Credit Suisse Profit Rises (WSJ)
Zurich-based Credit Suisse said its bottom line was flattered by a favorable comparison with last year’s result, when an accounting charge weighed on performance. Revenue at the bank rose 19% following several quarters of reported declines. The report from Switzerland’s second-largest bank comes amid a cost-cutting program started in 2011 that has it eliminating thousands of jobs. The program has resulted in 2.5 billion Swiss francs ($2.6 billion) in savings, and is on track to cut costs by 4.4 billion francs by the end of 2015, the bank said. Credit Suisse said its number of full-time employees fell to 46,900 in the first quarter, from 48,700 in the same period last year.

Barclays Profit Buoyed By Investment Banking Unit (WSJ)
Investment banking, headed by departing executive Rich Ricci, accounted for 74% of Barclays’ pretax profit, or £1.32 billion of the £1.79 billion total. The high proportion of profits in part reflected weakness in other areas, such as retail banking in Europe and Africa, but was underpinned by a strong quarter for underwriting stock offerings and servicing hedge fund clients…The bank as a whole posted a £839 million net profit, compared with a £598 million net loss in the first quarter of 2012. Both figures are distorted by accounting charges that reflect the market cost of Barclays’ own debt. The £1.79 billion pretax profit was down 25% from £2.4 billion in first-quarter 2012 and slightly lower than analysts had expected.

Citigroup Says Debt Beats Peers in Advance of ‘Bail-In’ Rule (Bloomberg)
Citigroup, the bank that took the most U.S. aid during the credit crisis, said it’s better- prepared than some rivals to withstand the impact of new anti- bailout rules that could force lenders to sell more debt. Citigroup’s so-called bail-in plan — a rescue that makes debt investors and stockholders absorb losses instead of taxpayers — shows the bank already has issued more long-term debt than some of its largest rivals, Treasurer Eric Aboaf said during an April 22 investor presentation. That leaves the New York-based bank in a better position as regulators decide how much more debt lenders should add to their buffers, Aboaf said.

Wall Street Jobs Plunge As Profit Soars (Bloomberg)
“The desire is to drive the cost of executing a trade to its lowest point — this means automating the system and getting rid of the traders,” Richard Bove, a bank analyst with Rafferty Capital Markets LLC, said in a telephone interview. “All they do today is hit buttons on computer screens. Twenty-five years ago they would be calling their buddies at different firms. It was a highly labor intensive effort.” New York’s “inhospitable” climate for commercial banks, along with falling demand for financial services and increasing automation is driving the decline in jobs, Bove said.

Woman could face death penalty for killing man by crushing testicles (NYDN)
A 42-year-old woman is on trial for allegedly grabbing a man’s genitals after he told her not to park her electric bike in front of his store. He later died from shock, according to reports. “I’ll squeeze it to death, you’ll never have children again,” witnesses reported her as saying as she called on her brother and husband for back-up. The woman, who could face the death penalty if convicted, got into the row – in the Meilan District of Haikou City, Hainan – more than a year ago on April 19, 2012. IBTimes reports that her 41-year-old victim went into a state of shock and died before paramedics could treat him. The final outcome of the trial, it adds, depends largely on the interpretation of the woman’s statement of “squeeze it to death.” Dr Irwin Goldstein, urologist and director of San Diego Sexual Medicine, has previously told Gizmodo it is “quite plausible” the squeeze had killed the man. “Yes, the testicles are exquisitely sensitive to touch and there is a huge release of adrenalin when there is excessive force applied to these organs,” he told the site. He added that it could have brought on a heart attack. Read more »

Corzine Sued Over MF Global Failure (Bloomberg)
Jon Corzine, the former head of bankrupt broker MF Global Holdings Ltd., was sued by the holding company’s trustee, Louis J. Freeh, for failing in his duty to oversee the company and causing the eighth-biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. In the suit, filed in U.S. bankruptcy court in Manhattan, Freeh alleged that Corzine, the company’s chief executive officer and a former governor and senator from New Jersey, along with senior executives Bradley Abelow and Henri Steenkamp, failed to act in good faith and implemented strategies that caused the company to fail.

CBOE May Retire From Police Beat (WSJ)
The parent of the Chicago Board Options Exchange CBOE is considering whether to separate out its regulatory division in the wake of a continuing federal probe into potential conflicts of interest, people close to the discussions said. The largest U.S. options exchange currently oversees the market activity of its own customers as well as those at some of its rivals but has discussed forming a new, independent regulator or handing over those responsibilities to another agency. Splitting off the regulatory unit could shake up the supervision of stock and options traders in the U.S. by either creating a new agency or expanding the role of the independent Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which has over the past decade taken on oversight responsibilities for NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. and other exchanges.

Twinkie offense: Bimbo in snack attack while Hostess is hobbled (NYP)
Grupo Bimbo, the biggest baker in America, is working quickly to launch knock-off Hostess products before Twinkies and other snack brands come back to market, The Post has learned. Bimbo has told Teamsters locals it wants them to carry “a newly introduced snack cake product line to fill the Hostess void,” a source close to the situation said. The six to eight snacks will include a Hostess-like cupcake and a Hostess-like Twinkie, a second source said. Hostess shut down in November, and the new owners that bought its assets out of bankruptcy will likely be re-introducing its snack cakes in the fall, according to sources. “I’m hearing Bimbo wants to get [the new products] to market within the next month or two,” said Richard Sheehan, president of New York Teamsters Local 802.

Gleacher Investor Urges ‘Rebirth’ as Asset Manager (Bloomberg)
Gleacher & Co, the brokerage that closed its fixed-income business, should seek a “rapid rebirth” as an asset manager, according to activist shareholder Clinton Group Inc. Clinton Group, part of a coalition with a 7.7 percent stake in the brokerage, urged stockholders in a regulatory filing today to vote for its slate of directors, who would then use Gleacher’s brand to build a money-management business. Other investors favor liquidating the firm, Clinton Group said.

Break up large bank to create regional lenders, argues Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby (Telegraph)
The newly enthroned head of the Church of England said that Britain needs some parts of the banking system to be “local and not London-based” to address the “concentration” in the industry which he said was one of the “great dangers of the current mess.” Speaking at a Parliamentary event on “finding long-term solutions to the financial crisis”, Archbishop Welby said there needs to be a “revolution in the aims” of banks to ensure they serve society rather than “self-regarding interest” or even just shareholders. “What we’re in at the moment isn’t a recession but some kind of depression,” he said. “It needs something very, very major to get us out of it, in the same way it took something very major to get into it.” Read more »