Wall Street Takes a Hit
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…
Switzerland Takes a Knife to Banking Secrecy
When you set up that secret Swiss account of yours, you assumed that you could totally count on the bank to defend your privacy no matter what the cost, right? If it didn't, what else would Switzerland have to boast about, with the exception of solid skiing, pocket knives, and cough drops? It looks like the world's…
The Hot New Blacklist
If you missed out on the chance to brag to all your friends that you fell victim to a Ponzi scheme targeted to high net-worth individuals, you may still get to see your name appear on a list of really rich people who now find themselves in a world of trouble.
Wall Street: Monday Edition
• Employees at Goldman Sachs can expect the "biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year." [Guardian]
• Banks like Merrill Lynch, UBS and Citigroup are "hiking pay for their top investment bankers in an attempt to stop an exodus of talent." [FT]
• Bill Gross of Pimco…
Wall Street: Tuesday Morning
• About 10 of the 19 largest banks that have undergone "stress tests" will be notified by Washington that they need to raise more capital. [WSJ, BN]
• JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon isn't expecting to be one of the 10: He said he thinks "there are still too many banks in the United States," and will happily acquire…
Wall Street: Thursday Morning
• It looks like Chrysler will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today after last-minute negotiations with creditors failed to result in a deal. [BN]
• Good news: fewer Americans filed first-time applications for unemployment insurance last week. Bad news: personal spending is down. [BN, WSJ]
• UBS has…
Wall Street: Monday Morning
• John Thain is striking back at Bank of America in an effort "to restore his sullied reputation," and accusing BofA's CEO, Ken Lewis, of lying. [WSJ]
• Thanks to rising profits, employees at several banks are on track to earn as much money this year as they did before the financial crisis. [NYT]
• UBS's head of…
Wall Street: Tuesday Morning
• Government officials—the people who essentially run Citigroup these days—have had talks about replacing CEO Vikram Pandit. About time! [FT]
• UBS is considering selling all or part of its hedge funds business. [Reuters]
• The Treasury Department's plan to rescue banks by having the government link up with private…
Wall Street: Monday Morning
• Stocks are down in early trading today as investors brace for disappointing earnings as well as signs the recession is getting worse. [WSJ, BN]
• Bank of America reported first quarter profits totaled $4.2 billion and revenues almost doubled, not that any of that will do much to soothe angry investors, who are…
Wall Street: Wednesday Morning
• UBS is cutting another 7,500 jobs after posting a $1.8 billion quarterly loss and clients pulled more than $20 billion out of the firm. [BN, NYT]
• Andrew Cuomo strikes again: Carlyle Group is now under investigation by the attorney general and the SEC over whether it illegally paid third parties to secure $1.3…
Wall Street: Tuesday Morning
• Stocks dropped at the opening bell this morning following the Commerce Department's report that retail sales fell 1.1 percent last month. [WSJ]
• The SEC is looking into whether Bank of America broke the law by not telling shareholders about Merrill Lynch's plan to pay out billions in bonuses. [FT]
• President Obama…
Stocks Slip, Summers in the Spotlight
• Wall Street retreated this morning after a four-week rally amid concern about the banking sector and after IBM's attempt to buy Sun unraveled. [WSJ, CNN]
• The latest Washington official facing questions about potential conflicts of interest: Larry Summers, who collected $5.2 million in 2008 working one day a week…
Unemployment Up, CEO Salaries Down
• The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since 1983, after a total of 663,000 jobs were eliminated. [NYP, BN]
• At the G-20 summit in London. world leaders agreed to pump $1 trillion into the world economy to help bail out developing countries. [NYT]
• Bank of America chief Ken Lewis says it…
Grim Job Numbers, More Concern About Detroit
• 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…
Obama's GM Ultimatum, More Layoffs at UBS
• Washington is now playing hard ball: The Obama administration has forced out GM CEO Rick Wagoner and now says the company has 30 days to finalize its alliance with Fiat if it expects to get more bailout cash. [NYT, WSJ]
• UBS plans to lay off as many as 8,000 more employees worldwide. [Reuters]
• Working at Goldman…
AIG In the Crosshairs—Again
• Is AIG officially the most despised company in America? Following the disclosure over the weekend that execs planned to go ahead with $165 million in bonuses to top execs comes word that a good deal of the billions in bailout money it received went to banks like Goldman Sachs ($12.9 billion), Merrill Lynch ($6.8…
More Merrill Subpoenas, GE Under Pressure
• 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…
Merrill's Money Men
• Merrill Lynch's top 10 earners in 2008—a list that Andrew Cuomo will be interested to take a look at—is out. Each made more than $10 million in cash and stock in 2008 as the bank racked up losses of $27.6 billion. [WSJ]
• The private sector lost nearly 700,000 jobs in February. [CNN]
• A UBS exec will address the…
Citi Rescue Revealed, Markets Tank
• The Treasury Department announced a plan to save Citigroup from near-certain doom. The government will take a 36 percent stake in the company, three-quarters of the bank's shareholders will be wiped out, and the board will be overhauled. Vikram Pandit? He keeps his job. [WSJ, BN, NYT]
• New GDP figures indicate "the…
