Ramanisblog

Tag: Finance

  • Deutsche Bank to ‘globalise’ bonus pain

    Skewed logic.If they are taxed less or no tax in tax havens. will they spread the additional profit among the ‘world’?
    If they make more profit in US and, say loss in India, will they issue bonus to Indian staff for it is ‘global sharing’?
    Bonus means exgratia and not a matter of Right.If, as has been made out you are rewarding talent by bonus,are you saying you have been paying less all along?
    Either declare bonus based on global performance among all or stick to National profitability.
    Deutsche Bank Bank will spread the pain of Britain’s controversial supertax on bankers’ bonuses among its staff around the world, becoming the first leading international group to spell out how it will deal with the financial hit.

    “We will clearly globalise it,” Josef Ackermann, Deutsche’s chief executive, told the Financial Times, in remarks that risk angering staff outside London. “If parts [of the cost of the tax] are paid out of the bonus pool, we would seek to globalise it. It would be unfair to treat the UK bankers differently.”

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1c0163c2-eb55-11de-bc99-00144feab49a.html

  • Government Reconsiders Quick Sale of Citigroup Stake

    You have quite a few creditors and you have very little money.You want to pay your biggest creditor to escape his grip on you.You decide to pay him and announce it publicly.What will happen?
    Other creditors will be peeved and spread the word around.When you look for new creditors(investors), they are not to be found.
    This what us individuals who have credit will think.Not giant finance companies.
    Strange is the observation that Govt. should have started selling its stakes,it is akin to asking your creditor to pass on your credit to him to somebody else .
    Juxtapose this with cooking books in US and Abu Dhabi.
    Just when Vikram S. Pandit thought he was out, Washington is pulling him back in.

    Two days after Mr. Pandit trumpeted news that Citigroup would start untangling itself from the federal government, his bank stumbled — this time, on Wall Street. Badly misreading the financial markets, the company struggled on Wednesday to raise the money it needed to repay its bailout funds.

    While Citigroup managed to raise $20.5 billion in the stock market and will forge ahead with the repayment, the sale went so poorly that anxious Treasury officials reversed course and delayed their plans to start unwinding the government’s stake in the company immediately, according to a person briefed on the matter.

    The turnabout represents a significant setback for Mr. Pandit and his efforts to free Citigroup from government control. It also underscores the lingering worries over Citigroup’s financial health, as well as concerns that federal officials may have let Citigroup exit the bailout program too quickly.

    “There are questions about why the deal didn’t get done the way it was planned,” said Michael Mayo, a banking industry analyst with Calyon Securities. “I am not sure who has the answers.”

    The finger-pointing has already begun. Citigroup officials complained Wednesday that the Treasury should have begun selling its stake in the company months ago, to encourage private investors to buy the new stock. After Citigroup pressed them to sell a small stake alongside its enormous offer, Treasury officials said they warned the bank that there might not be enough investor appetite for a deal.

    Federal officials, meanwhile, argued among themselves over whether Citigroup and another big bank, Wells Fargo, should have been allowed to repay the government and sell new stock at the same time. Wells Fargo, which like Citigroup announced that it would repay the government on Monday, outflanked Citigroup and sold more than $12.25 billion of its stock on Tuesday.

    After the close of trading in New York, Citigroup priced its new shares at $3.15 each, below the $3.25 price at which the government assumed its one-third stake in the company. Before the sale, the share price of Citigroup fell 11 cents to $3.45, as investors braced for the new stock.

    Rather than suffer a loss for taxpayers, the Treasury Department will now hold on to the $5 billion stake it planned to sell alongside Citigroup’s own $17 billion stock offering. After an initial 90-day delay, the government will try to sell its entire stake — about 7.7 billion shares — over the six to 12 months.

    The trouble began on Tuesday, when Citigroup bankers started taking orders from investors for the new shares. Word began to seep out in the markets that the bank was having a hard time finding investors willing to buy the stock at the price at which Citigroup hoped to sell it.

    By Tuesday evening, Treasury officials got word that the stock might be priced below $3.25 a share. By Wednesday morning, they concluded that the government would forgo selling its shares immediately.

    Citigroup executives had hoped that repaying the federal aid that the company had received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program would help Citigroup shed its stigma as the last Wall Street giant still tethered to Washington.

    While Citigroup is continuing with plans for repayment, it now seems certain the government will maintain its entire stake in the bank for many months. That might make the shares less attractive to investors.

    The development came on the same day that the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority filed a multibillion-dollar arbitration claim on Wednesday accusing the bank of “fraudulent misrepresentation” after its $7.5 billion investment in Citigroup went south. A Citigroup spokesman said the claims were “entirely without merit” and the bank planned to vigorously defend itself against them.

    Questions also swirled about a waiver that allowed Citigroup to preserve a $38 billion tax deduction — a move that administration officials say was appropriate given that the intent of the tax rule. Still, they spent the day trying to stamp out potential outcry.

    Analysts raised fresh doubts about Citigroup’s ability to nurse itself back to financial health. The bank faces a $10.1 billion accounting charge next quarter tied to the repayment plans, its eighth consecutive quarter without a significant profit. Even after winning some six months of relief, Citigroup’s finances will be strained as it brings billions of dollars of off-balance securities back onto its books.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/business/global/17citi.html?_r=1&hp

  • Rajaratnam Makes 2nd Request for Smaller Bail

    Audacity on the part of the accused to ask for reduced bail amount.A manipulator and a scamster should be treated severely by first refusing bail.Financial frauds should be treated as criminal offence as many families have been ruined and in India because of Financial scams many have committed suicide.
    Update | 7:43 p.m. Lawyers for Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire hedge fund manager accused of insider trading, are again seeking to reduce his bail, citing errors in the government’s case against their client and his firm, the Galleon Group.

    Mr. Rajaratnam’s lawyers requested the court reduce his current $100 million bail arrangement to $20 million in cash and other assets, according to a letter sent on Monday to the federal magistrate judge, Douglas F. Eaton. The lawyers reassured the court that Mr. Rajaratnam has complied with all conditions of his bail and continues to cooperate with requests from investigators.

    The defense lawyers also accuse the government of numerous misrepresentations in its case against Mr. Rajaratnam, including suggestions that prosecutors lied about the involvement of a key cooperating witness in the case. The lawyers also contend the government violated certain statutes by not turning over the wiretap applications prior to using intercepted phone calls to argue for Mr. Rajaratnam’s detention.

    In its complaint, the prosecutors said Roomy Khan, the key cooperating witness in the case, had been working with investigators since November 2007 in the hopes of receiving a reduced sentence for an expected guilty plea. But Mr. Rajaratnam’s lawyers argued on Monday that Ms. Khan actually cooperated with a government investigation of the hedge fund manager nearly a decade ago and then violated the terms of her prior cooperation by engaging in additional criminal conduct. They cited a recently unsealed case in California, in which Ms. Khan pleaded guilty to wire fraud.

    This is the second time that Mr. Rajaratnam has asked the court to reduce his bail. His lawyers argued that the current bail terms carry the stigma of being the “highest such bail in recent memory, far exceeding the terms of release for Bernard Madoff after Mr. Madoff’s admission of guilt.”

    Last month, another federal magistrate judge lifted restrictions on Mr. Rajaratnam’s ability to travel within the United States, but decided not to reduce his bail at that time.

    Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly reported that the government has acknowledged it violated a statute by not turning over the wiretap applications. Prosecutors have not made any such admission.

    – Zachery Kouwe
    http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/rajaratnam-makes-second-request-for-bail-reduction/#comment-344327

  • Obama presses ‘fat-cat bankers’ to lend, but has no real leverage

    It would have been better if he had also advised them to lend based on performance and repayment capacity of the loan seekers to avoid another bail out.
    President Obama summoned the nation’s top financial executives to the White House today for a little jaw-boning on how they can help rebuild the economy.

    The day before, in an interview on “60 Minutes,” Mr. Obama called them “fat-cat bankers.” On Monday, they were at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – or most of the 12 were, as three were fogged in in New York and had to participate via conference call.

    Obama’s point: We bailed you out, now you do your job. Specifically, he wants these financial institutions to boost lending to small businesses, a key engine of economic recovery.

    Obama put it this way after the session: “My main message in today’s meeting was very simple: that America’s banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry – and now that they’re back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy.”

    Earlier in the day, Citigroup announced that it would repay $20 billion in aid and leave the government’s financial protection program.

    Obama says he called on the bankers to find “ways to help creditworthy small and medium-size businesses get the loans that they need to open their doors, grow their operations, and create new jobs.”

    But bankers, according to Obama, say they “face a shortage of creditworthy individuals and businesses.”

    So did the meeting advance the ball at all on the nation’s credit issues? Obama called it a “candid and productive meeting,” but he did not come forth with any concrete deliverables. There were hints that the assembled men were telling the president what he wanted to hear – such as when they said they supported financial regulatory reform.

    But, as Obama went on to note, “there’s a gap between “what I’m hearing here in the White House and the activities of lobbyists on behalf of these institutions or associations of which they’re a member up on Capitol Hill.”

    Obama added that he “urged them to close that gap, and they assured me that they would make every effort to do so.”

    Ultimately, the session may have been in a vein similar to the jobs summit held at the White House Dec. 3, a high-profile effort to show the public the administration is doing something about high unemployment and the challenges homeowners face in refinancing their homes.

    Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, argues that the banks – actually, the regional banks, which sell their loans to the big banks – will start lending again anyway, and the situation will sort itself out.

    “They’re going to return to lending anyway, and the president is going to declare victory,” says Mr. Morici. “Today was a show.”

    At least the bankers traveled (or tried to travel) on commercial airlines, not private jets, the New York Daily News pointed out.

    Last year, the CEOs of the big three US automakers flew to Washington in private jets to ask for taxpayer money. That didn’t play well with Congress or the public.
    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/1214/Obama-presses-fat-cat-bankers-to-lend-but-has-no-real-leverage
    —

  • Dubai World-Fiasco,Banks in a bind.

    In Sanskrit, there is a saying “Mounam Sarvaartha Sadhagam”,general meaning being Silence is conducive for achievement in Life;special meaning is Silence is conducive to worldly wealth.
    In Dubai , the ruling class maintained a discreet silence when people invested in Dubai World, thinking it has Royal Patronage(they are right for in Sheikdoms nothing will move with out the Sheikh’s participation) and came out the govt. has nothing to do with Dubai World when the bubble burst.
    RBS had earlier been bailed out secretly by the UK govt.How these banks are going to come out of this mess is an open question.
    Ultimately, the small investors are going to be hit as usual.
    Story:
    The UK banks are understood to have much of their lending focused on the still-performing parts of Dubai World, however, including DP World and Jebel Ali Free Zone. According to people close to the situation, that reduces the exposure to the $26bn of Dubai World debt that is being restructured to about $700m for RBS, and $350m for StanChart, for example – far smaller tallies than many had feared. The banks all declined to comment.
    ………..
    Other top 15 creditors include international banks such as BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Calyon.

    The $26bn of debt that is being restructured comprises $5.5bn of syndicated debt and close to $6bn of sukuk bond debt, with all of the latter issued by Nakheel. The balance is made up of bilateral lending deals between Dubai World companies and individual lenders, on which no data is published.

    The bookrunners for the $5.5bn syndicated issue, arranged in June 2008, were HSBC, ING, Lloyds, Mashreq Bank, RBS, Sumitomo Mitsui, Calyon and Tokyo Mistubishi, according to Bloomberg data. Typically, bookrunners retain 10-20 per cent of loans, syndicating the rest to third party lenders.

    Anger has been mounting in recent days, particularly among bond investors, who complain that they were duped by assurances given this year from Dubai’s rulers as to the emirate’s creditworthiness.

    After an announcement by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum on September 8 that he was “not worried” about Dubai’s debt position, international investors piled into Nakheel bonds.

    Analysts said at the time that the announcement was a significant fillip to confidence in Dubai and its state-backed enterprises. “This is the first time that we are hearing from the ruler on Dubai’s debt issue. This has boosted market confidence dramatically,” said Nish Popat, the head of fixed income at ING in Dubai in a note to clients on September 9.

    Although local authorities insist they were referring to the state’s sovereign obligations, investors say the emirate had long cultivated the notion of a quasi-sovereign “Dubai Inc” family that was central to the state’s development and would be supported in the event of difficulties.

    “Nakheel is one of the most leveraged companies I’ve seen in my entire career,” said one hedge fund manager. “People bought it because they’d assumed there was some kind of state guarantee, which there wasn’t.”
    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/57c9c17a-df6f-11de-98ca-00144feab49a.html