New Century given access to financing

A U.S. bankruptcy judge has given New Century Financial Corp. the green light to obtain a portion of the $150 million of financing it needs in order to remain under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company said Friday.
The order, by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey in Wilmington, Del., allows the Irvine, Calif.-based subprime lender to draw on funds it had lined up from New York-based CIT Group Inc. and Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC’s Greenwich (Conn.) Capital Financial Products Inc. unit prior to its April 2 bankruptcy protection filing.
He set an April 19 deadline for parties to object to the financing, and a final hearing to authorize the financing is set for April 24.
New Century collapsed amid rising delinquencies and defaults, a federal criminal investigation into its accounting and trading in its securities, and orders by, or agreements with, at least 17 U.S. states to stop lending.

Payrolls up in March, jobless rate down
U.S. payrolls added a higher-than-expected 180,000 jobs last month, pushing the unemployment rate down to 4.4%, matching the lowest rate since October.
The last time that the unemployment rate was lower was in May 2001, according to a report released Friday by the Department of Labor. The unemployment rate stood at 4.5% in February and 4.6% in January.

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