Bank of the West, one of Colorado’s largest banks with 68 branches, has officially rebranded as BMO following a change in ownership at the start of the month. BMO, also known as Bank of Montreal and previously called BMO Harris, purchased the San Francisco-based Bank of the West, from BNP Paribas, a French multi-national bank in a deal valued at $16.3 billion. The combined companies will have more . . .

The pandemic is taking a big bite out of automobile sales in Colorado this year, with consumers registering 16.7% fewer new vehicles in the first half of 2020 than they did in the first half of 2019, according to the latest Colorado Auto Outlook from the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association. That works out to 22,286 fewer vehicles registered in the first six months of 2020 than in the same period of 2019, with registrations of light trucks and SUVs down 12.5% and sedan registrations off a...

Frontier Airlines has notified nearly 1,500 flight attendants and pilots they might be furloughed in October, a tally that includes 398 employees working out of Denver International Airport. “Notifications went out last Friday advising up to 35% of our flight attendants and pilots that they may be furloughed as early as October 1,” said Frontier spokeswoman Jennifer De La Cruz. Nationally, Frontier Airlines notified 925 flight attendants and 559 pilots of an upcoming furlough. In Denver, the...

Colorado residents registered fewer new businesses and nonprofits in the second quarter, but they didn’t go into hiding, which bodes well for a recovery in the months ahead, according to the latest Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators from the CU Boulder Leeds Business Research Division and the Colorado Secretary of State. “These new business filings are a signal for optimism of business growth in Colorado as we look ahead,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold during a...

24 A relentless stream of fraudulent claims is swamping Colorado’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides federal unemployment benefits to self-employed and contractor workers who have lost income. On a good day, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) may only have to block 30% of initial claims for PUA, but on a bad day, as many as half of the claims coming in are flagged as suspicious and rejected, said Jeff Fitzgerald, director of the state’s unemployment...