MILWAUKEE: The mortgage insurer MGIC Investment said Wednesday that it lost almost $1.5 billion for the last three months of 2007 on higher home delinquencies and payouts. It also said it was looking for ways to improve its capital.

The chairman and chief executive Curt Culver said the company still does not expect to make money this year, if delinquencies and losses continue to rise and fewer homeowners get back on track with payments.

Its shares tumbled $2.16, or 15.2 percent, to $12.01 Wednesday. Its shares are near the lower end of their 52-week range of $10.40 to $67.41.

The Milwaukee-based company said it lost $1.47 billion, or $18.17 per share, in the fourth quarter compared with a profit of $121.5 million or $1.47 per share in the same period a year ago.

A survey by Thomson Financial indicates Wall Street analysts had expected the company to lose, on average, $6.77 per share. Those estimates typically exclude one-time items.

The company said it had hired an advisor to assist it in exploring alternatives for increasing its capital, though Culver said MGIC had enough money to pay claims.

The company announced late last month that it could pay $2 billion in claims this year, up from previous estimates of up to $1.5 billion. It finished 2007 paying out $870 million in claims, up from $611 million in 2006.

Home buyers typically must get mortgage insurance when they put down less than 20 percent of their homes value. When they miss payments, the insurers pay lenders. If homes end up in foreclosure, both lenders and insurers lose money.

Revenue for the fourth quarter was $399.1 million, up 8.7 percent from $367.2 million in the last three months of 2006. The company increased its net premiums written for the quarter nearly 25 percent to $380.5 million, up from $367.1 million in the same quarter in 2006.

MGIC finished 2007 with a loss of $1.67 billion, or $20.54 a share. In 2006, MGIC earned $564.7 million, or $6.65 a share. For the year, revenue rose to $1.69 billion, from $1.47 billion in 2006. New insurance written was $76.8 billion, compared to $58.2 billion in 2006.

MGIC had $211.7 billion primary insurance in force at the end of 2007, compared with $176.5 billion the previous year.

The company has been limiting its exposure to weaker housing markets by demanding higher credit scores and larger down payments.

Starting March 3, MGIC said it would require at least 5 percent down on homes in so-called restricted markets. They include the entire states of Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada and major metro areas like Washington, D.C., Detroit, Chicago, Boston and Atlanta.

Culver told analysts on a conference call that the changes will reduce losses but they wont get rid of them.

“We feel they are not enough to help us return to profitability in a market where real estate values are declining,” he said.

WASHINGTON: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear an appeal from Exxon Mobil, which is seeking to overturn an order for $2.5 billion in punitive damages from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska.

The justices agreed to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that awarded record punitive damages to about 32,000 commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others harmed by the worst tanker spill in U.S. waters.

The court rejected a separate appeal by the plaintiffs seeking to reinstate the jurys original award of $5 billion in punitive damages against Exxon Mobil.

The supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound in March 1989, spilling about 11 million gallons, or more than 41 million liters, of crude oil. The spill spread oil to more than 1,200 miles, or 1,900 kilometers, of coastline, closed fisheries and killed thousands of marine mammals and hundreds of thousands of seabirds.

In 1994, a jury in Alaska awarded $5 billion in punitive damages. A U.S. District Court judge later reduced it to $4.5 billion. A U.S. Appeals Court in December further cut the amount to $2.5 billion. Exxon Mobil then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the $2.5 billion award still was too high.

Lawyers for the company called it the largest punitive damage award ever affirmed by a federal appellate court, larger than the total of all punitive damage awards upheld by federal appellate courts in American history.

The appeal argued that maritime law did not allow the imposition of such a large award of punitive damages, that the award had been improperly calculated and that it represented an unacceptably high multiple of actual compensatory damages.

Exxon Mobil said it had already spent more than $3.5 billion for compensatory and cleanup payments, settlements and fines. “We do not believe any punitive damages are warranted in this case,” it said. “It is also important for the Supreme Court to uphold longstanding maritime law that provides that ship owners are not liable for punitive damages based upon conduct by the ship master who disregarded the owners rules and policies.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs disputed the companys argument that the award was too high and said the $2.5 billion judgment represented a little more than three weeks of Exxon Mobils current net profit. “After 18 years of litigation, Exxon now seeks additional review from this court and relief that could prolong the case for many years to come,” David Oesting, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the justices.

While Exxons challenges have been pending since the jurys verdict, he said, about 20 percent of the plaintiff class members have died.

The Supreme Court will most likely hear arguments in February or March, with a ruling expected by the end of June. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from the case, so it will be decided by the other eight members. Alito owns $100,000 to $250,000 in Exxon stock, The Associated Press reported.

If the justices split evenly on the case, then the appeals courts ruling against Exxon Mobil would be affirmed. Appeal on jailing is rejected

In another decision, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Martin Armstrong, a former trader and financial adviser who had been jailed for more than seven years for contempt of court.

Armstrong, the founder of Princeton Economics International, an economic forecasting firm, was held in a New York jail from January 2000 until April 27, when a judge ended the contempt proceeding because it no longer was serving its purpose.

Armstrong was jailed after failing to produce millions of dollars in gold and antiquities related to a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Armstrong had long argued that he did not have the items that the government was seeking.

ALGIERS: Attacks by terrorists in Algeria aligned to Al Qaeda grab the headlines and the administration approves deals at a glacial pace, yet the country remains a draw for investors lured by its multibillion-dollar opportunities.

That in itself is an achievement, given the enormous obstacles that businesses face.

A twin bombing in December, which killed 41 people at a court building and United Nations offices, shook investor confidence, prompted the departure of dozens of dependents of expatriate workers and probably led to delays in exploratory trips by foreign companies interested in investment.

But in the two months since the bombings, Algeria has held a crowded pan-Arab business conference, begun an oil and gas licensing round, announced a $46 billion energy investment plan and seen its growing foreign exchange reserves top $110 billion.

It also assumed the rotating presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, entered the final steps of negotiating a $20 billion deal with Emaar Properties, based in Dubai, and played host to economic visitors from near and far including the New Zealand trade minister, Phil Goff.

“For us local investors, the bombings changed absolutely nothing,” Abdelouahab Rahim, president of the Algerian insurance, retailing and construction firm Arcofina, said during an interview last week at a tourism conference in Algiers, which was packed with European and Algerian companies.

“We are positive in the long term,” he said. “These temporary, irregular incidents wont brake investment in the country.” Rahim said Algerias position in North Africa would always make it an investment draw. “Were an hours flight from Marseilles, an hour and something from Geneva.”

Brahim Bendjaber, president of the Algerian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says extra hotel rooms had to be found at the last minute when it became clear that another conference, the one in January to attract Arab investment, was oversubscribed. “Those people who visited Algiers had already seen the news” of the December bombs, he said at a third conference in London last week. “But life goes on.”

The North Africa wing of Al Qaeda said the Dec. 11 attacks, the second big bombing in a year in the capital, had targeted what it called “the slaves of America and France.”

The government arrested or killed most of the group that planned the attack, but said it could not guarantee that other Al Qaeda-aligned cells would not try a repeat performance.

Foreigners agree. The British ambassador, Andrew Henderson, told the conference in London that while he was upbeat about Algeria long-term, as far as attacks were concerned, “We have to face the prospect that there will be more to come.”

High oil prices have helped Algeria, a developing country of 33 million people, begin a $140 billion, five-year development plan and repay a large part of its foreign debt. While no foreign business has left since December, there may be some who have deferred investing, anxious that security costs may be too big a burden on top of the already onerous task of engaging with Algerias complex and slow-moving administration.

“Some investors considering coming to Algeria will have hesitated,” said Wolfram Lacher of Control Risks consultancy.

Oil and natural gas companies will always find a way of staying in a country with Africas biggest gas reserves. They stayed put during a much worse period of political violence in the 1990s.

But other businesses able to provide the large numbers of service and industrial jobs needed by a population with deep levels of unemployment may have decided to wait and see.

“I cant think of any firm that has written Algeria off,” said Henry Wilkinson, an analyst at Janusian Security Risk Management. “But companies do wobble. There is a concern.”

The attacks have led to a tightening of security in Algiers. But protecting buildings inside the cramped capital is hard. The minimum 30 meter, or 98 foot, gap from curbside to wall sought by security consultants is rarely available in a city of winding narrow streets on a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean.

Perhaps as potentially damaging to investment is Algerias relative silence in the face of Web-based, Al Qaeda propaganda, consultants say.

“Algeria news tends to be bombs,” said Wilkinson. “Thats what people know, because they dont hear about anything else.”

With the notable exception of the energy and mines minister, Chakib Khelil, Algerian officials can appear reluctant to pitch the case for trade and investment to the media and wider public.

The habit stems from a long tradition of revolutionary secrecy dating back to the independence war against France.

Even admirers of Algeria complain that leaves the field free for Al Qaeda. Olga Maitland, president of the British Algerian Business Council, wants Algerian officials to speak up. “They have everything,” Maitland said. “The only thing is, no one knows about it.”