Banking & Finance

Bank Mutual has added three new employees, including a recently created leadership position.

U.S. gross domestic product for the July-through-September period expanded 2.5 percent, nearly double the 1.3 percent rate of growth in the second quarter and much faster than the first quarter’s tepid increase of 0.4 percent.

Germantown-based Lightning Pick Technologies was recently acquired by Matthews International Corporation, a Pittsburgh memorials and graphics imaging manufacturer.

A national social media campaign with more than 32,000 “likes” and almost 70,000 attendees on Facebook aims to get consumers to switch from commercial banks to credit unions.

Wauwatosa-based Zywave Inc. plans to purchase Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Emerging Information Systems Inc., a provider of needs analysis and financial planning software tools.

Milwaukee-based Joy Global Inc. announced that it has the sale of the drilling products business of its Houston-based LeTourneau Technologies Inc. business to Houston-based Cameron International Corp. for $375 million.

PrivateBancorp Inc. announced that Jeff Jarecki has joined The PrivateBank as managing director of regional commercial banking in the Milwaukee office.

The Board of Trustees for Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. has approved a dividend payout of nearly $5 billion for participating policy owners for 2012, an increase of more than $125 million over its expected 2011 payout. It will be the second-largest payout in the company’s history.

Business owners are taking advantage of the combination of historic highs for estate and gift tax exemptions, low business and investment valuations and extremely low interest rates to transfer and protect wealth – and uncertainty in the long-term stability of the estate and gift tax laws has many considering whether the time to act is now.

An employee with personal financial problems spends an average of 20 work hours per month dealing with them, according to Personal Finance Employee Education Foundation, a financial literacy nonprofit organization.