Public employees have public money in their pension funds to save for retirement. Those pension funds invest that public money in private equity firms. Those private equity firms then refuse to say how much they're charging, and why. Hmmm.
America is making a comeback! That's according to David Petraeus, the disgraced former general who really needs a comeback. Also in need of an American comeback: the monster private equity firm that hired Petraeus to write about how America's making a comeback.
David Petraeus' road to redemption has reached its gilded destination. As we first reported in April, the disgraced former CIA director will join Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the private equity giant best known for "large debt-fueled corporate takeovers."
• Bank of America sold off a $7.3 billion stake in China Construction Bank as it seeks to raise cash. Good news: only $26.6 billion to go! [DB]
• Andrew Cuomo is expected to announce that Hank Morris has pleaded guilty in the pension fund probe and will be cooperating with the investigation. [WSJ]
• Citigroup has lent…
• The Treasury is expected to announce in the next few days that it will be extending bailout funds to a handful of life insurance companies. [WSJ]
• Brian Moynihan, who took over Merrill Lynch after John Thain was ousted, is emerging as a potential successor to Bank of America chief Ken Lewis. [WSJ]
• Not that Lewis…
• The private sector lost 742,000 jobs during the month of March, substantially more than analysts had been predicting. [WSJ, CNN]
• President Obama has indicated that he believes a "quick, negotiated bankruptcy" will be the most likely path for General Motors. [BN]
• The not-so-optimistic employment figures and…
• Andrew Cuomo reports that 15 of the top 20 recipients of the $165 million in AIG bonuses have agreed to give back the cash. As for the other five, Cuomo is still "thinking about" releasing their names. Hint, hint. [NYT]
• Tim Geithner will call for the Treasury to be granted the power to seize troubled financial…
Last week, Henry Kravis's two publicly-traded investment vehicles reported losses of more than 90 percent "after writedowns on takeovers, mortgages and corporate loans." Now vehicles are plowing into his Park Avenue apartment building. Consider it yet another perfect metaphor for the times. [NYSD]
• Stocks appear positioned to rise this morning after tumbling to their worst levels in more than a decade during yesterday's trading session. [CNN, MW]
• More on what the government is trying to do with the billions it's been pumping into AIG. Meanwhile, the insurance giant's founder, Hank Greenberg, has filed suit…
♦ Treasury officials say as many as 1,800 institutions may apply for government investments in the next few weeks. [WSJ]
♦ GM hasn't been so lucky extracting cash: The Treasury has turned down a request by the automaker for $10 billion to help finance a merger with Chrysler. [NYT]
♦ Henry Kravis's KKR is delaying…
Heart congrats to Henry Kravis: The billionaire financier unveiled a new website for his private equity giant today. The site is still missing glossy headshots of Kravis himself (and, sadly, he has not yet followed Carl Icahn's lead and started a blog), although the site does now sport slick Chinese and Japanese…
Henry Kravis announced this week that his private equity powerhouse, KKR, plans to go public by the end of the year, a move that will probably end up making him substantially richer than he already is. (He was worth $5.5 billion in 2007, according to Forbes.) What does Henry do with his riches? He buys expensive…
