Investment

What puzzles Harry Gaines is that we typically plan our vacations with more care than we plan the rest of our lives, especially when it comes to health and fitness. Too often we neglect to make the investment in exercise that will pay rich dividends in well-being in our 70s, 80s, and beyond. Gaines, 74, a retired textbook-publishing executive who lives half the year in Newtown, Bucks County, and the other half in Florida, keeps a "bucket list" — goals and experiences he hopes to accomplish before he kicks the proverbial bucket.

To paraphrase Groucho, "Say the secret word and win . . . millions and millions of dollars. Double, triple, quadruple your money - even more. That not-so-secret word, in the transition to Clintonomics, is investment. Which is a sanitized way for Democrats to talk about (shhh!) spending, often by government or by private concerns with incentives from government. Put out some money now, reap big dividends later. At the two-day economic conference this week, various special pleaders told the president-elect what they believe the country should spend - ahem, invest in. Infrastructure, job creation, education, training, high-speed rail.

The average new-car buyer spends $15,395 on his or her purchase. That's a real investment. Most people only make one bigger one: when they buy a home. Obviously, most people will want that new-car investment to retain as much value as possible. They will want it to be as long-lived, trouble-free and pleasurable as possible. As economically as possible. Here are some recommmendations on how to protect that costly investment - and how not to waste your money in the process. CHECK RE-SALE VALUE.

The ins and outs of money management preoccupied the Chester County Commissioners at their meeting yesterday. Commissioners Joseph Kenna and Andrew Dinniman agreed the county should act quickly next week to invest the proceeds of a $22.5 million loan from the Delaware Valley Regional Finance Authority. Over time, the funds will be used to finance several major projects in the county, including open-space programs, a public-safety communications system and property reassessment, according to Mark Rupsis, director of administrative services.

TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, a privately held Malvern company that develops small-molecule drugs to treat cancer, announced today that it has received an investment of $5 million from Pfizer Ventures. The money brings to $37 million that investors have raised to finance the company since August. The fund will be used for the clinical development a drug that mimics naturally occurring proteins that help promote cell death.    - Christopher K. Hepp

Discovery Laboratories Inc., Warrington, said today that it will get a $500,000 investment from PharmaBio Development Inc. as Discovery continues development of treatments for respiratory diseases. PharmaBio already owned 5.6 million Discovery shares. It agreed to purchase about 2.4 million additional shares of common stock and warrants for about 1.2 million shares, Discovery said. If it exercises the warrants, PharmaBio would own about 4 percent of outstanding shares. PharmaBio is the former strategic investing subsidiary of clinical research organization Quintiles Transnational Corp.

The Radnor Township commissioners have asked for more information on a state-backed investment trust before investing township funds. The commissioners Monday night tabled a resolution that would have authorized the finance director to invest in the Pennsylvania Local Government Investment Trust (PLGIT), whose rates are sometimes higher than those of a commercial bank. Despite assurances from Commissioner George M. Aman 3d that the trust "is safer than banks," Commissioner Clinton A. Stuntebeck moved that the resolution be tabled for further discussion.

Ralph Allen Sturdivant Sr., 47, of Cedarbrook, , founder and co-owner of a prominent North Philadelphia investment firm, died Friday while scuba diving on vacation with his wife in the Grand Cayman Islands. Mr. Sturdivant was born in Pilesgrove, N.J., and educated in Baltimore public schools. He received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Morgan State University. He also studied at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. After two years in the Army, where he attained the rank of first lieutenant, Mr. Sturdivant worked for U.S. Steel and then for Merrill Lynch, where he was an account executive.

Westward ho! That could be the latest rallying cry for housing in Philadelphia thanks to Citizens Bank's new program in and around University City. The news couldn't be more welcome. Not only will the effort build upon the University of Pennsylvania's success in redeveloping that area, it could encourage other lenders to invest in neighborhoods with the potential to go from high-risk to highly desirable. Citizens will make available $28.5 million in grants and low-interest loans for small businesses, and for residents and community groups to buy properties and do renovations.

Now that the Clinton administration is talking about significant public investment in technology and transportation, you can hardly pick up a newspaper without reading warnings that the government will misspend billions on everything from airports to semiconductors. Industries will line up for special consideration, we are told, as if they have not been doing just that since the age of the canals. One purer example of this thinking was a perfectly respectable academic paper published not many years ago that claimed the government made a big mistake by subsidizing railroads in the second half of the 19th century.

Steal a million, serve a year: What's the price of investment fraud? If you are caught and convicted, count on being sentenced to about a year in prison for every $1 million you wrongly separated from clients, according to a Main Line ethicist's survey of a dozen local pyramid schemers jailed since Wall Street mega-fraudster Bernard Madoff got sent away in 2009. "There is a consistent standard," yet results vary with public outrage and other factors, says Julie Anne Ragatz, director of the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics in Financial Services at American College, the insurance and investment school in Bryn Mawr.

James W. Stratton, 75, of Blue Bell, a retired investment adviser, died Wednesday, April 18, from complications of lung cancer at a hospital in Boca Grande, Fla. Mr. Stratton founded Stratton Management Co. in 1972 and ran it for 35 years. He created the Stratton Holding Co. for a variety of mutual funds the same year. The best known is the Stratton Growth Fund, a no-load mutual fund. Stratton Management advised individual and institutional clients on investment and wealth management, and was known for its value-oriented investment philosophy, meaning it advised putting money into companies with long-term growth potential over those anticipating quick market gains.

In his muddy boots and pig-farmer hat, Dean Carlson looks like he's been raising animals a long time. But this is a new career for the owner of 355-acre Wyebrook Farm, which he rebuilt to raise "sustainable" cattle, pigs and chickens on Wyebrook Road in West Nantmeal Township, Chester County, and sell the meat in his new market, which he plans to open on weekends starting Saturday. Carlson, 40, spent 15 years as a securities trader in Chicago and Dublin, and as head of the convertibles desk at Bala Cynwyd-based Susquehanna International Group, which hires brainy math types and calculating gamblers and helps them get rich.

Mayor Nutter is "leaning toward" signing a bill that would exempt investment funds and their general partners (big investors) from the city's 6.5 percent business tax on profits, says his spokesman, Mark McDonald. The measure, promoted by Councilman Bill Green and his allies, passed City Council, 16-1, last month, with Councilman Curtis Jones dissenting. Green predicted that, once the measure passed, venture, buyout and real estate funds would be more likely to fill vacant Center City or new University City office space, instead of locating in Boston, New York, Greenwich, Princeton, or Radnor.

WHY DID City Councilman Bill Green sponsor a bill that exempts private investment or hedge funds and their general managers from paying business taxes? Hedge funds have drawn scrutiny in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, in particular because their managers pay lower levels of federal taxes. But Green, who used to work in finance, says he's not trying to play favorites and is just looking to help the city's economy. "I anticipate this will create jobs and result in far more revenue," Green said.

Growth companies may be built on new ideas pushed by driven people, but a little money from outside investors sure can help. So it's potentially good news for some built-to-zoom companies that a venture-capital firm that considers this region one of its primary hunting grounds has raised a new $249 million venture fund. Edison Ventures of Lawrenceville, N.J., says its seventh fund, which took about 18 months to raise, will follow its strategy of investing in four areas: health-care information technology, financial technology, interactive marketing and e-commerce, and what Edison calls "Enterprise 2.0" firms - business-to-business tech firms.

LAST WEEK's reprieve of four Catholic high schools due to the efforts of a group of private donors was good news for the students, parents, and the Archdiocese - and the group's quick turnaround in raising $12 million from private donors to save the schools was a remarkable feat. The fact that the news came just days after a $1.5 million donation to the Philadelphia School District from the William Penn Foundation is also worth noting. They are unrelated efforts, but they signal a trend that schools across the country are seeing: more private, individual and corporate concerns stepping up to the education plate with checkbooks in hand.

An improving global economy has prompted a rise in the price of energy, especially in oil, which rose again to more than $100 a barrel last week and could head higher. If you want to energize your portfolio, here are ways to take advantage of this trend. For investors looking for exposure to global commodities and energy, there are plenty of low-cost exchange-traded funds. A new paper by SEI, the local fund giant, shows that assets in ETFs continue to grow, reaching $1.06 trillion in 2011.

Financial adviser Jack J. Clark says a client recently announced an urge to "buy Facebook stock today to make up for missing out on buying Google" when the search engine company went public in 2004. Clark brought up two issues right away: Facebook stock hasn't even gone public yet, and buying red-hot technology stocks isn't part of that client's financial plan for retirement. Facebook Inc. filed paperwork with regulators on Feb. 1 to raise a targeted $5 billion in its much-anticipated initial public offering.

Corporate buyouts of underperforming companies - "private-equity investments," as financiers prefer to call them - made Mitt Romney rich and launched him toward the presidency. So his Republican rivals, and President Obama , are blaming Romney for the factory and office closings, firings, transfer payments, and junk-bond financings that often follow buyout deals. And private-equity investors are jumping to the defense. "Attacks on private equity" threaten the most successful, productive sector of our depressed economy, argues Andrew T. Greenberg , investment banker at Fairmount Partners in West Conshohocken and chief executive officer at GF Data Resources L.L.C.