Opening Bell: 4.10.15
Deutsche Bank Said Close to $1.5 Billion Settlement on Libor (Bloomberg)
Deutsche Bank AG is close to resolving a multi-year probe by U.S. and U.K. authorities into interest-rate manipulation, with a U.K. subsidiary expected to plead guilty, according to two people familiar with the matter. Germany’s biggest bank will probably finalize a settlement this month, these people said. The unit expected to plead is Deutsche Bank Group Services, one of the people said.
Greece makes IMF payment, gets bank funds, but doubts remain (Reuters)
Euro zone partners gave Greece six working days to improve a package of proposed reforms in time for finance ministers of the currency bloc to consider whether to release more funds to keep the country afloat when they meet on April 24.
TPG star’s luster tainted by whistle-blower (NYP)
Just as TPG’s venture capital king Bill McGlashan’s star is rising, a former employee has accused him of defrauding investors and the firm of violating the federal whistle-blower law. McGlashan asked TPG Capital’s former public affairs boss to build an expanded department with consultants and contractors and to charge the costs to fund investors or TPG-owned companies, a lawsuit filed this month alleges. Large private equity firms that have public affairs departments — which lobby lawmakers among other duties — typically pay for its costs out of their management fees, and do not charge investors or their companies on top of the fees.
TPG nabs Bono and Ashton Kutcher as special advisers (NYP)
The 54-year-old rocker is a special adviser to a new growth fund being raised by private equity mogul David Bonderman’s TPG Capital, The Post has learned...Both Bono and Kutcher have quietly agreed to help invest TPG Growth’s new fund, sources familiar with the situation said Thursday.
Bronx bride gets married 10 times — without ever divorcing: officials (NYDN)
A Manhattan woman faces felony charges in the Bronx after marrying 10 different men across an 11-year span — without getting a single divorce from any of her “husbands,” according to a criminal complaint. Liana Barrientos, 39, is charged with filing a fraudulent marriage license application and a bogus marriage license, said the Bronx District Attorney’s office. She was due for a Friday arraignment in Bronx Supreme Court on two charges of filing a false instrument. Each count carries a maximum sentence of four years for the not-so-blushing bride.
Curtis Macnguyen Is a Former Hedge Fund Star. And That Is Not Acceptable (Bloomberg)
“Every guy who’s really successful at anything wakes up and says, ‘How can I do this better?’” Macnguyen says. (He’s Vietnamese, but his name sounds Irish. It’s pronounced like McWin.) He’s sitting on a covered patio at his house on a bright November day sipping iced tea made by a private company he’s backing. For an hour before, he hammered table tennis shots at a former national champion from South Korea (and Playboy model) named Soo Yeon Lee. He loves pingpong because it gets him in the zone—that rarefied state of total concentration where time vanishes and maximum ability emerges. “You’re out of your body, watching yourself,” he says, “and you can get any ball that comes in.”
Noble Rejects Muddy Waters’ Criticisms (Bloomberg)
Commodities trader Noble Group said it categorically rejects accusations leveled at it by short seller Muddy Waters, in a lengthy response filed early Friday to Singapore Exchange. Noble Group directly addresses several of Muddy Waters’ criticisms, adding that “we categorically reject their allegations as inaccurate, unreliable and misleading.” The U.S.-based research firm is the third outfit this year to lob criticism at Noble Group’s accounting practices. It said in a report dated April 8 that Noble “seems solely to borrow and burn cash” and accused it of misleading investors on previous acquisitions.
GE Seeks Exit From Banking Business (WSJ)
In the conglomerate’s most significant strategic move in years, GE has resolved to part ways with the bulk of GE Capital, the giant finance business that long accounted for around half the company’s profits but whose risks have rattled investors and weighed on its stock.
Australian police: Drunken man ate glass beer bottle (UPI)
Australian authorities said a man was hospitalized after he drunkenly ate a glass beer bottle during a family gathering. Northern Territory Police Superintendent Louise Jorgensen said police received an emergency call just after 9 p.m. Wednesday about a man at a family gathering in Wagaman who chewed and swallowed a glass beer bottle "and then went for a lie down."