- BofA reaches out to BNY Mellon chief for CEO job
- Pandit ‘Near Death’ Cash Hoard Signals Lower U.S. Bank Profits
- Can Citigroup Carry Its Own Weight?
- Geithner Laments the Deficit, but Demurs on Tax Increases
- CIT Files Bankruptcy; U.S. Unlikely to Recoup Money
- Goldman Looks to Buy Fannie Tax Credits
- Former hedge fund executive charged by SEC
- U.S. Turns Screws on Bailed-Out GMAC
- 3-mth dollar Libor hits record low, euro rate eases
- IPhone Gets Lukewarm Reception in China
- ‘This Is It’ on its way to $200 million-plus, thanks mainly to foreigners
- Terminator franchise to be auctioned off
BofA reaches out to BNY Mellon chief for CEO job – Reuters
Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK.N) Chief Executive Robert Kelly was recently approached about taking the CEO job at Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), but he has shown no interest in the job, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal reported on Sunday that Kelly has been approached more than once about being a potential successor to Kenneth Lewis, who will retire at the end of this year…..
Pandit ‘Near Death’ Cash Hoard Signals Lower U.S. Bank Profits – Bloomberg
Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are hoarding cash as if another crisis were on the way.
Citigroup has almost doubled its cash to $244.2 billion in the year since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy, the biggest such stockpile of any U.S. bank. The lender, which last year came so close to a funding shortfall it had to get a $45 billion government infusion, is under pressure from the Treasury Department and regulators to keep more money on hand for emergencies, even as markets improve…..
Can Citigroup Carry Its Own Weight? – NY Times
OVER the past 80 years, the United States government has engineered not one, not two, not three, but at least four rescues of the institution now known as Citigroup. In previous instances, the bank came back from the crisis and prospered.
Will Citigroup rise again from its recent near-death experience?….
Geithner Laments the Deficit, but Demurs on Tax Increases - NY Times
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner acknowledged Sunday that the federal deficit was too high but said the priorities now are economic growth and job creation.
Asked repeatedly on “Meet the Press” on NBC whether that meant taxes would rise, Mr. Geithner avoided providing specifics. He did say President Obama is committed to dealing with the deficit in a way that would not add to the tax burden of people making less than $250,000 a year…..
CIT Files Bankruptcy; U.S. Unlikely to Recoup Money – Bloomberg
CIT Group Inc., a 101-year-old commercial lender, filed for bankruptcy to cut $10 billion in debt after the credit crunch dried up its funding and a U.S. bailout and debt exchange offer failed.
CIT listed $71 billion in assets and $64.9 billion in debt in a Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The U.S. Treasury Department said the government probably won’t recover much, if any, of the $2.3 billion in taxpayer money that went to CIT…..
Goldman Looks to Buy Fannie Tax Credits - Wall Street Journal
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is in talks to buy millions of dollars of tax credits from government-controlled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, but the potential deal is running into opposition from the U.S. Treasury, which could block the deal.
A sale would bring some needed financial respite to Fannie Mae. But the administration is leery about approving a deal that would help Goldman reduce its tax bill, given the animus held by many lawmakers toward big Wall Street firms in general and Goldman in particular.
The Obama administration is looking at the deal with a critical eye and could block it. Goldman, meanwhile, is hopeful it could win approval this week…..
Former hedge fund executive charged by SEC – Reuters
A former top executive at hedge fund firm ValueAct Capital is one of seven people charged with trading on inside information in Acxiom Corp.
Ronald Yee, who had been the San Francisco-based hedge fund firm’s chief financial officer until June 2008, was named in a civil suit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday….
U.S. Turns Screws on Bailed-Out GMAC – Wall Street Journal
Thanks to a series of cheeky television ads that mocked its rivals — and some of the highest interest rates on deposits in the nation — Ally Bank was swimming in new money this spring.
The upsurge couldn’t have come at a better time for its ailing parent company, GMAC Financial Services, which had just been bailed out by the federal government.
But federal bank regulators put an end to the comeback party. Viewing the high-rate strategy as a perilous one, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. tightened its leash. It ordered Ally to lower its bank-deposit rates and to restrict its lending to low-end car buyers…..
3-mth dollar Libor hits record low, euro rate eases – Reuters
The interbank cost of borrowing dollars for three months marked a fresh record low on Monday but the equivalent rate for sterling funds inched up, the latest daily fixing from the British Bankers’ Association showed…..
IPhone Gets Lukewarm Reception in China – Wall Street Journal
Apple Inc.’s iPhone got a lukewarm welcome in its official Chinese debut, with a boisterous crowd turning out for a launch party in the capital but no sign of the sort of sellout reception that greeted the smart phone at its introduction in other countries.
Hundreds of people braved cold and rain to attend a Friday night party thrown by China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., the state-owned carrier selling the iPhone, at a Beijing shopping center. Still, the crowd seemed subdued compared with the thousands who turned up at stores when the iPhone was introduced in markets such as the U.S. and Japan, where it quickly sold out in many locations. As of Sunday night, stores around Beijing still had the iPhone in stock……
‘This Is It’ on its way to $200 million-plus, thanks mainly to foreigners – LA Times
Michael Jackson’s swan song “This Is It” made up for a so-so start domestically by doing more than twice as much business overseas.
The movie sold $32.5 million over its first five days in the U.S. and Canada and $68.5 million in 97 other countries. It stands with “Angels and Demons” and “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” as one of a handful of films that more than doubled its domestic opening in foreign countries.
Japan, where Jackson is particularly huge, was the highest-grossing territory….
Terminator franchise to be auctioned off – Financial Times
The rights to the Terminator film franchise will be auctioned this month in a deal that will test Hollywood intellectual property valuations at a time when film industry profits are under pressure from falling DVD sales.
The sale, which comes weeks after the rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were sold for $60m – and is likely to exceed that – has sparked considerable interest because Terminator is a rare example of a blockbuster film franchise not controlled by a big studio……
