PhillyDeals: Sunoco considers outsourcing local jobs

Sunoco Inc., the Philadelphia-based oil company, says it's paying EquaTerra Inc., a Houston consulting firm, to recommend whether Sunoco should "outsource" information technology, accounting, personnel, and procurement jobs from its Center City headquarters, home to 750 of Sunoco's 10,000 employees.

"We have hired EquaTerra to advise us as we explore potentially outsourcing some functions," Sunoco spokesman Thomas Golembeski told me yesterday. Workers learned Friday of the possible job moves. EquaTerra didn't return calls for comment late yesterday.

Sunoco expects EquaTerra to report later this year on which jobs could be profitably outsourced to cheap labor markets in Asia or elsewhere. If Sunoco decides to outsource these jobs, it will seek

proposals from contractors, Golembeski said.

Safe from this round of relocation are about 3,000 jobs at the company's unionized South Philadelphia and Marcus Hook refineries, its Frankford chemical works, mini-markets, and other facilities; and workers at Sunoco facilities in the Midwest and South.

Hurt by falling U.S. fuel demand and higher oil-import costs, Sunoco has in the last year sold its Northeast home-fuel truck network, shut its Eagle Point refinery in Gloucester County, and frozen retiree benefits, on advice from consultants at McKinsey & Co. The company has also taken steps to beef up operations in the Midwest.

Expecting to cut, Sunoco hired Binswanger & Co. in the fall to sublet its 221,000-square-foot headquarters at 1735 Market St., after four years of a 15-year lease.

As expected, MetLife Inc. has agreed to pay $15.5 billion in cash and stock for Alico, the Wilmington-based multinational life-insurance division of American International Group Inc.

Alico employs about 400 at its Wilmington headquarters. "They are committed to the Wilmington office," said spokeswoman Claire Burns after Alico managers met with workers yesterday to review the deal. "The theme of the transaction is growth, rather than expense saves."

AIG is selling Alico and other assets in an attempt to pay back the U.S. Treasury.

The government bailed out AIG's financial division in 2008 after it lost billions insuring bonds that were backed by subprime loans, whose value collapsed when home prices started falling after years of inflated growth.

Insurance regulators in Pennsylvania, New York, and other states insisted that AIG's insurance operators were solvent. But the failure of state or federal officials to rein in AIG's financial-products unit before it wrecked itself has boosted demands for tougher insurance regulation.

"Bids are due April 12" on $254 million in real estate loans from the failed Silverton Bank of Georgia, including a $46 million loan to finance the long-delayed Le Meridien Hotel on Arch Street in Center City, Bloomberg News reported yesterday, citing data from documents produced by a unit of Deutsche Bank AG, which is conducting the sale.

Deutsche wouldn't comment. The Connecticut-based "ownership group" for the Le Meridien wouldn't talk either.

So I asked the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is bailing out Silverton, and which hired Deutsche to run the sale.

Staff members sent me to the agency's Web site, to the section that lists properties for sale. But that doesn't list the Le Meridien loan or any other loans from Silverton Bank. Nor would FDIC provide on request a list of the assets it is selling.

"The FDIC only reveals the completed sales and not those in process," spokesman Greg Hernandez told me. Only "qualified investors" who prove they're ready to buy are given fuller information.

Why not let the people know what you're selling? You'd think that might attract more bidders - and higher prices.

Thanks to several readers, who pointed out that the income limit on the Social Security tax doesn't apply to the smaller Medicare tax. I wrongly wrote, in my March 4 flat-tax column, that both were capped.