May 3 / Sterling plans $555 million placement to meet needs
Sterling Financial Corp. announced it planned to offer $555 million in securities in a private placement that, if completed, could satisfy its government-mandated effort to raise capital. Separately, Sterling said that Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, of Boston, agreed to increase its investment in Sterling to $170 million in a related move. Earlier, the firm had agreed to invest $134.7 million in Sterling as part of its recapitalization and recovery plan. Also, Sterling agreed to exchange $303 million of federally owned preferred shares for other preferred stock that would convert into common.

April 29 / AmericanWest reports smaller loss
AmericanWest Bancorp., the Spokane-based parent of AmericanWest Bank, reported a first-quarter net loss of $8.5 million, or 50 cents a share, compared with a loss of $14.5 million, or 84 cents a share, in the 2009 first quarter. The company also posted lower net charge-offs of $5.5 million, down from $17.7 million in the year-earlier quarter. It said it's focused on completing a recapitalization plan in the second quarter.

April 29 / Clearwater's earnings fall
Clearwater Paper Corp., of Spokane, reported a first-quarter profit of $458,000, or 4 cents a share, down sharply from earnings of $13.6 million, or $1.19 a share, in the year-earlier quarter. The quarter included a $4.4 million charge related to the passage of federal health-care reform, as well as scheduled maintenance totaling $16.9 million, compared to $1.5 million in such maintenance in the year-earlier quarter.

April 28 / Itron's net income, revenues jump
Itron Inc., the Liberty Lake-based maker of automated meter-reading technology, reported first-quarter net income of $26.8 million, or 66 cents a diluted share, up sharply from a net loss of $19.7 million, or 55 cents a share, in the 2009 first quarter. The company said its revenues of $499 million in the latest quarter were 29 percent higher than in the year-earlier quarter and included a record $243 million in North American revenues.

April 28 / Hecla earnings, sales rise
Hecla Mining Co., of Coeur d'Alene, reported first-quarter net income of $18.4 million, or 7 cents a diluted share, up from $3.9 million, or 2 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. It said it produced 2.5 million tory ounces of silver and 16,862 ounces of gold last quarter, and also had record quarterly lead production and its second-highest zinc production. It recorded a cash cost of a negative $3.03 per ounce of silver after subtracting by-product credits, down $7.70 an ounce from the year-earlier quarter.

April 27 / Potlatch posts quarterly profit, sees positive signs
Spokane-based Potlatch Corp. reported first-quarter net income of $1.4 million, or 3 cents a share, compared with $28.8 million, or 72 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. That year-earlier quarter included nearly $30 million in after-tax earnings from a big sale of land in Arkansas, and the recent quarter included a $3 million charge related to the new federal health-care reform legislation.

April 27 / Sterling posts $88.8 million quarterly loss
Sterling Financial Corp. reported a first-quarter net loss of $88.8 million, or $1.71 a share, down sharply from a loss of $24.8 million, or 48 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. The Spokane-based company said it had set aside $88.6 million to cover potential credit losses during the quarter and had trimmed its asset base while increasing its deposits to improve its liquidity, as measured by its net loans-to-deposits ratio.

April 26 / Pend Oreille PUD gets $27 million broadband grant
Pend Oreille County's Public Utility District won a $27 million federal grant to add about 526 miles of fiber-optic cable to rural homes, businesses, and institutions in the county. The PUD said the cable will allow it to stimulate the economy in an economically distressed rural area, and to offer wholesale broadband Internet services to other service providers and service to about 3,500 homes, businesses, and facilities.

April 25 / Allison S. Cowles dies at age 75
Allison Cowles, a longtime Spokane civic leader and member of the Cowles family, which publishes The Spokesman-Review, died in Spokane after battling pancreatic cancer. Cowles, whose primary residence was in New York with her husband, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, had been a member of the Smithsonian Institution's national board and was a longtime trustee and former chair of Spokane's Family Counseling Service and the first female chairwoman of the Spokane YMCA. Her first husband, the late William H. Cowles 3rd, who was publisher of The Spokesman-Review, died in 1992.