Cops managed to not pepper-spray a victim of our country's absurdly creditor-happy finance laws for once in their lives this weekend when they refused to evict a 103-year-old woman and her 83-year-old daughter. Progress!
It's a good thing many investment bankers are collecting record bonuses. Working on Wall Street just got a lot more expensive! Citigroup raised its cafeteria prices by five percent today, a move that follows UBS's decision last week to begin charging employees ten cents for cardboard lunch trays and Deutsche Bank's…
Wall Street is feeling flush, clearly. Yesterday afternoon, a "resurgent" Bank of America announced that it plans to repay the $45 billion in government aid it received during the darkest days of the financial crisis last fall. And while you might expect that Goldman Sachs to be on the defensive given all the…
AIG has been a big disaster the last few months, hasn't it? Not if you happen to work for Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, or BlackRock, or any of the other dozen or so banks and law firms expected to rake in as much as $1 billion breaking apart the insurance giant. But at least one firm involved in the process is…
• Bank of America chief Ken Lewis won't be in a good mood today, that's for sure. Regulators have informed the bank that it will have to come up with $34 billion in new capital if it expects to weather the downturn. [WSJ, NYT]
• For its part, Citigroup may have to come up with $5-$10 billion. [Reuters]
• Remember all…
• Not such good news for Bank of America and Citigroup this morning: It looks like both have come up short on the so-called stress tests conducted by regulators and may be forced to raise billions in additional capital. [WSJ]
• Will Ken Lewis hang on as Bank of America's CEO when shareholders meet this week at the…
Andrew Luan worked at Deutsche Bank until recently. When he didn't get paid a bonus, he quit his job, but he didn't plan on spending the next six months in the company of his Wii, waiting around for the job market to improve. Luan launched a "financial meltdown tour" this week, "guiding packs of mostly European…
• It's expected to be a rough week ahead for financial markets. [Reuters, WSJ]
• The world economy is on track to post its worst performance since the Great Depression, according to a report by the World Bank. [CNN]
• The financial crisis seems to be "getting ahead" of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, as if you…
• Andrew Cuomo has issued subpoenas to several of the Merrill Lynch employees who made it on to the highest-paid list for 2008. [WSJ, DB]
• Merrill is now suing Deutsche Bank for "raiding" several top bankers. [BN]
• More Merrill news: Two ex-CEOs say they were victims of Madoff. [Reuters]
• GE seems to be in some…
• More details about President Obama's plans to limit Wall Street pay are emerging. So is plenty of criticism. "I don't think the president should paint everyone with the same brush," says JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon. [BN, WSJ, BN]
• Wells Fargo has scrapped plans to host a employee conference in Las Vegas after the bank…
• President Obama is expected to push for tight restrictions on executive compensation in order to improve public perception of the bailout. [WSJ]
• A group of angry Bank of America shareholders will demand that Ken Lewis get the boot at the bank's upcoming annual meeting. [NYP]
• Lehman Brothers is still hiring…
• Citigroup announced yesterday that it would sell a majority stake in Smith Barney to Morgan Stanley, but more change is on the way: The bank is expected to dump two consumer finance units as well as its "private-label" credit card business, which means now your Save the Whales Mastercard is in jeopardy, too. [WSJ, …
♦ The effort by U.S. automakers to secure a bailout hit a major roadblock after execs from the Big Three were sent home by Congress empty-handed. The behind-the-scenes negotiations continue. [WSJ, Bloomberg]
♦ Shares of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America are at multi-year lows as the Dow hovers at a…
A couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump said the financial crisis would turn out to be totally fantastic (or "huuuge") for his real estate business, and he'd end up doubling his net worth when all was said and done. He was just deflecting the truth, of course: The interview came a couple of days after the Wall Street…
♦ AIG is already running out of the $123 billion in cash it was provided by the Federal Reserve, which means the authorities are slowly waking up to idea that something else might be going on. [NYT]
♦ The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3 percent annualized rate in the third quarter as consumer spending declined at the…
Dozens of perks both large and small have vanished at financial firms in recent months as the recession has deepened. Sadly, Deutsche Bank employees can no longer expect to be reimbursed for "adult entertainment." They're also barred from checking into hotels early. (Those who arrive for a morning meeting are…
For every blockbuster this summer with Paramount's name attached — from Iron Man to Indy 4 to Kung Fu Panda — there's been a looming crisis to greet it at the studio gate. The latest wake-up call comes from Deutsche Bank, from whom we're learning the 'Mount split recently after the the studio balked at the…
Samir Arora, the Valley's most talented flim-flam artist, has convinced investors to put in a fresh round of financing into Glam Media, his online-ad network. The deal could be announced as soon as tomorrow. The amount raised: Between $30 million and $100 million, we hear, valuing the company at as much as $400…
