Before investing in barge builder and operator American Commercial Lines, Zell studied the history of barges.
And CNA, the nation's seventh-largest commercial lines insurer, had been battered with losses from asbestos claims and bad pricing.
The breakdown of 2011 personal and commercial lines market share by company can be seen in the chart below.
Even Massachusetts-based Raytheon, a one-time conglomerate that has gradually divested commercial lines over the last two decades, has non-defense franchises in areas like air-traffic management and civil communications.
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In Thailand, for example, it has brought down one government, and eased the passage of a new constitution aimed at cleaning up a political system long operated on commercial lines.
Fact is, there are plenty of companies like Textron and United Technologies that have managed to successfully mix defense and commercial lines, and in many cases the requisite skills seem to be complimentary.
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Although the ferry service will operate on commercial lines, hoping at least to match the 700-900 passengers who reach Iraq daily from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates' government has been the impetus behind its launch.
Since previous standards had not addressed commercial zip lines in great detail, an ASTM International subcommittee is working on developing a new standard for these kinds of rides.
Low rates have driven clients seeking refinance opportunities to their local banks and have increased business in all lines whether commercial or residential.
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In the past, banks would agree at little cost to provide back-up lines for commercial-paper issuers in case their access to the market dried up.
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Ricardo Hausmann, chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, wants international institutions to promote this market by offering countries such liquidity lines jointly with commercial banks.
Instead, it had to be backstopped by ironclad lines of credit at commercial banks.
Instead, the markets came up with the right reform: Such paper had to be backed by ironclad lines of credit from commercial banks.
Banks have been curtailing backup lines of credit for commercial paper.
Small regional banks, less diversified than their larger brethren and more exposed to riskier asset classes such as home-equity lines of credit and commercial real estate, are most at risk of running out of capital-raising options.
Large numbers are killed each year on the long-lines or drift nets of commercial fishermen, in which the animals can become snared and drown within 40 minutes.
But under the leadership of industry legend Dennis Picard, the company jettisoned virtually all of its commercial businesses and bulked up on military lines as companies like General Motors and Texas Instruments sought to exit the sector.
Banks compete in similar lines of business, lending against commercial or residential property or (in the late 1970s) channelling money to developing nations.
Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones.
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Collectively, they render defense contractors incapable of applying the same industrial facilities to both military and commercial markets, because the cost of operating military lines is so high.
Their concept is vastly more convenient than commercial airline travel with all its waits and security lines, yet a lot less expensive than chartered jets or executive jet ownership.
With commercial banks gradually pulling their interbank and short-term credit lines from Soviet institutions and completely cutting off medium-term lending, the Kremlin's authorities are tempted, if not compelled, to take on higher pay-off banking transactions internationally.
This seems to have led him to divide almost everybody into friends and foes, and to draw rigid lines between good and evil in virtually all matters, commercial as well as moral.
What historians call "political" entrepreneurs--those who received the bounties and the grants--built lines that were shoddy and more expensive than those laid by "commercial" entrepreneurs, who received no federal aid.
Even BAE Systems, the sprawling British defense conglomerate that typically gets along better with the Pentagon than its U.S. counterparts, decided recently not to sell a commercial aerospace unit that was generating strong results despite its apparent mismatch with other company lines.
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Already the FDIC's available funds, including untapped credit lines from the Treasury, are equivalent to just 1.5% of total commercial-bank deposits.
Using the Gogo exclusive network and services, passengers with laptops and other Wi-Fi enabled devices can get online on more than 1, 500 commercial aircraft including all domestic AirTran Airways and Virgin America flights, all domestic mainline Delta Air Lines flights and select Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, United Airlines, and US Airways flights.
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Commercial lenders also argue with that with increased margins, microfinance companies can reinvest in the development of new product lines to address the myriad needs of the poor.
At the same time that many commercial buildings are being built, there are also essential infrastructure developments going on such as the expansion of subway lines and works in many streets.
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Officers said commercial and religious buildings had been frequent targets, but added there had also been thefts of copper cable from electricity lines.
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