Opening Bell: 04.29.10
Goldman Looking To Settle SEC Fraud Case (NYP)
"It's almost a certainty that there will be a settlement," said a source. As another person put it, the SEC has an "unlimited supply of ammunition" in the form of e-mails and records that it could release, and Goldman officials would like to avoid having those documents fired back at them the way they were on Tuesday.
Roubini: Greece 'Nearly Insolvent,' Bailout Won't Work (CNBC)
“Suppose you have a disorderly collapse of Greece, two things will happen," he added. "Financial institutions holding Greek debt—mostly European—will have massive losses. Secondly, a contagion from Greece to Portugal to Spain to Italy to Ireland will have a domino effect."
Goldman Seeks To End Fund Row (FT)
Goldman Sachs is in talks over a potential settlement with an investor that claims that it lost money and went out of business after buying into a $1bn (£660,000) mortgage-backed security that was later privately criticised by a senior executive at the bank. Basis Yield Alpha Fund, a hedge fund, is seeking compensation over its $100m investment in Timberwolf, a complex security, say several people familiar with the matter.
At Buffett Gala, All That Glitters Is Not Goldman (Reuters)
"I am interested in learning how he came to a valuation for Goldman," whose business can seem "harder to understand" for value investors, said Thomas Kamei, a University of Southern California student who said he is attending his 13th meeting. "He might say, 'I would put it into the big bucket of things I don't get,'" Kamei, 20, added.
Goldman Stock "Dead Money" At Best, Calamos Says (Reuters)
"Our concern is that once the government starts looking in all the corners and looking for problems, they are going to find problems," Calamos Investments's co-CIO said. "And they are kind of a whipping boy for Congress." "At best it is probably dead money, meaning that it's not going anywhere. At worst they find other issues and they become the real center of attention for Congress," he said.
European Hedge Funds Plan Singapore, Hong Kong Move (BW)
“People don’t want to start making huge changes on the basis of draft legislation,” London-based Fawcett said in an interview in Singapore. “But they have already taken measures, so they’re ready if the directive was enacted in a very unfriendly format.”
Citigroup's Return to Saudi Arabia May Need More Than Help From Alwaleed (Bloomberg)
“They’re not as in love with U.S. banks as they used to be,” Seznec said by telephone from Riyadh, the Saudi capital. “The competitive environment is really key to this. Citibank was very successful here in the past.”