HSBC Profit Rises as It Cuts Costs (WSJ)
Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said the bank has cut 46,000 jobs since 2011, far more than he envisioned when he presented a three-year strategy that year. Then he said he’d shave around 10% from a 300,000-strong workforce. Mr. Gulliver said the bank has had to react to tough economic conditions in many markets, although he said he now sees the banking industry moving “into calmer waters” as the euro-zone crisis appears to have settled down. … The bank, Europe’s largest by assets, reported a sharp rise in first-quarter net profit, to $6.35 billion from $2.58 billion. After stripping out the fluctuating value of HSBC’s own debt and sold businesses, underlying pretax profit rose 34% to $7.59 billion from $5.65 billion in the first three months of 2012. Underlying revenue was up 5%, to $17.56 billion from $16.8 billion.

Societe Generale Announces New Cuts as Profit Falls 50% (DealBook)
The bank said first-quarter net income fell 50 percent, to 364 million euros ($476 million), from the period a year earlier. That was well below the 674.6 million euro profit expected by analysts surveyed by Reuters. Société Générale, the second-largest French lender, said it planned 900 million euros of cost reductions through 2015, adding to the 550 million euros of cuts last year. Severin Cabannes, the bank’s deputy chief executive, told CNBC television that the bank was in talks with its unions about eliminating 600 to 700 jobs at its headquarters, but added that there would be “no forced layoffs.”

German finance minister softens stance on EU banking union (Reuters)
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble signaled a softening of his stance on a European banking union on Tuesday, saying the euro zone should press ahead on the basis of current law without waiting for a controversial overhaul of the EU’s Lisbon treaty. … Just last month, Schaeuble appeared to slam on the brakes by saying the European Union needed to consider treaty change before proceeding, due to the “doubtful legal basis” on which the project rested. Those comments sparked a backlash from EU officials and German partners like France.

Portugal’s Notes Rise as Nation Sells 10-Year Debt; Bunds Slide (Bloomberg)
“Portugal’s sale is important because it marks another step in the exit from the crisis,” said Luca Cazzulani, a senior rates strategist at UniCredit SpA (UCG) in Milan. “In the current market environment, there will probably be demand. Investors are rushing into anything that grants you a good yield and when you look at the Portuguese curve the 10-year is around 5.5 percent and so I think the sale will find demand.”

Soros Rumor Underpins Turning Tide Against Aussie (CNBC)
Rumors that George Soros was planning to short the Australia dollar has taken the wind out of the robust currency, fueling expectations that the tide is turning for the Aussie dollar. The Aussie fell 0.6 percent against the U.S. dollar late Monday on a report in the Sydney Morning Herald that bets against the currency totaling $1 billion were placed via Hong Kong and Singapore, believed to be by Soros Fund Management.

Christie reveals secret stomach surgery to lose weight (NYP)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie secretly underwent lap-band stomach surgery to aggressively slim down for the sake of his wife and kids, he revealed to The Post last night. … “A week or two ago, I went to a steakhouse and ordered a steak and ate about a third of it and I was full,” he said of his newly tamed appetite. He declined to say how much he lost, but sources said he has already shed nearly 40 pounds. … Sources said Christie didn’t make the decision lightly — he even had private conversations about the operation with once-rotund Jet coach Rex Ryan.
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Berkshire Hathaway’s 2013 Shareholder Meeting (DealBook)
Ms. Loomis of Fortune asks a question on behalf of a shareholder in the audience: How would you explain Berkshire and its value premise to the investor’s 13-year-old daughter? Mr. Munger takes first crack as Mr. Buffett helps himself to some See’s Candy fudge: “We like to stay sane while others go crazy. That’s a competitive advantage.”

JPMorgan Investors Urged to Split Chairman Role, Oust Directors (Bloomberg)
Stockholders should vote in favor of a proposal to split the roles of chairman and chief executive officer, both currently held by Jamie Dimon, at New York-based JPMorgan’s annual meeting May 21, Institutional Shareholder Services said in a report. ISS, which advises investors on proxy voting and corporate governance, cited “failures of stewardship” in opposing the re-election of three risk-committee directors. … ISS recommended that shareholders oppose the re-election of Risk Policy Committee members David Cote, Ellen Futter and panel Chairman James Crown. Former KPMG International Chairman Timothy Flynn, who was appointed to the committee after the loss disclosure last year, should be re-elected, ISS said. “The CIO losses revealed multiple points of failure in the risk oversight process, and certain members of the RPC lack relevant industry expertise,” ISS wrote.

As Companies Step Up Buybacks, Executives Benefit, Too (WSJ)
As corporations step up stock repurchases to return cash to shareholders, compensation targets tied to per-share earnings—a common factor in executive-pay calculations—are helping to increase many executives’ pay. The link worries some investors and compensation advisers because they fear the figure is too easily manipulated. The debate is a tricky one, though, because buybacks are generally seen as a plus for shareholders and thus something to be encouraged.

In Commerce Pick’s ’08 Answers on Finances, Possible Hints at Road Ahead (NYT)
Republican senators are likely to be interested in the Pritzker family’s reputation as innovators in the use of offshore trusts and foreign bank secrecy laws to shelter their wealth from income, capital gains and inheritance taxes. Even after tax code loopholes were closed, the family’s trusts were grandfathered in and it kept benefiting from them. Indeed, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has called for scrutiny of her family’s trusts, saying she was “associated with the kind of tax avoidance activity that the president dismisses as fat cat shenanigans for others. It’s hypocritical to overlook tax avoidance when it’s convenient.”

Warren Buffett: Stocks Will Go ‘Far Higher’ Over Time (CNBC)
Even as stock indexes hit all-time highs, Warren Buffett predicts they’ll go “far higher” in the long run. … Acknowledging that milestones like Dow 15,000 can draw attention to stocks, Buffett said people should pay more attention when indexes cross those milestones on the way down because that’s when stocks are “cheaper” and more attractive to buy. There could be a pullback for stocks at any time, Buffett said, advising against attempts to time the market. “People pay way too much attention to the short term.”

Harvard’s Niall Ferguson Apologizes for ‘Stupid’ Keynes Remarks (CNBC)
Asked about Keynes’ observation that “in the long run we are all dead,” Ferguson said that Keynes had been indifferent to the long run because he had no children, and that he had no children because he was gay. … On Saturday, Niall Ferguson posted an apology on Twitter: “I apologize deeply and unreservedly for stupid and tactless remarks about Keynesthat I made. I should not have suggested—in an off-the-cuff response that was not part of my presentation—that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay. This was doubly stupid,” Ferguson wrote on his blog. “First, it is obvious that people who do not have children also care about future generations,” he wrote. “Second, I had forgotten that Keynes’s wife Lydia miscarried.”
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