- Goldman Sachs Says Greek Swaps Not ‘Inappropriate’
- Wall Street Bonuses Rise 17%
- TCW Investors to Pull $1.3 Billion From Credit Funds
- UBS hires fifth former Merrill executive
Goldman Sachs Says Greek Swaps Not ‘Inappropriate’ - Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. did “nothing inappropriate” when it arranged currency swaps for Greece that reduced the nation’s national debt by 2.37 billion euros ($3.2 billion), a top executive said.“They did produce a rather small, but nevertheless not insignificant reduction, in Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio,” Gerald Corrigan, chairman of Goldman Sachs’s regulated bank subsidiary, told a panel of U.K. lawmakers today. The swaps were “in conformity with existing rules and procedures.”….“There was nothing inappropriate,” Corrigan told Parliament’s Treasury Committee. “With the benefit of hindsight, it seems to be very clear that the standards of transparency could have, and probably should have been, higher.”….
Wall Street Bonuses Rise 17% – Wall Street Journal
Wall Street bonuses were up 17% to over $20 billion in 2009, the year taxpayers bailed out the financial sector after its meltdown, New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Tuesday.Total compensation at the largest securities firms grew beyond that figure while profits could surpass what he calls an unprecedented $55 billion for 2009, Mr. DiNapoli said. That’s nearly three times Wall Street’s record increase, a rate of growth that is boosted in part by the record losses in 2008 of nearly $43 billion, the Democrat said.“Wall Street is vital to New York’s economy, and the dollars generated by the industry help the state’s bottom line,” said Mr. DiNapoli. “But for most Americans, these huge bonuses are a bitter pill and hard to comprehend. … Taxpayers bailed them out, and now they’re back making money while many New York families are still struggling to make ends meet.”….
TCW Group Inc. said investors with $1.3 billion in assets will liquidate their holdings in two distressed-mortgage funds after the ouster of Jeffrey Gundlach as chief investment officer.Investors with $1.7 billion in assets are staying in Special Mortgage Credits Funds I and II, which previously had $3 billion in assets, Erin Freeman, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles-based TCW, said today in an interview. That represents 199 of 330 investors in the funds, she said. Clients had the choice to stay or liquidate their stakes by the Feb. 19 deadline after the firing of Gundlach on Dec. 4 triggered a so-called key-man provision…..
UBS hires fifth former Merrill executive - Financial Times
Rosemary Berkery, former general counsel at Merrill Lynch, has agreed to join UBS Wealth Management Americas as vice chairman next month, becoming the latest executive to migrate from Merrill to the company formerly known as Paine Webber.Ms Berkery, who spent 19 of her 25 years at Merrill in its legal department, also worked in executive positions at the company, heading the marketing and solutions group within Merrill’s private client business as well as Merrill’s research unit. She left when Merrill was acquired by Bank of America in January 2009…..
Tags: Bonuses, CDS, Compensation, Goldman lSachs, Greece, Hedge funds, Merrill Lynch, Revolving Door, TCW, UBS
