Oil trader Hall’s fund makes a loss February 9, 2012 Andrew Hall, the legendary trader who rode oil’s rise and fall to a super-charged profit record for more than a decade, is human after all. Roiled like so many of his rivals by last year’s unprecedented market volatility and distortions, Hall, 61, suffered a 3.8 per cent loss at his $5bn Astenbeck hedge fund in [...]
Lehman sues Citi for $2.5bn February 9, 2012 Lehman Brothers Holdings has sued Citigroup to recover $2.5bn transferred in the months leading up to Lehman’s historic collapse, saying Citigroup is wrongfully keeping the money at the expense of other creditors. In a complaint filed in the US courts, Lehman said Citi demanded the money as economic conditions worsened in 2008, to protect itself [...]
ECB is divided on taking low quality assets February 9, 2012 NOT ALL European Central Bank (ECB) governing council members agreed to fund banks in exchange for lower quality collateral, Bank boss Mario Draghi revealed yesterday. Europe’s banks flocked to take liquidity from the ECB in December, taking three-year loans after offering assets as security. At its next long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) at the end of [...]
WHAT IS THE ECB DOING? February 9, 2012 Q.What is the LTRO? A.The ECB is offering long-term cash to Eurozone banks, letting them borrow money at one per cent for three years – a long-term refinancing operation, or LTRO. The idea is to flood banks with cash so that they do not have to restrict lending because of liquidity worries. Q.What will that [...]
Banks to rejig risk calculations to raise capital February 9, 2012 EUROPEAN banks are relying on rejigging the way they calculate the riskiness of their balance sheets to “raise” nearly a quarter of the capital demanded of them by the European Banking Authority (EBA), the regulator revealed yesterday. In its preliminary assessment of lenders’ capital-raising plans, which they must execute by June, the EBA has revealed [...]
KKR dividend hits high but earnings drop February 9, 2012 US private equity giant KKR posted a slump in a key profitability measure last night but told investors it would pay a record cash dividend. Fourth quarter economic net income dropped 60 per cent year-on-year to $285.5m, underlining the challenges facing buyout groups when they go public. Scott Nuttall, head of KKR’s global capital and [...]
Rothschild vulnerable to Bumi coup February 9, 2012 NAT Rothschild is highly vulnerable to a coup attempt by rival investors in his Indonesian coal mining venture Bumi, as they square up for a pitched battle over control of the company. Bumi’s Indonesian investors, the Bakrie Group and tycoon Samin Tan, have stepped up their bid to kick Rothschild and his supporters off the [...]
Revenue drop pushes Credit Suisse to loss February 9, 2012 CREDIT Suisse made its first quarterly loss since 2008 last year, the bank revealed in its results yesterday. The bank lost nearly SFr1bn (£690m) pre-tax and SFr637m in net losses after revenues plunged by over a third for the group. The investment bank was worst hit: it saw top-line income fall away by 64 per [...]
Picking bank winners is a loser’s game February 9, 2012 THE grim news for bankers just keeps coming. Revenues at Credit Suisse’s investment bank fell off a cliff last quarter: overall they were down by nearly two thirds on the end of 2010, but in fixed income the decline – 96 per cent – was particularly sharp. Chief executive Brady Dougan is scrambling to respond: the investment [...]
UBS in bonus clawback after investment profits disappear February 9, 2012 UBS has launched a major bonus clawback at its struggling investment bank as it continues a round of belt-tightening in the aftermath of an alleged rogue trade. It has told staff it will take back 50 per cent of share-based bonuses awarded last year to investment bankers whose rewards were more than SFr2m (£1.39m). UBS [...]
