supplier of electronic signature solutions for business process automation in the Financial Industry and the recognized leader in biometric signature verification. CIC's products enable companies to achieve truly paperless work flow in their eBusiness processes by enabling them with "The Power to Sign Online(R)" with multiple signature technologies across virtually all applications in SaaS and fully deployed delivery models.




Industry leaders such as AEGON/WFG, AIG, Charles Schwab, Prudential, Nationwide (UK), Snap-on Credit and Wells Fargo chose CIC's products to meet their needs. CIC has deployments with over 400 channel partners and enterprises worldwide representing hundreds of thousands of users, with over 500 million electronic signatures captured, eliminating the need for over a billion pieces of paper. CIC sells directly to enterprises and through system integrators, channel partners and OEMs. CIC is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California and has a joint venture, CICC, in Nanjing, China. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.cic.com




About iPipeline




iPipeline leads its industry in providing the next-generation suite of sales distribution software to the insurance and financial services markets as an on-demand service. iPipeline's channel solutions for carriers, distributors, and agents includes comprehensive forms, illustrations, and content enabling the industry to market, sell and process insurance faster with 100% accuracy. iPipeline provides agents everything they need to make a sale by aggregating over 125 insurance companies, 850 distributors, and more than 400,000 agents in a single, Web-based network.




iPipeline's simple, intuitive system integrates directly with nearly 1,000 Websites including the industry's largest banks, broker-dealers and insurance distributors on a subscription-based model. This integrated approach enables insurance companies to automate sales distribution, eliminates point-of-sale mistakes, and streamlines the issuing of insurance policies. With headquarters in Exton, Pennsylvania, iPipeline has offices in Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin. For more information, please visit: http://www.ipipeline.com.




Forward Looking Statement




Certain statements contained in this press release, including without limitation, statements containing the words "believes", "anticipates", "hopes", "intends", "expects", and other words of similar import, constitute "forward looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual events to differ materially from expectations. Such factors include the following (1) technological, engineering, quality control or other circumstances which could delay the sale or shipment of products containing the Company's technology; (2) economic, business, market and competitive conditions in the software industry and technological innovations which could affect the Company's business; (3) the Company's inability to protect its trade secrets or other proprietary rights, operate without infringing upon the proprietary rights of others or prevent others from infringing on the proprietary rights of the Company; and (4) general economic and business conditions and the availability of sufficient financing.




CIC, its logo, Ceremony, Sign-it and the Power to Sign Online are registered trademarks. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective holders.