Financial Reports

Krause's Furniture Inc. said it has postponed the release of financial results for the fourth quarter and year. The Brea company said only that it needed "certain information" to complete the statements. Krause's, which had planned to release the results today, said it hopes to make the information available no later than April 10. The delay was announced after the close of regular trading hours in U.S. markets. The stock closed a 42 cents, up 10 cents a share, on the American Stock Exchange.

Reacting to a scathing internal review, Metrolink officials are moving to correct serious accounting problems that led to the recent resignation of the commuter railroad's chief financial officer. Michael DePallo, Metrolink's top executive, on Friday detailed for the rail line's board of directors a variety of ideas designed to improve bookkeeping and provide accurate financial information. "Metrolink has taken a number of steps in a positive direction," DePallo said. "We are confident we can address the issues raised by the ad hoc committee," a panel of two board members that reviewed the railroad's accounting practices.

The city of Camarillo, which earlier this year reported that its finances were back in the black after a $25-million loss from high-risk investments two years ago, has been awarded a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting, city officials said. The certificate, from the Government Finance Officers Assn. of the United States and Canada, is awarded to city governments for submission of comprehensive annual financial reports, city officials said.

With just days to go before voters make their choice for mayor, one of the presumed front-runners, Wendy Greuel, and her allies launched a multi-pronged attack against her rivals, signaling that the city controller may be in a more precarious spot than she expected going into the March 5 primary. Greuel ramped up her attacks on chief rival Eric Garcetti, alleging that his family's financial connection to a  controversial oil  drilling operation has endangered children and raised questions about his environmental credentials.

A dozen candidates running for City Council seats in the April 9 election appear poised to spend record amounts on the campaign, according to financial reports filed Thursday. One candidate has already shattered the last election's spending record, even though candidates still have more than a month to raise money. Frank Ferry, 30, a teacher at Valencia High School, has raised $21,404, surpassing the $19,000 mark set by unsuccessful candidate Fred Heiser, an aerospace engineer, in the 1994 race.

UnionFed Financial Corp., losing money for four straight years, got off to a bad start in its latest fiscal year when it reported on Friday a $3.7-million loss, or 14 cents a share, for its first quarter. The holding company for Union Federal Savings Bank lost $4.1 million, or $3.10 a share, for last year's fiscal quarter. The per-share loss was lower this year because the company's stock was diluted late last year in a secondary offering that raised $44.1 million.

Amid allegations that casino operators are using campaign contributions to sway Huntington Park City Council votes, council members have turned back an effort to demand stricter financial reports from the card club. Owners of the Huntington Park Casino missed a Jan. 23 deadline for turning over delinquent financial reports and are two months behind on their monthly payments of about $25,000 to the city and owe about $300,000 in city loans, officials said.

Companies such as FedEx Corp. and PepsiCo Inc. are certifying the accuracy of their financial statements before the starting date set by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition to PepsiCo and FedEx, the chief executives and chief financial officers of at least three other companies have filed the required certifications with the SEC. They include AMR Corp., Fiserv Inc. of Brookfield, Wis., and Delphi Corp. The SEC released certifications from those five companies Friday.

CIA Director R. James Woolsey, his agency and leadership under fire in the Aldrich H. Ames spy case, said Tuesday he plans to compel all agency employees to file detailed reports of their finances as one of several steps designed to catch agency "moles" at an earlier date.

As he did in his campaigns for Congress, former Rep. Jerry M. Patterson has turned to savings banks and bankers for financial support, this time in his race for county supervisor. But campaign finance reports, required by law and filed Monday, show Patterson raised only $14,572 from Jan. 1 through March 17, compared to $33,444 for Anaheim Mayor Donald R. Roth and $33,359 for Orange Mayor James H. Beam, his two major opponents in the 4th Supervisorial District race.

SACRAMENTO -- The Legislature plans to hold a joint oversight hearing next week to probe California's scandal-plagued parks department. Controversy erupted last year with the discovery of a $54-million surplus in the agency's budget at a time when the deficit-plagued state was threatening to close dozens of parks. The revelation forced the parks director to resign and spurred calls for better oversight of the agency. The state attorney general's office subsequently determined that $20.4 million of the hidden money had been deliberately squirreled away because parks officials feared that their budget was going to be cut. The oversight hearing, set for Feb. 20, is to feature testimony from retired Marine Maj. Gen. Anthony Jackson , the newly appointed head of the Parks and Recreation Department, and focus on a series of financial reports revealing accounting problems.

With a wrecked cruise ship still half submerged off the coast of Italy and Europe mired in economic troubles, the world's cruise line industry has been navigating turbulent waters. Industry leaders and analysts say the $37-billion industry is slowly rebounding from the crash of the Costa Concordia on rocks near the Tuscan island of Giglio in January and Europe's economic woes. With the peak cruise booking period set to begin in January, industry executives say cruise trip reservations seem to be on the rise.

WASHINGTON - Two key financial regulators told senators Tuesday that they learned of the huge trading loss at JPMorgan Chase & Co., through media reports and that the public wouldn't be protected from the fallout from future incidents until new rules are finalized to allow better monitoring of such trades. In the first of several congressional hearings to look at the loss, the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission gave some details about their investigations into the incident.

The California State University Board of Trustees received a grim report Tuesday on the consequences of more state funding cuts, including slashing enrollment, losing thousands of faculty and staff positions, and eliminating some academic and athletic programs. All of those are possible if a tax measure on the November ballot fails and the system is faced with a $200-million cut that would occur in the middle of the 2012-13 academic year, officials said. Cal State officials had announced that spring 2013 enrollment at most campuses would be frozen and that all applicants for the following fall would be wait-listed.

Los Angeles clothier American Apparel Inc. said an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into its financial reporting practices had ended without enforcement action. The investigation was sparked in 2010 when Deloitte & Touche resigned as American Apparel's accountant and warned the retailer that its previous audit reports and 2009 financial statements may not be reliable. The SEC told American Apparel this week that the investigation was ending, and no enforcement action was recommended against the retailer, the company said Wednesday.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is worth between $190 million and $250 million, his campaign announced Friday after filing personal financial reports with the Federal Election Commission. He is by far the richest of all current presidential candidates who have filed the required reports, which ask candidates to disclose a broad range of values for their assets, liabilities and income. The report paints a picture of financial health for the former Massachusetts governor, suggesting that Romney has the funds available to help finance his campaign, should he choose to do so. Photos: Scenes From Iowa - Republicans at the State Fair Romney personally invested about $35 million into his 2008 presidential run. Romney drew fire recently for remarking that he is "unemployed," but his financial reports show that he drew nearly $375,000 in speaking fees and about $114,000 for serving on the board at Marriott International during the roughly 18-month period covered by the report.

State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi has accused five former officials of a defunct Calabasas insurer of looting the company's assets, rendering it insolvent. A civil suit by Garamendi, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, charges the five former principals of First California Property & Casualty Insurance Co. with racketeering, fraud, conspiracy, breach of fiduciary duty and negligence. It seeks unspecified damages.

The state controller took the rare step of launching an audit of the struggling city of Montebello, saying there is evidence the city produced false financial reports dating back several years. The action — the first time officials have launched a full city audit since examining wrongdoing in Bell last year — marks an ominous turn for Montebello, which is in danger of running out of money to pay its bills later this year. The working-class city east of downtown Los Angeles has been mired in budget problems and allegations of mismanagement and missing money for months.

Accounting firm Ernst & Young must face a class action suit over option backdating at Broadcom Corp., a federal appeals court has ruled, saying the auditors knew or should have known about the resulting misrepresentations in the Irvine tech company's financial statements. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated Ernst & Young as a defendant in the investor lawsuit, overturning a 2009 decision by U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real.