Citi Wants More, So Sayeth Parsons (BBC)
The $306B guarantee of assets last year wasn’t enough so far as Mr. Parsons is concerned: he wants the assets off of his sheets for good. The conversation came about when Parsons started making comments to the affect of lending and why they aren’t doing more of it, and somehow ended with this: “It’s not a situation of, you do this for me, and I’ll do that.” This, as I’m sure you’re aware, is effectively like saying “I maxed out my credit cards on Hookers, take those off my hands and I’ll donate to the charity pool”… “except I might not.”
AIG Remains Active In Dissolution (FT)
AIG has been making headlines lately with their active spin-off and sell strategy, valuing companies and finding perspective buyers more quickly than I had imagined was possible. Having not yet found leniency in the government structured payment requirements (as mentioned, they were looking for stock in the sell instead of cash only), they appear to have developed a sustainable model in rent-to-own – the question now becomes one of who can afford to absorb this stuff; $20B isn’t change these days.
“Prospective bidders include: China Life, the world’s largest life assurer; HSBC, the UK-based bank; Prudential, the UK insurance group; as well as Prudential Financial of the US.
ManuLife Financial, one of North America’s biggest insurance groups, and Allianz of Germany have also requested information.”
More Merrill Mayhem (DJNewswire)
One has to wonder if the exits were strategic negotiations on the part of BAC, or just angered employees heading for the hills. Either way, ML Asia is projecting a flight of confidence from its upper ranks, as evidenced:
“Ajay Sawhney, head of regional leveraged finance, has left Merrill in Singapore, one person told Dow Jones Newswires.
Jon Pratt, head of Asia Debt Capital Markets, left the firm in Hong Kong recently, while Rahul Malhotra, head of the bank’s Global Wealth Management Asia Advisory unit, has left the Singapore office, another person said.”
Sortable TARP Map (WSJ)
While we’ve seen these on lunatic fringe sites, this one is actually kind of fun. You’ll notice that there’s eight states that didn’t take TARP funds, so good for you: it turns out being boring DID actually pay off.
Math Could Have Proved Madoff Was A Thief (FT)
In a fleeting moment of genius, someone said let’s bring in a risk manager to see if thing would have tested out..it didn’t:
“A study to be published on Thursday by Riskdata, a risk management specialist, argues that Mr Madoff’s returns are called into question by the bias ratio – a mathematical technique that identifies abnormalities in the distribution of a series of investment returns.”
UBS To Cut More Jobs (Bloomberg)
Today, on the daily UBS update, we see that they’re looking at cutting Securities and more Debt people. When asked, Dirk Hoffmann-Becking responded:
“The end-game result I expect for UBS’s investment bank is a business entirely focused on equities, equity underwriting, merger advice and foreign exchange”
Bank of America Accused by Investor of Undisclosed Merrill Loss (Bloomberg)
Some BAC shareholders are miffed over not being told MER was a pile of garbage pre-merger.
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- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
7 states didn’t take TARP funds my friends, don’t forget little Alaska at the bottom! Hey, its early still…
Wow I should read more carefully / drink more (coffee)
UBS sucks
@ 3 – tell us your story ? in FICC and just got the can ?
How great would it be if AIG actually executed its plan over the next decade and paid the Fed back? If they end up a little short they could just pay them back with Slap Chops
Why does Citi remind me of a crack whore who doesn’t deliver the goods?
@ 3 UBS does suck. Bigtime. I’m a banker, been at a few places and like most of them, and UBS was utterly terrible. The people were mind blowingly bad.
MER getting destroyed as I type
Gotta suck to be a BoA Asia person now, knowing that your head’s on the chopping block even as the people who are supposed to synergize your job away get the f$ck out while the getting’s good.
“This must be Thursday… I never could get the hang of Thursdays”
If no more firms go bust and therefore AIG’s FP group can wind down all of those CDS contracts, AIG will likely end solvent.
The deal with Treasury is onerous – so AIG shares are probably trading close to FV now. But the taxpayer has a really good chance of coming out way ahead on this one.
That is, IF there are no more big bankruptcies and CDS payouts.
FT article is an absolute waste of words and letters, jesus, do they have an editor over there?
Why is Erin Burnett not as smoking as sh used to be? Did she gain weight in the face, change her hair, change her makeup, lose her tan, something? I can’t put my finger on it, but she’s lost that “hot intern” look
Michael Lewis claims the “assets” being discussed are in fact swaps, and are in fact worthless due to counterparty default.
Thunderzone at ML
Wideclops looks like Tina Turner
I asked the question yesterday, and would like to ask it again:
Geithner paid a combined $1300 in interest and penalties on a tax underpayment of $34,000.
He paid a combined 3.3%.
By statute, interest alone was to be more than 6%, and per year. By statute, penalties were to be more than 6%, and per year.
Has anyone seen an explanation of why Geithner got off so easy? I’d love to borrow money from the Treasury at 1% per year and then only if I get caught.
@16 not sure but Pelosi is going around telling everyone in Congress that he paid it back “with fines and everything”
Have friends in FI at UBS, who worked under Chris Ryan. I am so scared for them – taking the fall for the mortgage guys; they themselves did not put the crap on the balance sheet.
No comment on Barney Frank from the WSJ article? That guy – total scum.
@19: Yeah, it’s quite a bad day for the pillow-biters, what with Sam “Not the Beer” Adams and now Barney “Fife” Frank.
@15 – Thunderzone ??
the swiss to get ‘worst bonus’ on wallstreet’ for ’08