St. Petersburg, Florida – Yesner & Boss, P.L., a Tampa Bay law firm working with commercial and residential clients facing bankruptcy or real estate foreclosures and short sales, has been named a finalist for the "Outstanding Business of the Year" Award, to be presented by the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce June 30.

Yesner & Boss (www.YesnerBoss.com) is one of three finalists in the category of companies with 27-100 employees. The firm, with its main office at 10812 Gandy Boulevard N in St. Petersburg, expanded earlier this year, adding associates and staff in Sarasota and Tampa. The expansion enlarged the firm's capacity for dealing with family law matters and litigation of insurance claims.

Yesner & Boss now has seven lawyers following the additions earlier this year of Brian Arrighi, who joined the firm to develop its family-law practice, JoAnn Koontz, who expanded the firm's real estate and tax practice into Sarasota, and Sean Cox, who focuses on property insurance disputes, personal injury and debt-collection litigation.

"You always hear award nominees say it's an honor just to be included in the running, but this really is an honor," said Shawn Yesner, partner in Yesner & Boss. "There are a lot of truly notable companies among the nominees, and I consider it a privilege to stand with them."

All companies in Pinellas County are eligible for nomination, regardless of whether they belong to the 2,600-member St. Petersburg Chamber. Any member of the Chamber, regardless of location, also is eligible. Nominations come from the community.

In addition to awards for companies with 27 to 100 employees, the category in which Yesner & Boss qualified, awards also will be given to a company of 4 to 26 employees, a company of more than 100 employees, a technology company, a not-for-profit company, and a company owned and operated by women or minorities.

The federal government's bail out investment in Citigroup is on track to not only return the amount invested by the taxpayers but also turn a substantial profit. The institution that was once referred to as the "Death Star" is quickly changing to a profit center.

The United States Treasury recently sold 1.5 billion of its 7.7 billion shares in Citigroup, acquired through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which reduced the size of the taxpayer-owned share to about 22% from 27%. At the time the Treasury acquired the shares they were priced at $3.25. Upon the recent sale of the 1.5 billion shares, the share value had reached $4.13 per share returning a profit of 88 cents per share, or $1.32 billion.

Morgan Stanley was hired to manage the government's divestment of taxpayers' stake in Citigroup. Morgan Stanley was given "discretionary authority" to sell the shares "under certain parameters." The Treasury has stated that they are not involved in "soliciting or approving orders."

There are plans to sell an additional 1.5 billion shares of the taxpayer-owned Citigroup stock out of the 6.2 billion that remain. This sale is projected to happen by the end of June. In addition, the Qatar Investment Authority has shown interest in purchasing the remaining shares. As of April, the government's $45 billion investment in Citigroup was expected to make a profit of nearly $11 billion, plus an estimated $8 billion in interest and other fees. However, some fear that if the government is too hasty in winding down its stake in Citigroup that it will lose out on larger gains if Citigroup's shares continue to rise. Banks such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase paid back their bailouts early and although the government recovered the entire amounts borrowed, along with several billion dollars in interest, the government would have recovered even more in interest and profits had it waited a little longer.