- Firms Face New Curbs on Pay
- Top bankers’ bonus rate to top 100%
- ‘What banker wants to be in the UK?’
- City tells Darling: your super-tax is pushing us out of Britain
- Darling Forces U.K. Banks to Swallow ‘Poison Pill’ of Bonus Tax
- Citi Is Eager to Pay Back Bailout Aid
- BofA Repays $45 Billion TARP Funds
- Cioffi’s Lawyer Says SEC ‘Not Likely’ to Settle Suit
- BofA’s Montag Spends $4.88 Million in TARP Offering
- Putnam Cuts 5% of Staff, Including Gerber, Law, Libby
- Lachlan Murdoch Said to Near Hollywood Reporter Deal
Firms Face New Curbs on Pay – Wall Street Journal
….In the U.S., the Treasury Department’s pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, is poised to enact tougher-than-expected rules for employees at companies that received large amounts of government assistance. The U.K. on Wednesday slapped banks with a 50% tax on portions of bonuses they pay to individuals, in perhaps the most aggressive move yet by a government.
Mr. Feinberg has already capped salaries of top employees under his review. Now, according to government and company officials, he’s going after the next tier and is expected to impose $500,000 salary caps on hundreds of employees at the companies….
Top bankers’ bonus rate to top 100% – Financial Times
The levy on bankers’ bonuses announced in the pre-Budget report will push the total tax bill on a bonus born by employer and employee to more than 100 per cent, according to the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
The 50 per cent levy on banks paying bonuses above £25,000 will apply until next April, after which any bonuses will come into the new 50p tax regime for those earning more than £150,000…..
‘What banker wants to be in the UK?’ – Financial Times
City bankers reacted with fury to plans to levy an immediate 50 per cent supertax on banks’ discretionary bonus pay-outs, saying the move would boost rival financial centres.
Alistair Darling, chancellor, said all banks had benefited from government support in the financial crisis and should be rebuilding their capital rather than paying out generous bonuses to staff. “I’m giving them a choice. They can use their profits to build up their capital base, but if they insist on paying substantial rewards, I’m determined to claw money back for the taxpayer,” he said…..
City tells Darling: your super-tax is pushing us out of Britain – Guardian UK
A “politically motivated” super-tax on bankers’ bonuses will drive star City players overseas, Alistair Darling was warned today after he pledged to “claw back” money from banks in return for £850bn of taxpayer support for the banking sector.
One lawyer said the one-off 50% tax on bonuses of more than £25,000 that will be paid by banks, rather than bankers, could become a job creation plan for Frankfurt, Paris and Zurich, to the detriment of the City of London…..
Darling Forces U.K. Banks to Swallow ‘Poison Pill’ of Bonus Tax – Bloomberg
British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling’s plan to levy a 50 percent tax on bonuses will make banks choose between punishing shareholders or employees.
Darling yesterday imposed the tax, to be paid by all banks operating in the U.K., on bonuses they pay employees until April 5. The measure, which the Treasury says will raise more than 550 million pounds ($890 million), will affect about 20,000 people…..
Citi Is Eager to Pay Back Bailout Aid – NY Times
A year after accepting two taxpayer bailouts, Citigroup is racing to raise billions of dollars in the stock market to repay the aid, a crucial step in freeing itself from Washington’s grip…..
Even if Citigroup were to pay back all or part of its bailout funds — a move some analysts warn might be premature — the giant financial services company would still be beholden to the government because of other federal support it is receiving…
BofA Repays $45 Billion TARP Funds – Wall Street Journal
Bank of America Corp. sent the Treasury Department $45 billion to repay the government’s cash infusion last year under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
The repayment came after the banking giant completed a securities offering that raised gross proceeds of about $19.29 billion. That money and other corporate funds were used to repurchase all the preferred stock issued to the Treasury. Bank of America also paid the government $190 million in accrued dividends…..
Cioffi’s Lawyer Says SEC ‘Not Likely’ to Settle Suit – Bloomberg
A lawyer for Bear Stearns Cos. hedge fund manager Ralph Cioffi said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wasn’t likely to drop or settle its suit after Cioffi and co-defendant Matthew Tannin were acquitted last month.
At a hearing today in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, Edward Little, a lawyer for Cioffi, told a federal magistrate presiding over the civil suit that he’d met with the SEC yesterday to ask the commission to drop it in light of the jury’s verdict…..
BofA’s Montag Spends $4.88 Million in TARP Offering – Bloomberg
Bank of America Corp. investment banking head Tom Montag bought $4.88 million of securities that the bank sold to help repay U.S. aid, a regulatory filing shows.
Montag, 52, bought 325,000 “common equivalent securities” at $15 apiece on Dec. 4, according to the filing. He controls 179,383 common shares in Bank of America. After 22 years at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Montag joined Merrill Lynch & Co. a month before Bank of America agreed to buy the New York-based securities firm in September 2008. He’s now president of global banking and markets…..
Putnam Cuts 5% of Staff, Including Gerber, Law, Libby – Bloomberg
Putnam Investments LLC will dismiss three fund managers as part of a broader move to cut 104 jobs, or about 5 percent of its staff, at the end of the year.
The managers are David Gerber, a 13-year company veteran who oversaw the $4.73 million Global Industrials Fund; Coo Way Law, hired last year as co-manager of the $3.89 million Global Telecommunications Fund; and Brad Libby, member of a five-person team handling municipal bonds who was with the Boston-based firm since 2001, spokesman Jon Goldstein said today in an interview…..
Lachlan Murdoch Said to Near Hollywood Reporter Deal – Bloomberg
Lachlan Murdoch’s Illyria Pty Ltd. is poised to announce the purchase of most of Nielsen Business Media, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, by as early as today, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Murdoch, 38, is joining with New York-based Pluribus Capital Management in bidding for assets of the unit of Nielsen Co. that also publishes Billboard magazine, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions are private….
Tags: Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Bonuses, Citigroup, Compensation, Hedge funds, Pay czar, Revolving Door, TARP, Taxes
