Galleon founder indicted December 15, 2009 A US grand jury yesterday indicted Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam and co-defendant Danielle Chiesi for their alleged involvement in a $20m (£12.2m) insider trading ring. The indictment – a formal accusation that moves the case to trial – charges them with conspiracy and securities fraud. Both billionaire Rajaratnam, 52, and Chiesi, who is [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING December 15, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES MYNERS TO BOOST PROTECTION OF BANK CLIENTS PLANS to increase protection for clients and counterparties of failing investment banks will be unveiled by the Treasury today in an effort to prevent a repeat of the legal wrangling around the collapsed Lehman Brothers. The move is aimed at ensuring an orderly wind-down of investment [...]
NEWS | IN BRIEF December 15, 2009 XTO Energy boss in $46m deal XTO Energy Inc Chairman Bob Simpson and other officers have waived the change in control provisions in their employment agreements as part of their deal to be bought by Exxon Mobil and have instead signed consulting deals with the oil major. Under the new agreement, Simpson could receive up [...]
City firms in fresh attacks on bonus tax December 15, 2009 STEPHEN Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, warned yesterday that the politicisation of bankers’ bonuses could wipe billions of pounds off the taxpayer’s stake in RBS. Treasury plans to levy a one-off 50 per cent tax on bank bonuses have added to woes at the Scottish institution, whose directors were already at loggerheads [...]
Nomura to acquire Tricorn Partners December 15, 2009 TRICORN Partners, the corporate finance advisory firm, is set to be taken over by Japanese investment bank Nomura. Guy Dawson and Justin Dowley, who have been running Tricorn for seven years since leaving Merrill Lynch, will join Nomura as vice-chairmen of Europe, Middle East and Africa investment banking. This marks a reversal of the trend [...]
GREEK DRAMA December 15, 2009 Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou held rare crisis talks with opposition leaders yesterday, a day after he announced a raft of spending cuts. Trade unions have called for a 24-hour nationwide strike for tomorrow in a move that is set to undermine efforts to push through reforms.
NEWS | IN BRIEF December 15, 2009 GM will pay back its debt faster General Motors (GM), the US car giant, is planning to pay back roughly $8bn (£5.8bn) in debt to the United States and Canada by June, after the government bailed out the company ealier this year. The move indicates a faster payback of the first portion of its bailout [...]
Goldman to fight bonus fury in court December 15, 2009 INVESTMENT bank Goldman Sachs is being sued for billions of dollars in compensation after an institutional shareholder accused it of blindly “looting” the firm’s coffers by paying out rich rewards to its employees. The lawsuit, which has been filed with the New York Supreme Court by the Security Police and Fire Professionals of America Retirement [...]
Wells Fargo sells $10.65bn in stock to repay Tarp bailout December 15, 2009 US bank Wells Fargo sold $10.65bn in stock yesterday to raise funds to help it repay the $25bn (£15bn) bailout it received from the US government last year. The move, which follows a similar measure from Citigroup, makes Wells Fargo the last of the major financial institutions to repay funding from the Troubled Asset Relief [...]
Investors back RBS on bad debts scheme December 15, 2009 SMALL sharesholders in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) voted overwhelmingly in favour of the bank joining a government-backed insurance scheme for bad debts yesterday. Some 99 per cent of minority investors in RBS, now 84 per cent state-owned, supported the decision to join the asset-protection scheme at a meeting at the company’s Edinburgh headquarters. The [...]