Today in Globe Business

Credit card firms hurry to raise rates

Credit card companies are rushing to increase interest rates to historic highs of more than 30 percent, cut credit limits, and add new fees, even for customers who pay their bills on time.

Lenders are making the moves in advance of tougher federal regulations for credit cards scheduled to take effect on Feb. 22. The new rules will limit how companies can modify credit card agreements, specifically prohibiting them from retroactively raising interest rates and fees on existing balances.

US Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Financial Services Committee and is a leader in the effort to revamp credit card policies, said banks have “abused’’ the nine-month period granted them to re-tool their practices.

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Net widens in Galleon investigation

The biggest hedge fund insider trading case in US history ensnared more Massachusetts companies yesterday as federal investigators brought new charges against 14 people, including a Westwood investor.

Steven Fortuna, a hedge fund manager with a home in Westwood, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to illegally trading shares of Akamai Technologies Inc. of Cambridge. Arthur Cutillo, a New York attorney for Boston law firm Ropes & Gray LLP, was arrested and charged with leaking inside information about a Bain Capital LLC plan to buy 3Com Corp. in Marlborough. Florida hedge fund investor Roomy Khan pleaded guilty to making illicit trades in several stocks, including Kronos Inc. of Chelmsford, netting her about $1.6 million in profits. She is cooperating with authorities.

The charges are related to the case against Galleon Group of New York, a now-defunct hedge fund. Galleon’s cofounder, billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, was one of six people arrested and charged last month in connection with making $25 million from illegal trades in stocks of several companies, including Akamai.

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Bank officials to testify Nov. 17

A congressional committee investigating Bank of America’s purchase of Merrill Lynch has set a new date for a public hearing at which several prominent bank officials from Massachusetts are scheduled to testify.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will a hold a hearing Nov. 17 at which Bank of America senior executive Brian Moynihan and directors Charles K. Gifford, former chief executive of FleetBoston Financial, and Thomas May, CEO of NStar, have been asked to testify, according to three people briefed on the matter. All three live in the Boston area and are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The hearing is expected to focus on Bank of America’s $50 billion acquisition of troubled investment bank Merrill Lynch. Moynihan was the company’s chief legal counsel at the time the deal was completed Jan. 1.

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Courting gay travelers

When William Buswell crunched the numbers from his recent fall foliage tours, he was surprised by what he found: The gay-themed trips, which can include visits to drag shows, were 86 percent full, while the other leaf-peeping trips organized by his Vermont-based New England Vacation Tours Inc. were 70 percent full. Last fall, before the recession set in, the occupancy rate for both kinds of tours was the same.

“The gay and lesbian market is a very profitable market to go after,’’ said Buswell, who lately has noticed more marketing directed at gay travelers.

Local tourism agencies are among the groups trying to appeal to these travelers, who represent a small fraction of the overall market but have a median household income of $86,400 and spent $70 billion on travel last year, according to the San Francisco-based market research firm Community Marketing Inc.

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New England's 7th Spanish-language paper begins publishing

At a time when the recession is battering newspapers, a group of Latino journalists in Massachusetts has launched New England’s seventh Spanish-language weekly newspaper.

El Tiempo de Boston, or The Boston Times, began publishing last week as a free paper that focuses on communities with large Latino populations. Coverage also includes local immigration, financial consumer stories, and articles about Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.

“We saw that there was little coverage and information in other media and we wanted to respond to the needs of the Latino community,’’ said Maximo Torres, 60, founding director of the paper, a native of Peru where he was a journalism professor, and former city editor of Boston’s oldest Spanish-language paper, El Mundo.

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